The Brothers Karamazov‘Kalganov?’
‘That’s it, Kalganov!’
‘All right. I’ll see for myself. Are they playing cards?’
‘They have been playing, but they’ve left off. They’ve been
drinking tea, the official gentleman asked for liqueurs.’
‘Stay, Trifon Borissovitch, stay, my good soul, I’ll see for
myself. Now answer one more question: are the gypsies
here?’
‘You can’t have the gypsies now, Dmitri Fyodorovitch.
The authorities have sent them away. But we’ve Jews that
play the cymbals and the fiddle in the village, so one might
send for them. They’d come.’
‘Send for them. Certainly send for them!’ cried Mitya.
‘And you can get the girls together as you did then, Marya
especially, Stepanida, too, and Arina. Two hundred roubles
for a chorus!’
‘Oh, for a sum like that I can get all the village together,
though by now they’re asleep. Are the peasants here worth
such kindness, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, or the girls either?
To spend a sum like that on such coarseness and rudeness!
What’s the good of giving a peasant a cigar to smoke, the
stinking ruffian! And the girls are all lousy. Besides, I’ll
get my daughters up for nothing, let alone a sum like that.
They’ve only just gone to bed, I’ll give them a kick and set
them singing for you. You gave the peasants champagne to
drink the other day, e-ech!’
For all his pretended compassion for Mitya, Trifon Bo-
rissovitch had hidden half a dozen bottles of champagne on
that last occasion, and had picked up a hundred-rouble note