Текст книги "The Idiot"

Автор книги: Федор Достоевский

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Ganya was terribly embarrassed and even blushed with shame.

"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."

"You still ought to be whipped, Kolya, you're so stupid. You may

address all your needs to Matryona. Dinner is at half-past four. You may dine with us or in your room, whichever you prefer. Let's go, Kolya, stop bothering him."

"Let's go, decisive character!"

On their way out they ran into Ganya.

"Is father at home?" Ganya asked Kolya and, on receiving an affirmative reply, whispered something in his ear.

Kolya nodded and went out after Varvara Ardalionovna.

"A couple of words, Prince, I forgot to tell you, what with all these . . . doings. A request: do me a favor—if it's not too much of a strain for you—don't babble here about what just went on between me and Aglaya, or thereabout what you find here; because there's also enough ugliness here. To hell with it, though . . . But control yourself, at least for today."

"I assure you that I babbled much less than you think," said the prince, somewhat annoyed at Ganya's reproaches. Their relations were obviously becoming worse and worse.

"Well, I've already suffered enough on account of you today. In short, I beg you."

"Note this, too, Gavrila Ardalionovich, that I was not bound in any way earlier and had no reason not to mention the portrait. You didn't ask me not to."

"Pah, what a vile room," Ganya observed, looking around disdainfully, "dark and windows on the courtyard. You've come to us inopportunely in all respects . . . Well, that's none of my business; I don't let rooms."

Ptitsyn looked in and called Ganya. He hastily abandoned the prince and went out, though he had wanted to say something more, but was obviously hesitant and as if ashamed to begin; and he had also denounced the room as if from embarrassment.

The prince had just managed to wash and to straighten his clothes a bit when the door opened again and a new figure appeared in it.

This was a gentleman of about thirty, rather tall, broad-shouldered, with an enormous, curly, red-haired head. His face was fleshy and ruddy, his lips thick, his nose broad and flattened, his eyes small, puffy, and jeering, as if constantly winking. The whole of it made a rather insolent picture. His clothes were on the dirty side.

At first he opened the door just enough to thrust his head in. This thrust-in head surveyed the room for about five seconds, then the door slowly began to open, the whole figure was outlined on

the threshold, but the visitor did not come in yet, but squinted and went on studying the prince from the threshold. Finally he closed the door behind him, approached, sat down on a chair, took the prince firmly by the hand and seated him at an angle to himself on the sofa.

"Ferdyshchenko," he said, peering intently and questioningly into the prince's face.

"What about it?" the prince replied, almost bursting into laughter.

"A tenant," Ferdyshchenko spoke again, peering in the same way.

"You want to become acquainted?"

"Ehh!" said the visitor, ruffling up his hair and sighing, and he started looking into the opposite corner. "Do you have any money?" he asked suddenly, turning to the prince.

"A little."

"How much, precisely?"

"Twenty-five roubles."

"Show me."

The prince took a twenty-five-rouble note from his waistcoat pocket and handed it to Ferdyshchenko. The man unfolded it, looked at it, turned it over, then held it up to the light.

"Quite strange," he said, as if pondering. "Why do they turn brown? These twenty-fivers sometimes get terribly brown, while others, on the contrary, fade completely. Take it."

The prince took the note from him. Ferdyshchenko got up from the chair.

"I came to warn you: first of all, don't lend me any money, because I'm sure to ask."

"Very well."

"Do you intend to pay here?"

"I do."

"Well, I don't, thank you. Mine's the first door to your right, did you see? Try not to visit me too often; I'll come to you, don't worry about that. Have you seen the general?"

"No."

"Heard him?"

"Of course not."

"Well, you will see and hear him. Besides, he even asks me to lend him money! Avis au lecteur*Good-bye. Is it possible to live with a name like Ferdyshchenko? Eh?"

*Warning to the reader.

"Why not?"

"Good-bye."

