<h3>Chapter 16</h3>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“I have no right whatever to know family matters, and, to tell the truth,
no interest in them either.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“Have you quite settled about the forest with Ryabinin?” asked
Levin.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“Then you’ve as good as given away your forest for nothing,”
said Levin gloomily.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>“Because the forest is worth at least a hundred and fifty roubles the
acre,” answered Levin.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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. ‘<i>Timber,
run to so many yards the acre.</i>’ He says those words without
understanding them himself.”</p>
<p>“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?”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“Come, don’t let your imagination run away with you,” said
Stepan Arkadyevitch piteously. “Why was it none would give it,
then?”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“Well, enough of it! You’re out of temper.”</p>
<p>“Not the least,” said Levin gloomily, as they drove up to the
house.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“So here you are,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, giving him his hand.
“That’s capital.”</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“Well, have you brought the money?” asked Oblonsky. “Sit
down.”</p>
<p>“Oh, don’t trouble about the money. I’ve come to see you to
talk it over.”</p>
<p>“What is there to talk over? But do sit down.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>Ryabinin got up, and in silence, with a smile, he looked Levin down and up.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“Why should I give you my goods for nothing? I didn’t pick it up on
the ground, nor steal it either.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>“I wouldn’t be in a hurry if I were you,” said Levin.</p>
<p>“Come, really,” said Oblonsky in surprise. “I’ve given
my word, you know.”</p>
<p>Levin went out of the room, slamming the door. Ryabinin looked towards the door
and shook his head with a smile.</p>
<p>“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....”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“Ugh, these gentlefolks!” he said to the clerk.
“They—they’re a nice lot!”</p>
<p>“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?”</p>
<p>“Well, well....”</p>
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