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jobsearchtips02 · 4 years

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Following unpleasant start, huge Income Defense Program reveals signs of upholding economy

However they also state things would be even worse without the huge business loan forgiveness program, which Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) shepherded through Congress and then assisted safeguard throughout chaotic weeks of application.

Getting to this point strained the federal government, the banking industry and small companies, with many bad moves and pivots along the way as they tried to build a program from scratch. And the Trump administration vacillated hugely in between trying to rush money out the door and after that attempting to tighten guidelines, enraging lawmakers such as Rubio, puzzling borrowers and nearly frustrating banks, even those with small business competence.

” It was like stating, ‘I desire my locally owned farmers market to work like Walmart or Amazon,'” stated Alicia Wade of Oklahoma City’s Valliance Bank, which processed 178 loans the very first weekend the fund opened. “It’s not feasible.”

A rocky start

Confusion swallowed up the program from the start.

One week prior to the program started, a bank lobbyist group composed to the Treasury Department caution of a major defect.

Treasury was not preparing to waive rigorous criminal charges for lenders who did not thoroughly vet their new customers. The banking group alerted that leaving the guidelines in place would require a level of vetting they could not rapidly offer. “As currently imagined, Cares Act financing will just be supplied to banks’ current legal entity consumers,” specified the letter, which was gotten by The Washington Post. The PPP was established as part of the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (Cares) Act.

When the PPP started accepting applications on April 3, the bank lobbyists’ forecast proved true. Instead of covering all organisations that qualified, much of the funding went initially to the clients the banks already understood and trusted– consisting of big corporations– firing up a public firestorm that outraged 10s of countless entrepreneur still desperately waiting for funding.

This developed a logistical and public relations nightmare, with numerous smaller sized business sidelined while larger firms found simple access to the cash. Treasury needed to make repetitive modifications to the program and ultimately ask Congress for more money prior to many of the problems were straightened out.

2 months later on, the PPP has actually directed more than $530 billion to 4.5 million business, and economic experts, magnate, White Home officials and lawmakers from both celebrations think it helped support the economy. Due to the fact that the federal government has launched no in-depth information about how many jobs the program has actually saved, it’s still unclear whether it attained its primary objective of assigning the lion’s share of the money to employees.

The program is about to enter a brand-new phase, as much of the business that received loans will begin applying for loan forgiveness to determine whether they have to repay the money. The program will also face its first congressional hearing on Wednesday, when Rubio will call Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who had appeared doubtful about producing the program while the legislation was being prepared, and Small company Association head Jovita Carranza to affirm.

Rubio stated in an interview that part of his inquiry will focus on “some early regulatory decisions, made or not made, that could have offered a little bit of clearness on the front end and sort of avoided some of the issues that took place.”

‘ If I had a time device … ‘

A Number Of the Income Defense Program’s preliminary issues can be traced to its hurried production in the frenzied days and nights of settlement that resulted in the passage of the Cares Act, which was rushed together at breakneck speed to jail the economy’s sudden free-fall.

Congress developed the program in March with really loose limitations, an effort to give the Trump administration flexibility to spray billions of dollars across the economy as rapidly as possible to try to consist of a tidal bore of layoffs.

The Small Company Administration, the government’s smallest Cabinet-level firm, didn’t post the rules for the program till the night before it went live, a day when 1,363 individuals passed away of covid-19 and the numbers were on the rise. At agency head offices on launch day, the SBA’s software for processing applications consistently malfunctioned, creating a massive stockpile. Big banks, hesitant of inadvertently misusing taxpayer money, awaited more clarity from the federal government prior to they started providing. Neighborhood lenders asked employee to work overtime, however even the most successful ones state it was no place near enough.

Although the program was created so business with 500 or less staff members might tap approximately $10 million in forgivable loans, it was soon clear much larger business could access the program, as big chains consisting of Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse started revealing in securities filings that they had received millions in financing.

As one report after another came out about big, public firms getting cash, the National Federation of Independent Organisation asked policymakers to “put an immediate halt to this rubbish.”

” Openly traded business did not access this cash by themselves,” the group said April27 “The legislation did not have strong guardrails, leaving an opening for big business, and allowing large financial institutions to help their bigger customers gain access to cash planned for real small companies.”

