Peredonov was silent. He did not understand the question. But Volodin answered for him gravely and judiciously: "Why not accept it, if she's rich? She's gratified herself with pleasures and she ought to pay for them." "If she were at least a beauty," said Peredonov mournfully. "She's freckled and pug-nosed. She paid very well, otherwise I wouldn't even want to spit at the hag! She must attend to my request." "You're a liar, Ardalyon Borisitch," said Routilov. "A liar! What an idea! Do you suppose she paid me for nothing? She's jealous of Varvara, and that's why she doesn't give me the job at once." Peredonov did not feel any shame when he said that the Princess paid him. Volodin was a credulous listener, and did not notice the absurdities and contradictions in his stories. Routilov protested, but thought that without fire there can be no smoke. He thought there must have been something between Peredonov and the Princess. "She's older than the priest's dog,"[1] said Peredonov convincingly, as if it were to the point; "but see that you don't blab about it, because it might come to her ears and do no good. She paints herself, and she tries to make herself as young as a sucking-pig by injecting things in her veins. And you know that she's old. She's really a hundred." Volodin nodded his head and clicked his tongue affirmatively. He believed it all. It so happened that on the day after this conversation Peredonov read Krilov's fable, "The Liar." And for several days afterwards he was afraid to go over the bridge, but crossed the river in a boat, for fear that the bridge should tumble down.[2] He explained to Volodin: "What I said about the Princess was the truth, only the bridge might take a sudden notion not to believe my story, and tumble down to the devil." [1] There is a popular Russian tale about a priest who had a very old dog. It begins, "The priest had a dog ..." [2] Krilov's fable is of a returned traveller who tells his friend at home about a cucumber he saw at Rome as large as a mountain. The incredulous friend tells him about one of the home wonders--a bridge which tumbles every liar who attempts to cross it into the river. The traveller gradually reduces the size of the cucumber, but even then he finally suggests that they find a place where they might ford the stream. CHAPTER XXV