And he went to the door. The prince learned later that this gentleman, as if out of duty, had taken upon himself the task of amazing everyone by his originality and merriment, but it somehow never came off. He even made an unpleasant impression on some people, which caused him genuine grief, but all the same he would not abandon his task. In the doorway he managed to set things right, as it were, by bumping into a gentleman coming in; after letting this new gentleman, who was unknown to the prince, enter the room, he obligingly winked several times behind his back by way of warning, and thus left not without a certain aplomb.

This new gentleman was tall, about fifty-five years old or even a little more, rather corpulent, with a purple-red, fleshy and flabby face framed by thick gray side-whiskers, with a moustache and large, rather protruding eyes. His figure would have been rather imposing if there had not been something seedy, shabby, even soiled about it. He was dressed in an old frock coat with nearly worn-through elbows; his shirt was also dirty—in a homey way. There was a slight smell of vodka in his vicinity; but his manner was showy, somewhat studied, and with an obvious wish to impress by its dignity. The gentleman approached the prince unhurriedly, with an affable smile, silently took his hand and, holding it in his own, peered into his face for some time, as if recognizing familiar features.

"Him! Him!" he said softly but solemnly. "As if alive! I heard them repeating the familiar and dear name and recalled the irretrievable past . . . Prince Myshkin?"

"That's right, sir."

"General Ivolgin, retired and unfortunate. Your name and patronymic, if I dare ask?"

"Lev Nikolaevich."

"So, so! The son of my friend, one might say my childhood friend, Nikolai Petrovich?"

"My father's name was Nikolai Lvovich."

"Lvovich," the general corrected himself, but unhurriedly and with perfect assurance, as if he had not forgotten in the least but had only made an accidental slip. He sat down and, also taking the prince's hand, sat him down beside him. "I used to carry you about in my arms, sir."

"Really?" asked the prince. "My father has been dead for twenty years now."

"Yes, twenty years, twenty years and three months. We studied together. I went straight into the military ..."

"My father was also in the military, a second lieutenant in the Vasilkovsky regiment."

"The Belomirsky. His transfer to the Belomirsky came almost on the eve of his death. I stood there and blessed him into eternity. Your mother ..."

The general paused as if in sad remembrance.

"Yes, she also died six months later, of a chill," said the prince.

"Not of a chill, not of a chill, believe an old man. I was there, I buried her, too. Of grief over the prince, and not of a chill. Yes, sir, I have memories of the princess, too! Youth! Because of her, the prince and I, childhood friends, nearly killed each other."

The prince began listening with a certain mistrust.

"I was passionately in love with your mother while she was still a fiancée—my friend's fiancée. The prince noticed it and was shocked. He comes to me in the morning, before seven o'clock, wakes me up. I get dressed in amazement; there is silence on both sides; I understand everything. He takes two pistols from his pocket. Across a handkerchief. ²⁸Without witnesses. Why witnesses, if we'll be sending each other into eternity in five minutes? We loaded the pistols, stretched out the handkerchief, put the pistols to each other's hearts, and looked into each other's faces. Suddenly tears burst from our eyes, our hands trembled. Both of us, both of us, at once! Well, naturally, then came embraces and a contest in mutual magnanimity. The prince cries: 'She's yours!' I cry: 'She's yours!' In short... in short . . . you've come ... to live with us?"

"Yes, for a while, perhaps," said the prince, as if stammering slightly.

"Prince, mama wants to see you," cried Kolya, looking in at the door. The prince got up to leave, but the general placed his right hand on his shoulder and amiably forced him back down on the couch.

"As a true friend of your father's I wish to warn you," said the general, "I have suffered, as you can see yourself, owing to a tragic catastrophe—but without a trial! Without a trial! Nina Alexandrovna is a rare woman. Varvara Ardalionovna, my daughter, is a rare daughter! Owing to certain circumstances, we let rooms—an unheard-of degradation! I, for whom it only remained to become a governor-general! . . . But we're always glad to have you. And meanwhile there's a tragedy in my house!"

