The Wedding
(A brightly lit room, with a big table laid for supper. Around the table bustle waiters in frock-coats. The last figure of a quadrille can be heard. Enter Miss Zmewkin—accoucheuse, thirty years old, in a bright scarlet dress—Mr. Yat, and the Master of Ceremonies. They pass across the stage.)
Zmewkin: No! No! No!
Yat (following): Be merciful! Be merciful!
Zmewkin: No! No! No!
Master of Ceremonies (hurrying after them): Please, you mustn’t, you mustn’t! Where are you going? But the grand-chain, silvooplay. (Exeunt. Enter Mrs. Nastasia Jigalov, mother of the bride, and Aplombov, the bridegroom.)
Nastasia: Instead of worrying me with all your talk, you’d do better to go and dance!
Aplombov: I'm not Spinosa anyhow, to make cracknels of my legs. I'm a man of position and
103
