The valet, though of course he could not have expressed it all
like the prince, nevertheless understood, if not all, at least the main thing, as could be seen by his softened expression.
"If you have such a wish to smoke," he said, "it might be possible, if you do it quickly. Because he may ask for you suddenly, and you won't be here. There, under the stairway, you see, there's a door. As you go through the door, there's a little room to the right: you can smoke there, only open the vent window, because it's against the rules . . ."
But the prince had no time to go and smoke. A young man suddenly came into the anteroom with papers in his hands. The valet began to help him out of his fur coat. The young man cocked an eye at the prince.
"Gavrila Ardalionych," the valet began confidentially and almost familiarly, "this gentleman here presents himself as Prince Myshkin and the lady's relation, come by train from abroad with a bundle in his hands, only . . ."
The prince did not hear the rest, because the valet started whispering. Gavrila Ardalionovich listened attentively and kept glancing at the prince with great curiosity. Finally he stopped listening and approached him impatiently.
"You are Prince Myshkin?" he asked extremely amiably and politely. He was a very handsome young man, also of about twenty-eight, a trim blond, of above average height, with a small imperial, and an intelligent and very handsome face. Only his smile, for all its amiability, was somewhat too subtle; it revealed his somewhat too pearly and even teeth; his gaze, for all its cheerfulness and ostensible simple-heartedness, was somewhat too intent and searching.
"When he's alone he probably doesn't look that way, and maybe never laughs," the prince somehow felt.
The prince explained all he could, hurriedly, almost in the same way as he had explained to the valet earlier, and to Rogozhin earlier still. Gavrila Ardalionovich meanwhile seemed to be recalling something.
"Was it you," he asked, "who sent a letter to Elizaveta Prokofyevna about a year ago, from Switzerland, I believe?"
"Exactly so."
"In that case they know you here and certainly remember. You wish to see his excellency? I'll announce you presently . . . He'll be free presently. Only you . . . you must kindly wait in the reception room . . . Why is the gentleman here?" he sternly addressed the valet.
"I tell you, he didn't want to . . ."
At that moment the door of the office suddenly opened and some military man with a portfolio in his hand came through it, speaking loudly and bowing his way out.
"Are you there, Ganya?" a voice called from the office. "Come in, please!"
Gavrila Ardalionovich nodded to the prince and hastily went into the office.
About two minutes later the door opened again and the affable voice of Gavrila Ardalionovich rang out:
"Please come in, Prince!"
III
General Ivan Fyodorovich Epanchin was standing in the middle of his office, looking with extreme curiosity at the entering prince, and even took two steps towards him. The prince approached and introduced himself.
"So, sir," replied the general, "what can I do for you?"
"I don't have any pressing business; my purpose was simply to make your acquaintance. I wouldn't want to disturb you, since I don't know anything about your day or your arrangements . . . But I just got off the train . . . I've come from Switzerland . . ."
The general was about to smile, but thought better of it and stopped; then he thought more, narrowed his eyes, looked his guest over once again from head to foot, after which he quickly motioned him to a chair, sat down himself somewhat obliquely, and turned to the prince in impatient expectation. Ganya stood in the corner of the office, by the desk, sorting papers.
"In fact, I have little time for making acquaintances," said the general, "but since you, of course, have some purpose of your own . . ."
"I did anticipate," the prince interrupted, "that you would not fail to see some special purpose in my visit. But, by God, apart from the pleasure of making your acquaintance, I have no particular purpose at all."
"For me, too, of course, it is certainly an extreme pleasure, but amusement isn't all, you know, one sometimes happens to be busy . . . Besides, so far I'm unable to see between us any common . . . any, so to speak, reason . . ."
"There's no reason, indisputably, and, of course, very little in common. Because if I am Prince Myshkin and your spouse is from our family, that, naturally, is no reason. I understand that very well. But nevertheless, my whole pretext consists only in that. I haven't been in Russia for four years or so; and what was I when I left— all but out of my mind! I knew nothing then, and know still less now. I'm in need of good people; there's even one piece of business I have, and I don't know who to turn to. When I was in Berlin, I thought: 'They're almost my relations, I'll start with them; we might be useful to each other—they to me, and I to them—if they're good people.' And I'd heard you were good people."
"Much obliged, sir," the general was surprised. "Allow me to inquire where you're staying."
"I'm not staying anywhere yet."
"So you came to me straight from the train? And . . . with your luggage?"
"All the luggage I have is a little bundle of linen, and nothing else; I usually carry it with me. I'll have time to take a room in the evening."
"Then you still intend to take a room?"
"Oh, yes, of course."
"Judging by your words, I was of a mind that you had come straight to me."
"That could be, but not otherwise than by your invitation. Though, I confess, I wouldn't stay even then, not that there's any reason, but just ... by character."
"Well, that makes it opportune that I did not and do not invite you. Excuse me, Prince, but to clarify it all at once: since you and I have just concluded that there can be no talk between us of being related—though, naturally, I'd find it very flattering—it means that . . ."
"It means that I can get up and leave?" the prince rose slightly, laughing even somehow merrily, despite all the apparent embarrassment of his situation. "There, by God, General, though I have absolutely no practical knowledge either of local customs or of how people normally live here, things went with us just now as I thought they were certain to go. Well, maybe that's how it should be . . . And you also didn't answer my letter then . . . Well, good-bye and forgive me for bothering you."
The prince's gaze was so gentle at that moment, and his smile was so free of the least shade of any concealed hostility, that the