Good and Bad, Foolish and Clever

Dmitry Timofeyevich Lensky is a Russian writer, translator, and actor; he is the author of popular vaudevilles in the 19th century.
Lensky’s vaudevilles (more than 70) were characterized by theatricality, rapid action, and incredible situations; they made skillful use of “gross comedy” techniques, puns, and witticisms.
The best vaudevilles by Lensky (“Lev Gurych Sinichkin, or a Provincial Debutante,” staged in 1839, and others) for a long time were mainly part of the Russian theater repertoire.
“Good and bad, foolish and smart” is a one-act vaudeville by D. T. Lensky; it is the author’s translation of the French vaudeville by E. Scribe and Melville, “La demoiselle à marier, ou La première entrevue” (literally: “A Girl for Marriage, or the First Meeting”).
Using a play by French authors as the basis, D. T. Lensky, keeping the main plot line, replaced all the trappings with Russian ones—so the resulting new work contained all the foundations of real life in Russia for the translator: serfdom, measuring wealth in the souls of serfs, new trends in educated young ladies, and so on.