Gania and his mother went to live with Varia and Ptitsin immediately after the latter's wedding, while the general was housed in a
debtor's prison by reason of certain IOU's given to the captain's widow under the impression that they would never be formally used against him.
If a man issues more than he can redeem, the government pays his creditors in full and the
debtor works out the amount upon the farms or in mines, which are all owned by the government.
He said that no doubt his
debtor had told the truth, for he believed him to be an honest man and a good Christian, and he himself must have forgotten when and how he had given him back the crowns; and that from that time forth he would make no further demand upon him.
We sat before a little fire, with two bricks put within the rusted grate, one on each side, to prevent its burning too many coals; until another
debtor, who shared the room with Mr.
Next he asked me some questions about YOU; saying that he had heard of you as a man of good principle, and that since he was unwilling to remain your
debtor, would a sum of five hundred roubles repay you for all you had done for me?
I remained his
debtor. I should be sorry if my conscience, insisting on a rigid attention to the matter in hand, forced me to dismiss him in a couple of lines.
I do not remember how I got the money to buy them; to be sure it was no great sum; but it must have been given me out of the sums we were all working so hard to make up for the debt, and the interest on the debt (that is always the wicked pinch for the
debtor!), we had incurred in the purchase of the newspaper which we lived by, and the house which we lived in.
This therefore he resolved to do, whatever misery it cost him, and to devote himself to her, from that great principle of justice, by which the laws of some countries oblige a
debtor, who is no otherwise capable of discharging his debt, to become the slave of his creditor.
It is a very onerous business, this of being served, and the
debtor naturally wishes to give you a slap.
But, whosoever goes into Marshalsea Place, turning out of Angel Court, leading to Bermondsey, will find his feet on the very paving-stones of the extinct Marshalsea jail; will see its narrow yard to the right and to the left, very little altered if at all, except that the walls were lowered when the place got free; will look upon rooms in which the
debtors lived; and will stand among the crowding ghosts of many miserable years.
George's Church, and on the same side of the way, stands, as most people know, the smallest of our
debtors' prisons, the Marshalsea.
Those who are creditors, and those who are
debtors, fall under a like discrimination.