The Proposal
The Oxen Meadows
Explain how the land quarrel nearly ends the proposal.
'My Oxen Meadows'. Natalya comes in, in her apron, shelling peas. ('Papa said, "Go; there's a merchant come for his goods."') Lomov starts his speech about how friendly their families have been, and mentions that 'my Oxen Meadows touch your birchwoods'. Natalya stops him: 'Oxen Meadows are ours, not yours!'
Two stories.
- Lomov: his aunt's grandmother gave the free use of the meadows to the peasants of Natalya's father's grandfather, in return for bricks. After forty years the peasants thought of them as their own.
- Natalya: her family has had the land 'for nearly three hundred years'.
The meadows are only 'five dessiatins', worth 'perhaps 300 roubles', yet both say they act 'on principle'.
It gets louder. 'Mine!' 'Ours!' Natalya will send her mowers; Lomov will 'give it to them in the neck'. Chubukov joins in. They trade insults about families:
- Lomov: Chubukov is a 'land-grabber', his grandfather was tried for embezzlement, his mother was hump-backed;
- Chubukov: Lomov is a 'pettifogger', his grandfather was a drunkard, his younger aunt ran away with an architect.
Lomov, clutching his heart, staggers out.
'To propose? To me?' Only now does Chubukov say: 'He came here to propose to you.' Natalya falls into a chair, wails 'Bring him back!', and becomes hysterical. When Lomov returns, she says sweetly: 'The Meadows are yours, yes, yours.'
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