Ugh!” The petty official wriggled. He positively shuddered. “And you know the deceased gentleman was ready to do for a man for ten roubles, let alone ten thousand,” he added, nodding to the prince.
Myshkin scrutinised Rogozhin with interest; the latter seemed paler than ever at that moment.
“Ready to do for a man!” repeated Rogozhin. “What do you know about it? He found it all out at once,” he went on, addressing Myshkin, “and Zalyozhev went gossiping about it to everybody. My father took me and locked me up upstairs and was at me for a whole hour. ‘This is only a preface,’ he said, ‘but I’ll come in to say good night to you!’ And what do you think? The old man went to Nastasya Filippovna’s, bowed down to the ground before her, wept and besought her; she brought out the box at last and flung it to him. ‘Here are your earrings, you old greybeard,’ she said, ‘and they are ten times more precious to me now since Parfyon faced such a storm to get them for me. Greet Parfyon Semyonovitch and thank him for me,’ she said. And meanwhile I’d obtained twenty roubles from Seryozha Protushin, and with my mother’s blessing set off by train to Pskov, and I arrived in a fever. The old women began reading the Lives of the Saints over me, and I sat there drunk. I spent my last farthing in the taverns and lay senseless all night in the street, and by morning I was delirious, and to make matters better the dogs gnawed me in the night. I had a narrow squeak.”
“Well, well, now Nastasya Filippovna will sing another tune,” the official chuckled, rubbing his hands. “What are earrings now, sir! Now we can make up for it with such earrings …”
“But if you say another word about Nastasya Filippovna, as there is a God above, I’ll thrash you, though you used to go about with Lihatchov!” cried Rogozhin, seizing him violently by the arm.
“Well, if you thrash me you won’t turn me away! Thrash me, that’s just how you’ll keep me! By thrashing me you’ll have put your seal on me … Why, here we are!”
They had in fact reached the station. Though Rogozhin said he had come away in secret, several men were waiting for him. They shouted and waved their caps to him.
“I say, Zalyozhev here too!” muttered Rogozhin, gazing at them with a triumphant and almost malicious-looking smile, and he turned suddenly to Myshkin. “Prince, I don’t know why I’ve taken to you. Perhaps because I’ve met you at such a moment, though I’ve met him too (he indicated Lebedyev) and I haven’t taken to him. Come and see me, prince. We’ll take off those gaiters of yours, we’ll put you into a first-rate fur coat, I’ll get you a first-class dresscoat, a white waistcoat, or what you like, I’ll fill your pockets with money! … we’ll go and see Nastasya Filippovna! Will you come?”
“Listen, Prince Lyov Nikolayevitch!” Lebedyev chimed in solemnly and impressively. “Don’t miss the chance, oh, don’t miss the chance!”
Prince Myshkin stood up, courteously held out his hand to Rogozhin and said cordially:
“I will come with the greatest of pleasure and thank you very much for liking me. I may come to-day even, if I’ve time. For I tell you frankly I’ve taken a great liking to you myself, I liked you particularly when you were telling about the diamond earrings. I liked you before that, too, though you look gloomy. Thank you, too, for the clothes and the fur coat you promise me, for I certainly shall need clothes and a fur coat directly. As for money, I have scarcely a farthing at the moment.”
“There will be money, there will be money by the evening, come!”
“There will, there will!” the official assented, “by evening, before sunset there will be!”
“And women, prince, are you very keen on them? Let me know to start with!”
“I, n-no! Ybu see… . Perhaps you don’t know that, owing to my illness, I know nothing of women.”
“Well, if that’s how it is,” cried Rogozhin, “you are a regular blessed innocent, and God loves such as you.”
“And the Lord God loves such as you,” the official repeated.
“And you follow me,” said Rogozhin to Lebedyev.
And they all got out of the carriage. Lebedyev had ended by gaining his point. The noisy group soon disappeared in the direction of Voznesensky Prospect. The prince had to go towards Liteyny. It was damp and rainy; Myshkin asked his way of passersby — it appeared that he had two miles to go, and he decided to take a cab.
CHAPTER 2
General EPANCHIN lived in a house of his own not far from Liteyny. Besides this magnificent house — five-sixths of its rooms were let in flats — he had another huge house in Sadovy Street, which was also a large source of revenue to him. He owned also a considerable and profitable estate close to Petersburg, and a factory of some sort in the district. In former days the general, as every one knew, had been a shareholder in government monopolies. Now he had shares and a considerable influence in the control of some well-established companies. He had the reputation of being a very busy man of large fortune and wide connexions. In certain positions he knew how to make himself indispensable; for instance, in his own department of the government.
Yfet it was known that Ivan Fyodorovitch Epanchin was a man of no education and the son of a simple soldier. The latter fact, of course, could only be to his credit; yet though the general was an intelligent man, he was not free from some very pardonable little weaknesses and disliked allusions to certain subjects. But he was unquestionably an intelligent and capable man. He made it a principle, for instance, not to put himself forward, to efface himself where necessary, and he was valued by many people just for his unpretentiousness, just because he always knew his place. But if only those who said this of him could have known what was passing sometimes in the soul of Ivan Fyodorovitch, who knew his place so well! Though he really had practical knowledge and experience and some very remarkable abilities, he preferred to appear to be carrying out the ideas of others rather than the promptings of his own intellect, to pose as a man “disinterestedly devoted” and — to fall in with the spirit of the age — a warmhearted Russian. There were some amusing stories told about him in this connexion; but the general was never disconcerted by these stories. Besides, he was always successful, even at cards, and he played for very high stakes and far from attempting to conceal this little, as he called it, weakness, which was pecuniarily and in other ways profitable to him, he intentionally made a display of it. He mixed in very varied society, though only, of course, with people of consequence. But he had everything before him, he had plenty of time, plenty of time for everything, and everything was bound to come in its due time. And in years, too, the general was what is called in the prime of life, fifty-six, not more, and we know that that is the very flower of manhood; the age at which real life begins. His good health, his complexion, his sound though black teeth, his sturdy, solid figure, his preoccupied air at his office in the morning and his goodhumoured countenance in the evening at cards or at “his grace’s” — all contributed to his success in the present and in the future, and strewed his excellency’s path with roses.
The general had a family of blooming children. All was not roses there, indeed, but there was much on which his excellency’s fondest hopes and plans had long been earnestly and deeply concentrated. And, after all, what plans are graver and more sacred than a father’s? What should a man cling to, if not to his family?
The general’s family
