"Oh dear no! What is there degrading about it? And even if there were, I don't think the aristocracy would be overly particular.""What do you mean?"
"I only meant," Solomin continued, calmly, "that the gentry are not used to that kind of business.A knowledge of commerce is needed for that; everything has to be put on a different footing, you want technical training for it.The gentry don't understand this.We see them starting woollen, cotton, and other factories all over the place, but they nearly always fall into the hands of the merchants in the end.It's a pity, because the merchants are even worse sweaters.But it can't be helped, I suppose.""To listen to you one would think that all questions of finance were above our nobility!" Kollomietzev exclaimed.
"Oh no! On the other hand the nobility are masters at it.For getting concessions for railways, founding banks, exempting themselves from some tax, or anything like that, there is no one to beat them! They make huge fortunes.I hinted at that just now, but it seemed to offend you.I had regular industrial enterprises in my mind when I spoke; I say regular, because founding private public houses, petty little grocers' shops, or lending the peasants corn or money at a hundred or a hundred and fifty percent, as many of our landed gentry are now doing, I cannot consider as genuine financial enterprises."Kollomietzev did not say anything.He belonged to that new species of money-lending landlord whom Markelov had mentioned in his last talk with Nejdanov, and was the more inhuman in his demands that he had no personal dealings with the peasants themselves.He never allowed them into his perfumed European study, and conducted all his business with them through his manager.He was boiling with rage while listening to Solomin's slow, impartial speech, but he held his peace; only the working of the muscles of his face betrayed what was passing within him.
"But allow me, Vassily Fedotitch," Sipiagin began; "what you have just said may have been quite true in former days, when the nobility had quite different privileges and were altogether in a different position; but now, after all the beneficial reforms in our present industrial age, why should not the nobility turn their attention and bring their abilities into enterprises of this nature? Why shouldn't they be able to understand what is understood by a ****** illiterate merchant? They are not suffering from lack of education and one might even claim, without any exaggeration, that they are, in a certain sense, the representatives of enlightenment and progress."Boris Andraevitch spoke very well; his eloquence would have made a great stir in St.Petersburg, in his department, or maybe in higher quarters, but it produced no effect whatever on Solomin.
"The nobility cannot manage these things," Solomin repeated.
"But why, I should like to know? Why?" Kollomietzev almost shouted.
"Because there is too much of the bureaucrat about them.""Bureaucrat?" Kollomietzev laughed maliciously."I don't think you quite realise what you're saying, Mr.Solomin."Solomin continued smiling.
"What makes you think so, Mr.Kolomentzev?" (Kollomietzev shuddered at hearing his name thus mutilated.) "I assure you that I always realise what I am saying.""Then please explain what you meant just now!""With pleasure.I think that every bureaucrat is an outsider and was always such.The nobility have now become 'outsiders.'"Kollomietzev laughed louder than ever.
"But, my dear sir, I really don't understand what you mean!""So much the worse for you.Perhaps you will if you try hard enough.""Sir!
"Gentlemen, gentlemen," Sipiagin interposed hastily, trying to catch someone's eye, "please, please...Kallomeitzeff, je vous prie de vous calmer.I suppose dinner will soon be ready.
Come along, gentlemen!"
"Valentina Mihailovna!" Kollomietzev cried out five minutes later, rushing into her boudoir."I really don't know what your husband is doing! He has brought us one nihilist and now he's bringing us another! Only this one is much worse!""But why?"
"He is advocating the most awful things, and what do you think?
He has been talking to your husband for a whole hour, and not once, not once, did he address him as Your Excellency! Le vagabond!"
