“Do you know what, you stay at home. You always go to sleep at the theatre, and you don’t understand much German. I’ll tell you what you’d better do, write an answer to the overseer—you remember, about our mill … about the peasants’ grinding. Tell him that I won’t have it, and I won’t and that’s all about it! There’s occupation for you for the whole evening.” “All right,” answered Polozov. “Well then, that’s first-rate. You’re a darling. And now, gentlemen, as we have just been speaking of my overseer, let’s talk about our great business. Come, directly the waiter has cleared the table, you shall tell me all, Dimitri Pavlovitch, about your estate, what price you will sell it for, how much you want paid down in advance, everything, in fact! (At last, thought Sanin, thank God!) You have told me something about it already, you remember, you described your garden delightfully, but dumpling wasn’t here…. Let him hear, he may pick a hole somewhere! I’m delighted to think that I can help you to get married, besides, I promised you that I would go into your business after lunch, and I always keep my promises, isn’t that the truth, Ippolit Sidoritch?” Polozov rubbed his face with his open hand. “The truth’s the truth. You don’t deceive any one.” “Never! and I never will deceive any one. Well, Dimitri Pavlovitch, expound the case as we express it in the senate.” XXXVII Sanin proceeded to expound his case, that is to say, again, a second time, to describe his property, not touching this time on the beauties of nature, and now and then appealing to Polozov for confirmation of his “facts and figures.” But Polozov simply gasped and shook his head, whether in approval or disapproval, it would have puzzled the devil, one might fancy, to decide. However, Maria Nikolaevna stood in no need of his aid. She exhibited commercial and administrative abilities that were really astonishing! She was familiar with all the ins-and-outs of farming; she asked questions about everything with great exactitude, went into every point; every word of hers went straight to the root of the matter, and hit the nail on the head. Sanin had not expected such a close inquiry, he had not prepared himself for it. And this inquiry lasted for fully an hour and a half. Sanin experienced all the sensations of the criminal on his trial, sitting on a narrow bench confronted by a stern and penetrating judge. “Why, it’s a cross-examination!” he murmured to himself dejectedly. Maria Nikolaevna kept laughing all the while, as though it were a joke; but Sanin felt none the more at ease for that; and when in the course of the “cross-examination” it turned out that he had not clearly realised the exact meaning of the words “repartition” and “tilth,” he was in a cold perspiration all over.