“You don’t mean it, Avdótya Nikoláyevna; you’re joking!”

“Joking, indeed! She’s ordered me to give it to the peasant.⁠ ⁠… Come, take your money and go!” said Dounyásha, without hiding her vexation. “Sorrow to one, joy to another!”

“It’s not a joke⁠ ⁠… fifteen hundred roubles!” said the aunt.

“It’s even more,” stated Dounyásha. “Well! You’ll have to offer a ten-kopeck candle to Saint Nicholas,” she added, with a sneer. “What! Can’t you come to your senses? If at least it had come to a poor man!⁠ ⁠… He has got plenty of his own.”

Doútlof at last grasped that it was not a joke, and began gathering together the notes he had spread out to count, and putting them back into the envelope. But his hands trembled, and he kept glancing at the maids to convince himself that it was not a joke.