Page:Dostoevsky - The Idiot, Collected Edition, 1916.djvu/27

"Anyway, it would be better if you'd walk into the waiting-room," he observed, as impressively as possible.

"But if I had been there, I wouldn't have explained it all to you," said Myshkin, laughing good-humouredly, "and you would still have been anxious, looking at my cloak and bundle. Now, perhaps, you needn't wait for the secretary, but can go and announce me to the general."

"I can't announce a visitor like you without the secretary; besides, his excellency gave special orders just now that he was not to be disturbed for anyone while he is with the colonel. Gavril Ardalionovitch goes in without being announced."

"An official?"

"Gavril Ardalionovitch? No. He is in the service of the company. You might put your bundle here."

"I was meaning to, if I may. And I think I'll take off my cloak too."

"Of course, you couldn't go in in your cloak."

Myshkin stood up and hurriedly took off his cloak, remaining in a fairly decent, well-cut, though worn, short jacket. A steel chain was visible on his waistcoat, and on the chain was a silver Geneva watch.

Though the prince was a bit soft--the footman had made up his mind that he was so--yet he felt it unseemly to keep up a conversation with a visitor. Moreover, he could not help feeling a sort of liking for the prince, though from another point of view he aroused in him a feeling of strong and coarse indignation.

"And Madame Epanchin, which does she see visitors?" asked Myshkin, sitting down again in the same place.

"That's not my business. She sees visitors at different times according to who they are. The dressmaker is admitted at eleven even, Gavril Ardalionovitch is admitted earlier than other people, even to early lunch."

"Your rooms here are kept warmer than abroad," observed Myshkin, "but it's warmer out of doors there than here. A Russian who is not used to it can hardly live in their houses in the winter."

"Don't they heat them?"

"No, and the houses are differently built, that is to say the stoves and windows are different."

"Hm! Have you been away long?"

"Four years. But I was almost all the time at the same place in the country."