RISPOLOZHENSKY.  How can I help haunting you?  If I didn’t love you I wouldn’t haunt you.  Haven’t I any feelings?  Am I really a mere dumb brute?

BOLSHOV.  I know that you love me—­you all love us; only one can’t get anything decent out of you.  Here I’m worrying, worrying with this business so that I’m worn out, if you believe me, with this one anxiety.  If I could only get it over with, and out of my head.

RISPOLOZHENSKY.  Well, Samson Silych, you aren’t the first, nor the last; aren’t others doing it?

BOLSHOV.  How can they help it, brother?  Others are doing it.  But how do they do it; without shame, without conscience!  They ride in carriages with easy springs; they live in three-storied houses.  One of them will build a belvedere with pillars, in which he’s ashamed to show his ugly phiz; and that’s the end of him, and you can’t get anything out of him.  These carriages will roll away, Lord knows where; all his houses are mortgaged, and all the creditors will get out of it’ll be three pairs of old boots.  That’s the whole story.  And who is it that he’ll fool?  Just some poor beggars whom he’ll send out into the world in nothing but their shirts.  But my creditors are all rich men; what difference will it make to them?

RISPOLOZHENSKY.  Naturally.  Why, Samson Silych, all that is in our hands.

BOLSHOV.  I know that it’s in our hands; but are you equal to handling this affair?  You see, you lawyers are a rum lot.  Oh, I know you!  You’re nimble enough in words, and then you go and mess things up.

RISPOLOZHENSKY.  But come now, Samson Silych, if you please:  do you think this is the first time for me!  As though I didn’t know that already!  He, he, he!  Yes, I’ve done such things before; and they’ve turned out fine.  They’d have sent anybody else long ago for such jobs to the other side of nowhere.

BOLSHOV.  Oho!  What kind of a scheme will you get up?

RISPOLOZHENSKY.  Why, we’ll see—­according to circumstances.  I’ll just take a thimbleful, Samson Silych. [Drinks] Now, the first thing, Samson Silych, we must mortgage the house and shops; or sell them.  That’s the first thing.

BOLSHOV.  Yes, that positively must be done right away.  But on whom shall we shove the stuff?  Shall it be my wife?

RISPOLOZHENSKY.  Illegal, Samson Silych!  That’s illegal!  It is stated in the laws that such sales are not valid.  It’s an easy thing to do, but you’ll have to see that there’re no hitches afterward.  If it’s to be done, it must be done thoroughly, Samson Silych.

BOLSHOV.  That’s it:  there must be no loose ends.

RISPOLOZHENSKY.  If you make it over to an outsider, there’s nothing they can cavil at.  Let ’em try to make a row later, and try to dispute good legal papers.

BOLSHOV.  But here’s the trouble:  when you make over your house to an outsider, maybe it’ll stick to him, like a flea to a soldier.