"Well, but——"
"No, dearest mother, let me speak. Of course it looks like a trifling matter, but a ruble here, half a ruble there, come to quite a sum in the end. Let me use exact figures and make it clear to you. Figures are holy, they never lie."
Porfiry Vladimirych runs over to the table with the intention of finally determining the exact amount of loss that his mother dear had caused him to sustain. He manipulates the counting-board, covers sheets of paper with rows of figures, arms himself to convict Arina Petrovna. But fortunately for her his wavering thoughts cannot remain fixed on one subject for a long time. Unnoticed by himself a new thought enters his mind and, as if by magic, gives an entirely different trend to his ideas. The image of his mother, a minute ago so clear before his eyes, suddenly drops away. He forgets her, his notions become confused, other notions enter his mind.
Porfiry Vladimirych has long had the intention of figuring out what his crops could bring him in. The opportune moment is here. He knows the peasant is always in want, is always on the lookout to borrow provender and always pays his debts with interest. He knows also that the peasant is especially generous with his work, which "costs him nothing," and is not considered as possessing any value in settling accounts. There are many needy people in Russia, oh, how many! There are many people who do not know what the next day will bring them, who see nothing but despair and emptiness wherever they turn their weary eyes, and who hear everywhere only one clamor: "Pay your debt! Pay your debt!" It is around these shiftless, utterly destitute men that Yudushka weaves his net, with a delight passing sometimes into an orgy.
It is April, and the peasant as usual has nothing to eat. "You have gobbled up all your crops, my dear fellows," Porfiry Vladimirych muses. "All winter you feasted, and in spring your stomach is shrivelled from hunger." He has just settled the accounts of last year's crops. The threshing was completed in February, the grain was in the granaries in March, and the amount was recorded in the numerous books the other day. Yudushka stands at the window and waits. On the bridge afar off the peasant Foka appears in his cart. At the bend of the road leading to Golovliovo he shakes the reins rather hastily, and for want of a whip hits his battered jade with his fist.
"He's heading here," whispers Yudushka. "Look at the horse. A wonder it can drag its feet. But if you had fed it well a month or two, it would become quite a horse. You might get twenty-five rubles for it, or even as much as thirty."
Meanwhile Foka drives up to the servants' house. He ties the animal to the hedge, throws it a handful of hay, and a minute later stands in the maids' quarters, shifting from one foot to another. It is in the maids' quarters that Porfiry Vladimirych usually receives such visitors.
"Well, friend, how are things going?"
"Please sir, what I need is some corn."
"How's that? Are you through with your own? What a pity! If you drank less vodka, and worked more, and prayed to God, the soil would feel it. Where one grain grows now, two grains would grow. Then there would be no need for you to borrow."