Dealing with public reaction about concerns that big business were taking taxpayer money, Mnuchin prompted well-capitalized organisations to return the cash they had actually gotten and said all loans over $2 million would be examined.

The administration was likewise forced to ask Congress for more money, and legislators agreed to an additional $310 billion in April as part of a bigger bill that tried to make sure more of the money went to minority-owned businesses and underserved neighborhoods.

Rubio and Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), two sponsors of the program, say there are things they would have done differently. Although the very first $349 billion designated was more than initial drafts of the legislation required, Rubio said that in retrospection, it’s clear the program ought to have been funded at a higher level to begin with. That first swimming pool of cash was pursued just 13 days, leaving countless small-business owners struggling and furious with policymakers. More than 100,000 small businesses have closed completely given that the start of the pandemic.

Cardin stated Congress’s intent was for big chains to be able to get just one loan totaling $10 million, not multiple loans surpassing that amount, as taken place in a some circumstances.

Rubio said, in hindsight, Congress should have given the administration more direct guidelines, including the percentage of the loan that had to go to payroll.

” If I had a time device and could have seen everything that took place, we probably would have been more specific, and a few of the things that there was regulatory uncertainty about, that ultimately we had to await assistance from Treasury to compose rules about, I believe in hindsight, we most likely would have been more specific about,” he stated.

The dash for money

After starting with insufficient cash, the PPP now appears to have too much, as more than $130 billion has gone unspent for more than a month. The slowdown in borrowing needed extra modifications to loosen the guidelines. Last week, President Trump signed into law a brand-new piece of legislation that extends the amount of time companies have to utilize the loans and have them forgiven from 8 weeks to 24 weeks, and might cause need for the program to choose back up.

When the program started, the nation’s tourism and entertainment sectors had been mostly closed down for three weeks, as sports arenas, museums and concert venues had actually closed en masse in mid-March.

Small-business owners logged into their banks’ sites from the backs of their darkened dining establishments and the empty lobbies of their hotels. A number of them had no income. Some had actually sent their workers home, unable to pay them any longer.

” We began seeing enormous cancellations being available in,” stated Katen Patel, who owns an Econolodge, Finest Western and other hotels in Oregon. He laid off 70 percent of his personnel, who entered into about 4 million hospitality workers in the country who lost their jobs.

In the 6 days between the finalizing of the $2 trillion Cares Act and the morning that lending started, Small company Administration leaders asked Robert Scott, Great Lakes regional administrator, to come to Washington to work as director of a “war space” overseeing the rollout.

The SBA is used to offering aid to businesses after localized natural catastrophes such as twisters and typhoons. The cross-country scale of the coronavirus crisis was a completely various sort of disaster.

For numerous nights as the program got underway, Scott said he and coworkers, including Carranza, an SBA veteran and former UPS executive, remained in the workplace till 3 or 4 a.m., consuming food they bought from Costco.

The strategy was to cede much of the underwriting and approval process to banks, which would accept applications from their consumers and then forward qualifying customers to SBA for processing. The agency’s E-Tran software was supposed to quickly vet the applications for duplicates or overdue SBA debts, then authorize them.

When the system is working, stated Steve Bulger, administrator of the SBA’s Atlantic Area and acting administrator for its Mid-Atlantic Region, “it refers a couple of seconds and ‘boom,’ that application returns out.”

However the rollout was anything but smooth. Headquarters team member, led by a crew of 10 to 15 socially distanced officials on the seventh floor of the firm’s Washington head office, didn’t finish the rules until the night prior to the program’s launch, sending out information to the public at 6: 40 p.m. Thursday.

The hold-up prompted numerous big banks not to accept applications for hours the next early morning, even as their customers rushed to get to the front of the line for cash they had actually been informed was to be given on a first-come, first-served basis.

In district SBA offices nationwide, the regular call volume rapidly quadrupled. C.J. Castro, who runs the SBA office in Tampa, said even his cellphone “began calling at 7 in the morning and it didn’t stop till 10 o’clock during the night” for weeks afterward.

