MADAM ULANBÉKOV. [_To_ VASILÍSA PEREGRÍNOVNA] When he was born, I was ill a very long time. Then he was always sickly, and he grew up puny. How many tears have I shed over him! Sometimes I would just look at him, and my tears would flow; no, it will never be my lot to see him in the uniform of the guardsmen! But it was most distressing of all for me when his father, owing to the boy's poor health, was unable to send him to a military school. How much it cost me to renounce the thought that he might become a soldier! For half a year I was ill. Just imagine to yourself, my dear, when he finishes his course, they will give him some rank or other, such as they give to any priest's son clerking in a government office! Isn't it awful? In the military service, especially in the cavalry, all ranks are aristocratic; one knows at once that even a junker is from the nobility. But what is a provincial secretary, or a titular councillor! Any one can be a titular councillor--even a merchant, a church-school graduate, a low-class townsman, if you please. You have only to study, then serve awhile. Why, one of the petty townsmen who is apt at learning will get a rank higher than his! That's the way of the world! That's the way of the world! Oh, dear! [_She turns away with a wave of her hand_] I don't like to pass judgment on anything that is instituted by higher authority, and won't permit others to do so, but, nevertheless, I don't approve of this system. I shall always say loudly that it's unjust, unjust. LEONÍD. Why are Nádya's eyes red from crying? VASILÍSA PEREGRÍNOVNA. She hasn't been flogged for a long time. MADAM ULANBÉKOV. That's none of your business, my dear. Nádya, go away, you're not needed here. [NÁDYA _goes out._] LEONÍD. Well, I know why: you want to marry her off. MADAM ULANBÉKOV. Whether I do or not, my dear, is my own business. Furthermore, I do not like to have any one meddle in my arrangements. VASILÍSA PEREGRÍNOVNA. What a clever young man you are; you know everything, you get into everything! LEONÍD. Indeed, mamma dear, I don't mean to meddle in your arrangements. Only he's a drunkard. MADAM ULANBÉKOV. And that, again, is none of your business. Leave that to your mother's judgment. LEONÍD. I'm only sorry for her, mamma. MADAM ULANBÉKOV. All very fine, my dear; but I should like to know from whom you heard that I'm going to marry NÁDYA. If one of the housemaids has.... LEONÍD. No, mamma, no. MADAM ULANBÉKOV. How could you find out otherwise? How did that get out? [_To_ GAVRÍLOVNA] Find out without fail! LEONÍD. No, indeed, mamma; the man she's going to marry told me. MADAM ULANBÉKOV. What sort of a man? LEONÍD. I don't know what sort! He said he was a clerk in a government office.... a peculiar surname: NEGLIGÉNTOV. What a funny fellow he is! He says he's your godson, and that he's afraid of nobody. He's dancing in the garden now, drunk. MADAM ULANBÉKOV. Drunk, in my house!