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“N-no thanks, I don’t know--”
He could not believe that this was the same haughty young girl who had once so
proudly shown him Gania’s letter. He could not understand how that proud and
austere beauty could show herself to be such an utter child--a child who
probably did not even now understand some words.
Elizabetha Prokofievna sometimes informed the girls that they were a little too
candid in this matter, but in spite of their outward deference to their mother
these three young women, in solemn conclave, had long agreed to modify the
unquestioning obedience which they had been in the habit of according to her;
and Mrs. General Epanchin had judged it better to say nothing about it, though,
of course, she was well aware of the fact.

At that moment Gania, accompanied by Ptitsin, came out to the terrace. From an
adjoining room came a noise of angry voices, and General Ivolgin, in loud tones,
seemed to be trying to shout them down. Colia rushed off at once to investigate
the cause of the uproar.

“A great disgrace.”

“No--and I don’t want one,” said the prince, laughing.

In spite of his shyness and agitation, he could not help being greatly
interested in the conversation. A special characteristic of his was the naive
candour with which he always listened to arguments which interested him, and
with which he answered any questions put to him on the subject at issue. In the
very expression of his face this naivete was unmistakably evident, this
disbelief in the insincerity of others, and unsuspecting disregard of irony or
humour in their words.
“You’ll hate her afterwards for all your present love, and for all the torment
you are suffering on her account now. What seems to me the most extraordinary
thing is, that she can again consent to marry you, after all that has passed
between you. When I heard the news yesterday, I could hardly bring myself to
believe it. Why, she has run twice from you, from the very altar rails, as it
were. She must have some presentiment of evil. What can she want with you now?
Your money? Nonsense! Besides, I should think you must have made a fairly large
hole in your fortune already. Surely it is not because she is so very anxious to
find a husband? She could find many a one besides yourself. Anyone would be
better than you, because you will murder her, and I feel sure she must know that
but too well by now. Is it because you love her so passionately? Indeed, that
may be it. I have heard that there are women who want just that kind of love...
but still...” The prince paused, reflectively.

“May I ask your reason for such an insulting supposition, sir?” said Hippolyte,
trembling with rage.

“I tell you, my dear fellow, Aglaya is such an extraordinary, such a
self-willed, fantastical little creature, you wouldn’t believe it! Every high
quality, every brilliant trait of heart and mind, are to be found in her, and,
with it all, so much caprice and mockery, such wild fancies--indeed, a little
devil! She has just been laughing at her mother to her very face, and at her
sisters, and at Prince S., and everybody--and of course she always laughs at me!
You know I love the child--I love her even when she laughs at me, and I believe
the wild little creature has a special fondness for me for that very reason. She
is fonder of me than any of the others. I dare swear she has had a good laugh at
_you_ before now! You were having a quiet talk just now, I observed, after all
the thunder and lightning upstairs. She was sitting with you just as though
there had been no row at all.”

What was this universe? What was this grand, eternal pageant to which he had
yearned from his childhood up, and in which he could never take part? Every
morning the same magnificent sun; every morning the same rainbow in the
waterfall; every evening the same glow on the snow-mountains.

“In connection with ‘the ten,’ eh?” laughed Evgenie, as he left the room.

“Eighteen thousand roubles, for me? Why, you declare yourself a fool at once,”
she said, with impudent familiarity, as she rose from the sofa and prepared to
go. Gania watched the whole scene with a sinking of the heart.

Gania was silent and merely looked contemptuously at him.

“Well--gentlemen--I do not force anyone to listen! If any of you are unwilling
to sit it out, please go away, by all means!”
He crossed the salon and the entrance-hall, so as to pass down the corridor into
his own room. As he came near the front door he heard someone outside vainly
endeavouring to ring the bell, which was evidently broken, and only shook a
little, without emitting any sound.

“She spoke of some bills of Evgenie Pavlovitch’s,” said the prince, simply,
“which Rogojin had bought up from someone; and implied that Rogojin would not
press him.”

