"Would you like to go into my study?" Levin said in French to
Stepan Arkadyevitch, scowling morosely. "Go into my study; you
can talk there."
"Quite so, where you please," said Ryabinin with contemptuous
dignity, as though wishing to make it felt that others might be
in difficulties as to how to behave, but that he could never be
in any difficulty about anything.
On entering the study Ryabinin looked about, as his habit was, as
though seeking the holy picture, but when he had found it, he did
not cross himself. He scanned the bookcases and bookshelves, and
with the same dubious air with which he had regarded the snipe,
he smiled contemptuously and shook his head disapprovingly, as
though by no means willing to allow that this game were worth the
candle.
"Well, have you brought the money?" asked Oblonsky. "Sit down."
"Oh, don't trouble about the money. I've come to see you to talk
it over."
"What is there to talk over? But do sit down."
"I don't mind if I do," said Ryabinin, sitting down and leaning
his elbows on the back of his chair in a position of the
intensest discomfort to himself. "You must knock it down a bit,
prince. It would be too bad. The money is ready conclusively to
the last farthing. As to paying the money down, there'll be no
hitch there."
Levin, who had meanwhile been putting his gun away in the
cupboard, was just going out of the door, but catching the
merchant's words, he stopped.
"Why, you've got the forest for nothing as it is," he said. "He
came to me too late, or I'd have fixed the price for him."
Ryabinin got up, and in silence, with a smile, he looked Levin
down and up.
"Very close about money is Konstantin Dmitrievitch," he said with
a smile, turning to Stepan Arkadyevitch; "there's positively no
dealing with him. I was bargaining for some wheat of him, and a
pretty price I offered too."
"Why should I give you my goods for nothing? I didn't pick it up
on the ground, nor steal it either."
"Mercy on us! nowadays there's no chance at all of stealing.
With the open courts and everything done in style, nowadays
there's no question of stealing. We are just talking things over
like gentlemen. His excellency's asking too much for the forest.
I can't make both ends meet over it. I must ask for a little
concession."