The Idiot Fyodor Dostoyevsky 11087 downloads.pdf

PART IV

I.
A week had elapsed since the rendezvous of our two friends on the green
bench in the park, when, one fine morning at about half-past ten o’clock,
Varvara Ardalionovna, otherwise Mrs. Ptitsin, who had been out to visit a
friend, returned home in a state of considerable mental depression.
There are certain people of whom it is difficult to say anything which
will at once throw them into relief—in other words, describe them
graphically in their typical characteristics. These are they who are generally
known as “commonplace people,” and this class comprises, of course, the
immense majority of mankind. Authors, as a rule, attempt to select and
portray types rarely met with in their entirety, but these types are
nevertheless more real than real life itself.
“Podkoleosin” [A character in Gogol’s comedy, The Wedding.] was
perhaps an exaggeration, but he was by no means a non-existent character;
on the contrary, how many intelligent people, after hearing of this
Podkoleosin from Gogol, immediately began to find that scores of their
friends were exactly like him! They knew, perhaps, before Gogol told them,
that their friends were like Podkoleosin, but they did not know what name
to give them. In real life, young fellows seldom jump out of the window
just before their weddings, because such a feat, not to speak of its other
aspects, must be a decidedly unpleasant mode of escape; and yet there are
plenty of bridegrooms, intelligent fellows too, who would be ready to
confess themselves Podkoleosins in the depths of their consciousness, just
before marriage. Nor does every husband feel bound to repeat at every step,
“Tu l’as voulu, Georges Dandin!” like another typical personage; and yet
how many millions and billions of Georges Dandins there are in real life
who feel inclined to utter this soul-drawn cry after their honeymoon, if not

the day after the wedding! Therefore, without entering into any more
serious examination of the question, I will content myself with remarking
that in real life typical characters are “watered down,” so to speak; and all
these Dandins and Podkoleosins actually exist among us every day, but in a
diluted form. I will just add, however, that Georges Dandin might have
existed exactly as Molière presented him, and probably does exist now and
then, though rarely; and so I will end this scientific examination, which is
beginning to look like a newspaper criticism. But for all this, the question
remains,—what are the novelists to do with commonplace people, and how
are they to be presented to the reader in such a form as to be in the least
degree interesting? They cannot be left out altogether, for commonplace
people meet one at every turn of life, and to leave them out would be to
destroy the whole reality and probability of the story. To fill a novel with
typical characters only, or with merely strange and uncommon people,
would render the book unreal and improbable, and would very likely
destroy the interest. In my opinion, the duty of the novelist is to seek out
points of interest and instruction even in the characters of commonplace
people.
For instance, when the whole essence of an ordinary person’s nature lies
in his perpetual and unchangeable commonplaceness; and when in spite of
all his endeavours to do something out of the common, this person ends,
eventually, by remaining in his unbroken line of routine—. I think such an
individual really does become a type of his own—a type of
commonplaceness which will not for the world, if it can help it, be
contented, but strains and yearns to be something original and independent,
without the slightest possibility of being so. To this class of commonplace
people belong several characters in this novel;—characters which—I admit
—I have not drawn very vividly up to now for my reader’s benefit.
Such were, for instance, Varvara Ardalionovna Ptitsin, her husband, and
her brother, Gania.
There is nothing so annoying as to be fairly rich, of a fairly good family,
pleasing presence, average education, to be “not stupid,” kind-hearted, and
yet to have no talent at all, no originality, not a single idea of one’s own—to
be, in fact, “just like everyone else.”
Of such people there are countless numbers in this world—far more even
than appear. They can be divided into two classes as all men can—that is,

