"Oh, the blockhead of an old woman!" said Tchichikoff to himself, whilst beginning to lose, by degrees, his wonted patience and forbearance, "the devil may come to an understanding with her! I feel the perspiration already running down my back, thanks to the old she-dragon!" Whereupon he produced his pocket-handkerchief and began to dry his forehead, which was really covered with heavy drops of perspiration. However, Tchichikoff was wrong in getting into a passion, for many another respectable and imperial person is as dull in the comprehension of business matters as Lady Korobotchka appeared to be, and may prove themselves and their heads as empty as a band-box; whenever they take to an opinion, they will stick to it with an obstinacy from which no argument, no proofs will ever dissuade them; though they may be as bright as noon-day, they continue to recoil from it, like an india-rubber ball will rebound when thrown against the wall.
After having wiped away the heavy dew-drops from his forehead, Tchichikoff determined to try if he could not bring her upon the right path by another way.
"My good lady," he said, "either you do not wish to understand me, or you speak thus for the sake of speaking. I offer you money—fifteen roubles in bank notes. Do you now understand me? This is a sum which you will not pick up in the open street. Oblige me, and tell me candidly, at what price did you sell your honey to those merchants?"
"At twelve roubles the pud."
"I fancy, my good lady, you are burthening your conscience with a light sin; you could not have sold it at twelve roubles the pud."
"My patron saint is my witness that I did so."
"Very well then, I believe you, but mark me now! for that money you had to give your honey; you perhaps spent a whole year in gathering it, and perhaps with much care, trouble, and anxiety too; you have been watching your bee-hives during the summer and have been obliged to nurse them throughout our long winter months, whilst your dead serfs are neither goods nor chatties of this world. With them you had no cares, no troubles nor anxieties, and if they have left this wicked world for a better one, it was by a decree of Providence that you have sustained a loss in your household. Therefore, and as I have said before, there you received those twelve roubles for your troubles, whilst I am now offering you money for a mere nothing, and if you please not twelve roubles but fifteen, and not in silver, but in three beautiful new imperial bank notes."
[CHAPTER XVI.]
After such strong arguments as those with which we concluded the last chapter, Tchichikoff could not doubt any longer that the old lady would give way and consent to his proposal.