Page 620 - the-brothers-karamazov

tainly might take proceedings concerning the village of
Tchermashnya, which ought, he said, to have come to him,
Mitya, from his mother, and so checkmate the old villain,
his father... ‘because every door was not closed and justice
might still find a loophole.’ In fact, he might reckon on an
additional sum of six or even seven thousand roubles from
Fyodor Pavlovitch, as Tchermashnya was worth, at least,
twenty-five thousand, he might say twenty-eight thousand,
in fact, ‘thirty, thirty, Kuzma Kuzmitch, and would you be-
lieve it, I didn’t get seventeen from that heartless man!’ So
he, Mitya, had thrown the business up for the time, know-
ing nothing about the law, but on coming here was struck
dumb by a cross — claim made upon him (here Mitya went
adrift again and again took a flying leap forward), ‘so will
not you, excellent and honoured Kuzma Kuzmitch, be will-
ing to take up all my claims against that unnatural monster,
and pay me a sum down of only three thousand?... You see,
you cannot, in any case, lose over it. On my honour, my
honour, I swear that. Quite the contrary, you may make six
or seven thousand instead of three.’ Above all, he wanted
this concluded that very day.
‘I’ll do the business with you at a notary’s, or whatever it
is... in fact, I’m ready to do anything. .. I’ll hand over all the
deeds... whatever you want, sign anything... and we could
draw up the agreement at once... and if it were possible, if it
were only possible, that very morning.... You could pay me
that three thousand, for there isn’t a capitalist in this town
to compare with you, and so would save me from... save me,
in fact... for a good, I might say an honourable action.... For

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