to a mercenary rogue, and without the knowledge of Varvara Petrovna
selling the timber which gave the estate its chief value. He had some
time before sold the woods bit by bit. It was worth at least
eight thousand, yet he had only received five thousand for it. But
he sometimes lost too much at the club, and was afraid to ask Varvara
Petrovna for the money. She clenched her teeth when she heard at last of
everything. And now, all at once, his son announced that he was
coming himself to sell his property for what he could get for it, and
commissioned his father to take steps promptly to arrange the sale. It
was clear that Stepan Trofimovitch, being a generous and disinterested
man, felt ashamed of his treatment of _ce cher enfant_ (whom he had seen
for the last time nine years before as a student in Petersburg). The
estate might originally have been worth thirteen or fourteen thousand.
Now it was doubtful whether anyone would give five for it. No doubt
Stepan Trofimovitch was fully entitled by the terms of the trust to sell
the wood, and taking into account the incredibly large yearly revenue of
a thousand roubles which had been sent punctually for so many years,
he could have put up a good defence of his management. But Stepan
Trofimovitch was a generous man of exalted impulses. A wonderfully fine
inspiration occurred to his mind: when Petrusha returned, to lay on the
table before him the maximum price of fifteen thousand roubles without
a hint at the sums that had been sent him hitherto, and warmly and with
tears to press _ce cher fils_ to his heart, and so to make an end of all
accounts between them. He began cautiously and indirectly unfolding
this picture before Varvara Petrovna. He hinted that this would add a
peculiarly noble note to their friendship... to their "idea." This
would set the parents of the last generation--and people of the last
generation generally--in such a disinterested and magnanimous light in
comparison with the new frivolous and socialistic younger generation. He
said a great deal more, but Varvara Petrovna was obstinately silent. At
last she informed him airily that she was prepared to buy their estate,
and to pay for it the maximum price, that is, six or seven thousand
(though four would have been a fair price for it). Of the remaining
eight thousand which had vanished with the woods she said not a word.

This conversation took place a month before the match was proposed to
him. Stepan Trofim