"Let's go in, it's all right," the general murmured to the prince, still innocently laughing it off.
But it was not all right.
As soon as they went through the dark and low front hall into the narrow drawing room, furnished with a half-dozen wicker chairs and two card tables, the hostess immediately started carrying on as if by rote in a sort of lamenting and habitual voice:
"And aren't you ashamed, aren't you ashamed of yourself, barbarian and tyrant of my family, barbarian and fiend!
He's robbed me clean, sucked me dry, and he's still not content!
How long will I put up with you, you shameless and worthless man!"
"Marfa Borisovna, Marfa Borisovna!
This... is Prince Myshkin.
General Ivolgin and Prince Myshkin," the general murmured, trembling and at a loss.
"Would you believe," the captain's widow suddenly turned to the prince, "would you believe that this shameless man hasn't spared my orphaned children! He's stolen everything, filched everything, sold and pawned everything, left nothing.
What am I to do with your promissory notes, you cunning and shameless man?
Answer, you sly fox, answer me, you insatiable heart: with what, with what am I to feed my orphaned children?
Here he shows up drunk, can't stand on his feet . . . How have I angered the Lord God, you vile and outrageous villain, answer me?"
But the general had other things on his mind.
"Marfa Borisovna, twenty-five roubles ... all I can do, with the help of a most noble friend.
Prince!
I was cruelly mistaken!
Such is . . . life . . . And now . . . forgive me, I feel weak," the general went on, standing in the middle of the room and bowing on all sides, "I feel weak, forgive me!
Lenochka! a pillow . . . dear!"
Lenochka, an eight-year-old girl, immediately ran to fetch a pillow and put it on the hard and ragged oilcloth sofa.
The general sat down on it with the intention of saying much more, but the moment he touched the sofa, he drooped sideways, turned to the wall, and fell into a blissful sleep.
Marfa Borisovna ceremoniously and ruefully showed the prince to a chair by a card table, sat down facing him, propped her right cheek in her hand, and silently began to sigh, looking at the prince.
The three small children, two girls and a boy, of whom Lenochka was the oldest, came up to the table; all three put their hands on the table, and all three also began to gaze intently at the prince.
Kolya appeared from the other room.
"I'm very glad to have met you here, Kolya," the prince turned to him. "Couldn't you help me?
I absolutely must be at Nastasya Filippovna's.
I asked Ardalion Alexandrovich earlier, but he's fallen asleep.
Take me there, because I don't know the streets or the way.
I have the address, though: near the Bolshoi Theater, Mrs. Mytovtsev's house."
"Nastasya Filippovna?
But she's never lived near the Bolshoi Theater, and my father has never been to Nastasya Filippovna's, if you want to know. It's strange that you expected anything from him.
She lives off Vladimirskaya, near the Five Corners, it's much nearer here.
Do you want to go now?
It's nine-thirty.
I'll take you there, if you like."
The prince and Kolya left at once.
Alas!
The prince had no way to pay for a cab, and they had to go on foot.
"I wanted to introduce you to Ippolit," said Kolya. "He's the oldest son of this jerkined captain's widow and was in the other room; he's unwell and stayed in bed all day today.
But he's so strange; he's terribly touchy, and it seemed to me that you might make him ashamed, coming at such a moment . . . I'm not as ashamed as he is, because it's my father, after all, not my mother, there's still a difference, because in such cases the male sex isn't dishonored.
Though maybe that's a prejudice about the predominance of the sexes in such cases.
Ippolit is a splendid fellow, but he's the slave of certain prejudices."
"You say he has consumption?"
"Yes, I think it would be better if he died sooner.
In his place I'd certainly want to die.
He feels sorry for his brother and sisters, those little ones.
If it was possible, if only we had the money, he and I would rent an apartment and renounce our families.
That's our dream.
And, you know, when I told him about that incident with you, he even got angry, he says that anyone who ignores a slap and doesn't challenge the man to a duel is a scoundrel.
Anyhow, he was terribly irritated, and I stopped arguing with him.