Indeed, Beaumont was an excellent match. He said that he intended to live the rest of his life in Russia because he looked upon it as his native land. He was a man of character; he was thirty years old, a self-made man; and he had a good situation. If he had been a Russian, Pólozof would have liked him to belong to the nobility.[1] But as he was a foreigner, this was of no consequence, especially as he was of French origin, and, above all, an American citizen. Among the Americans, a man who may be to-day a journeyman shoemaker, or a plowman, to-morrow will be a general, and the next day president; and after that he may be a lawyer, or in a counting-house. It is a peculiar people altogether; they care only for a man's money or his brains. This is the right way of looking at it," continued Pólozof. "I myself am that kind of man. I entered mercantile life; I married a merchant's widow. The main thing is money, and brains, because without brains you can't get any money. And this man is on the road to it. He will buy the factory, will become manager; then the firm will take him as a partner. And their firms are not like ours. He too will roll in his millions."
It is very possible that Pólozof's imagination about his son-in-law becoming a millionaire in the commercial line will not be realized any more than Marya Alekséyevna's imaginations in regard to her chosen son-in-law becoming a great monopolist were realized. But for all that, Beaumont was an excellent match for Katerina Vasílyevna.
But, after all, was not Pólozof mistaken in thinking that Beaumont was going to be his son-in-law? If the old man had a shadow of a doubt about this, it vanished when Beaumont, in the course of a fortnight, said to him, that the purchase of the factory might be delayed for several days, the delay was unavoidable; even if Mr. Lotter were not coming, it would take at least a week to bring it to a conclusion, and Mr. Lotter would not be in Petersburg for a week. "Before I was personally acquainted with you," said Beaumont, "I wanted to finish the business myself. Now it would not look well, because we are so well acquainted. In order that there should be no misunderstanding by and by, I have written about it to the firm to this effect: that during the business transaction I have made the acquaintance of the manager whose whole property is invested in the factory,
- ↑ Literally, to be a noble (dvoryanin).
