Page 741 - the-idiot

was the cause of his bad night and quarrelsome day, which
ended in his sudden departure into the street in a condition
approaching insanity, as recorded before.
Colia did not understand the position. He tried severity
with his father, as they stood in the street after the latter had
cursed the household, hoping to bring him round that way.
‘Well, where are we to go to now, father?’ he asked. ‘You
don’t want to go to the prince’s; you have quarrelled with
Lebedeff; you have no money; I never have any; and here we
are in the middle of the road, in a nice sort of mess.’
‘Better to be of a mess than in a mess! I remember making
a joke something like that at the mess in eighteen hundred
and forty— forty—I forget. ‘Where is my youth, where is
my golden youth?’ Who was it said that, Colia?’
‘It was Gogol, in Dead Souls, father,’ cried Colia, glancing
at him in some alarm.
‘Dead Souls,’ yes, of course, dead. When I die, Colia, you
must engrave on my tomb:
‘Here lies a Dead Soul, Shame pursues me.’
‘Who said that, Colia?’
‘I don’t know, father.’
‘There was no Eropegoff? Eroshka Eropegoff?’ he cried,
suddenly, stopping in the road in a frenzy. ‘No Eropegoff!
And my own son to say it! Eropegoff was in the place of a
brother to me for eleven months. I fought a duel for him.
He was married afterwards, and then killed on the field of
battle. The bullet struck the cross on my breast and glanced
off straight into his temple. ‘I’ll never forget you,’ he cried,
and expired. I served my country well and honestly, Colia,

0 The Idiot