Without a Dowry and Other Plays

by Alexander Ostrovsky

  Mme Kukushkin enters.

  MME KUKUSHKIN. You always have songs on your mind.

  PAULINE. Hello, Mama! I sing from boredom.

  MME KUKUSHKIN. I didn’t even want to visit you at all.

  PAULINE. Why not, Mama?

  MME KUKUSHKIN. It disgusts me, young lady, it disgusts me to visit you. But since I just happened to be going by, I dropped in. It’s so wretched here, such poverty… ugh… I can’t look at it. I’ve got cleanliness, I’ve got order, but what do you have here! It’s a peasant hut! It’s revolting.

  PAULINE. But is that my fault?

  MME KUKUSHKIN. What scoundrels in the world! And yet I really don’t blame him, I never did have any hopes for him. But you, miss, why do you keep quiet? I kept telling you over and over again, don’t indulge your husband. Work on him all the time, day and night. Tell him, “Give me some money and keep on giving it to me; get it where you want just as long as you give it to me.” Tell him you need this and that. Tell him Mama is a fine lady and we have to receive her in proper fashion. He’ll say, “I don’t have it.” And you’ll say, “What does that have to do with it? Give it to me if you have to steal it.” Why did he make you his wife? He knew how to get married, so he should know to support you the proper way. You keep hammering that into him from morn till night, and maybe he’ll come to his senses. In your place I wouldn’t talk about anything else.

  PAULINE. But what can I do, Mama? I’m just not made of stern stuff.

  MME KUKUSHKIN. No, what you’d better say is you’re made of a lot of stupid stuff, you spoil him. And do you realize that it’s your spoiling that ruins a man? All the time you have tenderness on your mind, and you’d just love to hang around his neck. You were only too glad to get married, you couldn’t wait. You have no shame at all! Never a thought about life. Whoever could you have taken after! In our family all the women are completely cold to their husbands. They think more about clothes, how to be properly dressed, how to shine in public. You can show affection to your husband, only he has to know what he’s getting that affection for. Now take Julie. When her husband brings her something from the market that’s when she throws herself around his neck, she’s glued to him, you couldn’t pull her off. That’s why he brings her gifts almost every day. But if he doesn’t bring her any she pouts and stops speaking to him for two days. You hang around their necks, they love that, that’s all they want. You should be ashamed of yourself!

  PAULINE. I have a feeling I’m being stupid. But when he shows me affection I feel as glad about it as he does.

  MME KUKUSHKIN. Just wait, you and I’ll gang up on him, and maybe he’ll give in. The main thing is, don’t spoil him and don’t listen to his stupid talk. He makes his point, you make yours; argue till you faint, but don’t give in. If we give in to them they’ll make us carry water. It’s that pride of his, it’s his pride we have to beat. Do you know what he has on his mind?

  PAULINE. How should I know?

  MME KUKUSHKIN. It’s some sort of idiotic philosophy, I heard about it in a home not too long ago, it’s all the rage now. They’ve taken it into their head that they’re smarter than everybody and that the people who take bribes are fools. How unforgivably stupid of them! What they say is, we don’t want to take bribes, we want to live on just our salary. But what kind of a life is that! Who could we marry our daughters to? Next thing you know, the human race would die out. Bribes! What kind of a word is that, bribes? They thought it up themselves, to harm good people. It’s not bribes but gratitude! And rejecting gratitude is a sin, you offend a man. Now if a man’s a bachelor, there’s no need to judge him, he can play the saintly fool as much as he wants. He doesn’t even have to take his salary. But once he marries he should know how to live with his wife and not deceive the parents. Why do they tear parents’ hearts so? Some nitwit suddenly marries a well-brought-up young lady who’s understood life from childhood, whose parents didn’t begrudge her a thing and gave her principles completely opposed to his, did everything to keep her away from stupid talk like his, and just like that he shuts her up in some stable! What do they want? To turn well-brought-up young ladies into laundry women? It’s turning the whole world upside down. If they want to get married, then marry one of those lost women who don’t give a hang whether they’re a lady or a cook, who out of love will be only too glad to wash skirts and wear themselves out going to the market through the mud. And there are women like that, women without sense.

  PAULINE. That’s probably what he’d like to make of me.

