"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."




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