Well, just let them drag you out among them! But that a respectable girl will let herself be drawn into such goings on!" he added, out of humour.
"A respectable girl?
Respectable girl! May I ask what sort of fun she is to have then?
I really wonder, Nikolai, that you didn't find a respectable girl for yourself who would walk with her back like a poker, and her arms under her shawl, and who only lets herself slide by accident as it were, when she comes to a slide--daren't even look out of the corner of her eye at a hand-sledge, because she's so well-behaved! It was a respectable one like that you ought to have had.

And then, when you were standing hammering all day in the smithy, and she was deep in her work standing on all fours with her head behind the wash-tub at home, I suppose that would be as you would like to have it.

But I can tell you, Nikolai, that if there isn't to be any fun in this world, then good-bye and be rid of it.

I've had to sit shut up long enough at home." He shook his head.

"If only there weren't all those wolves howling away there on the road.