those of limited intellect, and those who are much cleverer. The former of
these classes is the happier.
To a commonplace man of limited intellect, for instance, nothing is
simpler than to imagine himself an original character, and to revel in that
belief without the slightest misgiving.
Many of our young women have thought fit to cut their hair short, put on
blue spectacles, and call themselves Nihilists. By doing this they have been
able to persuade themselves, without further trouble, that they have
acquired new convictions of their own. Some men have but felt some little
qualm of kindness towards their fellow-men, and the fact has been quite
enough to persuade them that they stand alone in the van of enlightenment
and that no one has such humanitarian feelings as they. Others have but to
read an idea of somebody else’s, and they can immediately assimilate it and
believe that it was a child of their own brain. The “impudence of
ignorance,” if I may use the expression, is developed to a wonderful extent
in such cases;—unlikely as it appears, it is met with at every turn.
This confidence of a stupid man in his own talents has been wonderfully
depicted by Gogol in the amazing character of Pirogoff. Pirogoff has not the
slightest doubt of his own genius,—nay, of his superiority of genius,—so
certain is he of it that he never questions it. How many Pirogoffs have there
not been among our writers—scholars, propagandists? I say “have been,”
but indeed there are plenty of them at this very day.
Our friend, Gania, belonged to the other class—to the “much cleverer”
persons, though he was from head to foot permeated and saturated with the
longing to be original. This class, as I have said above, is far less happy. For
the “clever commonplace” person, though he may possibly imagine himself
a man of genius and originality, none the less has within his heart the
deathless worm of suspicion and doubt; and this doubt sometimes brings a
clever man to despair. (As a rule, however, nothing tragic happens;—his
liver becomes a little damaged in the course of time, nothing more serious.
Such men do not give up their aspirations after originality without a severe
struggle,—and there have been men who, though good fellows in
themselves, and even benefactors to humanity, have sunk to the level of
base criminals for the sake of originality).
Gania was a beginner, as it were, upon this road. A deep and
unchangeable consciousness of his own lack of talent, combined with a vast

longing to be able to persuade himself that he was original, had rankled in
his heart, even from childhood.
He seemed to have been born with overwrought nerves, and in his
passionate desire to excel, he was often led to the brink of some rash step;
and yet, having resolved upon such a step, when the moment arrived, he
invariably proved too sensible to take it. He was ready, in the same way, to
do a base action in order to obtain his wished-for object; and yet, when the
moment came to do it, he found that he was too honest for any great
baseness. (Not that he objected to acts of petty meanness—he was always
ready for them.) He looked with hate and loathing on the poverty and
downfall of his family, and treated his mother with haughty contempt,
although he knew that his whole future depended on her character and
reputation.
Aglaya had simply frightened him; yet he did not give up all thoughts of
her—though he never seriously hoped that she would condescend to him.
At the time of his “adventure” with Nastasia Philipovna he had come to the
conclusion that money was his only hope—money should do all for him.
At the moment when he lost Aglaya, and after the scene with Nastasia, he
had felt so low in his own eyes that he actually brought the money back to
the prince. Of this returning of the money given to him by a madwoman
who had received it from a madman, he had often repented since—though
he never ceased to be proud of his action. During the short time that
Muishkin remained in Petersburg Gania had had time to come to hate him
for his sympathy, though the prince told him that it was “not everyone who
would have acted so nobly” as to return the money. He had long pondered,
too, over his relations with Aglaya, and had persuaded himself that with
such a strange, childish, innocent character as hers, things might have ended
very differently. Remorse then seized him; he threw up his post, and buried
himself in self-torment and reproach.
He lived at Ptitsin’s, and openly showed contempt for the latter, though
he always listened to his advice, and was sensible enough to ask for it when
he wanted it. Gavrila Ardalionovitch was angry with Ptitsin because the
latter did not care to become a Rothschild. “If you are to be a Jew,” he said,
“do it properly—squeeze people right and left, show some character; be the
King of the Jews while you are about it.”

