‘All right,’ answered Polozov.
’Well then, that’s first-rate. You’re
a darling. And now, gentlemen, as we have just
been speaking of my overseer, let’s talk about
our great business. Come, directly the waiter
has cleared the table, you shall tell me all, Dimitri
Pavlovitch, about your estate, what price you will
sell it for, how much you want paid down in advance,
everything, in fact! (At last, thought Sanin, thank
God!) You have told me something about it already,
you remember, you described your garden delightfully,
but dumpling wasn’t here.... Let him hear,
he may pick a hole somewhere! I’m delighted
to think that I can help you to get married, besides,
I promised you that I would go into your business
after lunch, and I always keep my promises, isn’t
that the truth, Ippolit Sidoritch?’
Polozov rubbed his face with his open hand. ’The
truth’s the truth. You don’t deceive
any one.’
’Never! and I never will deceive any one.
Well, Dimitri Pavlovitch, expound the case as we express
it in the senate.’
Sanin proceeded to expound his case, that is to say,
again, a second time, to describe his property, not
touching this time on the beauties of nature, and
now and then appealing to Polozov for confirmation
of his ‘facts and figures.’ But Polozov
simply gasped and shook his head, whether in approval
or disapproval, it would have puzzled the devil, one
might fancy, to decide. However, Maria Nikolaevna
stood in no need of his aid. She exhibited commercial
and administrative abilities that were really astonishing!
She was familiar with all the ins-and-outs of farming;
she asked questions about everything with great exactitude,
went into every point; every word of hers went straight
to the root of the matter, and hit the nail on the
head. Sanin had not expected such a close inquiry,
he had not prepared himself for it. And this
inquiry lasted for fully an hour and a half. Sanin
experienced all the sensations of the criminal on
his trial, sitting on a narrow bench confronted by
a stern and penetrating judge. ’Why, it’s
a cross-examination!’ he murmured to himself
dejectedly. Maria Nikolaevna kept laughing all
the while, as though it were a joke; but Sanin felt
none the more at ease for that; and when in the course
of the ‘cross-examination’ it turned out
that he had not clearly realised the exact meaning
of the words ‘repartition’ and ‘tilth,’
he was in a cold perspiration all over.
‘Well, that’s all right!’ Maria
Nikolaevna decided at last. ’I know your
estate now ... as well as you do. What price do
you suggest per soul?’ (At that time, as every
one knows, the prices of estates were reckoned by
the souls living as serfs on them.)
’Well ... I imagine ... I could not
take less than five hundred roubles for each,’
Sanin articulated with difficulty. O Pantaleone,
Pantaleone, where were you! This was when you
ought to have cried again, ‘Barbari!’
