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. So it means that Nastasya Filippovna invited you to her place straight off?"

"The thing is that she didn't."

"How can you be going, then?" Kolya exclaimed and even stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. "And . . . and dressed like that, and to a formal party?"

"By God, I really don't know how I'm going to get in. If they receive me—good; if not—then my business is lost. And as for my clothes, what can I do about that?"

"You have business there? Or is it just so, pour passer le temps* in 'noble society'?"

"No, essentially I . . . that is, I do have business . . . it's hard for me to explain it, but . . ."

"Well, as for what precisely, that can be as you like, but the main thing for me is that you're not simply inviting yourself to a party, to be in the charming company of loose women, generals, and usurers. If that were so, excuse me, Prince, but I'd laugh at you and start despising you. There are terribly few honest people here, so that there's nobody at all to respect. You can't help looking down on them, while they all demand respect—Varya first of all. And have you noticed, Prince, in our age they're all adventurers! And precisely here, in Russia, in our dear fatherland. And how it has all come about, I can't comprehend. It seemed to stand so firmly, and what is it now? Everybody talks and writes about it everywhere. They expose. With us everybody exposes. The parents are the first to retreat and are ashamed themselves at their former morals. There, in Moscow, a father kept telling his son to stop at nothing in getting money; it got into print.³⁸ Look at my general. What's become of him? But, anyhow, you know, it seems to me that my general is an honest man; by God, it's so! All that is just disorder and drink. By God, it's so! It's even a pity; only I'm afraid to say it, because everybody laughs; but by God, it's a pity. And what about them, the smart ones? They're all usurers, every last one. Ippolit justifies usury; he says that's how it has to be, there's economic upheaval, some sort of influxes and refluxes, devil take them. It vexes me terribly to have it come from him, but he's angry. Imagine, his mother, the captain's widow, takes money from the general and then gives him quick loans on interest. It's terribly shameful! And, you know, mother, I mean my mother, Nina Alexandrovna, the general's wife, helps Ippolit with money, clothes, linen, and everything, and sometimes the children, too, through Ippolit, because the woman neglects them. And Varya does the same."

"You see, you say there are no honest and strong people, that there are only usurers; but then strong people turn up, your mother

*To pass the time.

and Varya. Isn't it a sign of moral strength to help here and in such circumstances?"

"Varka does it out of vanity, out of boastfulness, so as not to lag behind her mother. Well, but mama actually ... I respect it. Yes, I respect it and justify it. Even Ippolit feels it, though he's almost totally embittered. At first he made fun of it, called it baseness on my mother's part; but now he's beginning to feel it sometimes. Hm! So you call it strength? I'll make note of that. Ganya doesn't know about it, or he'd call it connivance."

"And Ganya doesn't know? It seems there's still a lot that Ganya doesn't know," escaped the prince, who lapsed into thought.