inking of? What could have induced you
to ask such a question?" she replied, quietly and seriously, and even,
apparently, with some astonishment.

"No? No?" shouted Rogojin, almost out of his mind with joy. "You are
not going to, after all? And they told me--oh, Nastasia Philipovna--they
said you had promised to marry him, HIM! As if you COULD do
it!--him--pooh! I don't mind saying it to everyone--I'd buy him off
for a hundred roubles, any day pfu! Give him a thousand, or three if he
likes, poor devil' and he'd cut and run the day before his wedding, and
leave his bride to me! Wouldn't you, Gania, you blackguard? You'd take
three thousand, wouldn't you? Here's the money! Look, I've come on
purpose to pay you off and get your receipt, formally. I said I'd buy
you up, and so I will."

"Get out of this, you drunken beast!" cried Gania, who was red and white
by turns.

Rogojin's troop, who were only waiting for an excuse, set up a howl at
this. Lebedeff stepped forward and whispered something in Parfen's ear.

"You're right, clerk," said the latter, "you're right, tipsy
spirit--you're right!--Nastasia Philipovna," he added, looking at her
like some lunatic, harmless generally, but suddenly wound up to a pitch
of audacity, "here are eighteen thousand roubles, and--and you shall
have more--." Here he threw a packet of bank-notes tied up in white
paper, on the table before her, not daring to say all he wished to say.

"No-no-no!" muttered Lebedeff, clutching at his arm. He was clearly
aghast at the largeness of the sum, and thought a far smaller amount
should have been tried first.

"No, you fool--you don't know whom you are dealing with--and it appears
I am a fool, too!" said Parfen, trembling beneath the flashing glance
of Nastasia. "Oh, curse it all! What a fool I was to listen to you!" he
added, with profound melancholy.

Nastasia Philipovna, observing his woe-begone expression, suddenly burst
out laughing.

"Eighteen thousand roubles, for me? Why, you declare yourself a fool at
once," she said, with impudent familiarity, as she rose from the sofa
and prepared to go. Gania watched the whole scene with a sinking of the
heart.

"Forty thousand, then--forty thousand roubles instead of eighteen!
Ptitsin and another have promised to find me forty thousand roubles by
seven o'clock tonight. Forty thousand roubles--paid down on the nail!"

The scene was growing more and more disgraceful; but Nastasia Philipovna
contin