” When you hear folks on the other line in tears, and they do not know where to go, it leaves an impression,” Castro stated.

Desperate pleas for help

E-Tran, which normally vets loans from about 1,700 agency-approved lending institutions, was suddenly being asked to veterinarian loans from close to 5,000 lending institutions (more than 5,400 are presently approved). Banks nationwide grumbled that E-Tran kept crashing, preventing all of the freshly signed up loan providers from getting in candidates into the federal government system for last approval.

After a long haul, some business owners got annoyed and applied with a smaller lender, only to be informed by E-Tran that they were currently in the system with an approved loan from the initial bank, which hadn’t yet informed them or disbursed the cash, Castro said.

Eric Terrell, senior supervisor at the SBA office in Memphis, began getting 120 calls a day, lots of from stressed business owners who hadn’t spoken with their banks after using.

” You get call from entrepreneur who are crying, all the savings they had have gone out,” Terrell said. “You get other people, they’re so upset they use profanity. And I comprehend.”

By April 16, the very first $349 billion was gone. For the SBA, it was a speed often times greater than it usually ran. In a normal year, the agency approves $25 billion in such loans; since April 3, it has actually approved about $530 billion.

Within days of the fund running dry, another issue emerged, as dozens of openly traded companies reported receiving money. AutoNation, a Fortune 500 network of car dealers, gotten lots of loans from its Florida head office and received a minimum of $77 million. Ashford Group, a Dallas-based owner of 130 hotels, received a minimum of $76 million.

It stays unclear how many big hotel and restaurant chains may have made the most of the program, but openly traded companies in all got more than $1 billion in funding. The government has actually mostly declined to disclose any recipients of the program and has actually not said how much has actually been returned.

In an interview, Carranza acknowledged the frustration from Rubio and Cardin with getting information about the performance of the program, however said the concern had been getting money out the door to companies.

” Senator Rubio and Senator Cardin wanted those funds in the hands of small companies rapidly. Therefore that was my focus,” Carranza stated, adding information stability was likewise crucial and she attempted to provide information to the Small Business Committee as fast as possible. “We have actually been supplying information. At this point, it’s not adequate enough. However, we’re working extremely closely with [Rubio’s] workplace to help them realize exactly what the performance level is.”

After the protest, it fell to Treasury authorities to fix the issue.

Legislators had initially prepared to authorize even less money for the program, with early drafts requiring $100 billion, according to 3 individuals knowledgeable about internal discussions who spoke on the condition of privacy to share information of the personal negotiations.

Mnuchin appeared either lukewarm or hesitant about the effort and was more concentrated on the loan programs for airline companies and big corporations throughout the drafting of the legislation, two of these people stated. Publicly, Mnuchin has actually declared the program as an effective answer to the nation’s biggest slump because the Great Anxiety.

After the problems started to arise, the Treasury Department released a stream of changing and often confusing brand-new guidelines.

Continuous pressure, constant modifications

Mnuchin was under consistent pressure from Capitol Hill to make modifications. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) has actually complained to him in personal call about Treasury’s altering assistance on whether companies will deal with audits and potential sanctions if they abuse the money, stated two people aware of the conversations who spoke on the condition of privacy to share private conversations. (Collins decreased to comment about this through a spokesperson.)

The inadequate size of the financing produced additional problems. Fearful that the money would go out quickly, the administration had actually produced a new requirement– one not specified in the legislation Congress authorized– stipulating that firms could get loan forgiveness only if 75 percent of the help went to maintaining payrolls at precrisis levels. The rest needed to be spent on energies, lease or home loan interest. (Recently, this rule was altered and the new ratio is 60/40)

That suggested many firms could not take the loans with confidence that they would be forgiven. Restaurants that were still open for takeout and shipment needed money to pay food providers, but realized if they utilized PPP money for those costs, they would be forced to pay that part back, without knowing when they could go back to business as typical. And with their businesses closed for sit-down service, they didn’t require 100 percent of their staff back on the payroll, restaurateurs said.

Lobbyists for the dining establishments immediately took their problems to the White House and the Treasury Department, however without success. Now, about one third of food service and lodging organisations have less than one month of cash left, said Adam Ozimek, primary economic expert at Upwork, putting as numerous as 3 million restaurant tasks at risk.

