On the way home Levin asked all details of Kitty’s illness and the
Shtcherbatskys’ plans, and though he would have been ashamed to admit
it, he was pleased at what he heard. He was pleased that there was
still hope, and still more pleased that she should be suffering who had
made him suffer so much. But when Stepan Arkadyevitch began to speak of
the causes of Kitty’s illness, and mentioned Vronsky’s name, Levin cut
him short.
“I have no right whatever to know family matters, and, to tell the
truth, no interest in them either.”
Stepan Arkadyevitch smiled hardly perceptibly, catching the
instantaneous change he knew so well in Levin’s face, which had become
as gloomy as it had been bright a minute before.
“Have you quite settled about the forest with Ryabinin?” asked Levin.
“Yes, it’s settled. The price is magnificent; thirty-eight thousand.
Eight straight away, and the rest in six years. I’ve been bothering
about it for ever so long. No one would give more.”
“Then you’ve as good as given away your forest for nothing,” said Levin
gloomily.
“How do you mean for nothing?” said Stepan Arkadyevitch with a
good-humored smile, knowing that nothing would be right in Levin’s eyes
now.
“Because the forest is worth at least a hundred and fifty roubles the
acre,” answered Levin.
“Oh, these farmers!” said Stepan Arkadyevitch playfully. “Your tone of
contempt for us poor townsfolk!... But when it comes to business, we do
it better than anyone. I assure you I have reckoned it all out,” he
said, “and the forest is fetching a very good price—so much so that I’m
afraid of this fellow’s crying off, in fact. You know it’s not
‘timber,’” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, hoping by this distinction to
convince Levin completely of the unfairness of his doubts. “And it
won’t run to more than twenty-five yards of fagots per acre, and he’s
giving me at the rate of seventy roubles the acre.”
Levin smiled contemptuously. “I know,” he thought, “that fashion not
only in him, but in all city people, who, after being twice in ten
years in the country, pick up two or three phrases and use them in
season and out of season, firmly persuaded that they know all about it.
‘_Timber, run to so many yards the acre._’ He says those words without
understanding them himself.”
“I wouldn’t attempt to teach you what you write about in your office,”
said he, “and if need arose, I should come to you to ask about it. But
you’re so positive you know all the lore of the forest. It’s difficult.
Have you counted the trees?”
“How count the trees?” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, laughing, still trying
to draw his friend out of his ill-temper. “Count the sands of the sea,
number the stars. Some higher power might do it.”
“Oh, well, the higher power of Ryabinin can. Not a single merchant ever
buys a forest without counting the trees, unless they get it given them
for nothing, as you’re doing now. I know your forest. I go there every
year shooting, and your forest’s worth a hundred and fifty roubles an
acre paid down, while he’s giving you sixty by installments. So that in
fact you’re making him a present of thirty thousand.”
“Come, don’t let your imagination run away with you,” said Stepan
Arkadyevitch piteously. “Why was it none would give it, then?”
“Why, because he has an understanding with the merchants; he’s bought
them off. I’ve had to do with all of them; I know them. They’re not
merchants, you know: they’re speculators. He wouldn’t look at a bargain
that gave him ten, fifteen per cent. profit, but holds back to buy a
rouble’s worth for twenty kopecks.”
“Well, enough of it! You’re out of temper.”
“Not the least,” said Levin gloomily, as they drove up to the house.
At the steps there stood a trap tightly covered with iron and leather,
with a sleek horse tightly harnessed with broad collar-straps. In the
trap sat the chubby, tightly belted clerk who served Ryabinin as
coachman. Ryabinin himself was already in the house, and met the
friends in the hall. Ryabinin was a tall, thinnish, middle-aged man,
with mustache and a projecting clean-shaven chin, and prominent
muddy-looking eyes. He was dressed in a long-skirted blue coat, with
buttons below the waist at the back, and wore high boots wrinkled over
the ankles and straight over the calf, with big galoshes drawn over
them. He rubbed his face with his handkerchief, and wrapping round him
his coat, which sat extremely well as it was, he greeted them with a
smile, holding out his hand to Stepan Arkadyevitch, as though he wanted
to catch something.
“So here you are,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, giving him his hand.
“That’s capital.”
