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.6 For 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.