The prince looked at him questioningly and with great curiosity.

"A marriage is being prepared, a rare marriage. A marriage between an ambiguous woman and a young man who could be a kammerjunker. ²⁹This woman will be introduced into the house in which my daughter and wife live! But as long as there is breath in me, she will not enter it! I'll lie down on the threshold, and just let her step over me! ... I almost don't speak with Ganya now, I even avoid meeting him. I'm warning you on purpose, though if you live with us you'll witness it anyway without that. But you are my friend's son, and I have the right to hope . . ."

"Prince, be so kind as to come to me in the drawing room," Nina Alexandrovna called, appearing in the doorway herself.

"Imagine, my friend;" cried the general, "it appears I dandled the prince in my arms!"

Nina Alexandrovna looked reproachfully at the general and searchingly at the prince, but did not say a word. The prince followed her; but they had only just come to the drawing room and sat down, and Nina Alexandrovna had only just begun telling the prince something hastily and in a half-whisper, when the general himself suddenly arrived in the drawing room. Nina Alexandrovna fell silent at once and bent over her knitting with obvious vexation. The general may have noticed her vexation, but he continued to be in the most excellent spirits.

"My friend's son!" he cried, addressing Nina Alexandrovna. "And so unexpectedly! I'd long ceased imagining. But, my dear, don't you remember the late Nikolai Lvovich? Wasn't he still in Tver . . . when you ... ?"

"I don't remember Nikolai Lvovich. Is that your father?" she asked the prince.

"Yes. But I believe he died in Elisavetgrad, not in Tver," the prince observed timidly to the general. "I heard it from Pavlishchev . . ."

"In Tver," the general confirmed. "Just before his death he was transferred to Tver, and even before the illness developed. You were still too little and wouldn't remember either the transfer or the trip. And Pavlishchev could have made a mistake, though he was a most excellent man."

"You knew Pavlishchev, too?"

"He was a rare man, but I was a personal witness. I blessed him on his deathbed . . ."

"My father died while he was on trial," the prince observed

again, "though I could never find out precisely for what. He died in the hospital."

"Oh, it was that case to do with Private Kolpakov, and without doubt the prince would have been vindicated."

"Really? You know for certain?" the prince asked with particular curiosity.

"What else?" cried the general. "The court recessed without any decision. An impossible case! A mysterious case, one might say: Staff-captain Larionov, the commander of the detachment, dies; the prince is assigned to perform his duties temporarily. Good. Private Kolpakov commits a theft—of footgear from a comrade– and drinks it up. Good. The prince—and, mark you, this was in the presence of a sergeant-major and a corporal—reprimands Kolpakov and threatens him with a birching. Very good. Kolpakov goes to the barracks, lies down on his bunk, and a quarter of an hour later he dies. Splendid, but it's an unexpected, almost impossible case. Thus and so, Kolpakov is buried; the prince makes a report, after which Kolpakov is struck from the rolls. What could be better, you might think? But exactly six months later, at a brigade review, Private Kolpakov turns up, as if nothing had happened, in the third detachment of the second battalion of the Novozemlyansky infantry regiment, ³⁰same brigade and same division!"

"How's that?" cried the prince, beside himself with astonishment.

"It's not so, it's a mistake!" Nina Alexandrovna turned to him suddenly, looking at him almost in anguish. "Mon mari se trompe."*

"But, my dear, se trompeis easy to say, but try and decide such a case yourself! They were all deadlocked. I'd be the first to say qu'on se trompe.But, to my misfortune, I was a witness and served personally on the commission. All the confrontations showed that this was the very same, absolutely the very same Private Kolpakov who had been buried six months earlier with the routine ceremony and to the roll of drums. The case is indeed a rare one, almost impossible, I agree, but . . ."

"Papa, your dinner is ready," Varvara Ardalionovna announced, coming into the room.

"Ah, that's splendid, excellent! I'm really hungry . . . But this case, you might say, is even psychological ..."

