ZHIGALOV. If it’s time, then it’s time. Ladies and gentlemen, please! [Shouts] Supper! Young people! NASTASYA TIMOFEYEVNA. Dear visitors, please be seated! ZMEYUKINA. [Sitting down at the table] Give me poetry. “And he, the rebel, seeks the storm, As if the storm can give him peace.” Give me the storm! YATS. [Aside] Wonderful woman! I’m in love! Up to my ears! [Enter DASHENKA, MOZGOVOY, GROOMSMEN, various ladies and gentlemen, etc. They all noisily seat themselves at the table. There is a minute’s pause, while the band plays a march.] MOZGOVOY. [Rising] Ladies and gentlemen! I must tell you this.... We are going to have a great many toasts and speeches. Don’t let’s wait, but begin at once. Ladies and gentlemen, the newly married! [The band plays a flourish. Cheers. Glasses are touched. APLOMBOV and DASHENKA kiss each other.] YATS. Beautiful! Beautiful! I must say, ladies and gentlemen, giving honour where it is due, that this room and the accommodation generally are splendid! Excellent, wonderful! Only you know, there’s one thing we haven’t got--electric light, if I may say so! Into every country electric light has already been introduced, only Russia lags behind. ZHIGALOV. [Meditatively] Electricity... h’m.... In my opinion electric lighting is just a swindle.... They put a live coal in and think you don’t see them! No, if you want a light, then you don’t take a coal, but something real, something special, that you can get hold of! You must have a fire, you understand, which is natural, not just an invention! YATS. If you’d ever seen an electric battery, and how it’s made up, you’d think differently. ZHIGALOV. Don’t want to see one. It’s a swindle, a fraud on the public.... They want to squeeze our last breath out of us.... We know then, these... And, young man, instead of defending a swindle, you would be much better occupied if you had another yourself and poured out some for other people--yes! APLOMBOV. I entirely agree with you, papa. Why start a learned discussion? I myself have no objection to talking about every possible scientific discovery, but this isn’t the time for all that! [To DASHENKA] What do you think, _ma chère_? DASHENKA. They want to show how educated they are, and so they always talk about things we can’t understand. NASTASYA TIMOFEYEVNA. Thank God, we’ve lived our time without being educated, and here we are marrying off our third daughter to an honest man. And if you think we’re uneducated, then what do you want to come here for? Go to your educated friends! YATS. I, Nastasya Timofeyevna, have always held your family in respect, and if I did start talking about electric lighting it doesn’t mean that I’m proud. I’ll drink, to show you. I have always sincerely wished Daria Evdokimovna a good husband. In these days, Nastasya Timofeyevna, it is difficult to find a good husband. Nowadays everybody is on the look-out for a marriage where there is profit, money.... APLOMBOV. That’s a hint!