Good God! Petrusha a revolutionist! What times we live in!" Very soon, however, Petrusha sent his exact address from Switzerland for money to be sent him as usual; so he could not be exactly an exile.
And now, after four years abroad, he was suddenly making his appearance again in his own country, and announced that he would arrive shortly, so there could be no charge against him.

What was more, some one seemed to be interested in him and protecting him.

He wrote now from the south of Russia, where he was busily engaged in some private but important business.

All this was capital, but where was his father to get that other seven or eight thousand, to make up a suitable price for the estate?
And what if there should be an outcry, and instead of that imposing picture it should come to a lawsuit?
Something told Stepan Trofimovitch that the sensitive Petrusha would not relinquish anything that was to his interest.

"Why is it--as I've noticed," Stepan Trofimovitch whispered to me once, "why is it that all these desperate socialists and communists are at the same time such incredible skinflints, so avaricious, so keen over property, and, in fact, the more socialistic, the more extreme they are, the keener they are over property...