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
rank higher 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.

LEONÍD. Why are Nádya's eyes red from crying?

VASILÍSA PEREGRÍNOVNA. She hasn't been flogged for a long time.

MADAM ULANBÉKOV. That's none of your business, my dear. Nádya, go away,
you're not needed here.

[NÁDYA _goes out._]

LEONÍD. Well, I know why: you want to marry her off.