“Is the property in the Tula province?” said Polozov, seating himself at the table, and tucking a napkin into his shirt collar.
“Yes.”
“In the Efremovsky district … I know it.”
“Do you know my place, Aleksyevka?” Sanin asked, sitting down too at the table.
“Yes, I know it.” Polozov thrust in his mouth a piece of omelette with truffles. “Maria Nikolaevna, my wife, has an estate in that neighbourhood…. Uncork that bottle, waiter! You’ve a good piece of land, only your peasants have cut down the timber. Why are you selling it?”
“I want the money, my friend. I would sell it cheap. Come, you might as well buy it … by the way.”
Polozov gulped down a glass of wine, wiped his lips with the napkin, and again set to work chewing slowly and noisily.
“Oh,” he enunciated at last…. “I don’t go in for buying estates; I’ve no capital. Pass the butter. Perhaps my wife now would buy it. You talk to her about it. If you don’t ask too much, she’s not above thinking of that…. What asses these Germans are, really! They can’t cook fish. What could be simpler, one wonders? And yet they go on about ‘uniting the Fatherland.’ Waiter, take away that beastly stuff!”
“Does your wife really manage … business matters herself?” Sanin inquired.
“Yes. Try the cutlets—they’re good. I can recommend them. I’ve told you already, Dimitri Pavlovitch, I don’t interfere in any of my wife’s concerns, and I tell you so again.”