"Forgive me, Prince," he cried hotly, suddenly changing his abusive tone to extreme politeness, "for God's sake, forgive me! You see what trouble I'm in! You know almost nothing yet, but if you knew everything, you would probably excuse me at least a little; though, naturally, I'm inexcusable . . ."
"Oh, but I don't need such big excuses," the prince hastened to reply. "I do understand that you're very displeased and that's why you're abusive. Well, let's go to your place. It's my pleasure . . ."
"No, it's impossible to let him go like that," Ganya thought to himself, glancing spitefully at the prince as they went. "The rogue got it all out of me and then suddenly took off his mask . . . That means something. We'll see! Everything will be resolved, everything, everything! Today!"
They were already standing outside his house.
VIII
Ganechka's apartment was on the third floor, up a rather clean, bright, and spacious stairway, and consisted of six or seven rooms, large and small, quite ordinary, incidentally, but in any case not at all what the pocket of an official with a family, even on a salary of two thousand roubles, could afford. But it was intended for keeping tenants with board and services, and had been taken by Ganya and his family no more than two months earlier, to the greatest displeasure of Ganya himself, on the insistent demand of Nina Alexandrovna and Varvara Ardalionovna, who wished to be useful in their turn and to increase the family income at least a little. Ganya scowled and called keeping tenants an outrage; after that it was as if he began to be ashamed in society, where he was in the habit of appearing as a young man of a certain brilliance and with prospects. All these concessions to fate and all this vexatious crowding—all of it deeply wounded his soul. For some time now, every little thing had begun to annoy him beyond measure or proportion, and if he still agreed for a time to yield and endure, it was only because he had already resolved to change and alter it all within the shortest space of time. And yet this very change, this way out that he had settled on, was no small task— a task the imminent solution of which threatened to be more troublesome and tormenting than all that had gone before it.
The apartment was divided by a corridor that started right from the front hall. On one side of the corridor were the three rooms that were to be let to "specially recommended" tenants; besides that, on the same side of the corridor, at the very end of it, near the kitchen, was a fourth room, smaller than the others, which housed the retired General Ivolgin himself, the father of the family, who slept on a wide couch and was obliged to go in and out of the apartment through the kitchen and the back door. The same little room also housed Gavrila Ardalionovich's thirteen-year-old brother, the schoolboy Kolya. He, too, was destined to be cramped, to study and sleep there on another very old, narrow, and short couch, covered with a torn sheet, and, above all, to tend to and look afterhis father, who was more and more unable to do without that. The prince was given the middle one of the three rooms; the first, to the right, was occupied by Ferdyshchenko, and the third,
to the left, was still vacant. But first of all Ganya took the prince to the family side. This family side consisted of a large room that was turned, when needed, into a dining room, of a drawing room, which was, however, a drawing room only during the daytime, but in the evening turned into Ganya's study and bedroom, and, finally, of a third room, small and always closed: this was the bedroom of Nina Alexandrovna and Varvara Ardalionovna. In short, everything in this apartment was cramped and squeezed; Ganya only gritted his teeth to himself; though he may have wished to be respectful to his mother, it was evident the moment one stepped into the place that he was the great tyrant of the family.
Nina Alexandrovna was not alone in the drawing room, Varvara Ardalionovna was sitting with her; they were both busy knitting as they talked with a visitor, Ivan Petrovich Ptitsyn. Nina Alexandrovna seemed to be about fifty, with a thin, pinched face and a deep darkness under her eyes. She looked sickly and somewhat woebegone, but her face and gaze were quite pleasant; her first words betokened a serious character and one filled with genuine dignity. Despite her woebegone look, one could sense firmness and even resolution in her. She was dressed extremely modestly, in something dark and quite old-womanish, but her ways, her conversation, her whole manner betrayed a woman who had seen better society.
Varvara Ardalionovna was a young lady of about twenty-three, of average height, rather thin, with a face which, while not really beautiful, contained in itself the mystery of being likable without beauty and of attracting to the point of passion. She resembled her mother very much, and was even dressed almost like her mother, from a total indifference to dressing up. The look of her gray eyes could on occasion be very gay and tender, though it was most often grave and pensive, sometimes even too much so, especially of late. Firmness and resolution could be seen in her face, too, but one sensed that this firmness could be even more energetic and enterprising than in her mother. Varvara Ardalionovna was rather hot-tempered, and her brother sometimes even feared that hot-temperedness. Ivan Petrovich Ptitsyn, the visitor who was now sitting with them, also feared it. He was still a rather young man, under thirty, modestly but finely dressed, with pleasant but somehow much too staid manners. His dark blond beard indicated that he was not in government service. 27He was capable of intelligent and interesting conversation, but was more often silent. Generally
he even made an agreeable impression. He was clearly not indifferent to Varvara Ardalionovna and did not hide his feelings. Varvara Ardalionovna treated him amiably, but delayed in answering some of his questions, and even disliked them; Ptitsyn, however, was far from discouraged. Nina Alexandrovna was affectionate with him, and lately had even begun to trust him in many things. It was known, however, that his specific occupation was making money by giving short-term loans at interest on more or less sure pledges. He and Ganya were great friends.
After a thorough but curt introduction from Ganya (who greeted his mother rather drily, did not greet his sister at all, and immediately took Ptitsyn somewhere out of the room), Nina Alexandrovna said a few kind words to the prince and told Kolya, who peeped in at the door, to take him to the middle room. Kolya was a boy with a merry and rather sweet face, and a trustful and simple-hearted manner.
"Where's your luggage?" he asked, leading the prince into his room.
"I have a little bundle; I left it in the front hall."
"I'll bring it right away. All we have for servants are the cook and Matryona, so I have to help, too. Varya supervises everything and gets angry. Ganya says you came today from Switzerland?"
"Yes."
"Is it nice in Switzerland?"
"Very."
"Mountains?" Yes.
"I'll lug your bundles here right away."
Varvara Ardalionovna came in.
"Matryona will make your bed now. Do you have a suitcase?"
"No, a bundle. Your brother went to get it; it's in the front hall."
"There's no bundle there except this little one; where did you put it?" asked Kolya, coming back into the room.
"But there's nothing except that," announced the prince, taking his bundle.
"Aha! And I thought Ferdyshchenko might have filched it."
"Don't blather," Varya said sternly. She also spoke quite drily with the prince and was barely polite with him.
" Chère Babette,you might treat me a little more gently, I'm not Ptitsyn."