Dostoevsky describes General Epanchin's position in life with these shining words: "Но все было впереди, время терпело, время все терпело, и все должно было придти современем и своим чередом." ... "But everything was before him, there was time enough for everything, and everything would come in time and in due course." What a wonderful place to be! No wonder he continues: "Да и летами генерал Епанчин был еще, как говорится, в самом соку, то-есть пятидесяти шести лет и никак не более, что во всяком случае составляет возраст цветущий, возраст, с которого, по-настоящему, начинается истинная жизнь." ... "As for his years, General Epanchin was still, as they say, in the prime of life, that is, fifty-six and not a whit more, which in any case is a flourishing age, the age when true life really begins." (translation, as often, from Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky).
A few pages earlier, in describing Totsky, the man who lives with Nastasya Filippovna, Dostoevsky refers to the mid 50s: "потому совсем, то-есть, лет достиг настоящих, пятидесяти пяти, и жениться на первейшей раскрасавице во всем Петербурге хочет." ... interestingly (and perhaps strangely), Pevear and Volokhonsky add in the phrase "prime of life" here as well ... "because he's reached the prime of life, he's fifty-five, and wants to marry the foremost beauty in all Petersburg." Totsky is fifty-five, he's getting on a bit, now is the time he should be thinking of marrying a beauty, but of course it is plausible that he marry a great beauty, so in this sense perhaps we can take it as the "prime of life", but I am not sure the addition of the phrase in the translation is justified.
[Painting by Фёдор Александрович Васильев]
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