Page 222 - the-idiot

ready at once. In half an hour it was at the door. I got in and
off we went.
‘By five I drew up at the Ekshaisky inn. I waited there till
dawn, and soon after six I was off, and at the old merchant
Trepalaf’s.
‘Camellias!’ I said, ‘father, save me, save me, let me have
some camellias!’ He was a tall, grey old man—a terrible-
looking old gentleman. ‘Not a bit of it,’ he says. ‘I won’t.’
Down I went on my knees. ‘Don’t say so, don’t—think what
you’re doing!’ I cried; ‘it’s a matter of life and death!’ ‘If
that’s the case, take them,’ says he. So up I get, and cut such
a bouquet of red camellias! He had a whole greenhouse full
of them—lovely ones. The old fellow sighs. I pull out a hun-
dred roubles. ‘No, no!’ says he, ‘don’t insult me that way.’
‘Oh, if that’s the case, give it to the village hospital,’ I say.
‘Ah,’ he says, ‘that’s quite a different matter; that’s good of
you and generous. I’ll pay it in there for you with pleasure.’ I
liked that old fellow, Russian to the core, de la vraie souche.
I went home in raptures, but took another road in order to
avoid Peter. Immediately on arriving I sent up the bouquet
for Anfisa to see when she awoke.
‘You may imagine her ecstasy, her gratitude. The wretch-
ed Platon, who had almost died since yesterday of the
reproaches showered upon him, wept on my shoulder. Of
course poor Peter had no chance after this.
‘I thought he would cut my throat at first, and went about
armed ready to meet him. But he took it differently; he
fainted, and had brain fever and convulsions. A month after,
when he had hardly recovered, he went off to the Crimea,

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