"The soup will get cold again," Varya said impatiently.

*My husband is mistaken.

"Coming, coming," the general muttered, leaving the room. "And despite all inquiries . . ." could still be heard in the corridor.

"You'll have to excuse Ardalion Alexandrovich a great deal if you stay with us," Nina Alexandrovna said to the prince, "though he won't bother you very much; and he dines by himself. You must agree, each of us has his own shortcomings and his own . .. special features—some, perhaps, still more than those at whom fingers are habitually pointed. There's one thing I want very much to ask you: if my husband ever addresses you concerning the payment of the rent, tell him you have given it to me. That is, whatever you might give to Ardalion Alexandrovich would go on your account in any case, but I ask you only for the sake of accuracy . . . What is it, Varya?"

Varya came back into the room and silently handed her mother the portrait of Nastasya Filippovna. Nina Alexandrovna gave a start and began studying it as if in fright, but then with an overwhelmingly bitter feeling. In the end she looked questioningly at Varya.

"She made him a present of it herself today," said Varya, "and this evening everything is to be decided."

"This evening!" Nina Alexandrovna repeated in a half-whisper, as if in despair. "So, then? There are no more doubts here, nor any hopes: she has announced it all by the portrait . . . And what, did he show it to you himself?" she added in surprise.

"You know we've hardly said a word to each other for a whole month now. Ptitsyn told me about it all, and the portrait was lying there on the floor by the table. I picked it up."

"Prince," Nina Alexandrovna suddenly turned to him, "I wanted to ask you—in fact, that's why I invited you here—have you known my son for a long time? He told me, I believe, that you arrived from somewhere only today?"

The prince explained briefly about himself, omitting the greater part. Nina Alexandrovna and Varya heard him out.

"I'm not trying to ferret out anything about Gavrila Ardalionovich in asking you," observed Nina Alexandrovna, "you must make no mistake on that account. If there is anything that he cannot tell me himself, I have no wish to try and find it out behind his back. What I mean, in fact, is that earlier, in your presence and after you left, Ganya said in answer to my question about you: 'He knows everything, no need for ceremony!' Now, what does that mean? That is, I'd like to know to what extent . . ."

Suddenly Ganya and Ptitsyn came in; Nina Alexandrovna at once fell silent. The prince remained in the chair next to her, and Varya stepped aside; the portrait of Nastasya Filippovna lay most conspicuously on Nina Alexandrovna's worktable, directly in front of her. Ganya saw it, frowned, vexedly took it from the table, and flung it onto his desk, which was at the other end of the room.

"Today, Ganya?" Nina Alexandrovna suddenly asked.

"Today what?" Ganya gave a start and suddenly fell upon the prince. "Ah, I understand, you're into it here, too! . . . What is it with you, some sort of illness or something? Can't help yourself? But understand, finally, Your Highness ..."

"I'm to blame here, Ganya, and nobody else," Ptitsyn interrupted.

Ganya looked at him questioningly.

"But it's better, Ganya, the more so as the matter's concluded on one side," Ptitsyn murmured and, stepping away, sat down at the table, took some sort of scribbled-over paper from his pocket, and began studying it intently. Ganya stood in gloom, waiting uneasily for a family scene. He did not even think of apologizing to the prince.

"If it's all concluded, then, of course, Ivan Petrovich is right," said Nina Alexandrovna. "Don't frown, please, and don't be vexed, Ganya, I won't ask about anything that you don't want to talk about yourself, and I assure you that I am completely resigned, kindly don't worry."

She said this without taking her eyes from her work and, as it seemed, quite calmly. Ganya was surprised, but remained warily silent and looked at his mother, waiting for her to speak her mind more clearly. Family scenes had already cost him much too dearly. Nina Alexandrovna noticed this wariness and added, with a bitter smile:

"You still doubt and don't believe me. You needn't worry, there will be no tears or entreaties, as before, at least not on my part. All I want is for you to be happy and you know that; I am resigned to fate, but my heart will always be with you, whether we stay together or must part. Of course, I can only answer for myself; you cannot ask the same of your sister ..."

