Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [102]
‘Want to go to my study?’ Levin, frowning gloomily, said to Stepan Arkadyich in French. ‘Go to my study, you can talk there.’
‘That we can, or wherever you like, sir,’ Ryabinin said with scornful dignity, as if wishing to make it felt that others might have difficulties in dealing with people, but for him there could never be any difficulties in anything.
Going into the study, Ryabinin looked around by habit, as if searching for an icon,23 but when he found one, he did not cross himself. He looked over the bookcases and shelves and, with the same doubt as about the woodcock, smiled scornfully and shook his head disapprovingly, refusing to admit that this hide could be worth the tanning.
‘Well, have you brought the money?’ Oblonsky asked. ‘Sit down.’
‘The money won’t hold us up. I’ve come to see you, to have a talk.’
‘A talk about what? Do sit down.’
‘That I will,’ said Ryabinin, sitting down and leaning his elbow on the back of the chair in a most painful way for himself. ‘You must come down a little, Prince. It’s sinful otherwise. And the money’s all ready, to the last kopeck. Money won’t ever hold things up.’
Levin, who meanwhile had put his gun away in a cupboard, was going out of the door, but hearing the merchant’s words, he stopped.
‘You got the wood for nothing as it is,’ he said. ‘He was too late coming here, otherwise I’d have set the price.’
Ryabinin rose and with a smile silently looked up at Levin from below.
‘Konstantin Dmitrich is ver-ry stingy,’ he said with a smile, turning to Stepan Arkadyich, ‘there’s finally no dealing with him. I wanted to buy wheat, offered good money.’
‘Why should I give you what’s mine for nothing? I didn’t steal it or find it lying around.’
‘Good gracious, nowadays stealing’s positively impossible. Everything nowadays is finally in the open courts, everything’s noble today; there’s no more of that stealing. We talked honest. He asked too much for the wood, it doesn’t tally. I beg you to come down at least a little.’
‘But have you concluded the deal or not? If you have, there’s no point in bargaining. If you haven’t,’ said Levin, ‘I’ll buy the wood myself.’
The smile suddenly vanished from Ryabinin’s face. A hawk-like, predatory and hard expression settled on it. With quick, bony fingers he undid his frock coat, revealing a shirt not tucked in, a brass-buttoned waistcoat and a watch chain, and quickly took out a fat old pocket-book.
‘If you please, the wood is mine,’ he said, quickly crossing himself and holding out his hand. ‘Take the money, the wood is mine. That’s how Ryabinin buys, without counting pennies,’ he went on, frowning and brandishing the pocket-book.
‘I wouldn’t be in a hurry if I were you,’ said Levin.
‘Gracious,’ Oblonsky said in surprise, ‘I’ve given him my word.’
Levin left the room, slamming the door. Ryabinin, looking at the door, shook his head with a smile.
‘It’s all on account of youth, nothing but childishness finally. I’m buying it, trust my honour, just for the glory alone, meaning that it was Ryabinin and nobody else who bought a grove from Oblonsky. And God grant it tallies up. Trust in God. If you please, sir. Write me out a receipt ...’
An hour later the merchant, neatly closing his robe and fastening the hooks of his frock coat, the receipt in his pocket, got into his tightly bound little gig and drove home.
‘Ah, these gentlemen!’ he said to his clerk, ‘all the same subject.’
‘That’s so,’ the clerk replied, handing him the reins and fastening the leather apron. ‘So it’s congratulations, Mikhail Ignatyich?’
‘Well, well ...’
XVII
Stepan Arkadyich came upstairs, his pocket bulging with the bank notes that the merchant had given him for three months ahead. The business with the wood was concluded, the money was in his pocket, the fowling had been splendid, and Stepan Arkadyich was in the merriest spirits, and therefore he especially wanted to dispel the bad