times at Moscow. His wealthy brother has helped him to get rid of his fortune, and now, in a ragged mantle, he goes about the lower class taverns, making of himself a sort of jester for a chance glass of gin. Penniless, dressed in his rags, cold and hungry, he comes to the young clerk’s room, asking permission to stay there over night. The drama goes on at Christmas time, and this gives Ostróvskiy the opportunity for introducing all sorts of songs and Christmas masquerades, in true Russian style. In the midst of all this merriment, which has been going on in his absence, Tortsóff, the father, comes in with the bridegroom of his choice. All the “vulgar” pleasures must now come to an end, and the father, full of veneration for his fashionable friend, curtly orders his daughter to marry the man he has chosen for her. The tears of the girl and her mother are of no avail: the father’s orders must be obeyed. But there enters Lubím Tortsóff, in his rags and with his jester’s antics--terrible in his degradation, and yet a man. The father’s terror at such a sight can easily be imagined, and Lubím Tortsóff, who during his wanderings has heard all about the Armenian’s past, and who knows of his brother’s scheme, begins to tell before the guests what sort of man the would-be bridegroom is. The latter, holding himself insulted in his friend’s house, affects great anger and leaves the room, while Lubím Tortsóff tells his brother what a crime he is going to commit by giving his daughter to the old man. He is ordered to leave the room, but he persists and, standing in the rear of the crowd, he begins piteously to beg: “Brother, give your daughter to Mítya” (the young clerk): “he, at least, will give me a corner in his house. I have suffered enough from cold and hunger. My years are passing: it becomes hard for me to get my piece of bread by performing my antics in the bitter frost. Mítya will let me live honestly in my old age.” The mother and daughter join with the uncle, and finally the father, who resents the insults of his friend, exclaims: “Well, do you take me, then, for a wild beast? I won’t give my daughter to that man. Mítya, marry her!” The drama has a happy end, but the audience feels that it might have been as well the other way. The father’s whim might have ended in the life-long misery and misfortune of the daughter, and this would probably have been the outcome in most such cases.