Page:Dostoevsky - The Idiot, Collected Edition, 1916.djvu/15

would laugh sometimes not knowing, or forgetting, what he was laughing at.

"Excuse me, whom have I the honour,"... the pimply gentleman said suddenly, addressing the fair young man with the bundle.

"Prince Lyov Nikolayevitch Myshkin is my name," the latter replied with prompt and unhesitating readiness.

"Prince Myshkin? Lyov Nikolayevitch? I don't know it. I don't believe I've ever heard it," the official responded, thoughtfully. "I don't mean the surname, it's an historical name, it's to be found in Karamzin's History, and with good reason; I mean you personally, and indeed there are no Prince Myshkins to be met anywhere, one never hears of them."

"I should think not," Myshkin answered at once, "there are no Prince Myshkins now except me; I believe I am the last of them. And as for our fathers and grandfathers, some of them were no more than peasant proprietors. My father was a sub-lieutenant in the army, yet General Epanchin's wife was somehow Princess Myshkin; she was the last of her lot, too...."

"He-he-he! The last of her lot! He-he! how[sic] funnily you put it," chuckled the official.

The dark man grinned too. Myshkin was rather surprised that he had perpetrated a joke, and indeed it was a feeble one.

"Believe me, I said it without thinking," he explained at last, wondering.

"To be sure, to be sure you did," the official assented good-humouredly.

"And have you been studying, too, with the professor out there, prince?" asked the dark man suddenly.

"Yes... I have."

"But I've never studied anything."

"Well, I only did a little, you know," added Myshkin almost apologetically. "I couldn't be taught systematically, because of my illness."

"Do you know the Rogozhins?" the dark man asked quickly.

"No, I don't know hem at all. I know very few people in Russia. Are you a Rogozhin?"

"Yes, my name is Rogozhin, Parfyon."

"Parfyon? One of those Rogozhins..." the official began, with increased gravity.

"Yes, one of those, one of the same," the dark man interrupted quickly, with uncivil impatience. He had not once