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I know this one! I was in this play. It's from The Good Doctor, by Neil Simon. It's composed of a bunch of short scenes/stories, and this one is called The Governess. Here's a Youtube link to a performance of the scene.
That's it, thanks! Man, I could have sworn it was prose and narrated by a guy.
Edited by FerdinandtheBull
Neil Simon's play is an adaptation of a collection of stories by Anton Chekhov. The story about the governess (which is narrated by a guy) has been variously translated, but usually is called something like "The Ninny" or "The Nincompoop".
Edited by PaulA
And thank you too... I did look at some lists of Chekov stories but there are a trillion of them and they could all be about anything from the titles.
A short story set in imperial Russia. The narrator is a man who calls in a young woman who's a governess or something similar in his house to pay her what he owes, and he starts from the amount they'd agreed on and keeps subtracting small amounts for expenses he says she's cost and other excuses, until there's only one ruble left. She doesn't argue through the whole process and is going to accept the one ruble, and he reveals that he was playing a joke on her and means to pay the full amount and tells her she needs to stand up for herself more. She replies that she's had jobs where they never paid her at all. That's not quite the end, but I don't remember how he responds.
Edited by FerdinandtheBull