"Hounded!" Rogozhin repeated. "What do you know?
He found out all about it at once," he continued to the prince, "and Zalyozhev also went blabbing to everybody he met.
The old man took me and locked me upstairs, and admonished me for a whole hour.
'I'm just getting you prepared now,' he said. 'I'll come back later to say good night.'
And what do you think?
The old gray fellow went to Nastasya Filippovna, bowed to the ground before her, pleaded and wept. She finally brought the box and threw it at him:
'Here are your earrings for you, graybeard, and now they're worth ten times more to me, since Parfyon got them under such a menace.
Give my regards to Parfyon Semyonych,' she says, 'and thank him for me.'
Well, and meanwhile, with my mother's blessing, I got twenty roubles from Seryozhka Protushin and went by train to Pskov, and arrived there in a fever. The old women started reading prayers at me, and I sat there drunk, then went and spent my last money in the pot-houses, lay unconscious in the street all night, and by morning was delirious, and the dogs bit me all over during the night.
I had a hard time recovering."
"Well, well, sir, now our Nastasya Filippovna's going to start singing!" the clerk tittered, rubbing his hands. "Now, my good sir, it's not just pendants!
Now we'll produce such pendants . . ."
"If you say anything even once about Nastasya Filippovna, by God, I'll give you a whipping, even if you did go around with Likhachev!" cried Rogozhin, seizing him firmly by the arm.
"If you whip me, it means you don't reject me!
Whip me!
Do it and you put your mark on me . . . But here we are!"
Indeed, they were entering the station.
Though Rogozhin said he had left secretly, there were several people waiting for him.
They shouted and waved their hats.
"Hah, Zalyozhev's here, too!" Rogozhin muttered, looking at them with a triumphant and even as if spiteful smile, and he suddenly turned to the prince. "Prince, I don't know why I've come to love you.
Maybe because I met you at such a moment, though I met him, too" (he pointed to Lebedev), "and don't love him.
Come and see me, Prince.
We'll take those wretched gaiters off you; I'll dress you in a top-notch marten coat; I'll have the best of tailcoats made for you, a white waistcoat, or whatever you like; I'll stuff your pockets with money, and . . . we'll go to see Nastasya Filippovna!
Will you come or not?"
"Hearken, Prince Lev Nikolaevich!" Lebedev picked up imposingly and solemnly.
"Ah, don't let it slip away!
Don't let it slip away!"
Prince Myshkin rose a little, courteously offered Rogozhin his hand, and said affably:
"I'll come with the greatest pleasure, and I thank you very much for loving me.
I may even come today, if I have time.
Because, I'll tell you frankly, I like you very much, and I especially liked you when you were telling about the diamond pendants.
Even before the pendants I liked you, despite your gloomy face.
I also thank you for promising me the clothes and a fur coat, because in fact I'll need some clothes and a fur coat soon.
And I have almost no money at the present moment."
"There'll be money towards evening—come!"
"There will be, there will be," the clerk picked up, "towards evening, before sundown, there will be."
"And are you a great fancier of the female sex, Prince?
Tell me beforehand!"
"N-n-no!
I'm . . . Maybe you don't know, but because of my inborn illness, I don't know women at all."
"Well, in that case," Rogozhin exclaimed, "you come out as a holy fool, Prince, and God loves your kind!"
"The Lord God loves your kind," the clerk picked up.
"And you come with me, pencil pusher," Rogozhin said to Lebedev, and they all got off the train.
Lebedev ended up with what he wanted.
Soon the noisy band withdrew in the direction of Voznesensky Prospect.
The prince had to turn towards Liteinaya Street.
It was damp and wet; the prince inquired of passersby—to reach the end of his route he had to go some two miles, and he decided to hire a cab.
II
General Epanchin lived in his own house off Liteinaya, towards the Cathedral of the Transfiguration.
Besides this (excellent) house, five-sixths of which was rented out, General Epanchin owned another enormous house on Sadovaya Street, which also brought him a large income.