Page:Dostoevsky - The Idiot, Collected Edition, 1916.djvu/39

two, but before to-night, something may turn up perhaps to-day," said Ganya to the general, with a grin.

"Hm!... Of course.... Very likely, and then it will all depend on how it strikes her," said the general.

"And you know what she is like sometimes?"

"Like what, do you mean?" the general pounced at him, roused to extreme perturbation. "Listen, Ganya, please don't contradict her much to-day... and try to be, you know... in fact, to please her... Hm!... Why are you grinning like that? Listen, Gavril Ardalionovitch, it won't be out of place, not at all so, to ask now what are we working for? You understand that as regards any personal advantage to me in the matter, I am quite at rest; in one way or another I shall settle it. Totsky has made up his mind once and for all, so I am perfectly secure, and therefore all I desire now is simply your advantage. You can see that for yourself. Can you mistrust me? Besides, you are a man... a man... in fact a man of sense, and I was relying upon you... since in the present case... that... that..."

"That's the chief thing," put in Ganya again, coming to the assistance of the hesitating general, and twisting his lips into a malignant smile, which he did not even try to conceal. He looked the general straight in the face with his feverish eyes, as though he wanted hi to read in his eyes all that was in his mind. The general crimsoned and was angry.

"Quite so, sense is the chief thing!" he assented, looking sharply at Ganya. "You are a funny person, Gavril Ardalionovitch! You seem pleased about this young merchant, I observe, as though he might be a way out of it for you. But in this affair it's just by your sense you ought to have been guided fro the first. In this affair you ought to understand and to act honestly and straightforwardly with both sides, or else to have given warning beforehand, to avoid compromising others, especially as you've had plenty of time to do so, and there's still time, indeed, now," (the general raised his eyebrows significantly) "although there are only a few hours left. Do you understand? Do you understand? Will you or won't you? If you won't say so--and please yourself. Nobody is coercing you, Gavril Ardalionovitch, nobody is dragging you into a trap, that is, if you look on it as a trap."

"I will," said Ganya in a low voice, but firmly. He dropped his eyes and sank into gloomy silence.