The Conformist. City life scenes in four acts

Aglaya. I’m very sad to hear those words from you. I don’t want to argue, though, so let it be your personal opinion.

Victoria Pavlovna. Tell me what, my little wise head, if you are so clever, why aren’t you still married? You are already twenty-eight, Aglaya!

Aglaya. Oh, mum, not that again, please.

Victoria Pavlovna. You need a man who you can rely on.

Aglaya. I know, I know, with an account in the cantonal bank of Zurich, a villa in Spain and so on and so forth.

Victoria Pavlovna. If you don’t like Pyotr Alekseevich, then Innokentiy Yakovlevich likes you a lot, and he’s got a chain of hotels in Bulgaria.

Aglaya. Mum, this Innokentiy Yakovlevich is sixty-seven years old.

Victoria Pavlovna. Which makes him even better for you.

Aglaya. (to herself) I can never stop being surprised at some mothers’ desire to sell their daughters at a better price. This looks more like legalized prostitution.

Aglaya. (to Victoria Pavlovna) I’m afraid we won’t match. I don’t like men who propose to a successful and ambitious woman and then try to put her in a cage in their three-floor tower as if she were a rare trophy. What’s the point of making a hen out of a bird of paradise when there are enough hens already?

Victoria Pavlovna. You’ll never get married with those ideas.

Silence.

Aglaya. Mum, we need to talk seriously.

Victoria Pavlovna. I’m all ears, Aglaya.

Aglaya. Do you remember Irina, who was the maid at Denis Ivanov’s wedding?

Victoria Pavlovna. Of course I do. She lives with her husband in Italy now.

Aglaya. That’s right. So, two months before she met her husband she went to the seaside with her beloved cat. It was an old cat. There she met a girl who was the Cirque Du Soleil magician’s assistant. They drank a little and started to chat. The girl asked, «Do you want me to do a trick?»

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

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