"Ah, her again!" cried Ganya, looking mockingly and hatefully at his sister. "Mama! Again I swear to you something on which you have my word already: no one will ever dare to mistreat you while I am here, while I am alive. Whoever it may concern, I shall insist on the fullest respect, whoever crosses our threshold ..."

Ganya was so overjoyed that he looked at his mother almost conciliatingly, almost tenderly.

"I wasn't afraid for myself, Ganya, you know that. It's not myself I've worried and suffered over all this time. They say it will all be concluded tonight? What will be concluded?"

"Tonight, at her place, she has promised to announce whether she gives me her consent or not," replied Ganya.

"For almost three weeks we've avoided speaking of it, and it was better. Now, when everything's already concluded, I will allow myself to ask just one thing: how could she give you her consent and even present you with her portrait, when you don't love her? Can it be that she, being so . . . so . . ."

"Experienced, you mean?"

"That's not how I wanted to put it. Can it be that you could blind her eyes to such a degree?"

Extraordinary irritation suddenly rang in this question. Ganya stood, reflected for a moment, and, not concealing his derision, said:

"You've gotten carried away, mama, and again could not restrain yourself, and that's how everything always starts and flares up with us. You said there wouldn't be any questions or reproaches, yet they've already started! We'd better drop it, really, we'd better; at least you had the intention ... I will never leave you, not for anything; another man would flee from such a sister at least—see how she's looking at me now! Let's leave it at that! I was already rejoicing so . . . And how do you know I'm deceiving Nastasya Filippovna? But, as for Varya, it's as she wishes and—enough! Well, now it's quite enough!"

Ganya was getting more and more excited with every word and paced the room aimlessly. Such conversations instantly became a sore spot in all members of the family.

"I said, if she comes in here, then I go out of here—and I'll also keep my word," said Varya.

"Out of stubbornness!" cried Ganya. "And it's out of stubbornness that you don't get married! What are you doing snorting at me! I spit on it all, Varvara Ardalionovna; if you like, you can carry out your intention right now. I'm quite sick of you. So! You've finally decided to leave us, Prince!" he shouted at the prince, seeing him get up from his place.

In Ganya's voice that degree of irritation could be heard in which a man almost enjoys his irritation, gives himself over to it without

restraint and almost with increasing pleasure, whatever may come of it. The prince turned around at the door in order to make some reply, but, seeing from the pained expression on his offender's face that with one more drop the vessel would overflow, he turned again and silently went out. A few minutes later he heard, by the noises coming from the drawing room, that in his absence the conversation had become more noisy and frank.

He went through the large room to the front hall, in order to get to the corridor and from there to his room. Passing by the door to the stairs, he heard and saw that someone outside the door was trying very hard to ring the bell; but something must have been wrong with the bell: it only jiggled slightly but made no sound. The prince lifted the bar, opened the door, and—stepped back in amazement, even shuddered all over: before him stood Nastasya Filippovna. He recognized her at once from the portrait. Her eyes flashed with a burst of vexation when she saw him; she quickly came into the front hall, pushed him aside with her shoulder, and said wrathfully, flinging off her fur coat:

"If you're too lazy to fix the doorbell, you should at least be sitting in the front hall when people knock. Well, there, now he's dropped my coat, the oaf!"

The coat was indeed lying on the floor; Nastasya Filippovna, not waiting for the prince to help her out of it, had flung it off into his arms without looking, but the prince had not managed to catch it.

"You ought to be dismissed. Go and announce me."

The prince wanted to say something, but he was so much at a loss that nothing came out, and, holding the coat, which he had picked up from the floor, he went towards the drawing room.

"Well, so now he goes with the coat! Why are you taking the coat? Ha, ha, ha! Are you crazy or something?"