On the particular morning on which our story has opened, the family had
assembled in the dining-room, and were waiting the general’s appearance, the
latter having promised to come this day. If he had been one moment late, he
would have been sent for at once; but he turned up punctually.

“Ah, you want to arouse our curiosity!” said Aglaya. “And how terribly solemn
you are about it!” Gania felt a little guilty.

“It’s so dark,” he said.

“It’s so dark,” he said.

But the prince could not finish his question; he did not know what to say.
Besides this, his heart was beating so that he found it difficult to speak at
all. Rogojin was silent also and looked at him as before, with an expression of
deep thoughtfulness.

Evgenie Pavlovitch fell back a step in astonishment. For one moment it was all
he could do to restrain himself from bursting out laughing; but, looking closer,
he observed that the prince did not seem to be quite himself; at all events, he
was in a very curious state.
“What?”
He returned thoughtful and confused; the riddle lay heavier than ever on his
soul. He was troubled about the prince, too, and so bewildered that he did not
even observe Rogojin’s rowdy band crowd past him and step on his toes, at the
door as they went out. They were all talking at once. Rogojin went ahead of the
others, talking to Ptitsin, and apparently insisting vehemently upon something
very important.

“It is to annoy their mother; that is their one aim in life; it can be nothing
else. The fact is it is all of a piece with these modern ideas, that wretched
woman’s question! Six months ago Aglaya took a fancy to cut off her magnificent
hair. Why, even I, when I was young, had nothing like it! The scissors were in
her hand, and I had to go down on my knees and implore her... She did it, I
know, from sheer mischief, to spite her mother, for she is a naughty, capricious
girl, a real spoiled child spiteful and mischievous to a degree! And then
Alexandra wanted to shave her head, not from caprice or mischief, but, like a
little fool, simply because Aglaya persuaded her she would sleep better without
her hair, and not suffer from headache! And how many suitors have they not had
during the last five years! Excellent offers, too! What more do they want? Why
don’t they get married? For no other reason than to vex their
mother--none--none!”

“Vera Lukianovna,” said Hippolyte, “toss it, will you? Heads, I read, tails, I
don’t.”

“And I have heard of _you_,” continued the prince, addressing Ivan Petrovitch,
“that when some of your villagers were burned out you gave them wood to build up
their houses again, though they were no longer your serfs and had behaved badly
towards you.”

It soon became clear to Gania, after scenes of wrath and quarrellings at the
domestic hearth, that his family were seriously opposed to the match, and that
Nastasia was aware of this fact was equally evident. She said nothing about it,
though he daily expected her to do so.

“God bless you, dear boy, for being respectful to a disgraced man. Yes, to a
poor disgraced old fellow, your father. You shall have such a son yourself; le
roi de Rome. Oh, curses on this house!”

“There were a couple of old bullets in the bag which contained the pistol, and
powder enough in an old flask for two or three charges.

“Forgive me, it’s a schoolboy expression. I won’t do it again. I know quite
well, I see it, that you are anxious on my account (now, don’t be angry), and it
makes me very happy to see it. You wouldn’t believe how frightened I am of
misbehaving somehow, and how glad I am of your instructions. But all this panic
is simply nonsense, you know, Aglaya! I give you my word it is; I am so pleased
that you are such a child, such a dear good child. How _charming_ you can be if
you like, Aglaya.”

“He has been very ill,” added Varia.

Lizabetha Prokofievna went to bed and only rose again in time for tea, when the
prince might be expected.

“Of course it is nonsense, and in nonsense it would have ended, doubtless; but
you know these fellows, they--”

“Prince! ex-ex-excellency!” he stammered. Then suddenly he ran towards the girl
with the infant, a movement so unexpected by her that she staggered and fell
back, but next moment he was threatening the other child, who was standing,
still laughing, in the doorway. She screamed, and ran towards the kitchen.
Lebedeff stamped his foot angrily; then, seeing the prince regarding him with
amazement, he murmured apologetically--“Pardon to show respect!... he-he!”
“Who indeed?” exclaimed Prince S.