Ptitsin was quiet and not easily offended—he only laughed. But on one
occasion he explained seriously to Gania that he was no Jew, that he did
nothing dishonest, that he could not help the market price of money, that,
thanks to his accurate habits, he had already a good footing and was
respected, and that his business was flourishing.
“I shan’t ever be a Rothschild, and there is no reason why I should,” he
added, smiling; “but I shall have a house in the Liteynaya, perhaps two, and
that will be enough for me.” “Who knows but what I may have three!” he
concluded to himself; but this dream, cherished inwardly, he never confided
to a soul.
Nature loves and favours such people. Ptitsin will certainly have his
reward, not three houses, but four, precisely because from childhood up he
had realized that he would never be a Rothschild. That will be the limit of
Ptitsin’s fortune, and, come what may, he will never have more than four
houses.
Varvara Ardalionovna was not like her brother. She too, had passionate
desires, but they were persistent rather than impetuous. Her plans were as
wise as her methods of carrying them out. No doubt she also belonged to
the category of ordinary people who dream of being original, but she soon
discovered that she had not a grain of true originality, and she did not let it
trouble her too much. Perhaps a certain kind of pride came to her help. She
made her first concession to the demands of practical life with great
resolution when she consented to marry Ptitsin. However, when she married
she did not say to herself, “Never mind a mean action if it leads to the end
in view,” as her brother would certainly have said in such a case; it is quite
probable that he may have said it when he expressed his elder-brotherly
satisfaction at her decision. Far from this; Varvara Ardalionovna did not
marry until she felt convinced that her future husband was unassuming,
agreeable, almost cultured, and that nothing on earth would tempt him to a
really dishonourable deed. As to small meannesses, such trifles did not
trouble her. Indeed, who is free from them? It is absurd to expect the ideal!
Besides, she knew that her marriage would provide a refuge for all her
family. Seeing Gania unhappy, she was anxious to help him, in spite of their
former disputes and misunderstandings. Ptitsin, in a friendly way, would
press his brother-in-law to enter the army. “You know,” he said sometimes,
jokingly, “you despise generals and generaldom, but you will see that ‘they’

will all end by being generals in their turn. You will see it if you live long
enough!”
“But why should they suppose that I despise generals?” Gania thought
sarcastically to himself.
To serve her brother’s interests, Varvara Ardalionovna was constantly at
the Epanchins’ house, helped by the fact that in childhood she and Gania
had played with General Ivan Fedorovitch’s daughters. It would have been
inconsistent with her character if in these visits she had been pursuing a
chimera; her project was not chimerical at all; she was building on a firm
basis—on her knowledge of the character of the Epanchin family, especially
Aglaya, whom she studied closely. All Varvara’s efforts were directed
towards bringing Aglaya and Gania together. Perhaps she achieved some
result; perhaps, also, she made the mistake of depending too much upon her
brother, and expecting more from him than he would ever be capable of
giving. However this may be, her manoeuvres were skilful enough. For
weeks at a time she would never mention Gania. Her attitude was modest
but dignified, and she was always extremely truthful and sincere.
Examining the depths of her conscience, she found nothing to reproach
herself with, and this still further strengthened her in her designs. But
Varvara Ardalionovna sometimes remarked that she felt spiteful; that there
was a good deal of vanity in her, perhaps even of wounded vanity. She
noticed this at certain times more than at others, and especially after her
visits to the Epanchins.
Today, as I have said, she returned from their house with a heavy feeling
of dejection. There was a sensation of bitterness, a sort of mocking
contempt, mingled with it.
Arrived at her own house, Varia heard a considerable commotion going
on in the upper storey, and distinguished the voices of her father and
brother. On entering the salon she found Gania pacing up and down at
frantic speed, pale with rage and almost tearing his hair. She frowned, and
subsided on to the sofa with a tired air, and without taking the trouble to
remove her hat. She very well knew that if she kept quiet and asked her
brother nothing about his reason for tearing up and down the room, his
wrath would fall upon her head. So she hastened to put the question:
“The old story, eh?”