  MME KUKUSHKIN. What does a woman need?… A woman who’s well bred, who sees and understands everything about her like the fingers on her hand? That’s what they don’t understand. What a woman needs is good clothes, servants, and, the main thing, tranquillity, to be isolated from everything because of her noble qualities, so she doesn’t have to get involved in petty household cares. Here’s how my Julie works it: she’s not taken up with anything except herself. She sleeps late; in the morning her husband has to arrange for breakfast and the whole business. The maid gives him some tea, and off he goes to the office. At last she gets up; tea, coffee, it’s all ready for her. She eats, dresses to perfection, and sits down with a book by the window to wait for her husband. Evenings she puts on her best dress and goes to the theater or visiting. That’s what I call living! That’s what’s proper! How a lady ought to behave! What could be more exalted than that, more delicate, more tender?… That’s what I approve of.

  PAULINE. That’s heaven! If I could only live that for just a week.

  MME KUKUSHKIN. Well, with the husband you have, you’ve got a long wait coming!

  PAULINE. You’re really letting him have it, Mama! But to tell the truth, I am envious. Whenever Julie comes she’s always wearing a new dress, and I’m always in the same old one. Here he comes now. (She goes toward the door.)

  Zhadov enters carrying a briefcase. They kiss.

  ZHADOV. Hello, Felisata Gerasimovna. (He sits down.) Oh, how tired I am!

  Pauline sits down next to her mother.

  It’s work all the time, I don’t know what it means to rest. In the morning the office, in the afternoon I give lessons, and at night I work. I bring home extracts to draw up, that pays pretty well. But you, Pauline, are always without work, always idle. I never catch you doing anything.

  MME KUKUSHKIN. That’s how I raised them, they weren’t trained for work.

  ZHADOV. That’s what’s so bad. It’s hard getting used to work if you haven’t been trained from childhood. But it’s necessary.

  MME KUKUSHKIN. There’s no need for her to get used to it. I didn’t prepare my girls to be housemaids but to marry noble men.

  ZHADOV. Our opinions differ, Felisata Gerasimovna. I want Pauline to obey me.

  MME KUKUSHKIN. What you mean is that you want to make her into a working girl. But you really should have looked for a match to suit you. Excuse me for saying it, but we people don’t have those feelings about life. With us nobility is inborn.

  ZHADOV. What nobility? That’s just so much talk! Something we can do well enough without.

  MME KUKUSHKIN. Listening to you is sickening. Here’s what I have to tell you. If I had known that she, poor creature, would be leading such a beggar’s life, then nothing in the world would have made me give her to you.

  ZHADOV. Please, I beg you, don’t go knocking it into her head that she’s an unhappy woman. She might actually believe she’s unhappy.

  MME KUKUSHKIN. And is she happy? It should be clear enough, she’s miserable. I don’t know what anyone else in her place might have done.

  Pauline cries.

  ZHADOV. Pauline, stop being foolish, think of me!

  PAULINE. You always find me foolish. Looks like you don’t like it when people tell you the truth.

  ZHADOV. What do you mean, the truth?

  PAULINE. The truth, that’s all. Mama’s not about to tell lies.

  ZHADOV. You and I’ll discuss this later.

  PAULI
NE. There’s nothing to discuss. (She turns away.)

  MME KUKUSHKIN. That’s right.

  ZHADOV (sighs). Troubles!

  Mme Kukushkin and Pauline pay no attention to him while they talk together in a whisper. Zhadov gets some papers out of his briefcase, lays them on the table, and, during the course of the following conversation, looks around at them.

  MME KUKUSHKIN (loudly). Just imagine, Pauline, I was over at Belogubov’s, he bought his wife a velvet dress.

  PAULINE (in tears). Velvet! What color?

  MME KUKUSHKIN. Cherry.

  PAULINE (cries). Oh Lord! When I think how well it suits her.

  MME KUKUSHKIN. It’s really amazing! Can you imagine what a playful rogue that Belogubov is! He made me laugh, he truly made me laugh. Look here, Mama, he says, I have a complaint to make against my wife. I bought her a velvet dress, and she kissed me so hard she even bit me, and it hurt a lot. Now that’s what I call living! That’s what I call love! Not what you find with some people.