Evgenie himself was very likely going abroad also; so were Prince S. and his
wife, if affairs allowed of it; the general was to stay at home. They were all
at their estate of Colmina now, about twenty miles or so from St. Petersburg.
Princess Bielokonski had not returned to Moscow yet, and was apparently staying
on for reasons of her own. Lizabetha Prokofievna had insisted that it was quite
impossible to remain in Pavlofsk after what had happened. Evgenie had told her
of all the rumours current in town about the affair; so that there could be no
talk of their going to their house on the Yelagin as yet.

“But who else _could_ it be, my very dear prince?” repeated Lebedeff, as sweet
as sugar again. “If you don’t wish me to suspect Mr. Burdovsky?” “Well, I’ll
change it, right or wrong; I’ll say that you are not sceptical, but _jealous_.
There! you are deadly jealous of Gania, over a certain proud damsel! Come!”
Colia jumped up, with these words, and burst out laughing. He laughed as he had
perhaps never laughed before, and still more when he saw the prince flushing up
to his temples. He was delighted that the prince should be jealous about Aglaya.
However, he stopped immediately on seeing that the other was really hurt, and
the conversation continued, very earnestly, for an hour or more.
“I think you might fairly remember that I was not in any way bound, I had no
reason to be silent about that portrait. You never asked me not to mention it.”

The news of what had happened reached the church with extraordinary rapidity.
When Keller arrived, a host of people whom he did not know thronged around to
ask him questions. There was much excited talking, and shaking of heads, even
some laughter; but no one left the church, all being anxious to observe how the
now celebrated bridegroom would take the news. He grew very pale upon hearing
it, but took it quite quietly.

“Do you say he is consumptive?”
“No, no! Heaven forbid that we should bring Nina Alexandrovna into this
business! Or Colia, either. But perhaps I have not yet quite understood you,
Lebedeff?”

Here Colia handed him a chair, and he subsided into it, breathless with rage.

“God forbid that he should share your ideas, Ivan Fedorovitch!” his wife flashed
back. “Or that he should be as gross and churlish as you!”
Alexandra took it, and Adelaida came up, and both the girls examined the
photograph. Just then Aglaya entered the room.

The conversation proceeded. The readiness of the fair-haired young man in the
cloak to answer all his opposite neighbour’s questions was surprising. He seemed
to have no suspicion of any impertinence or inappropriateness in the fact of
such questions being put to him. Replying to them, he made known to the inquirer
that he certainly had been long absent from Russia, more than four years; that
he had been sent abroad for his health; that he had suffered from some strange
nervous malady--a kind of epilepsy, with convulsive spasms. His interlocutor
burst out laughing several times at his answers; and more than ever, when to the
question, “whether he had been cured?” the patient replied:

“H’m! Prince Muishkin is not Ferdishenko,” said the general, impatiently. This
worthy gentleman could never quite reconcile himself to the idea of meeting
Ferdishenko in society, and on an equal footing.

“Well, well! I won’t again,” said the master of the house, his anxiety getting
the better of his temper. He went up to his daughter, and looked at the child in
her arms, anxiously making the sign of the cross over her three times. “God
bless her! God bless her!” he cried with emotion. “This little creature is my
daughter Luboff,” addressing the prince. “My wife, Helena, died--at her birth;
and this is my big daughter Vera, in mourning, as you see; and this, this, oh,
this,” pointing to the young man on the divan...
However, the invalid--to his immense satisfaction--ended by seriously alarming
the prince.

“In our dear country, as indeed in the whole of Europe, a famine visits humanity
about four times a century, as far as I can remember; once in every twenty-five
years. I won’t swear to this being the exact figure, but anyhow they have become
comparatively rare.”