“Old story? No! Heaven knows what’s up now—I don’t! Father has
simply gone mad; mother’s in floods of tears. Upon my word, Varia, I must
kick him out of the house; or else go myself,” he added, probably
remembering that he could not well turn people out of a house which was
not his own.
“You must make allowances,” murmured Varia.
“Make allowances? For whom? Him—the old blackguard? No, no, Varia
—that won’t do! It won’t do, I tell you! And look at the swagger of the
man! He’s all to blame himself, and yet he puts on so much ‘side’ that you’d
think—my word!—‘It’s too much trouble to go through the gate, you must
break the fence for me!’ That’s the sort of air he puts on; but what’s the
matter with you, Varia? What a curious expression you have!”
“I’m all right,” said Varia, in a tone that sounded as though she were all
wrong.
Gania looked more intently at her.
“You’ve been there?” he asked, suddenly.
“Yes.”
“Did you find out anything?”
“Nothing unexpected. I discovered that it’s all true. My husband was
wiser than either of us. Just as he suspected from the beginning, so it has
fallen out. Where is he?”
“Out. Well—what has happened?—go on.”
“The prince is formally engaged to her—that’s settled. The elder sisters
told me about it. Aglaya has agreed. They don’t attempt to conceal it any
longer; you know how mysterious and secret they have all been up to now.
Adelaida’s wedding is put off again, so that both can be married on one day.
Isn’t that delightfully romantic? Somebody ought to write a poem on it. Sit
down and write an ode instead of tearing up and down like that. This
evening Princess Bielokonski is to arrive; she comes just in time—they
have a party tonight. He is to be presented to old Bielokonski, though I
believe he knows her already; probably the engagement will be openly
announced. They are only afraid that he may knock something down, or trip
over something when he comes into the room. It would be just like him.”
Gania listened attentively, but to his sister’s astonishment he was by no
means so impressed by this news (which should, she thought, have been so

important to him) as she had expected.
“Well, it was clear enough all along,” he said, after a moment’s
reflection. “So that’s the end,” he added, with a disagreeable smile,
continuing to walk up and down the room, but much slower than before,
and glancing slyly into his sister’s face.
“It’s a good thing that you take it philosophically, at all events,” said
Varia. “I’m really very glad of it.”
“Yes, it’s off our hands—off yours, I should say.”
“I think I have served you faithfully. I never even asked you what
happiness you expected to find with Aglaya.”
“Did I ever expect to find happiness with Aglaya?”
“Come, come, don’t overdo your philosophy. Of course you did. Now it’s
all over, and a good thing, too; pair of fools that we have been! I confess I
have never been able to look at it seriously. I busied myself in it for your
sake, thinking that there was no knowing what might happen with a funny
girl like that to deal with. There were ninety to one chances against it. To
this moment I can’t make out why you wished for it.”
“H’m! now, I suppose, you and your husband will never weary of egging
me on to work again. You’ll begin your lectures about perseverance and
strength of will, and all that. I know it all by heart,” said Gania, laughing.
“He’s got some new idea in his head,” thought Varia. “Are they pleased
over there—the parents?” asked Gania, suddenly.
“N-no, I don’t think they are. You can judge for yourself. I think the
general is pleased enough; her mother is a little uneasy. She always loathed
the idea of the prince as a husband; everybody knows that.”
“Of course, naturally. The bridegroom is an impossible and ridiculous
one. I mean, has she given her formal consent?”
“She has not said ‘no,’ up to now, and that’s all. It was sure to be so with
her. You know what she is like. You know how absurdly shy she is. You
remember how she used to hide in a cupboard as a child, so as to avoid
seeing visitors, for hours at a time. She is just the same now; but, do you
know, I think there is something serious in the matter, even from her side; I
feel it, somehow. She laughs at the prince, they say, from morn to night in
order to hide her real feelings; but you may be sure she finds occasion to
say something or other to him on the sly, for he himself is in a state of

