"My dear sir!" he cried out to Ptitsyn in a thundering voice, "if you have indeed decided to sacrifice a venerable old man, your father, that is, your wife's father at least, honored by his sovereign, to a milksop and an atheist, I shall never set foot in your house again from this very hour. Choose, sir, choose immediately: either me, or this . . . screw! Yes, screw! I said it by accident, but he is a screw! Because he bores into my soul like a screw, and without any respect . . . like a screw!"
"Or a corkscrew?" Ippolit put in.
"No, not a corkscrew, because I'm a general to you, not a bottle. I have medals, medals of honor . . . and you've got a fig. Either him or me! Decide, sir, this minute, this very minute!" he again cried in frenzy to Ptitsyn. Here Kolya moved a chair for him, and he sank onto it almost in exhaustion.
"Really, it would be better for you ... to go to sleep," the dumbfounded Ptitsyn murmured.
"And what's more, he threatens!" Ganya said in a low voice to his sister.
"To sleep!" cried the general. "I am not drunk, my dear sir, and you offend me. I see," he went on, standing up again, "I see that everything is against me here, everything and everyone. Enough! I am leaving . . . But know, my dear sir, know . . ."
They did not let him finish and sat him down again; they began begging him to calm himself. Ganya, in fury, went to the far corner. Nina Alexandrovna trembled and wept.
"But what have I done to him? What is he complaining about?" cried Ippolit, baring his teeth.
"So you did nothing?" Nina Alexandrovna suddenly observed. "You especially should be ashamed and ... to torment an old man so inhumanly . . . and that in your position."
"First of all, what is this position of mine, madam! I respect you very much, precisely you, personally, but . . ."
"He's a screw!" the general shouted. "He bores into my soul and heart! He wants me to believe in atheism! Know, milksop, that you weren't even born yet when I was already showered with honors; and you are merely an envious worm, torn in two, coughing . . . and dying of spite and unbelief . . . And why did Gavrila bring you here? Everybody's against me, from strangers to my own son!
"Enough, you're starting a tragedy!" cried Ganya. "It would be better if you didn't go disgracing us all over town!"
"How have I disgraced you, milksop! You? I can only bring you honor, and not dishonor!"
He jumped up and they could no longer restrain him; but Gavrila Ardalionovich, too, had obviously broken loose.
"Look who's talking about honor!" he cried spitefully.
"What did you say?" the general thundered, turning pale and taking a step towards him.
"I need only open my mouth in order to . . ." Ganya screamed suddenly and did not finish. The two stood facing each other, shaken beyond measure, especially Ganya.
"Ganya, how can you!" cried Nina Alexandrovna, rushing to stop her son.
"What nonsense all around!" Varya snapped indignantly. "Enough, mother," she seized her.
"I spare you only for mother's sake," Ganya said tragically.
"Speak!" the general bellowed, totally beside himself. "Speak for fear of a father's curse . . . speak!"
"As if I'm afraid of your curse! Whose fault is it if you've been like a crazy man for the past eight days? Eight days, you see, I know it by the dates . . . Watch out, don't drive me to the limit: I'll tell everything . .. Why did you drag yourself to the Epanchins' yesterday? Calling yourself an old man, gray-haired, the father of a family! A fine one!"
"Shut up, Ganka!" cried Kolya. "Shut up, you fool!"
"But I, how have I insulted him?" Ippolit insisted, in what seemed like the same mocking tone. "Why does he call me a screw? Did you hear? He pesters me himself; just now he came and started talking about some Captain Eropegov. I have no wish for your company, General; I avoided you before, you know that. I have nothing to do with Captain Eropegov, don't you agree? I did not move here for the sake of Captain Eropegov. I merely voiced my opinion that this Captain Eropegov may never have existed at all. And he started kicking up dust."
"He undoubtedly never existed!" snapped Ganya.
But the general stood as if stunned and only looked around senselessly. His son's phrase struck him by its extreme frankness. For the first moment he was even at a loss for words. And at last, only when Ippolit burst out laughing at Ganya's reply and shouted: "Well, do you hear, your own son also says there was
no Captain Eropegov," did the old man babble, completely confounded:
"Kapiton Eropegov, not Captain . . . Kapiton ... a retired lieutenant-colonel, Eropegov . . . Kapiton."
"There was no Kapiton either!" Ganya was now thoroughly angry.
"Wh . . . why wasn't there?" mumbled the general, and color rose to his face.
"Well, enough!" Ptitsyn and Varya tried to pacify him.
"Shut up, Ganka!" Kolya cried again.
But the intercession seemed to have brought the general to his senses.
"How wasn't there? Why didn't he exist?" he menacingly turned on his son.
"There just wasn't. There wasn't, that's all, and there simply cannot be! So there. Leave me alone, I tell you."
"And this is my son . . . my own son, whom I . . . oh, God! Eropegov, Eroshka Eropegov never lived!"
"Well, so, now it's Eroshka, now it's Kapitoshka!" Ippolit put in.
"Kapitoshka, sir, Kapitoshka, not Eroshka! Kapiton, Captain Alexeevich, that is, Kapiton ... a lieutenant-colonel . . . retired . . . married to Marya . . . Marya Petrovna Su ... Su ... a friend and comrade . . . Sutugov, even as a junker. 6For him I shed ... I shielded him . . . killed. No Kapitoshka Eropegov! Never existed!"
The general was shouting in excitement, but in such a way that one might have thought the point went one way and the shouting another. True, at another time he would have borne something much more offensive than the news about the total non-existence of Kapiton Eropegov, would have shouted a little, started a scandal, lost his temper, but all the same in the end he would have withdrawn to his room upstairs and gone to bed. But now, owing to the extraordinary strangeness of the human heart, it so happened that precisely such an offense as the doubt of Eropegov made the cup run over. The old man turned purple, raised his arms, and shouted:
"Enough! My curse . . . away from this house! Nikolai, bring my bag, I'm going . . . away!"
He went out, hurrying and in extreme wrath. Nina Alexandrovna, Kolya, and Ptitsyn rushed after him.
"Well, what have you done now!" Varya said to her brother. "He may drag himself there again. Ah, what shame, what shame!"
"So don't go stealing!" Ganya cried, all but choking with spite; suddenly his glance met with Ippolit; Ganya almost began to shake. "And you, my dear sir," he cried, "ought to remember that you are not, after all, in your own house and ... are enjoying hospitality, instead of vexing an old man who has obviously lost his mind ..."
Ippolit also seemed to wince, but he immediately checked himself.
"I don't quite agree with you that your father has lost his mind," he replied calmly. "It seems to me, on the contrary, that his mind has been working much better lately, by God; don't you believe so? He has become so cautious, suspicious, keeps asking questions, weighs every word . . . He started talking with me about that Kapitoshka with some aim; imagine, he wanted to suggest to me . . ."
"Eh, the devil I care what he wanted to suggest to you! I ask you, sir, not to be clever and try to dodge with me!" Ganya shrieked. "If you also know the real reason why the old man is in such a state (and you've been spying so much in these five days here that you surely do know it), then you ought never to have vexed . . . the unfortunate man and tormented my mother by exaggerating the affair, because the whole affair is nonsense, just a drunken incident, nothing more, not even proved in any way, and I don't care a whit about it . . . But you have to go taunting and spying, because you're . . . you're . . ."