Page 652 - the-idiot

before me like a log, and when he recovered himself, asked
hurriedly how Hippolyte was. ‘Yes,’ he said, when I told
him, ‘that’s all very well, but I REALLY came to warn you
that you must be very careful what you say before Ferdish-
enko.’ Do you follow me, prince?’
‘Yes. Is it really so? However, it’s all the same to us, of
course.’
‘Of course it is; we are not a secret society; and that being
the case, it is all the more curious that the general should
have been on his way to wake me up in order to tell me
this.’
‘Ferdishenko has gone, you say?’
‘Yes, he went at seven o’clock. He came into the room on
his way out; I was watching just then. He said he was going
to spend ‘the rest of the night’ at Wilkin’s; there’s a tipsy fel-
low, a friend of his, of that name. Well, I’m off. Oh, here’s
Lebedeff himself! The prince wants to go to sleep, Lukian
Timofeyovitch, so you may just go away again.’
‘One moment, my dear prince, just one. I must absolutely
speak to you about something which is most grave,’ said
Lebedeff, mysteriously and solemnly, entering the room
with a bow and looking extremely important. He had but
just returned, and carried his hat in his hand. He looked
preoccupied and most unusually dignified.
The prince begged him to take a chair.
‘I hear you have called twice; I suppose you are still wor-
ried about yesterday’s affair.’
‘What, about that boy, you mean? Oh dear no, yesterday
my ideas were a little—well—mixed. Today, I assure you, I

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