We may mention that Gania was no longer mentioned in the Epanchin household any
more than the prince was; but that a certain circumstance in connection with the
fatal evening at Nastasia’s house became known to the general, and, in fact, to
all the family the very next day. This fact was that Gania had come home that
night, but had refused to go to bed. He had awaited the prince’s return from
Ekaterinhof with feverish impatience.

“This evening!” repeated her mother in a tone of despair, but softly, as though
to herself. “Then it’s all settled, of course, and there’s no hope left to us.
She has anticipated her answer by the present of her portrait. Did he show it
you himself?” she added, in some surprise.

“Don’t give it to him if he does. Fancy, he was a decent, respectable man once!
He was received in the best society; he was not always the liar he is now. Of
course, wine is at the bottom of it all; but he is a good deal worse than an
innocent liar now. Do you know that he keeps a mistress? I can’t understand how
mother is so long-suffering. Did he tell you the story of the siege of Kars? Or
perhaps the one about his grey horse that talked? He loves to enlarge on these
absurd histories.” And Gania burst into a fit of laughter. Suddenly he turned to
the prince and asked: “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Oh, but I do know, as it happens,” said the clerk in an aggravating manner.
“Lebedeff knows all about her. You are pleased to reproach me, your excellency,
but what if I prove that I am right after all? Nastasia Phillpovna’s family name
is Barashkoff--I know, you see--and she is a very well known lady, indeed, and
comes of a good family, too. She is connected with one Totski, Afanasy
Ivanovitch, a man of considerable property, a director of companies, and so on,
and a great friend of General Epanchin, who is interested in the same matters as
he is.”

Totski sat and shrugged his shoulders, bewildered. He was the only guest left
sitting at this time; the others had thronged round the table in disorder, and
were all talking at once.

“He has acknowledged himself to be in the wrong. Don’t you see that the greater
his vanity, the more difficult this admission must have been on his part? Oh,
what a little child you are, Lizabetha Prokofievna!”

“I’ve always said she was predisposed to it,” whispered Afanasy Ivanovitch
slyly. “Perhaps it is a fever!”

“There you are, mother, you are always like that. You begin by promising that
there are to be no reproaches or insinuations or questions, and here you are
beginning them at once. We had better drop the subject--we had, really. I shall
never leave you, mother; any other man would cut and run from such a sister as
this. See how she is looking at me at this moment! Besides, how do you know that
I am blinding Nastasia Philipovna? As for Varia, I don’t care--she can do just
as she pleases. There, that’s quite enough!”

“God knows, Aglaya, that to restore her peace of mind and make her happy I would
willingly give up my life. But I cannot love her, and she knows that.”

“Yes, I shall marry her--yes.”

Nastasia Philipovna was waiting for them in the first room they went into. She
was dressed very simply, in black.

“Oh, I dare say one can; but you had better be calm and lie down,
Hippolyte--that’s much more important.”

“‘Nurse, where is your tomb?’
“Oh--come! Surely you must know that there is to be a meeting today between
Nastasia and Aglaya Ivanovna, and that Nastasia has been sent for on purpose,
through Rogojin, from St. Petersburg? It has been brought about by invitation of
Aglaya Ivanovna and my own efforts, and Nastasia is at this moment with Rogojin,
not far from here--at Dana Alexeyevna’s--that curious friend of hers; and to
this questionable house Aglaya Ivanovna is to proceed for a friendly chat with
Nastasia Philipovna, and for the settlement of several problems. They are going
to play at arithmetic--didn’t you know about it? Word of honour?”

“Oh, not in the least,” said the prince. “On the contrary, I have been so much
interested, I’m really very much obliged to you.”

Suddenly Rogojin burst into a loud abrupt laugh, as though he had quite
forgotten that they must speak in whispers.

