That summer we went to Castlecourt Marsh Manor, and there my anxieties became almost unbearable. Bolkonsky began to dun me most cruelly. Other creditors wrote me letters, urging for payments. The jeweler from whom I had bought the turquoises sent me a letter, telling me if I didn’t settle his account by September he would sue me. And finally Bolkonsky sent a man over, whom I saw in London, and who told me that unless the sable jacket was paid for within two months he would “lay the matter before Lord Castlecourt.” We went across to Paris in September, and there I saw those dreadful people. My other French and English creditors I could manage, but I could do nothing with either Bolkonsky or the jeweler. They spoke harshly to me--as no one has ever spoken to me before; and Bolkonsky told me that “it was known Lord Castlecourt was honest and paid his debts, whatever his wife was.” I prayed him for time, and finally wept--wept to that horrible Jew; and there was another man in the office, too, who saw me. But I was lost to all sense of pride or reserve. I had only one feeling left in me--terror, agony, that they would tell my husband, and he would despise me and leave me. My misery seemed to have some effect on Bolkonsky, and he told me he would give me a month to pay up. It was then the tenth of September. I waited for a week in a sort of frenzy of hope that a miracle would occur, and the money come into my hands in some unexpected way. But, of course, nothing did occur. By the first of October the one thousand pounds was no nearer. It was then that the desperate idea entered my mind which has nearly ruined me, and caused me such suffering that the memory of it will stay with me forever. The Castlecourt diamonds, set in a necklace and valued at nine thousand pounds, were in my possession. I often wore them, and they were carried about by my maid--a faithful and honest creature called Sophy Jeffers. On one of my first trips to Paris a friend of mine had taken me to the office of a well-known dealer in precious and artificial stones who, without its being generally known, did a sort of pawnbroking business among the upper classes. My friend had gone there to pawn a pearl necklace, and had told me all about it--how much she obtained on the necklace, and how she hoped to redeem it within the year, and how she was to have it copied in imitation pearls. The idea that came to me was to go to this place and pawn the Castlecourt diamonds, having them duplicated in paste.