Otherwise I can't show up for work, and if I don't show up at the appointed time, somebody else will take the job, and I'll be left hanging again, and who knows when I'll find another job?
Now I'm asking him for only fifteen roubles, and I promise that I'll never ask again, and on top of that I'll repay the whole debt to the last kopeck during the first three months.
I'll keep my word.
I can live on bread and kvass for months at a time, because I have a strong character.
For three months I'll get seventy-five roubles.
With the previous debt, I'll owe him only thirty-five roubles, so I'll have enough to pay him.
Well, he can ask as much interest as he likes, devil take it!
Doesn't he know me? Ask him, Prince: when he helped me out before, did I pay him back or not?
Why doesn't he want to now?
He's angry that I paid that lieutenant; there's no other reason!
That's how this man is—doesn't eat himself and won't let others!"
"And he won't go away," Lebedev cried, "he lies here and won't go away!"
"That's what I told you.
I won't go away till you give it to me.
You're smiling at something, Prince?
Apparently you think I'm in the wrong?"
"I'm not smiling, but in my opinion you actually are somewhat in the wrong," the prince answered reluctantly.
"No, just say outright that I'm totally wrong, don't dodge! What is this 'somewhat'?"
"If you wish, you're totally wrong."
"If I wish!
Ridiculous!
Can you possibly think I don't know that it's ticklish to act this way, that the money's his, the will is his, and it comes out as violence on my part?
But you, Prince . . . you don't know life.
If you don't teach them, they'll be of no use.
They have to be taught.
My conscience is clear; in all conscience, I won't cause him any loss, I'll pay him back with interest.
He's already received moral satisfaction as well: he has seen my humiliation.
What more does he want?
What good is he, if he can't be useful?
For pity's sake, what does he do himself?
Ask him what he does to others and how he dupes people.
How did he pay for this house?
I'll bet my life that he has already duped you and has already made plans for how to dupe you further!
You're smiling. You don't believe me?"
"It seems to me that all this is quite unconnected with your affair," observed the prince.
"I've been lying here for three days, and the things I've seen!" the young man went on shouting without listening. "Imagine, he suspects this angel, this young girl, now an orphan, my cousin, his own daughter; every night he searches for her sweethearts!
He comes here on the sly and also searches for something under my sofa.
He's gone crazy from suspiciousness; he sees thieves in every corner.
All night he keeps popping out of bed to see whether the windows are well latched, to check the doors, to peek into the stove, as much as seven times a night.
He defends swindlers in court, and he gets up three times in the night to pray, here in the living room, on his knees, pounding his head on the floor for half an hour, and who doesn't he pray for, what doesn't he pray for, the drunken mumbler!
He prayed for the repose of the soul of the countess Du Barry,9 I heard it with my own ears; Kolya also heard it: he's gone quite crazy!"
"You see, you hear, how he disgraces me, Prince!" Lebedev cried out, turning red and really getting furious.
"And he doesn't know that I, drunkard and profligate, robber and evil-doer, may only be standing on this one thing, that when this scoffer was still an infant, my destitute, widowed sister Anisya's son, I, as destitute as she was, swaddled him, washed him in a tub, sat up with them for whole nights without sleeping, when both of them were sick, stole firewood from the caretaker downstairs, sang him songs, snapped my fingers, hungry belly that I was, and so I nursed him, and see how he laughs at me now!
What business is it of yours if I did cross my forehead once for the repose of the soul of the countess Du Barry?
Because three days ago, Prince, I read her biography for the first time in an encyclopedia. And do you know what she was, this Du Barry?
Tell me, do you know or not?"
"So, what, are you the only one who knows?" the young man muttered mockingly but reluctantly.
"She was a countess who, having risen from a life of shame, ran things in the queen's place, and a great empress wrote her a letter with her own hand, addressing her as ma cousine.
A cardinal, a papal nuncio, at the levay dew rwah (do you know what the levay dew rwah was?),10 volunteered personally to put silk stockings on her bare legs, and considered it an honor—such an exalted and holy person!
Do you know that?