Page 156 - the-idiot

iation of blushing for his own kindred in his own house. A
question flashed through his mind as to whether the game
was really worth the candle.
For that had happened at this moment, which for two
months had been his nightmare; which had filled his soul
with dread and shame—the meeting between his father
and Nastasia Philipovna. He had often tried to imagine
such an event, but had found the picture too mortifying
and exasperating, and had quietly dropped it. Very likely
he anticipated far worse things than was at all necessary;
it is often so with vain persons. He had long since deter-
mined, therefore, to get his father out of the way, anywhere,
before his marriage, in order to avoid such a meeting; but
when Nastasia entered the room just now, he had been so
overwhelmed with astonishment, that he had not thought
of his father, and had made no arrangements to keep him
out of the way. And now it was too late—there he was, and
got up, too, in a dress coat and white tie, and Nastasia in
the very humour to heap ridicule on him and his family
circle; of this last fact, he felt quite persuaded. What else
had she come for? There were his mother and his sister sit-
ting before her, and she seemed to have forgotten their very
existence already; and if she behaved like that, he thought,
she must have some object in view.
Ferdishenko led the general up to Nastasia Philipovna.
‘Ardalion Alexandrovitch Ivolgin,’ said the smiling
general, with a low bow of great dignity, ‘an old soldier, un-
fortunate, and the father of this family; but happy in the
hope of including in that family so exquisite—‘

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