Page 375 - the-idiot

him irritated him anew; he frowned, and decided to be ab-
solutely silent.
As to the rest, one was a man of thirty, the retired officer,
now a boxer, who had been with Rogojin, and in his happier
days had given fifteen roubles at a time to beggars. Evident-
ly he had joined the others as a comrade to give them moral,
and if necessary material, support. The man who had been
spoken of as ‘Pavlicheff’s son,’ although he gave the name
of Antip Burdovsky, was about twenty-two years of age, fair,
thin and rather tall. He was remarkable for the poverty, not
to say uncleanliness, of his personal appearance: the sleeves
of his overcoat were greasy; his dirty waistcoat, buttoned
up to his neck, showed not a trace of linen; a filthy black silk
scarf, twisted till it resembled a cord, was round his neck,
and his hands were unwashed. He looked round with an air
of insolent effrontery. His face, covered with pimples, was
neither thoughtful nor even contemptuous; it wore an ex-
pression of complacent satisfaction in demanding his rights
and in being an aggrieved party. His voice trembled, and
he spoke so fast, and with such stammerings, that he might
have been taken for a foreigner, though the purest Russian
blood ran in his veins. Lebedeff’s nephew, whom the read-
er has seen already, accompanied him, and also the youth
named Hippolyte Terentieff. The latter was only seventeen
or eighteen. He had an intelligent face, though it was usually
irritated and fretful in expression. His skeleton-like figure,
his ghastly complexion, the brightness of his eyes, and the
red spots of colour on his cheeks, betrayed the victim of
consumption to the most casual glance. He coughed persis-

The Idiot