radiant happiness. He walks in the clouds; they say he is extremely funny
just now; I heard it from themselves. They seemed to be laughing at me in
their sleeves—those elder girls—I don’t know why.”
Gania had begun to frown, and probably Varia added this last sentence in
order to probe his thought. However, at this moment, the noise began again
upstairs.
“I’ll turn him out!” shouted Gania, glad of the opportunity of venting his
vexation. “I shall just turn him out—we can’t have this.”
“Yes, and then he’ll go about the place and disgrace us as he did
yesterday.”
“How ‘as he did yesterday’? What do you mean? What did he do
yesterday?” asked Gania, in alarm.
“Why, goodness me, don’t you know?” Varia stopped short.
“What? You don’t mean to say that he went there yesterday!” cried
Gania, flushing red with shame and anger. “Good heavens, Varia! Speak!
You have just been there. Was he there or not, quick?” And Gania rushed for
the door. Varia followed and caught him by both hands.
“What are you doing? Where are you going to? You can’t let him go
now; if you do he’ll go and do something worse.”
“What did he do there? What did he say?”
“They couldn’t tell me themselves; they couldn’t make head or tail of it;
but he frightened them all. He came to see the general, who was not at
home; so he asked for Lizabetha Prokofievna. First of all, he begged her for
some place, or situation, for work of some kind, and then he began to
complain about us, about me and my husband, and you, especially you; he
said a lot of things.”
“Oh! couldn’t you find out?” muttered Gania, trembling hysterically.
“No—nothing more than that. Why, they couldn’t understand him
themselves; and very likely didn’t tell me all.”
Gania seized his head with both hands and tottered to the window; Varia
sat down at the other window.
“Funny girl, Aglaya,” she observed, after a pause. “When she left me she
said, ‘Give my special and personal respects to your parents; I shall

certainly find an opportunity to see your father one day,’ and so serious over
it. She’s a strange creature.”
“Wasn’t she joking? She was speaking sarcastically!”
“Not a bit of it; that’s just the strange part of it.”
“Does she know about father, do you think—or not?”
“That they do not know about it in the house is quite certain, the rest of
them, I mean; but you have given me an idea. Aglaya perhaps knows. She
alone, though, if anyone; for the sisters were as astonished as I was to hear
her speak so seriously. If she knows, the prince must have told her.”
“Oh! it’s not a great matter to guess who told her. A thief! A thief in our
family, and the head of the family, too!”
“Oh! nonsense!” cried Varia, angrily. “That was nothing but a drunkard’s
tale. Nonsense! Why, who invented the whole thing—Lebedeff and the
prince—a pretty pair! Both were probably drunk.”
“Father is a drunkard and a thief; I am a beggar, and the husband of my
sister is a usurer,” continued Gania, bitterly. “There was a pretty list of
advantages with which to enchant the heart of Aglaya.”
“That same husband of your sister, the usurer—”
“Feeds me? Go on. Don’t stand on ceremony, pray.”
“Don’t lose your temper. You are just like a schoolboy. You think that all
this sort of thing would harm you in Aglaya’s eyes, do you? You little know
her character. She is capable of refusing the most brilliant party, and
running away and starving in a garret with some wretched student; that’s
the sort of girl she is. You never could or did understand how interesting
you would have seen in her eyes if you had come firmly and proudly
through our misfortunes. The prince has simply caught her with hook and
line; firstly, because he never thought of fishing for her, and secondly,
because he is an idiot in the eyes of most people. It’s quite enough for her
that by accepting him she puts her family out and annoys them all round—
that’s what she likes. You don’t understand these things.”
“We shall see whether I understand or no!” said Gania, enigmatically.
“But I shouldn’t like her to know all about father, all the same. I thought the
prince would manage to hold his tongue about this, at least. He prevented
Lebedeff spreading the news—he wouldn’t even tell me all when I asked
him—”

