said the prince; "but here is a
twenty-five. Change it and give me back the fifteen, or I shall be left
without a farthing myself."

"Oh, of course, of course; and you quite understand that I--"

"Yes; and I have another request to make, general. Have you ever been at
Nastasia Philipovna's?"

"I? I? Do you mean me? Often, my friend, often! I only pretended I
had not in order to avoid a painful subject. You saw today, you were a
witness, that I did all that a kind, an indulgent father could do. Now
a father of altogether another type shall step into the scene. You shall
see; the old soldier shall lay bare this intrigue, or a shameless woman
will force her way into a respectable and noble family."

"Yes, quite so. I wished to ask you whether you could show me the way
to Nastasia Philipovna's tonight. I must go; I have business with her; I
was not invited but I was introduced. Anyhow I am ready to trespass the
laws of propriety if only I can get in somehow or other."

"My dear young friend, you have hit on my very idea. It was not for this
rubbish I asked you to come over here" (he pocketed the money, however,
at this point), "it was to invite your alliance in the campaign against
Nastasia Philipovna tonight. How well it sounds, 'General Ivolgin and
Prince Muishkin.' That'll fetch her, I think, eh? Capital! We'll go at
nine; there's time yet."

"Where does she live?"

"Oh, a long way off, near the Great Theatre, just in the square
there--It won't be a large party."

The general sat on and on. He had ordered a fresh bottle when the prince
arrived; this took him an hour to drink, and then he had another, and
another, during the consumption of which he told pretty nearly the whole
story of his life. The prince was in despair. He felt that though he had
but applied to this miserable old drunkard because he saw no other way
of getting to Nastasia Philipovna's, yet he had been very wrong to put
the slightest confidence in such a man.

At last he rose and declared that he would wait no longer. The general
rose too, drank the last drops that he could squeeze out of the bottle,
and staggered into the street.

Muishkin began to despair. He could not imagine how he had been so
foolish as to trust this man. He only wanted one thing, and that was to
get to Nastasia Philipovna's, even at the cost of a certain amount
of impropriety. But now the scandal threatened to be more than he
had bargained for. By this time Ardalion Ale