Nikolai Kuzmitch

 
"Nikolai Kuzmitch," he said benevolently, and imagined himself sitting without the fur coat, thin and shabby on the horsehair sofa; "I do hope, Nikolai Kuzmitch," he said, "that you won't get a swelled head from your new fortune..."

In fact, he didn't make any changes in his modest, regular way of life, and he now spent his Sundays putting his accounts in order. But after a few weeks it became obvious that he was spending an incredible amount. I will have to economize, he thought. He got up earlier, he washed his face less thoroughly, he drank his tea standing up, he ran to the office and arrived much too early. He saved a little time everywhere. But when Sunday came around, there was nothing left of all this saving. The he realized that he had been duped.


And one ugly afternoon, he sat down in the corner of the sofa, waiting for the gentleman in the fur coat, from whom he meant to demand his time back. He would bolt the door and not let him out until he had forked over the whole amount. "In bills," he would say, "of ten years, if you don't mind." Four bills of ten and one of five, and the rest he could keep and go to hell with.


Ranier Maria Rilke The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge

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