Free The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Page A

just now. We mustn’t forget to include them...’
    The general went out, and thus the prince had still not succeeded in telling him his business, the matter of which he had tried to raise three or four times now. Ganya lit a cigarette and offered another to the prince; the prince accepted it, but remained silent, not wishing to be in the way, and began to examine the study; but Ganya barely glanced at the sheet of paper covered in figures, which the general had pointed out to him. His mind was elsewhere; Ganya’s smile, gaze and pensiveness were even more painful, it seemed to the prince, than when they had both been left alone. Suddenly he approached the prince; at that moment, the latter was again standing over the portrait of Nastasya Filippovna and examining it.
    ‘So you like that sort of woman, do you, Prince?’ he asked him suddenly, giving him a penetrating look. And as though he had some extraordinary purpose.
    ‘An astonishing face!’ the prince replied. ‘And I’m certain that her fate is not of an ordinary kind. Her face is cheerful, but she has suffereddreadfully, don’t you think? Her eyes betray it, those two little bones here, two points under her eyes where her cheeks begin. It’s a proud face, a dreadfully proud one, and I simply can’t tell if she is good or not. Oh, if only she were good! It would redeem everything!’
    ‘And would you marry that sort of woman?’ Ganya continued, keeping his inflamed gaze trained on him.
    ‘I can’t marry anyone, I’m an invalid,’ said the prince.
    ‘And would Rogozhin marry her? What do you think?’
    ‘Well, he might marry her tomorrow; might marry her, and a week later, perhaps, cut her throat.’
    No sooner had the prince said this than Ganya gave such a start that the prince nearly cried out.
    ‘What’s wrong?’ he said, clutching his arm.
    ‘Your grace! His excellency requests you to attend upon her excellency,’ a lackey announced, appearing in the doorway. The prince set off after the lackey.

4
    All three of the Yepanchin girls were healthy young ladies, blossoming, tall, with striking shoulders, powerful bosoms, strong arms, almost like men’s arms, and, of course, because of their strength and health, liked to eat well now and then, something they did not even try to conceal. Their mother, the general’s wife, Lizaveta Prokofyevna, sometimes looked askance at the frankness of their appetites, but as some of her opinions, in spite of all the outward respect with which they were received by her daughters, had in essence long ago lost their original and unquestionable authority over them, and to such a degree that the harmonious conclave established by the three girls more often than not began to be predominant, the general’s wife, in the interests of her own dignity, found it more convenient not to argue, but to yield. To be sure, her temperament very often would not obey, and would not submit to the decisions of common sense; with each year Lizaveta Prokofyevna became more and more capricious and impatient, was even becoming a sort of eccentric, but as a most obedient and well-trained husband remained to hand, the excessive and accumulated emotions were usually poured on to his head, whereupon harmony was once again restored to the household, and everything went as well as it possibly could.
    As a matter of fact, the general’s wife had not lost her appetite either, and usually, at half-past twelve, partook of an abundant breakfast, almost resembling a dinner, together with her daughters. The young ladies each had a cup of coffee even earlier, at exactly ten o’clock, in bed, as soon as they woke up. They liked this routine and it had become firmly established. And at half-past twelve the table would be laid in the small dining room, near the mother’s rooms, and this intimate family breakfast was sometimes attended by the general himself, if time permitted. In addition to tea, coffee, cheese, honey, butter, the special thick