“I did not venture to disregard your excellency’s commands, though the
road was extremely bad. I positively walked the whole way, but I am
here at my time. Konstantin Dmitrievitch, my respects”; he turned to
Levin, trying to seize his hand too. But Levin, scowling, made as
though he did not notice his hand, and took out the snipe. “Your honors
have been diverting yourselves with the chase? What kind of bird may it
be, pray?” added Ryabinin, looking contemptuously at the snipe: “a
great delicacy, I suppose.” And he shook his head disapprovingly, as
though he had grave doubts whether this game were worth the candle.
“Would you like to go into my study?” Levin said in French to Stepan
Arkadyevitch, scowling morosely. “Go into my study; you can talk
there.”
“Quite so, where you please,” said Ryabinin with contemptuous dignity,
as though wishing to make it felt that others might be in difficulties
as to how to behave, but that he could never be in any difficulty about
anything.
On entering the study Ryabinin looked about, as his habit was, as
though seeking the holy picture, but when he had found it, he did not
cross himself. He scanned the bookcases and bookshelves, and with the
same dubious air with which he had regarded the snipe, he smiled
contemptuously and shook his head disapprovingly, as though by no means
willing to allow that this game were worth the candle.
“Well, have you brought the money?” asked Oblonsky. “Sit down.”
“Oh, don’t trouble about the money. I’ve come to see you to talk it
over.”
“What is there to talk over? But do sit down.”
“I don’t mind if I do,” said Ryabinin, sitting down and leaning his
elbows on the back of his chair in a position of the intensest
discomfort to himself. “You must knock it down a bit, prince. It would
be too bad. The money is ready conclusively to the last farthing. As to
paying the money down, there’ll be no hitch there.”
Levin, who had meanwhile been putting his gun away in the cupboard, was
just going out of the door, but catching the merchant’s words, he
stopped.
“Why, you’ve got the forest for nothing as it is,” he said. “He came to
me too late, or I’d have fixed the price for him.”
Ryabinin got up, and in silence, with a smile, he looked Levin down and
up.
“Very close about money is Konstantin Dmitrievitch,” he said with a
smile, turning to Stepan Arkadyevitch; “there’s positively no dealing
with him. I was bargaining for some wheat of him, and a pretty price I
offered too.”
“Why should I give you my goods for nothing? I didn’t pick it up on the
ground, nor steal it either.”
“Mercy on us! nowadays there’s no chance at all of stealing. With the
open courts and everything done in style, nowadays there’s no question
of stealing. We are just talking things over like gentlemen. His
excellency’s asking too much for the forest. I can’t make both ends
meet over it. I must ask for a little concession.”
“But is the thing settled between you or not? If it’s settled, it’s
useless haggling; but if it’s not,” said Levin, “I’ll buy the forest.”
The smile vanished at once from Ryabinin’s face. A hawklike, greedy,
cruel expression was left upon it. With rapid, bony fingers he
unbuttoned his coat, revealing a shirt, bronze waistcoat buttons, and a
watch chain, and quickly pulled out a fat old pocketbook.
“Here you are, the forest is mine,” he said, crossing himself quickly,
and holding out his hand. “Take the money; it’s my forest. That’s
Ryabinin’s way of doing business; he doesn’t haggle over every
half-penny,” he added, scowling and waving the pocketbook.
“I wouldn’t be in a hurry if I were you,” said Levin.
“Come, really,” said Oblonsky in surprise. “I’ve given my word, you
know.”
Levin went out of the room, slamming the door. Ryabinin looked towards
the door and shook his head with a smile.
“It’s all youthfulness—positively nothing but boyishness. Why, I’m
buying it, upon my honor, simply, believe me, for the glory of it, that
Ryabinin, and no one else, should have bought the copse of Oblonsky.
And as to the profits, why, I must make what God gives. In God’s name.
If you would kindly sign the title-deed....”
Within an hour the merchant, stroking his big overcoat neatly down, and
hooking up his jacket, with the agreement in his pocket, seated himself
in his tightly covered trap, and drove homewards.
“Ugh, these gentlefolks!” he said to the clerk. “They—they’re a nice
lot!”
“That’s so,” responded the clerk, handing him the reins and buttoning
the leather apron. “But I can congratulate you on the purchase, Mihail
Ignatitch?”
“Well, well....”