“Well, I went homewards, and near the hotel I came across a poor woman, carrying
a child--a baby of some six weeks old. The mother was quite a girl herself. The
baby was smiling up at her, for the first time in its life, just at that moment;
and while I watched the woman she suddenly crossed herself, oh, so devoutly!
‘What is it, my good woman?’ I asked her. (I was never but asking questions
then!) ‘Exactly as is a mother’s joy when her baby smiles for the first time
into her eyes, so is God’s joy when one of His children turns and prays to Him
for the first time, with all his heart!’ This is what that poor woman said to
me, almost word for word; and such a deep, refined, truly religious thought it
was--a thought in which the whole essence of Christianity was expressed in one
flash--that is, the recognition of God as our Father, and of God’s joy in men as
His own children, which is the chief idea of Christ. She was a simple
country-woman--a mother, it’s true--and perhaps, who knows, she may have been
the wife of the drunken soldier!

“No, I don’t think so,” said the prince, thoughtfully; “it’s too late for
that--that would be dangerous now. No, no! Better say nothing about it. Be nice
with him, you know, but don’t show him--oh, _you_ know well enough--”

“But what is the use of talking? I’m afraid all this is so commonplace that my
confession will be taken for a schoolboy exercise--the work of some ambitious
lad writing in the hope of his work ‘seeing the light’; or perhaps my readers
will say that ‘I had perhaps something to say, but did not know how to express
it.’

“Oh, Mr. Lebedeff, I am told you lecture on the Apocalypse. Is it true?” asked
Aglaya.

“Please don’t be angry with me,” continued the prince. “I know very well that I
have seen less of life than other people, and have less knowledge of it. I must
appear to speak strangely sometimes...”

“No, no, read it--read it at once directly, and aloud, aloud!” cried she,
calling Colia to her and giving him the journal.--“Read it aloud, so that
everyone may hear it!”

He opened his own door. “No? No?” shouted Rogojin, almost out of his mind with
joy. “You are not going to, after all? And they told me--oh, Nastasia
Philipovna--they said you had promised to marry him, _him!_ As if you _could_ do
it!--him--pooh! I don’t mind saying it to everyone--I’d buy him off for a
hundred roubles, any day pfu! Give him a thousand, or three if he likes, poor
devil, and he’d cut and run the day before his wedding, and leave his bride to
me! Wouldn’t you, Gania, you blackguard? You’d take three thousand, wouldn’t
you? Here’s the money! Look, I’ve come on purpose to pay you off and get your
receipt, formally. I said I’d buy you up, and so I will.”
“I did not confess anything to you,” said the prince, blushing. “I only answered
your question.”
Rogojin raised his eyes and gazed intently at the prince.

But there were many other puzzling occurrences that day, which required
immediate explanation, and the prince felt very sad. A visit from Vera Lebedeff
distracted him a little. She brought the infant Lubotchka with her as usual, and
talked cheerfully for some time. Then came her younger sister, and later the
brother, who attended a school close by. He informed Muishkin that his father
had lately found a new interpretation of the star called “wormwood,” which fell
upon the water-springs, as described in the Apocalypse. He had decided that it
meant the network of railroads spread over the face of Europe at the present
time. The prince refused to believe that Lebedeff could have given such an
interpretation, and they decided to ask him about it at the earliest
opportunity. Vera related how Keller had taken up his abode with them on the
previous evening. She thought he would remain for some time, as he was greatly
pleased with the society of General Ivolgin and of the whole family. But he
declared that he had only come to them in order to complete his education! The
prince always enjoyed the company of Lebedeff’s children, and today it was
especially welcome, for Colia did not appear all day. Early that morning he had
started for Petersburg. Lebedeff also was away on business. But Gavrila
Ardalionovitch had promised to visit Muishkin, who eagerly awaited his coming.

“With you and me there would have been a scene. We should have shouted and
fought, and called in the police. But he has simply made some new friends--and
such friends, too! I know them!”

“Is Parfen Semionovitch at home?” he asked.