  ZHADOV. This is unbearable! (He gets up.)

  MME KUKUSHKIN (gets up). Allow me to ask you, dear sir, what is she suffering for? Answer me that.

  ZHADOV. She’s already left your care and come under mine, so leave it to me to arrange her life. Believe me, it will be better.

  MME KUKUSHKIN. But I’m her mother, dear sir.

  ZHADOV. And I’m her husband.

  MME KUKUSHKIN. We can see what kind of a husband you are! The love of a husband can never be compared with that of parents.

  ZHADOV. What kind of parents!

  MME KUKUSHKIN. It doesn’t matter what kind, you’d still be no match for them. I’ll tell you, dear sir, what kind of parents we were! My husband and I put money together coin by coin so we could bring up our daughters and send them to boarding school. And why do you think we did this? So they’d have good manners, wouldn’t see poverty around them, wouldn’t have to look at common objects. So the child wouldn’t be weighed down but from childhood would be trained for the good life, for nobility in word and deed.

  ZHADOV. Thank you. For almost a year now I’ve been trying to knock your training out of her, but I just can’t. I think I’d give half my life if she could only forget it.

  MME KUKUSHKIN. But you surely don’t think I raised her for a life like this, do you? I’d rather have my hand cut off than see my daughter in such a condition—in poverty, suffering, misery.

  ZHADOV. Please, we’ve had enough of your pity.

  MME KUKUSHKIN. Do you think they lived this way with me? I have things in order, I have it clean. I didn’t have great means, but they lived like countesses and were perfectly innocent; they didn’t know where the entrance to the kitchen was; they didn’t know what went into cabbage soup. All they troubled themselves about as proper young ladies was conversation about feelings and matters of a noble nature.

  ZHADOV (indicating his wife). Yes, and such low depravity as your family has is something I’ve never seen.

  MME KUKUSHKIN. How can people like you have any appreciation of a noble upbringing! It’s my own fault, I was in too much of a hurry! If she had married a man with tender feelings and some breeding, he wouldn’t have known how to thank me for the training I gave her. And she would have been happy, because decent men don’t force their wives to work, that’s what they have servants for. But what a wife is for…

  ZHADOV (quickly). What is she for?

  MME KUKUSHKIN. What is she for? Who doesn’t know that? As everyone knows, she’s for being dressed up as well as possible, for being admired, for being taken out into society. She should get all kinds of pleasures, have her every whim carried out like a law, be adored.

  ZHADOV. Shame on you! You’re a woman of years, you’ve lived to old age, raised daughters and trained them, and you don’t know why a wife is given to a man. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself! A wife is not a plaything but a husband’s helpmate. You’re a bad mother!

  MME KUKUSHKIN. Yes, I know you’d just love to make your wife into a cook. You’re a man without feelings!

  ZHADOV. Stop spouting nonsense!

  PAULINE. Mama, leave him alone.

  MME KUKUSHKIN. No, I won’t leave him alone. What made you think I’d leave him alone?

  ZHADOV. Stop it. I’m not going to listen to you any more, and I won’t allow my wife to. All you have left in your old age is a head full of empty air.

  MME KUKUSHKIN. What kind of talk is that, what kind of talk, eh?

  ZHADOV. Between you and me there can’t be any other kind of talk. Please, leave us alone. I love Pauline, and it’s my responsibility to take care of her. Your talk is harmful for Pauline and immoral too.

  MME KUKUSHKIN. Don’t you get too worked up, dear sir!

  ZHADOV. You don’t understand one single thing.

  MME KUKUSHKIN (spitefully). I don’t understand? No, I understand very well. I’ve seen some of those cases where women perish from poverty. Poverty can lead to anything. Those women struggle and struggle, and then they go astray. You can’t even blame them.

  ZHADOV. What! How can you say such things in front of your daughter! Spare us your presence… right now, right now.

  MME KUKUSHKIN. When there’s cold and hunger in a home and the husband’s a lazybones, then, whether you like it or not, you’ve got to look for means…

  ZHADOV. Leave us, I’m asking you nicely. You’ll exhaust my patience.

  MME KUKUSHKIN. Don’t worry, I’m going, and I’ll never set foot in your house again. (To Pauline.) What a husband you have! It’s awful! Terrible!

