Mary13
August 21, 2017, 11:35pm
157
VeryHappy:
It is also in the same paragraph that he returns the gold coin he had had in his pocket (to pay the undertaker) to the leg of the desk, “where it would remain untouched for another twenty-eight years.” I am still somewhat confused about how the money thing happened – right before he intends to kill himself, he settles his accounts, through the Greek fellow – but later, when he figures out how to help Sofia leave, “for the first time in almost thirty years [he] opened one of the hidden doors in the legs of the Grand Duke’s desk.” So I’m not sure how the gold coins were turned into paying his expenses during the ensuing years, but again – I’m being too practical!
My guess is that once he decides not to kill himself, he no longer needs to access the gold coins – because from then on, he lives on wages earned working at the Boyarsky.