“Then you must see that he is not responsible. What does it matter to you
now, in any case? What are you hoping for still? If you have a hope left, it
is that your suffering air may soften her heart towards you.”
“Oh, she would funk a scandal like anyone else. You are all tarred with
one brush!”
“What! Aglaya would have funked? You are a chicken-hearted fellow,
Gania!” said Varia, looking at her brother with contempt. “Not one of us is
worth much. Aglaya may be a wild sort of a girl, but she is far nobler than
any of us, a thousand times nobler!”
“Well—come! there’s nothing to get cross about,” said Gania.
“All I’m afraid of is—mother. I’m afraid this scandal about father may
come to her ears; perhaps it has already. I am dreadfully afraid.”
“It undoubtedly has already!” observed Gania.
Varia had risen from her place and had started to go upstairs to her
mother; but at this observation of Gania’s she turned and gazed at him
attentively.
“Who could have told her?”
“Hippolyte, probably. He would think it the most delightful amusement
in the world to tell her of it the instant he moved over here; I haven’t a
doubt of it.”
“But how could he know anything of it? Tell me that. Lebedeff and the
prince determined to tell no one—even Colia knows nothing.”
“What, Hippolyte? He found it out himself, of course. Why, you have no
idea what a cunning little animal he is; dirty little gossip! He has the most
extraordinary nose for smelling out other people’s secrets, or anything
approaching to scandal. Believe it or not, but I’m pretty sure he has got
round Aglaya. If he hasn’t, he soon will. Rogojin is intimate with him, too.
How the prince doesn’t notice it, I can’t understand. The little wretch
considers me his enemy now and does his best to catch me tripping. What
on earth does it matter to him, when he’s dying? However, you’ll see; I
shall catch him tripping yet, and not he me.”
“Why did you get him over here, if you hate him so? And is it really
worth your while to try to score off him?”
“Why, it was yourself who advised me to bring him over!”

“I thought he might be useful. You know he is in love with Aglaya
himself, now, and has written to her; he has even written to Lizabetha
Prokofievna!”
“Oh! he’s not dangerous there!” cried Gania, laughing angrily. “However,
I believe there is something of that sort in the air; he is very likely to be in
love, for he is a mere boy. But he won’t write anonymous letters to the old
lady; that would be too audacious a thing for him to attempt; but I dare
swear the very first thing he did was to show me up to Aglaya as a base
deceiver and intriguer. I confess I was fool enough to attempt something
through him at first. I thought he would throw himself into my service out
of revengeful feelings towards the prince, the sly little beast! But I know
him better now. As for the theft, he may have heard of it from the widow in
Petersburg, for if the old man committed himself to such an act, he can have
done it for no other object but to give the money to her. Hippolyte said to
me, without any prelude, that the general had promised the widow four
hundred roubles. Of course I understood, and the little wretch looked at me
with a nasty sort of satisfaction. I know him; you may depend upon it he
went and told mother too, for the pleasure of wounding her. And why
doesn’t he die, I should like to know? He undertook to die within three
weeks, and here he is getting fatter. His cough is better, too. It was only
yesterday that he said that was the second day he hadn’t coughed blood.”
“Well, turn him out!”
“I don’t hate, I despise him,” said Gania, grandly. “Well, I do hate him, if
you like!” he added, with a sudden access of rage, “and I’ll tell him so to
his face, even when he’s dying! If you had but read his confession—good
Lord! what refinement of impudence! Oh, but I’d have liked to whip him
then and there, like a schoolboy, just to see how surprised he would have
been! Now he hates everybody because he—Oh, I say, what on earth are
they doing there! Listen to that noise! I really can’t stand this any longer.
Ptitsin!” he cried, as the latter entered the room, “what in the name of
goodness are we coming to? Listen to that—”
But the noise came rapidly nearer, the door burst open, and old General
Ivolgin, raging, furious, purple-faced, and trembling with anger, rushed in.
He was followed by Nina Alexandrovna, Colia, and behind the rest,
Hippolyte.

