Page 241 - the-idiot

XVI

t’s good business,’ said Ptitsin, at last, folding the let-
‘Iter and handing it back to the prince. ‘You will receive,
without the slightest trouble, by the last will and testament
of your aunt, a very large sum of money indeed.’
‘Impossible!’ cried the general, starting up as if he had
been shot.
Ptitsin explained, for the benefit of the company, that
the prince’s aunt had died five months since. He had never
known her, but she was his mother’s own sister, the daugh-
ter of a Moscow merchant, one Paparchin, who had died a
bankrupt. But the elder brother of this same Paparchin, had
been an eminent and very rich merchant. A year since it had
so happened that his only two sons had both died within
the same month. This sad event had so affected the old man
that he, too, had died very shortly after. He was a widower,
and had no relations left, excepting the prince’s aunt, a poor
woman living on charity, who was herself at the point of
death from dropsy; but who had time, before she died, to set
Salaskin to work to find her nephew, and to make her will
bequeathing her newly-acquired fortune to him.
It appeared that neither the prince, nor the doctor with
whom he lived in Switzerland, had thought of waiting for
further communications; but the prince had started straight
away with Salaskin’s letter in his pocket.

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