Page 459 - the-brothers-karamazov

twelve versts and you come to Tchermashnya.’
‘I’m sorry, I can’t. It’s eighty versts to the railway and the
train starts for Moscow at seven o’clock to-night. I can only
just catch it.’
‘You’ll catch it to-morrow or the day after, but to-day turn
off to Tchermashnya. It won’t put you out much to humour
your father! If I hadn’t had something to keep me here, I
would have run over myself long ago, for I’ve some busi-
ness there in a hurry. But here I... it’s not the time for me to
go now.... You see, I’ve two pieces of copse land there. The
Maslovs, an old merchant and his son, will give eight thou-
sand for the timber. But last year I just missed a purchaser
who would have given twelve. There’s no getting anyone
about here to buy it. The Maslovs have it all their own way.
One has to take what they’ll give, for no one here dare bid
against them. The priest at Ilyinskoe wrote to me last Thurs-
day that a merchant called Gorstkin, a man I know, had
turned up. What makes him valuable is that he is not from
these parts, so he is not afraid of the Maslovs. He says he
will give me eleven thousand for the copse. Do you hear?
But he’ll only be here, the priest writes, for a week altogeth-
er, so you must go at once and make a bargain with him.’
‘Well, you write to the priest; he’ll make the bargain.’
‘He can’t do it. He has no eye for business. He is a per-
fect treasure, I’d give him twenty thousand to take care of
for me without a receipt; but he has no eye for business, he
is a perfect child, a crow could deceive him. And yet he is a
learned man, would you believe it? This Gorstkin looks like
a peasant, he wears a blue kaftan, but he is a regular rogue.

The Brothers Karamazov