” It was frankly mysterious, that they ‘d take that method since it straight opposes the program’s designated versatility,” said John Lettieri, president and president of the Economic Development Group, a nonpartisan public policy organization. “It works better for least-affected employers and worse for the most impacted, which is perverse.”

Some who were hesitant of the program early on have actually changed their tune. Regardless of criticizing the way public business used it, NFIB considers the program a “qualified success,” stated Kevin Kuhlman, the group’s vice president of federal government relations. He stated a recent NFIB study found 77 percent of small companies had looked for loans under the program, and 93 percent had been authorized.

Wade, the Oklahoma City lender, said her personnel worked 14- hour days when PPP began. She stated she was hoarse by the end of the first week, after going through applications with carpenters, specialists, restaurant owners and lots of others.

All in all, she stated, “I believe the program has actually worked, despite its ease of usage.”

from Job Search Tips https://jobsearchtips.net/following-unpleasant-start-huge-income-defense-program-reveals-signs-of-upholding-economy/

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readbookywooks · 8 years

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And in the Open Air

"THE air is fresh, but in my apartment it is not so in any sense of the word. Let us walk slowly, sir. I should be glad of your kind interest." "I too have something important to say to you," observed Alyosha, "only I don't know how to begin." "To be sure you must have business with me. You would never have looked in upon me without some object. Unless you come simply to complain of the boy, and that's hardly likely. And, by the way, about the boy: I could not explain to you in there, but here I will describe that scene to you. My tow was thicker a week ago - I mean my beard. That's the nickname they give to my beard, the schoolboys most of all. Well, your brother Dmitri Fyodorovitch was pulling me by my beard, I'd done nothing, he was in a towering rage and happened to come upon me. He dragged me out of the tavern into the market place; at that moment the boys were coming out of school, and with them Ilusha. As soon as he saw me in such a state he rushed up to me. 'Father,' he cried, 'father!' He caught hold of me, hugged me, tried to pull me away, crying to my assailant, 'Let go, let go, it's my father, forgive him!' - yes, he actually cried 'forgive him.' He clutched at that hand, that very hand, in his little hands and kissed it.... I remember his little face at that moment, I haven't forgotten it and I never shall!" "I swear," cried Alyosha, "that my brother will express his most deep and sincere regret, even if he has to go down on his knees in that same market-place.... I'll make him or he is no brother of mine! "Aha, then it's only a suggestion! And it does not come from him but simply from the generosity of your own warm heart. You should have said so. No, in that case allow me to tell you of your brother's highly chivalrous soldierly generosity, for he did give expression to it at the time. He left off dragging me by my beard and released me: 'You are an officer,' he said, 'and I am an officer, if you can find a decent man to be your second send me your challenge. I will give satisfaction, though you are a scoundrel.' That's what he said. A chivalrous spirit indeed! I retired with Ilusha, and that scene is a family record imprinted forever on Ilusha's soul. No, it's not for us to claim the privileges of noblemen. Judge for yourself. You've just been in our mansion, what did you see there? Three ladies, one a cripple and weak-minded, another a cripple and hunchback and the third not crippled but far too clever. She is a student, dying to get back to Petersburg, to work for the emancipation of the Russian woman on the banks of the Neva. I won't speak of Ilusha, he is only nine. I am alone in the world, and if I die, what will become of all of them? I simply ask you that. And if I challenge him and he kills me on the spot, what then? What will become of them? And worse still, if he doesn't kill me but only cripples me: I couldn't work, but I should still be a mouth to feed. Who would feed it and who would feed them all? Must I take Ilusha from school and send him to beg in the streets? That's what it means for me to challenge him to a duel. It's silly talk and nothing else." "He will beg your forgiveness, he will bow down at your feet in the middle of the marketplace," cried Alyosha again, with glowing eyes. "I did think of prosecuting him," the captain went on, "but look in our code, could I get much compensation for a personal injury? And then Agrafena Alexandrovna* sent for me and shouted at me: 'Don't dare to dream of it! If you proceed against him, I'll