A PROTEGEE OF THE MISTRESS
A monologue from the
play by Alexander
Ostrovsky
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NOTE: This monologue is reprinted
from Plays of Alexander Ostrovsky. Ed. George Rapall Noyes.
New York: Scribners, 1917. |
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MADAM ULANBEKOV: 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 higher rank 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.
MORE MONOLOGUES BY ALEXANDER OSTROVSKY |
