Page 300 - the-idiot

sort of a house you would live in, and yet no sooner did I set
eyes on this one than I said to myself that it must be yours.’
‘Really!’ said Rogojin vaguely, not taking in what the
prince meant by his rather obscure remarks.
The room they were now sitting in was a large one, lofty
but dark, well furnished, principally with writing-tables and
desks covered with papers and books. A wide sofa covered
with red morocco evidently served Rogojin for a bed. On
the table beside which the prince had been invited to seat
himself lay some books; one containing a marker where the
reader had left off, was a volume of Solovieff’s History. Some
oil-paintings in worn gilded frames hung on the walls, but it
was impossible to make out what subjects they represented,
so blackened were they by smoke and age. One, a life-sized
portrait, attracted the prince’s attention. It showed a man
of about fifty, wearing a long ridingcoat of German cut. He
had two medals on his breast; his beard was white, short
and thin; his face yellow and wrinkled, with a sly, suspi-
cious expression in the eyes.
‘That is your father, is it not?’ asked the prince.
‘Yes, it is,’ replied Rogojin with an unpleasant smile, as if
he had expected his guest to ask the question, and then to
make some disagreeable remark.
‘Was he one of the Old Believers?’
‘No, he went to church, but to tell the truth he really pre-
ferred the old religion. This was his study and is now mine.
Why did you ask if he were an Old Believer?’
‘Are you going to be married here?’
‘Ye-yes!’ replied Rogojin, starting at the unexpected