to invent a medicine against the female sex. ... They try to cure
every sort of disease, and it never occurs to them that more people
die of women than of disease. ... Sly, stingy, cruel, brainless. ...
The mother-in-law torments the bride and the bride makes things
square by swindling the husband ... and there's no end to it. ...

TIHON. The women have ruffled his hair for him, and so he's
bristly.

MERIK. It isn't only I. ... From the beginning of the ages, since
the world has been in existence, people have complained. ... It's
not for nothing that in the songs and stories, the devil and the
woman are put side by side. ... Not for nothing! It's half true, at
any rate ... [Pause] Here's the gentleman playing the fool, but I
had more sense, didn't I, when I left my father and mother, and
became a tramp?

FEDYA. Because of women?

MERIK. Just like the gentleman ... I walked about like one of the
damned, bewitched, blessing my stars ... on fire day and night,
until at last my eyes were opened ... It wasn't love, but just a
fraud. ...

FEDYA. What did you do to her?

MERIK. Never you mind. ... [Pause] Do you think I killed her? ...
I wouldn't do it. ... If you kill, you are sorry for it. ... She
can live and be happy! If only I'd never set eyes on you, or if I
could only forget you, you viper's brood! [A knocking at the door.]