old and ill, I realise that the time has come for me to dispose
of my property in regard to the interests of my family. My life
is nearly over, and I am not thinking of myself, but I have a
young wife and daughter. [A pause] I cannot continue to live in
the country; we were not made for country life, and yet we cannot
afford to live in town on the income derived from this estate. We
might sell the woods, but that would be an expedient we could not
resort to every year. We must find some means of guaranteeing to
ourselves a certain more or less fixed yearly income. With this
object in view, a plan has occurred to me which I now have the
honour of presenting to you for your consideration. I shall only
give you a rough outline, avoiding all details. Our estate does
not pay on an average more than two per cent on the money
invested in it. I propose to sell it. If we then invest our
capital in bonds, it will earn us four to five per cent, and we
should probably have a surplus over of several thousand roubles,
with which we could buy a summer cottage in Finland--

VOITSKI. Hold on! Repeat what you just said; I don't think I
heard you quite right.

SEREBRAKOFF. I said we would invest the money in bonds and buy a
cottage in Finland with the surplus.

VOITSKI. No, not Finland--you said something else.

SEREBRAKOFF. I propose to sell this place.

VOITSKI. Aha! That was it! So you are going to sell the place?
Splendid. The idea is a rich one. And what do you propose to do