publish it to all the world that he beat you for your dishonesty, and then you will be prosecuted.' I call God to witness whose was the dishonesty and by whose commands I acted, wasn't it by her own and Fyodor Pavlovitch's? And what's more,' she went on, 'I'll dismiss you for good and you'll never earn another penny from me. I'll speak to my merchant too' (that's what she calls her old man) 'and he will dismiss you!' And if he dismisses me, what can I earn then from anyone? Those two are all I have to look to, for your Fyodor Pavlovitch has not only given over employing me, for another reason, but he means to make use of papers I've signed to go to law against me. And so I kept quiet, and you have seen our retreat. But now let me ask you: did Ilusha hurt your finger much? I didn't like to go into it in our mansion before him." * Grushenka. "Yes, very much, and he was in a great fury. He was avenging you on me as a Karamazov, I see that now. But if only you had seen how he was throwing stones at his schoolfellows! It's very dangerous. They might kill him. They are children and stupid. A stone may be thrown and break somebody's head." "That's just what has happened. He has been bruised by a stone to-day. Not on the head but on the chest, just above the heart. He came home crying and groaning and now he is ill." "And you know he attacks them first. He is bitter against them on your account. They say he stabbed a boy called Krassotkin with a penknife not long ago." "I've heard about that too, it's dangerous. Krassotkin is an official here, we may hear more about it." "I would advise you," Alyosha went on warmly, "not to send him to school at all for a time till he is calmer. and his anger is passed." "Anger!" the captain repeated, "that's just what it is. He is a little creature, but it's a mighty anger. You don't know all, sir. Let me tell you more. Since that incident all the boys have been teasing him about the 'wisp of tow.' Schoolboys are a merciless race, individually they are angels, but together, especially in schools, they are often merciless. Their teasing has stiffed up a gallant spirit in Ilusha. An ordinary boy, a weak son, would have submitted, have felt ashamed of his father, sir, but he stood up for his father against them all. For his father and for truth and justice. For what he suffered when he kissed your brother's hand and cried to him 'Forgive father, forgive him,' - that only God knows - and I, his father. For our children -not your children, but ours - the children of the poor gentlemen looked down upon by everyone - know what justice means, sir, even at nine years old. How should the rich know? They don't explore such depths once in their lives. But at that moment in the square when he kissed his hand, at that moment my Ilusha had grasped all that justice means. That truth entered into him and crushed him for ever, sir," the captain said hotly again with a sort of frenzy, and he struck his right fist against his left palm as though he wanted to show how "the truth" crushed Ilusha. "That very day, sir, he fell ill with fever and was delirious all night. All that day he hardly said a word to me, but I noticed he kept watching me from the corner, though he turned to the window and pretended to be learning his lessons. But I could see his mind was not on his lessons. Next day I got drunk to forget my troubles, sinful man as I am, and I don't remember much. Mamma began crying, too - I am very fond of mamma - well, I spent my last penny drowning my troubles. Don't despise me for that, sir, in Russia men who drink are the best. The best men amongst us are the greatest drunkards. I lay down and I don't remember about Ilusha, though all that day the boys had been jeering at him at school. 'Wisp of tow,' they shouted, 'your father was pulled out of the tavern by his wisp of tow, you ran by and begged forgiveness.' "On the third day when he came back from school, I saw he looked pale and wretched. 'What is it?' I asked. He wouldn't answer. Well, there's no talking in our mansion without mamma and the girls taking part in it. What's more, the girls had heard about it the very first day. Varvara had begun snarling. 'You fools and buffoons, can you ever do anything rational?' 'Quite so,' I said,'can we ever do anything rational?' For the time I turned it off like that. So in the evening I took the boy out for a walk, for you must know we go for a walk every evening, always the same way, along which we are going now - from our gate to that great stone which lies alone in the road under the hurdle, which marks the beginning of the town pasture. A beautiful and lonely spot, sir. Ilusha and I walked along hand in hand as usual. He has a little hand, his fingers are thin and cold - he suffers with his chest, you know. 'Father,' said he, 'father!' 'Well?' said I. I saw his eyes flashing. 'Father, how he treated you then!' 