“You intend to introduce the prince?” asked Colia, as they went up.
“Yes, my boy. I wish to present him: General Ivolgin and Prince Muishkin! But what’s the matter? … what? … How is Marfa Borisovna?”
“You know, father, you would have done much better not to come at all! She is ready to eat you up! You have not shown yourself since the day before yesterday and she is expecting the money. Why did you promise her any? You are always the same! Well, now you will have to get out of it as best you can.”
They stopped before a somewhat low doorway on the fourth floor. Ardalion Alexandrovitch, evidently much out of countenance, pushed Muishkin in front.
“I will wait here,” he stammered. “I should like to surprise her. …”
Colia entered first, and as the door stood open, the mistress of the house peeped out. The surprise of the general’s imagination fell very flat, for she at once began to address him in terms of reproach.
Marfa Borisovna was about forty years of age. She wore a dressing-jacket, her feet were in slippers, her face painted, and her hair was in dozens of small plaits. No sooner did she catch sight of Ardalion Alexandrovitch than she screamed:
“There he is, that wicked, mean wretch! I knew it was he! My heart misgave me!”
The old man tried to put a good face on the affair.
“Come, let us go in—it’s all right,” he whispered in the prince’s ear.