The merchant would not give more, especially as Darya Alexandrovna, for the first time that winter insisting on her right to her own property, had refused to sign the receipt for the payment of the last third of the forest.

All his salary went on household expenses and in payment of petty debts that could not be put off.

There was positively no money.

This was unpleasant and awkward, and in Stepan Arkadyevitch's opinion things could not go on like this.

The explanation of the position was, in his view, to be found in the fact that his salary was too small.