You have been used
to being diplomatic from your childhood, and now you can't get on
without it. And what's the use of it? So I beg you to be open. What
is our position?"

"It all depends upon the fluctuation of credit," Potchatkin answered
after a moment's pause.

"What do you understand by the fluctuation of credit?"

Potchatkin began explaining, but Laptev could make nothing of it,
and sent for Makeitchev. The latter promptly made his appearance,
had some lunch after saying grace, and in his sedate, mellow baritone
began saying first of all that the clerks were in duty bound to
pray night and day for their benefactors.

"By all means, only allow me not to consider myself your benefactor,"
said Laptev.

"Every man ought to remember what he is, and to be conscious of his
station. By the grace of God you are a father and benefactor to us,
and we are your slaves."

"I am sick of all that!" said Laptev, getting angry. "Please be a
benefactor to me now. Please explain the position of our business.
Give up looking upon me as a boy, or to-morrow I shall close the
business. My father is blind, my brother is in the asylum, my nieces
are only children. I hate the business; I should be glad to go away,
but there's no one to take my place, as you know. For goodness'
sake, drop your diplomacy!"

They went to the warehouse to go into the accounts; then they went
on with them at home in the evening, the old father himself assisting.
Initiating his son into his commercial secrets, the old man spoke
as though he were engaged, not in trade, but in sorcery. It appeared
that the profits of the business were increasing approximately ten
per cent. per annum, and that the Laptevs' fortune, reckoning only
money and paper securities, amounted to six million roubles.

When at one o'clock at night, after balancing the accounts, Laptev
went out into the open air, he was still under the spell of those
figures. It was a still, sultry, moonlight night. The white walls
of the houses beyond the river, the heavy barred gates, the stillness
and the black shadows, combined to give the impression of a fortress,
and nothing was wanting to complete the picture but a sentinel with
a gun. Laptev went into the garden and sat down on a seat near the
fence, which divided them from the neighbour's yard, where there
was a garden, too. The bird-cherry was in bloom. Laptev remembered
that the tree had been just as gnarled and just as big when he was
a c