has any orders of merit; I bet he has the Anna in his buttonhole and
that he puts it on when he goes to dine with contractors or merchants.
He will be sure to have it for his wedding, too! Enough of him, confound
him!
"Well,... mother I don't wonder at, it's like her, God bless her, but
how could Dounia? Dounia darling, as though I did not know you! You were
nearly twenty when I saw you last: I understood you then. Mother writes
that 'Dounia can put up with a great deal.' I know that very well. I
knew that two years and a half ago, and for the last two and a half
years I have been thinking about it, thinking of just that, that 'Dounia
can put up with a great deal.' If she could put up with Mr. Svidrigailov
and all the rest of it, she certainly can put up with a great deal. And
now mother and she have taken it into their heads that she can put up
with Mr. Luzhin, who propounds the theory of the superiority of
wives raised from destitution and owing everything to their husband's
bounty--who propounds it, too, almost at the first interview. Granted
that he 'let it slip,' though he is a sensible man, (yet maybe it
was not a slip at all, but he meant to make himself clear as soon as
possible) but Dounia, Dounia? She understands the man, of course, but
she will have to live with the man. Why! she'd live on black bread
and water, she would not sell her soul, she would not barter her moral
freedom for comfort; she would not barter it for all Schleswig-Holstein,
much less Mr. Luzhin's money. No, Dounia was not that sort when I knew
her and... she is still the same, of course! Yes, there's no denying,
the Svidrigailovs are a bitter pill! It's a bitter thing to spend one's
life a governess in the provinces for two hundred roubles, but I know
she would rather be a nigger on a plantation or a Lett with a German
master than degrade her soul, and her moral dignity, by binding herself
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