Page 542 - the-idiot

men,—sit down there with the others, please,—excuse me
one moment,’ said the host, getting away with difficulty in
order to follow Evgenie.
‘You are very gay here,’ began the latter, ‘and I have had
quite a pleasant half-hour while I waited for you. Now then,
my dear Lef Nicolaievitch, this is what’s the matter. I’ve ar-
ranged it all with Moloftsoff, and have just come in to relieve
your mind on that score. You need be under no apprehen-
sions. He was very sensible, as he should be, of course, for I
think he was entirely to blame himself.’
‘What Moloftsoff?’
‘The young fellow whose arms you held, don’t you know?
He was so wild with you that he was going to send a friend
to you tomorrow morning.’
‘What nonsense!’
‘Of course it is nonsense, and in nonsense it would have
ended, doubtless; but you know these fellows, they—‘
‘Excuse me, but I think you must have something else
that you wished to speak about, Evgenie Pavlovitch?’
‘Of course, I have!’ said the other, laughing. ‘You see, my
dear fellow, tomorrow, very early in the morning, I must be
off to town about this unfortunate business(my uncle, you
know!). Just imagine, my dear sir, it is all true—word for
word—and, of course, everybody knew it excepting myself.
All this has been such a blow to me that I have not man-
aged to call in at the Epanchins’. Tomorrow I shall not see
them either, because I shall be in town. I may not be here
for three days or more; in a word, my affairs are a little out
of gear. But though my town business is, of course, most

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