‘Oh, come! You are down in the dumps to-day.’
‘Not at all,’ said Levin gloomily, just as they drove up to the house.
At the porch stood a little cart strongly bound with leather and iron, and to the cart was harnessed a well-fed horse with broad, tightly-stretched straps. In the cart sat Ryabinin’s clerk (who also performed a coachman’s duties), his skin tightly stretched over his full-blooded face and his belt drawn tight. Ryabinin himself was already in the house and met the two friends in the hall. He was a tall, spare, middle-aged man, with a moustache, a prominent shaven chin, and prominent dim eyes. He wore a long-skirted blue coat with buttons very low down at the back, high boots drawn quite straight over the calves of his legs and crinkled round the ankles, and over them he had on a pair of large goloshes. He wiped his face all round with his handkerchief and smoothing his coat, which was already quite in order, smilingly greeted the new arrivals. He held out his hand to Oblonsky as if he were trying to catch something.
‘Oh, so you have come,’ said Oblonsky taking his hand. ‘That’s right!’
‘I dared not disobey your Excellency’s commands, though the roads are quite too bad. I have literally had to walk all the way, but I have arrived in time… .’
‘Constantine Dmitrich, my respects to you!’ he said turning to Levin and trying to catch his hand too. But Levin, frowning, pretended not to see the hand, and began taking the snipe out of the game-bag.
‘You have been pleased to amuse yourself with shooting? What kind of bird may that be?’ added Ryabinin, looking contemptuously at the snipe. ‘Something tasty?’ and he shook his head disapprovingly as if much doubting whether this game were worth the candle.
‘Would you like to go into my study?’ said Levin, frowning moodily, and addressing Oblonsky in French; ‘Go into the study, you can talk things over there.’
‘That would do very well, — or wherever you like,’ remarked Ryabinin with contemptuous dignity, as if to show them that though others might find it difficult to know how to behave with different people, yet for him no difficulty of any kind could ever exist.
On entering the study Ryabinin looked round by force of habit as though to find the icon, but after finding it he did not cross himself. He glanced at the book cupboards and bookshelves with the same look of doubt as he had bestowed on the snipe, smiled contemptuously, and again shook his head disapprovingly, decidedly refusing to admit that this game could be worth the candle.
‘Well, have you brought the money?’ asked Oblonsky. ‘Take a seat.’
‘There won’t be any difficulty about the money. I’ve come to see you and to talk matters over.’
‘Talk what matters over? But do take a seat.’
‘I can do that,’ said Ryabinin, sitting down and putting his arm on the back of his chair in a most uncomfortable way. ‘You must let me off something, Prince. You’re wronging me. As to the money, it is all ready to the last kopek. There will be no delay about the money.’
Levin, who had been putting away his gun in a cupboard, was just going out of the door, but on hearing the dealer’s words he stopped.
‘As it is you are getting the forest for next to nothing,’ he said. ‘He came to me too late, else I would have fixed the price.’
Ryabinin rose and smiled silently, surveying Levin from his feet to his head.
‘He is very close, is Constantine Dmitrich,’ he said, addressing Oblonsky with a smile. ‘It’s absolutely impossible to buy anything of him. I’ve been bargaining with him for wheat and offering a good price.’
‘Why should I give you what is mine for nothing? I have not found it on the ground nor stolen it.’
‘Oh dear no, nowadays it is quite impossible to steal. Absolutely everything nowadays goes before a jury, everything is judged honourably, there’s no possibility of stealing. We speak honestly. It’s too much for the forest, there’s no making any profit on it. I am asking to have something knocked off, if only a trifle.’
‘Well, have you settled the business or not? If you have, there’s no use bargaining, but if not,’ said Levin, ‘I will buy the forest myself.’
The smile vanished from Ryabinin’s face, which assumed a hawk-like, rapacious, and cruel expression. With his bony fingers he rapidly unfastened his coat, exposing his braided shirt, the brass buttons of his waistcoat, and a watch-chain, and quickly took out a thick old pocket-book.
‘If you please, the forest is mine,’ he said, rapidly crossing himself and holding out his hand. ‘Take your money, the forest is mine. That’s the way Ryabinin does business, no fussing about kopeks,’ he said, frowning and flourishing his pocket-book.
‘If I were you I should not be in a hurry to take it,’ remarked Levin.
‘What d’you mean?’ said Oblonsky with surprise. ‘Why, I’ve given my word.’
Levin went out and slammed the door. Ryabinin looked at it and smiled, shaking his head.
‘That’s all his youthfulness, his absolute childishness. Why, I am making this purchase, believe me, just for the honour and glory of the thing, so that it should be Ryabinin and not another that has bought Oblonsky’s forest. But it’s still a question whether by God’s mercy I can make a profit. Believe me, before God! Please, sir, the agreement must be written …’
An hour later the dealer, with his coat well lapped over, the hooks of his overcoat carefully fastened, and with the agreement in his pocket, seated himself in his little cart and drove home.
‘Oh, these gentlefolks!’ he remarked to his clerk, while hooking up the leather apron of the cart, ‘regular objects!’
‘But may I congratulate you on the purchase, Michael Ignatich?’
‘Well, well …’
Chapter 17
OBLONSKY went upstairs, his pockets bulging with the treasury-bills payable in three months’ time with which Ryabinin had paid him. The forest transaction was completed, he had the money in his pocket, the shooting had been fine, Oblonsky was in the best of spirits, and therefore all the more anxious to dispel Levin’s ill-humour. He wanted to finish the day at supper as pleasantly as he had begun it.
Levin really was in a bad humour, and in spite of his desire to behave kindly and amiably to his charming guest he could not master himself. The intoxication of the news that Kitty was not married was beginning little by little to take effect on him.
Kitty was unmarried and ill, and ill for love of the man who had slighted her. This insult seemed to fall upon him. Vronsky had slighted her and she had slighted him, Levin. Consequently Vronsky had a right to despise him and was therefore his enemy. But Levin did not think all this. He dimly felt that there was something insulting to him in the affair, and was angry not with what had upset him but with everything that presented itself to him. The stupid sale of the forest, the swindle Oblonsky had fallen a prey to, which had been perpetrated in his house, irritated him.
‘Well, have you finished?’ he said when he met Oblonsky upstairs. ‘Will you have some supper?’
‘I won’t say no. What an appetite I get in the country, wonderful! Why did you not offer Ryabinin something to eat?’
‘Let him go to the devil!’
‘Well, really, how you treat him!’ said Oblonsky. ‘You did not even give him your hand. Why not shake hands with him?’
‘Because I do not shake hands with the footman, and the footman is a hundred times better than he.’
‘What a reactionary you really are! What about merging the classes?’ said Oblonsky.