Page 590 - the-idiot

I have a final refusal to my petition, and I have hardly a
crumb of bread left—I have nothing left; my wife has had a
baby lately—and I-I—‘
‘He sprang up from his chair and turned away. His wife
was crying in the corner; the child had begun to moan again.
I pulled out my note-book and began writing in it. When I
had finished and rose from my chair he was standing before
me with an expression of alarmed curiosity.
‘I have jotted down your name,’ I told him, ‘and all the
rest of it—the place you served at, the district, the date, and
all. I have a friend, Bachmatoff, whose uncle is a councillor
of state and has to do with these matters, one Peter Mat-
veyevitch Bachmatoff.’
‘Peter Matveyevitch Bachmatoff!’ he cried, trembling all
over with excitement. ‘Why, nearly everything depends on
that very man!’
‘It is very curious, this story of the medical man, and my
visit, and the happy termination to which I contributed by
accident! Everything fitted in, as in a novel. I told the poor
people not to put much hope in me, because I was but a
poor schoolboy myself— (I am not really, but I humiliated
myself as much as possible in order to make them less hope-
ful)—but that I would go at once to the Vassili Ostroff and
see my friend; and that as I knew for certain that his uncle
adored him, and was absolutely devoted to him as the last
hope and branch of the family, perhaps the old man might
do something to oblige his nephew.
‘If only they would allow me to explain all to his excel-
lency! If I could but be permitted to tell my tale to him!’ he