The Brothers Karamazov: Bicentennial Edition

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

I’m just saying that she won’t come, but maybe she’ll want even more, sir, I mean to become the mistress right off. I know myself that her merchant Samsonov told her in all sincerity that it would even be quite a clever deal, and laughed as he said it. And she’s quite clever in her mind, sir. Why should she marry such a pauper as Dmitri Fyodorovich, sir? And so, taking that, now consider for yourself, Ivan Fyodorovich, that then there will be nothing at all left either for Dmitri Fyodorovich, or even for you, sir, along with your brother Alexei Fyodorovich, after your father’s death, not a rouble, sir, because Agrafena Alexandrovna will marry him in order to get it all down in her name and transfer whatever capital there is to herself, sir. But if your father was to die now, while none of that has happened, sir, then each one of you would get a sure forty thousand all at once, even Dmitri Fyodorovich, whom he hates so much, because he hasn’t made his will, sir … All of that is known perfectly well to Dmitri Fyodorovich …”