nterest, but it was known, for instance, that
she had for some time past, in partnership with old Karamazov, actually
invested in the purchase of bad debts for a trifle, a tenth of their
nominal value, and afterwards had made out of them ten times their value.

The old widower Samsonov, a man of large fortune, was stingy and
merciless. He tyrannized over his grown-up sons, but, for the last year
during which he had been ill and lost the use of his swollen legs, he had
fallen greatly under the influence of his protegee, whom he had at first
kept strictly and in humble surroundings, "on Lenten fare," as the wits
said at the time. But Grushenka had succeeded in emancipating herself,
while she established in him a boundless belief in her fidelity. The old
man, now long since dead, had had a large business in his day and was also
a noteworthy character, miserly and hard as flint. Though Grushenka's hold
upon him was so strong that he could not live without her (it had been so
especially for the last two years), he did not settle any considerable
fortune on her and would not have been moved to do so, if she had
threatened to leave him. But he had presented her with a small sum, and
even that was a surprise to every one when it became known.

"You are a wench with brains," he said to her, when he gave her eight
thousand roubles, "and you must look after yourself, but let me tell you
that except your yearly allowance as before, you'll get nothing more from
me to the day of my death, and I'll leave you nothing in my will either."

And he kept his word; he died and left everything to his sons, whom, with
their wives and children, he had treated all his life as servants.
Grushenka was not even mentioned in his will. All this became known
afterwards. He helped Grushenka with his advice to increase her capital
and put business in her way.

When Fyodor Pavlovitch, who first came into contact with Grushenka over a
piece of speculation, ended to his own surprise by falling madly in love
with her, old Samsonov, gravely ill as he was, was immensely amused. It is
remarkable that throughout their whole acquaintance Grushenka was
absolutely and spontaneously open with the old man, and he seems to have
been the only person in the world with whom she was so. Of late, when
Dmitri too had come on the scene with his love, the old man left off
laughing. On the contrary, he once gave Grushenka a stern and earnest
piece of advice.

"If you have