'It can't be helped, Ilusha,' I said. 'Don't forgive him, father, don't forgive him! At school they say that he has paid you ten roubles for it.' 'No Ilusha,' said I, 'I would not take money from him for anything.' he began trembling all over, took my hand in both his and kissed it again. 'Father,' he said, 'father, challenge him to a duel, at school they say you are a coward and won't challenge him, and that you'll accept ten roubles from him.' 'I can't challenge him to a duel, Ilusha,' I answered. And I told briefly what I've just told you. He listened. 'Father,' he said, anyway don't forgive it. When I grow up I'll call him out myself and kill him.' His eyes shone and glowed. And of course I am his father, and I had to put in a word: 'It's a sin to kill,' I said, 'even in a duel.' 'Father,' he said, 'when I grow up, I'll knock him down, knock the sword out of his hand, I'll fall on him, wave my sword over him and say: "I could kill you, but I forgive you, so there!"' You see what the workings of his little mind have been during these two days; he must have been planning that vengeance all day, and raving about it at night. "But he began to come home from school badly beaten, I found out about it the day before yesterday, and you are right, I won't send him to that school any more. I heard that he was standing up against all the class alone and defying them all, that his heart was full of resentment, of bitterness - I was alarmed about him. We went for another walk. 'Father,' he asked, 'are the rich people stronger than anyone else on earth?' 'Yes, Ilusha,' I said, 'there are no people on earth stronger than the rich.' 'Father,' he said, 'I will get rich, I will become an officer and conquer everybody. The Tsar will reward me, I will come back here and then no one will dare - ' Then he was silent and his lips still kept trembling. 'Father,' he said, 'what a horrid town this is.' 'Yes, Ilusha,' I said, 'it isn't a very nice town.' 'Father, let us move into another town, a nice one,' he said, 'where people don't know about us.' 'We will move, we will, Ilusha,' said I, 'only I must save up for it.' I was glad to be able to turn his mind from painful thoughts, and we began to dream of how we would move to another town, how we would buy a horse and cart. 'We will put mamma and your sisters inside, we will cover them up and we'll walk, you shall have a lift now and then, and I'll walk beside, for we must take care of our horse, we can't all ride. That's how we'll go.' He was enchanted at that, most of all at the thought of having a horse and driving him. For of course a Russian boy is born among horses. We chattered a long while. Thank God, I thought, I have diverted his mind and comforted him. "That was the day before yesterday, in the evening, but last night everything was changed. He had gone to school in the morning, he came back depressed, terribly depressed. In the evening I took him by the hand and we went for a walk; he would not talk. There was a wind blowing and no sun, and a feeling of autumn; twilight was coming on. We walked along, both of us depressed. 'Well, my boy,' said I, 'how about our setting off on our travels?' I thought I might bring him back to our talk of the day before. He didn't answer, but I felt his fingers trembling in my hand. Ah, I thought, it's a bad job; there's something fresh. We had reached the stone where we are now. I sat down on the stone. And in the air there were lots of kites flapping and whirling. There were as many as thirty in sight. Of course, it's just the season for the kites. 'Look, Ilusha,' said I, 'it's time we got out our last year's kite again. I'll mend it; where have you put it away?' My boy made no answer. He looked away and turned sideways to me. And then a gust of wind blew up the sand. He suddenly fell on me, threw both his little arms round my neck and held me tight. You know, when children are silent and proud, and try to keep back their tears when they are in great trouble and suddenly break down, their tears fall in streams. With those warm streams of tears, he suddenly wetted my face. He sobbed and shook as though he were in convulsions, and squeezed up against me as I sat on the stone. 'Father,' he kept crying, 'dear father, how he insulted you!' And I sobbed too. We sat shaking in each other's arms. 