"Answer. Don't dare to speak like that," I cried sternly.
"For holding my tongue—about Anna—and—the child. I want my share, don't I?" he answered sullenly, scowling at me. "Is a father to be robbed of a child and then cheated?" He asked this with a burst of anger as if, vile as he was, he was compelled to stifle his sense of shame with a rush of rage.
"Hush-money, eh? And payment for your daughter's shame. Well, what else?" I threw into my manner all the contempt I could.
"My help in other things—with others." He uttered the sentence with a leer of suggestion that sent my blood to boiling point; and he followed it up with a recital of mean and despicable tricks of vice and foul dissipation until in sheer disgust I was compelled to stop him.
What more the man might have had to say I knew not; but I had heard enough. It was clear that I was indeed a bitter blackguard, and that for my purposes I had made use of this scoundrel, who had apparently begun by selling me his own daughter. It was clear also that all this must end and some sort of arrangement be made.
At the same time I knew enough of Russian society to be perfectly well aware that not one of the acts which this man had suggested would count for either crime or wrong against me. One was expected to keep the seamy side of one's life decorously out of sight; but if that were done, a few "slips" of the kind were taken as a matter of course.
Personally, I hold old-fashioned notions on these things, and it was infinitely painful to me that I should be held guilty of such blackguardism. I would at least do what justice I could.
"I have been thinking much about these things lately," I said, after a pause. "And I have come to a decision. I shall make provision for you..."
"Your honour was always generosity itself," said the fellow squirming instantly.
"On condition that you leave Moscow. You will go to Kursk; and there ten roubles will be paid to you weekly for a year; by which time if you haven't drunk yourself to death, you will have found the means to earn your living."