II.
Hippolyte had now been five days at the Ptitsins’. His flitting from the
prince’s to these new quarters had been brought about quite naturally and
without many words. He did not quarrel with the prince—in fact, they
seemed to part as friends. Gania, who had been hostile enough on that
eventful evening, had himself come to see him a couple of days later,
probably in obedience to some sudden impulse. For some reason or other,
Rogojin too had begun to visit the sick boy. The prince thought it might be
better for him to move away from his (the prince’s) house. Hippolyte
informed him, as he took his leave, that Ptitsin “had been kind enough to
offer him a corner,” and did not say a word about Gania, though Gania had
procured his invitation, and himself came to fetch him away. Gania noticed
this at the time, and put it to Hippolyte’s debit on account.
Gania was right when he told his sister that Hippolyte was getting better;
that he was better was clear at the first glance. He entered the room now last
of all, deliberately, and with a disagreeable smile on his lips.
Nina Alexandrovna came in, looking frightened. She had changed much
since we last saw her, half a year ago, and had grown thin and pale. Colia
looked worried and perplexed. He could not understand the vagaries of the
general, and knew nothing of the last achievement of that worthy, which
had caused so much commotion in the house. But he could see that his
father had of late changed very much, and that he had begun to behave in so
extraordinary a fashion both at home and abroad that he was not like the
same man. What perplexed and disturbed him as much as anything was that
his father had entirely given up drinking during the last few days. Colia
knew that he had quarrelled with both Lebedeff and the prince, and had just
bought a small bottle of vodka and brought it home for his father.
“Really, mother,” he had assured Nina Alexandrovna upstairs, “really you
had better let him drink. He has not had a drop for three days; he must be
suffering agonies—” The general now entered the room, threw the door
wide open, and stood on the threshold trembling with indignation.
“Look here, my dear sir,” he began, addressing Ptitsin in a very loud tone
of voice; “if you have really made up your mind to sacrifice an old man—
your father too or at all events father of your wife—an old man who has
served his emperor—to a wretched little atheist like this, all I can say is, sir,

my foot shall cease to tread your floors. Make your choice, sir; make your
choice quickly, if you please! Me or this—screw! Yes, screw, sir; I said it
accidentally, but let the word stand—this screw, for he screws and drills
himself into my soul—”
“Hadn’t you better say corkscrew?” said Hippolyte.
“No, sir, not corkscrew. I am a general, not a bottle, sir. Make your
choice, sir—me or him.”
Here Colia handed him a chair, and he subsided into it, breathless with
rage.
“Hadn’t you better—better—take a nap?” murmured the stupefied
Ptitsin.
“A nap?” shrieked the general. “I am not drunk, sir; you insult me! I see,”
he continued, rising, “I see that all are against me here. Enough—I go; but
know, sirs—know that—”
He was not allowed to finish his sentence. Somebody pushed him back
into his chair, and begged him to be calm. Nina Alexandrovna trembled, and
cried quietly. Gania retired to the window in disgust.
“But what have I done? What is his grievance?” asked Hippolyte,
grinning.
“What have you done, indeed?” put in Nina Alexandrovna. “You ought to
be ashamed of yourself, teasing an old man like that—and in your position,
too.”
“And pray what is my position, madame? I have the greatest respect for
you, personally; but—”
“He’s a little screw,” cried the general; “he drills holes in my heart and
soul. He wishes me to be a pervert to atheism. Know, you young greenhorn,
that I was covered with honours before ever you were born; and you are
nothing better than a wretched little worm, torn in two with coughing, and
dying slowly of your own malice and unbelief. What did Gavrila bring you
over here for? They’re all against me, even to my own son—all against
me.”
“Oh, come—nonsense!” cried Gania; “if you did not go shaming us all
over the town, things might be better for all parties.”