'Ilusha,' I said to him, 'Ilusha, darling.' No one saw us then. God alone saw us; I hope He will record it to my credit. You must thank your brother, Alexey Fyodorovitch. No, sir, I won't thrash my boy for your satisfaction." He had gone back to his original tone of resentful buffoonery. Alyosha felt, though, that he trusted him, and that if there had been someone else in his, Alyosha's place, the man would not have spoken so openly and would not have told what he had just told. This encouraged Alyosha, whose heart was trembling on the verge of tears. "Ah, how I would like to make friends with your boy!" he cried. "If you could arrange it - " "Certainly, sir," muttered the captain. "But now listen to something quite different!" Alyosha went on. "I have a message for you. That same brother of mine, Dmitri, has insulted his betrothed, too, a noble-hearted girl of whom you have probably heard. I have a right to tell you of her wrong; I ought to do so, in fact, for, hearing of the insult done to you and learning all about your unfortunate position, she commissioned me at once - just now - to bring you this help from her - but only from her alone, not from Dmitri, who has abandoned her. Nor from me, his brother, nor from anyone else, but from her, only from her! She entreats you to accept her help....You have both been insulted by the same man. She thought of you only when she had just received a similar insult from him- similar in its cruelty, I mean. She comes like a sister to help a brother in misfortune.... She told me to persuade you to take these two hundred roubles from her, as from a sister, knowing that you are in such need. No one will know of it, it can give rise to no unjust slander. There are the two hundred roubles, and I swear you must take them unless -unless all men are to be enemies on earth! But there are brothers even on earth.... You have a generous heart... you must see that, you must," and Alyosha held out two new rainbow-coloured hundred-rouble notes. They were both standing at the time by the great stone close to the fence, and there was no one near. The notes seemed to produce a tremendous impression on the captain. He started, but at first only from astonishment. Such an outcome of their conversation was the last thing he expected. Nothing could have been farther from his dreams than help from anyone - and such a sum! He took the notes, and for a minute he was almost unable to answer, quite a new expression came into his face. "That for me? So much money - two hundred roubles! Good heavens! Why, I haven't seen so much money for the last four years! Mercy on us! And she says she is a sister.... And is that the truth?" "I swear that all I told you is the truth,"cried Alyosha. The captain flushed red. "Listen, my dear, listen. If I take it, I shan't be behaving like a scoundrel? In your eyes, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I shan't be a scoundrel? No, Alexey Fyodorovitch, listen, listen," he hurried, touching Alyosha with both his hands. "You are persuading me to take it, saying that it's a sister sends it, but inwardly, in your heart won't you feel contempt for me if I take it, eh?" "No, no, on my salvation I swear I shan't! And no one will ever know but me - I, you and she, and one other lady, her great friend." "Never mind the lady! Listen, Alexey Fyodorovitch, at a moment like this you must listen, for you can't understand what these two hundred roubles mean to me now." The poor fellow went on rising gradually into a sort of incoherent, almost wild enthusiasm. He was thrown off his balance and talked extremely fast, as though afraid he would not be allowed to say all he had to say. "Besides its being honestly acquired from a 'sister,' so highly respected and revered, do you know that now I can look after mamma and Nina, my hunchback angel daughter? Doctor Herzenstube came to me in the kindness of his heart and was examining them both for a whole hour. 'I can make nothing of it,' said he, but he prescribed a mineral water which is kept at a chemist's here. He said it would be sure to do her good, and he ordered baths, too, with some medicine in them. The mineral water costs thirty copecks, and she'd need to drink forty bottles perhaps: so I took the prescription and laid it on the shelf under the ikons, and there it lies. And he ordered hot baths for Nina with something dissolved in them, morning and evening. But how can we carry out such a cure in our mansion, without servants, without help, without a bath, and without water? Nina is rheumatic all over, I don't think I told you that. All her right side aches at night, she is in agony, and, would you believe it, the angel bears it without groaning for fear of waking us. We eat what we can get, and she'll only take the leavings, what you'd scarcely give to a dog. 'I am not worth it, I am taking it from you, I am a burden on you,' that's what her angel eyes try to express. We wait on her, but she doesn't like it. 