He's haggling with him for it, being asked too much,
and here he would have all the documents entitling him to the property
itself. Ha ha ha!"

And Mitya suddenly went off into his short, wooden laugh, startling
Samsonov.

"How can I thank you, Kuzma Kuzmitch?" cried Mitya effusively.

"Don't mention it," said Samsonov, inclining his head.

"But you don't know, you've saved me. Oh, it was a true presentiment
brought me to you.... So now to this priest!"

"No need of thanks."

"I'll make haste and fly there. I'm afraid I've overtaxed your strength. I
shall never forget it. It's a Russian says that, Kuzma Kuzmitch, a
R-r-russian!"

"To be sure!"

Mitya seized his hand to press it, but there was a malignant gleam in the
old man's eye. Mitya drew back his hand, but at once blamed himself for
his mistrustfulness.

"It's because he's tired," he thought.

"For her sake! For her sake, Kuzma Kuzmitch! You understand that it's for
her," he cried, his voice ringing through the room. He bowed, turned
sharply round, and with the same long stride walked to the door without
looking back. He was trembling with delight.

"Everything was on the verge of ruin and my guardian angel saved me," was
the thought in his mind. And if such a business man as Samsonov (a most
worthy old man, and what dignity!) had suggested this course, then ...
then success was assured. He would fly off immediately. "I will be back
before night, I shall be back at night and the thing is done. Could the
old man have been laughing at me?" exclaimed Mitya, as he strode towards
his lodging. He could, of course, imagine nothing, but that the advice was
practical "from such a business man" with an understanding of the
business, with an understanding of this Lyagavy (curious surname!). Or--the
old man was laughing at him.

Alas! The second alternative was the correct one. Long afterwards, when
the catastrophe had happened, old Samsonov himself confessed, laughing,
that he had made a fool of the "captain." He was a cold, spiteful and
sarcastic man, liable to violent antipathies. Whether it was the
"captain's" excited face, or the foolish conviction of the "rake and
spendthrift," that he, Samsonov, could be taken in by such a cock-and-bull
story as his scheme, or his jealousy of Grushenka, in whose name this
"scapegrace" had rushed in on him with such a tale to get money which
worked on the old man, I can't tell. But at the instant when Mitya stood
before h