Page 262 - the-idiot

ish young prince, name unknown, had suddenly come into
possession of a gigantic fortune, and had married a French
ballet dancer. This was contradicted, and the rumour circu-
lated that it was a young merchant who had come into the
enormous fortune and married the great ballet dancer, and
that at the wedding the drunken young fool had burned
seventy thousand roubles at a candle out of pure bravado.
However, all these rumours soon died down, to which
circumstance certain facts largely contributed. For in-
stance, the whole of the Rogojin troop had departed, with
him at their head, for Moscow. This was exactly a week after
a dreadful orgy at the Ekaterinhof gardens, where Nastasia
Philipovna had been present. It became known that after
this orgy Nastasia Philipovna had entirely disappeared, and
that she had since been traced to Moscow; so that the ex-
odus of the Rogojin band was found consistent with this
report.
There were rumours current as to Gania, too; but circum-
stances soon contradicted these. He had fallen seriously ill,
and his illness precluded his appearance in society, and
even at business, for over a month. As soon as he had re-
covered, however, he threw up his situation in the public
company under General Epanchin’s direction, for some un-
known reason, and the post was given to another. He never
went near the Epanchins’ house at all, and was exceedingly
irritable and depressed.
Varvara Ardalionovna married Ptitsin this winter, and
it was said that the fact of Gania’s retirement from busi-
ness was the ultimate cause of the marriage, since Gania

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