Book 1, Chapter 3

The two boys, having rung the door-bell, entered the empty shop, which had shelves along the walls and photographic appliances on them, together with show-cases on the counters. A plain woman, with a kind face, came through the inner door and asked from behind the counter what they required.

“A nice frame, if you please, madam.”

“At what price?” asked the woman; she wore mittens on her swollen fingers with which she rapidly handled picture-frames of different shapes.

“These are fifty kopecks each; and these are a little more expensive. There is rather a pretty one, of quite a new style; one ruble and twenty kopecks.”

“All right, I will have this. But could not you make it cheaper? Let us say one ruble.”

“We don’t bargain in our shop,” said the shopkeeper with a dignified air.

“Well, I will take it,” said Mahin, and put the coupon on the counter. “Wrap up the frame and give me change. But please be quick. We must be off to the theater, and it is getting late.”

“You have plenty of time,” said the shopkeeper, examining the coupon very closely because of her shortsightedness.

“It will look lovely in that frame, don’t you think so?” said Mahin, turning to Mitia.

“Have you no small change?” asked the shop-woman.

“I am sorry, I have not. My father gave me that, so I have to cash it.”

“But surely you have one ruble twenty?”

“I have only fifty kopecks in cash. But what are you afraid of? You don’t think, I suppose, that we want to cheat you and give you bad money?”

“Oh, no; I don’t mean anything of the sort.”

“You had better give it to me back. We will cash it somewhere else.”

“How much have I to pay you back? Eleven and something.”

She made a calculation on the counter, opened the desk, took out a ten-rubles note, looked for change and added to the sum six twenty-kopecks coins and two five-kopeck pieces.

“Please make a parcel of the frame,” said Mahin, taking the money in a leisurely fashion.

“Yes, sir.” She made a parcel and tied it with a string.

Mitia only breathed freely when the door bell rang behind them, and they were again in the street.

“There are ten rubles for you, and let me have the rest. I will give it back to you.”

Mahin went off to the theater, and Mitia called on Grouchetsky to repay the money he had borrowed from him.

(Source: The Forged Coupon: And Other Stories, by Leo Tolstoy, 1912, Translated from the Russian by Herman Bernstein, published by Ogilvie Publishing Company, 57 Rose Street, New York, produced for Gutenberg.org by Judith Boss and David Widger, 2006.)