Kuligin monologue (Act 4) — Plays by Anton Chekhov, Second Series

Oh, drop it! [Sighs] To-day the soldiers will be gone, and everything will go on as in the old days. Say what you will, Masha is a good, honest woman. I love her very much, and thank my fate for her. People have such different fates. There’s a Kosirev who works in the excise department here. He was at school with me; he was expelled from the fifth class of the High School for being entirely unable to understand _ut consecutivum_. He’s awfully hard up now and in very poor health, and when I meet him I say to him, “How do you do, _ut consecutivum_.” “Yes,” he says, “precisely _consecutivum_...” and coughs. But I’ve been successful all my life, I’m happy, and I even have a Stanislaus Cross, of the second class, and now I myself teach others that _ut consecutivum_. Of course, I’m a clever man, much cleverer than many, but happiness doesn’t only lie in that....