  PAULINE. Good-bye, Mama.(She cries.)

  MME KUKUSHKIN. Cry, cry, unhappy victim, mourn your fate! Cry to the grave itself! You’d even do better to die, poor creature, than break my heart so. It would be easier for me. (To Zhadov.) Enjoy your triumph! You’ve done your work: you tricked her, made her believe you were in love with her, seduced her with words, and then ruined her. That’s what your whole aim was, I understand you now. (She leaves.)

  Pauline sees her off.

  ZHADOV. I’m going to have to talk more strictly with Pauline. If I don’t, they’ll mix her up completely.

  Pauline returns, sits down by the window, and sulks. Zhadov lays out his papers and sits down by the table.

  I suppose Felisata Gerasimovna won’t be visiting us any more, which makes me very glad. I wish you wouldn’t visit her any more, Pauline, or the Belogubovs either.

  PAULINE. You’re not ordering me to give up all my relatives for you, are you?

  ZHADOV. It’s not for me but yourself. They have such savage ideas! I’m teaching you good, and they’re corrupting you.

  PAULINE. It’s too late to teach me, I’ve been taught already.

  ZHADOV. It would be horrible for me if I thought what you said is true. No, I hope at long last you’ll understand me. I have a lot of work now, but when things lighten up, you and I can occupy ourselves together. In the morning you’ll work, and in the evening we’ll read. You have a lot to read; after all, you haven’t read anything.

  PAULINE. So, now I’m supposed to stay home with you! A lot of fun that’ll be! Man is created for society.

  ZHADOV. What?

  PAULINE. Man is created for society.

  ZHADOV. Where did you pick that up?

  PAULINE. You really take me for a fool. Who doesn’t know that? Everybody does. Do you think you took me in off the street?

  ZHADOV. But for society one has to prepare oneself, educate oneself.

  PAULINE. None of that’s needed, that’s all nonsense. All you need is to dress in style.

  ZHADOV. Well, that’s precisely what we can’t do, so there’s no point in talking about it. You’d do better to busy yourself with something, and I’ll get to work. (He takes his pen.)

  PAULINE. Busy myself with something! Where did you get that idea? You’ve been giving orders long enough… ordering me about and treating me like a fool.

  ZHADOV (turning around). What is this, Pauline?

  PAULINE.
What it is is that I want to live the way people live and not like beggars. I’m fed up. Living with you has ruined my youth.

  ZHADOV. That’s something new! I haven’t heard that before.

  PAULINE. You haven’t heard it, then listen. Do you think that because I’ve kept quiet almost a year I’m going to keep quiet forever? No, pardon me! But why talk about it! I want to live the way Julie’s living, the way all noble ladies live. That’s it!

  ZHADOV. So that’s what it is! Only let me ask you this. Where are we going to get what it takes to live like that?

  PAULINE. What does that have to do with me! The man who loves finds a way to get what it takes.

  ZHADOV. But think of me. As it is I’m working like an ox.

  PAULINE. Whether you work or don’t work is no concern of mine. I didn’t marry you for a life of affliction and tyranny.

  ZHADOV. You people have worn me all out today. For God’s sake, don’t say another word!

  PAULINE. You have a long wait before I stop talking! Thanks to you the whole world’s laughing at me. How much shame I’ve had to endure! Sis is taking pity on me already. Today she came and said to me, “You’re putting us to shame, our whole family, just look what you’re going around in!” Doesn’t that make you feel ashamed? And yet you tried to make me believe that you love me. With her own money she bought a hat and brought it here for me.

  ZHADOV (gets up). A hat?

  PAULINE. Yes, it’s over there. Look at it. What do you think, isn’t it pretty?

  ZHADOV (sternly). Take it back right away.

  PAULINE. Back?

  ZHADOV. Yes, right away, right away, take it back! And don’t you dare take anything from them.

  PAULINE. Well, that’s something that’s not going to happen, you can be sure of that.

  ZHADOV. Then I’ll throw it out the window.

  PAULINE. Oh! So that’s what you’ve come to? Very well, my friend, I’ll take it back.

  ZHADOV. Take it back then.

  PAULINE (in tears). I’ll take it back, I’ll take it back. (She puts on her hat and cloak, takes her umbrella.) Good-bye, sir.