In Two Moods by Vladimir Korolenko — Read

This story made at first no particular impression on me. I did not think that the failure of a business was any very great misfortune, especially in America. It happens there so often! But this was merely a momentary feeling. Of course, it was not a mere business concern for the accumulation of dollars. Behind that, without doubt, was something else, just the something which the half-American of my imagination would hate if he had a business office in Boston.

I now looked with hatred upon "that Ferapontyev" returning from his walk. So that was what he was -- a conventional old parasite, eating away two young lives, demanding of his own daughter at once infidelity and a false oath! To me she seemed an enchanted princess in the power of an old ogre.