'I am a useless cripple, no good to anyone.' As though she were not worth it, when she is the saving of all of us with her angelic sweetness. Without her, without her gentle word it would be hell among us! She softens even Varvara. And don't judge Varvara harshly either, she is an angel too, she, too, has suffered wrong. She came to us for the summer, and she brought sixteen roubles she had earned by lessons and saved up, to go back with to Petersburg in September, that is now. But we took her money and lived on it, so now she has nothing to go back with. Though indeed she couldn't go back, for she has to work for us like a slave. She is like an overdriven horse with all of us on her back. She waits on us all, mends and washes, sweeps the floor, puts mamma to bed. And mamma is capricious and tearful and insane! And now I can get a servant with this money, you understand, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I can get medicines for the dear creatures, I can send my student to Petersburg, I can buy beef, I can feed them properly. Good Lord, but it's a dream!" Alyosha was delighted that he had brought him such happiness and that the poor fellow had consented to be made happy. "Stay, Alexey Fyodorovitch, stay," the captain began to talk with frenzied rapidity, carried away by a new day-dream. "Do you know that Ilusha and I will perhaps really carry out our dream. We will buy a horse and cart, a black horse, he insists on its being black, and we will set off as we pretended the other day. I have an old friend, a lawyer in K. province, and I heard through a trustworthy man that if I were to go he'd give me a place as clerk in his office, so, who knows, maybe he would. So I'd just put mamma and Nina in the cart, and Ilusha could drive, and I'd walk, I'd walk.... Why, if I only succeed in getting one debt paid that's owing me, I should have perhaps enough for that too!" "There would be enough!" cried Alyosha. "Katerina Ivanovna will send you as much more as you need, and you know, I have money too, take what you want, as you would from a brother, from a friend, you can give it back later.... (You'll get rich. you'll get rich!) And you know you couldn't have a better idea than to move to another province! It would be the saving of you, especially of your boy and you ought to go quickly, before the winter, before the cold. You must write to us when you are there, and we will always be brothers... No, it's not a dream!" Alyosha could have hugged him, he was so pleased. But glancing at him he stopped short. The man was standing with his neck outstretched and his lips protruding, with a pale and frenzied face. His lips were moving as though trying to articulate something; no sound came, but still his lips moved. It was uncanny. "What is it?" asked Alyosha, startled. "Alexey Fyodorovitch... I... you," muttered the captain, faltering, looking at him with a strange, wild, fixed stare, and an air of desperate resolution. At the same time there was a sort of grin on his lips. "I... you, sir... wouldn't you like me to show you a little trick I know?" he murmured, suddenly, in a firm rapid whisper, his voice no longer faltering. "What trick?" "A pretty trick," whispered the captain. His mouth was twisted on the left side, his left eye was screwed up. He still stared at Alyosha. "What is the matter? What trick?" Alyosha cried, now thoroughly alarmed. "Why, look," squealed the captain suddenly, and showing him the two notes which he had been holding by one corner between his thumb and forefinger during the conversation, he crumpled them up savagely and squeezed them tight in his right hand. "Do you see, do you see?" he shrieked, pale and infuriated. And suddenly flinging up his hand, he threw the crumpled notes on the sand. "Do you see?" he shrieked again, pointing to them. "Look there!" And with wild fury he began trampling them under his heel, gasping and exclaiming as he did so: "So much for your money! So much for your money! So much for your money! So much for your money!" Suddenly he darted back and drew himself up before Alyosha, and his whole figure expressed unutterable pride. "Tell those who sent you that the wisp of tow does not sell his honour," he cried, raising his arm in the air. Then he turned quickly and began to run; but he had not run five steps before he turned completely round and kissed his hand to Alyosha. He ran another five paces and then turned round for the last time. This time his face was not contorted with laughter, but quivering all over with tears. In a tearful, faltering, sobbing voice he cried: "What should I say to my boy if I took money from you for our shame?" And then he ran on without turning. Alyosha looked after him, inexpressibly grieved. Oh, he saw that till the very last moment the man had not known he would crumple up and fling away the notes. He did not turn back. Alyosha knew he would not. He would not follow him and call him back, he knew why. When he was out of sight, Alyosha picked up the two notes. They were very much crushed and crumpled, and had been pressed into the sand, but were uninjured and even rustled like new ones when Alyosha unfolded them and smoothed them out. After smoothing them out, he folded them up, put them in his pocket and went to Katerina Ivanovna to report on the success of her commission.

#BrothersKaramazov

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