But the girls could not love the master:
He would beat me cruelly And such love won’t do for me.
Then a gypsy comes along and he, too, tries:
The gypsy came to try the girls: Would they love him, would they not?
But they couldn’t love the gypsy either:
He would be a thief, I fear, And would cause me many a tear.
And many more men come to try their luck, among them a soldier:
The soldier came to try the girls: Would they love him, would they not?
But the soldier is rejected with contempt, in two indecent lines, sung with absolute frankness and producing a furore in the audience. The song ends with a merchant:
The merchant came to try the girls: Would they love him, would they not?
And it appears that he wins their love because:
The merchant will make gold for me And his queen I’ll gladly be.
Kalganov was positively indignant.
“That’s just a song of yesterday,” he said aloud. “Who writes such things for them? They might just as well have had a railwayman or a Jew come to try his luck with the girls; they’d have carried all before them.”