Anton Chekhov

“ You and your whole committee are badly involved in another thing, too. Didn't you borrow nineteen thousand roubles from the Bank without giving any security?"
"My goodness!" Avdeyev was genuinely astonished. "As though I were the only one to owe money to the bank! The whole city owes money. And then, talking conscientiously, was it I that really took the money? It was as good as given to me by Peter Semenych. 'Take it, and take it,' says he. 'If you don't take,' says he, 'that means that you don't trust the bank. ”

“ And the Secretary of the City Council, who was an educated man, and the only human being, as Avdeyev thought, who could help him, merely shrugged his shoulders and said:
"It's all your own fault. You shouldn't have been an ass."
All these troubles made the old man's leg grow still more numb, and failed to improve his digestion. When he grew weary of doing nothing, and poverty began to pinch him, he decided to go to his father, or to his brother, and enter the flour business. ”

“ The President of the City Bank, Peter Semenych, his bookkeeper, his assistant, and two of the directors were arrested during the night. On the following morning, the merchant Avdeyev, who was a member of the control committee of the Bank, said to his friends as they were chatting in the merchant's store:
"It must be the will of God. You can't get away from fate. Just now we are sitting here, eating caviar, and to-morrow we may be in prison. All sorts of things happen. Take Peter Semenych, for example . ”