Page 457 - the-idiot

earnestly, for an hour or more.
Next day the prince had to go to town, on business.
Returning in the afternoon, he happened upon General
Epanchin at the station. The latter seized his hand, glanc-
ing around nervously, as if he were afraid of being caught
in wrong-doing, and dragged him into a first-class com-
partment. He was burning to speak about something of
importance.
‘In the first place, my dear prince, don’t be angry with me.
I would have come to see you yesterday, but I didn’t know
how Lizabetha Prokofievna would take it. My dear fellow,
my house is simply a hell just now, a sort of sphinx has tak-
en up its abode there. We live in an atmosphere of riddles;
I can’t make head or tail of anything. As for you, I feel sure
you are the least to blame of any of us, though you certainly
have been the cause of a good deal of trouble. You see, it’s
all very pleasant to be a philanthropist; but it can be carried
too far. Of course I admire kind-heartedness, and I esteem
my wife, but—‘
The general wandered on in this disconnected way for a
long time; it was clear that he was much disturbed by some
circumstance which he could make nothing of.
‘It is plain to me, that YOU are not in it at all,’ he contin-
ued, at last, a little less vaguely, ‘but perhaps you had better
not come to our house for a little while. I ask you in the
friendliest manner, mind; just till the wind changes again.
As for Evgenie Pavlovitch,’ he continued with some excite-
ment, ‘the whole thing is a calumny, a dirty calumny. It is
simply a plot, an intrigue, to upset our plans and to stir up

The Idiot