"I had a thought myself, Kolya. I need to see your father ... on a certain matter . . . Let's go . . ."
XII
Kolya led the prince not far away, to Liteinaya, to a café and billiard parlor on the ground floor, with an entrance from the street. There, to the right, in the corner, in a private little room, Ardalion Alexandrovich had settled like an old-time habitué, a bottle on the table in front of him and, in fact, with the Independence Belgein his hands. He was expecting the prince. As soon as he saw him, he put the newspaper aside and began an ardent and verbose explanation, of which, however, the prince understood almost nothing, because the general was already nearly loaded. "I haven't got ten roubles," the prince interrupted, "but here's
twenty-five, have it broken for you and give me back fifteen, otherwise I'll be left without a penny myself."
"Oh, no question; and rest assured that this very hour . . ."
"Besides, I have something to ask you, General. Have you ever been to Nastasya Filippovna's?"
"I? Have I ever been? You say this to me? Several times, my dear, several times!" the general cried in a fit of self-satisfied and triumphant irony. "But I finally stopped it myself, because I did not wish to encourage an improper union. You saw it yourself, you were a witness this afternoon: I've done everything a father could do—but a meek and indulgent father; now a father of a different sort will come onstage, and then—we shall see whether the honored old soldier will gain the upper hand in this intrigue, or a shameless adventuress will get into the noblest of families."
"But I precisely wanted to ask you whether, as an acquaintance, you might not get me into Nastasya Filippovna's this evening? I absolutely must be there tonight; I have business; but I have no idea how to get in. I was introduced to her today, but all the same I wasn't invited: she's giving a party this evening. I'm prepared to overlook certain proprieties, however, and they can even laugh at me, if only I get in somehow."
"And you've hit squarely, squarely upon my own idea, my young friend," the general exclaimed rapturously. "I didn't summon you for a trifle!" he went on, picking up the money, however, and dispatching it into his pocket. "I summoned you precisely to invite you to accompany me on the march to Nastasya Filippovna, or, better, on the march against Nastasya Filippovna! General Ivolgin and Prince Myshkin! How will that seem to her! And I, in the guise of birthday courtesies, will finally pronounce my will—in a roundabout way, not directly, but it will be as if directly. Then Ganya himself will see what he must do: either an honored father and ... so to speak . . . the rest of it, or . . . But what will be, will be! Your idea is highly fruitful. At nine o'clock we'll set out, we still have time."
"Where does she live?"
"Far from here: by the Bolshoi Theater, Mrs. Mytovtsev's house, almost there in the square, on the second floor . . . She won't have a big gathering, despite the birthday, and they'll go home early..."
It had long been evening; the prince was still sitting, listening, and waiting for the general, who had started on an endless number of anecotes and never finished a single one of them. On the prince's
arrival, he had called for a new bottle and finished it only an hour later, then called for one more and finished that one. It must be supposed that in the meantime the general had managed to tell almost the whole of his story. Finally the prince got up and said he could not wait any longer. The general finished the last dregs of his bottle, got up, and started out of the room with very unsteady steps. The prince was in despair. He could not understand how he could have been so foolishly trusting. In fact, he had never trusted the general; he had counted on him only so as to get into Nastasya Filippovna's somehow, even if with a certain scandal, but he had not counted on an excessive scandaclass="underline" the general turned out to be decidedly drunk, extremely eloquent, and talked nonstop, with feeling, with a tear in his soul. Things constantly came round to the fact that, owing to the bad behavior of all the members of his family, everything was about to collapse, and it was time finally to put a stop to it. They finally came out to Liteinaya. The thaw was still going on; a dismal, warm, noxious wind whistled along the streets, carriages splashed through the mud, iron-shod trotters and nags struck the pavement ringingly. A dismal and wet crowd of pedestrians wandered along the sidewalks. Some were drunk.
"Do you see these lighted second floors?" said the general. "That is where all my comrades live, while I, I, who served and suffered more than all of them, I trudge on foot to the Bolshoi Theater, to the apartments of a dubious woman! A man with thirteen bullets in his chest . . . you don't believe me? And yet it was solely for me that Pirogov telegraphed to Paris and left besieged Sevastopol for a time, and Nélaton, the court physician in Paris, obtained a safe conduct in the name of science and came to besieged Sevastopol to examine me. 37The highest authorities know of it: Ah, it's that Ivolgin, the one with thirteen bullets! . . .' That's what they say, sir! Do you see this house, Prince? Here on the second floor lives my old comrade, General Sokolovich, with his most noble and numerous family. This house, with three more on Nevsky Prospect and two on Morskaya—that is the whole present circle of my acquaintance, that is, my own personal acquaintance. Nina Alexandrovna has long since resigned herself to circumstances. But I still go on remembering . . . and, so to speak, find repose in the cultivated circle of my former comrades and subordinates, who adore me to this day. This General Sokolovich (it's a rather long time, however, since I've been to see him and Anna Fyodorovna) . . . you know, my dear Prince, when you don't receive, you some-
how involuntarily stop visiting others as well. And yet . . . hm . . . it seems you don't believe . . . Though why shouldn't I introduce the son of my best friend and childhood companion to this charming family? General Ivolgin and Prince Myshkin! You'll meet an amazing girl, and not just one but two, even three, the ornaments of our capital and society: beauty, cultivation, tendency . . . the woman question, poetry—all this united in a happy, diversified mixture, not counting the dowry of at least eighty thousand in cash that each girl comes with, which never hurts, whatever the woman and social questions ... in short, I absolutely, absolutely must and am duty-bound to introduce you. General Ivolgin and Prince Myshkin!"
"At once? Now? But you've forgotten," the prince began.
"I've forgotten nothing, nothing, come along! This way, to this magnificent stairway. Surprising there's no doorkeeper, but . . . it's a holiday, and the doorkeeper is away. They haven't dismissed the drunkard yet. This Sokolovich owes all the happiness of his life and career to me, to me alone and no one else, but. . . here we are."
The prince no longer objected to the visit and obediently followed the general, so as not to vex him, in the firm hope that General Sokolovich and his whole family would gradually evaporate like a mirage and turn out to be nonexistent, and they could calmly go back down the stairs. But, to his horror, he began to lose this hope: the general was taking him up the stairs like someone who really had acquaintances there, and kept putting in biographical and topographical details full of mathematical precision. Finally, when they reached the second floor and stopped outside the door of a wealthy apartment, and the general took hold of the bellpull, the prince decided to flee definitively; but one odd circumstance stopped him for a moment.