“What—shame you? I?—what do you mean, you young calf? I shame
you? I can only do you honour, sir; I cannot shame you.”
He jumped up from his chair in a fit of uncontrollable rage. Gania was
very angry too.
“Honour, indeed!” said the latter, with contempt.
“What do you say, sir?” growled the general, taking a step towards him.
“I say that I have but to open my mouth, and you—”
Gania began, but did not finish. The two—father and son—stood before
one another, both unspeakably agitated, especially Gania.
“Gania, Gania, reflect!” cried his mother, hurriedly.
“It’s all nonsense on both sides,” snapped out Varia. “Let them alone,
mother.”
“It’s only for mother’s sake that I spare him,” said Gania, tragically.
“Speak!” said the general, beside himself with rage and excitement;
“speak—under the penalty of a father’s curse!”
“Oh, father’s curse be hanged—you don’t frighten me that way!” said
Gania. “Whose fault is it that you have been as mad as a March hare all this
week? It is just a week—you see, I count the days. Take care now; don’t
provoke me too much, or I’ll tell all. Why did you go to the Epanchins’
yesterday—tell me that? And you call yourself an old man, too, with grey
hair, and father of a family! H’m—nice sort of a father.”
“Be quiet, Gania,” cried Colia. “Shut up, you fool!”
“Yes, but how have I offended him?” repeated Hippolyte, still in the
same jeering voice. “Why does he call me a screw? You all heard it. He
came to me himself and began telling me about some Captain Eropegoff. I
don’t wish for your company, general. I always avoided you—you know
that. What have I to do with Captain Eropegoff? All I did was to express my
opinion that probably Captain Eropegoff never existed at all!”
“Of course he never existed!” Gania interrupted.
But the general only stood stupefied and gazed around in a dazed way.
Gania’s speech had impressed him, with its terrible candour. For the first
moment or two he could find no words to answer him, and it was only when
Hippolyte burst out laughing, and said:

“There, you see! Even your own son supports my statement that there
never was such a person as Captain Eropegoff!” that the old fellow
muttered confusedly:
“Kapiton Eropegoff—not Captain Eropegoff!—Kapiton—major retired
—Eropegoff—Kapiton.”
“Kapiton didn’t exist either!” persisted Gania, maliciously.
“What? Didn’t exist?” cried the poor general, and a deep blush suffused
his face.
“That’ll do, Gania!” cried Varia and Ptitsin.
“Shut up, Gania!” said Colia.
But this intercession seemed to rekindle the general.
“What did you mean, sir, that he didn’t exist? Explain yourself,” he
repeated, angrily.
“Because he didn’t exist—never could and never did—there! You’d
better drop the subject, I warn you!”
“And this is my son—my own son—whom I—oh, gracious Heaven!
Eropegoff—Eroshka Eropegoff didn’t exist!”
“Ha, ha! it’s Eroshka now,” laughed Hippolyte.
“No, sir, Kapitoshka—not Eroshka. I mean, Kapiton Alexeyevitch—
retired major—married Maria Petrovna Lu—Lu—he was my friend and
companion—Lutugoff—from our earliest beginnings. I closed his eyes for
him—he was killed. Kapiton Eropegoff never existed! tfu!”
The general shouted in his fury; but it was to be concluded that his wrath
was not kindled by the expressed doubt as to Kapiton’s existence. This was
his scapegoat; but his excitement was caused by something quite different.
As a rule he would have merely shouted down the doubt as to Kapiton, told
a long yarn about his friend, and eventually retired upstairs to his room. But
today, in the strange uncertainty of human nature, it seemed to require but
so small an offence as this to make his cup to overflow. The old man grew
purple in the face, he raised his hands. “Enough of this!” he yelled. “My
curse—away, out of the house I go! Colia, bring my bag away!” He left the
room hastily and in a paroxysm of rage.
His wife, Colia, and Ptitsin ran out after him.

“What have you done now?” said Varia to Gania. “He’ll probably be
making off there again! What a disgrace it all is!”
“Well, he shouldn’t steal,” cried Gania, panting with fury. And just at this
moment his eye met Hippolyte’s.
“As for you, sir,” he cried, “you should at least remember that you are in
a strange house and—receiving hospitality; you should not take the
opportunity of tormenting an old man, sir, who is too evidently out of his
mind.”
Hippolyte looked furious, but he restrained himself.
“I don’t quite agree with you that your father is out of his mind,” he
observed, quietly. “On the contrary, I cannot help thinking he has been less
demented of late. Don’t you think so? He has grown so cunning and careful,
and weighs his words so deliberately; he spoke to me about that Kapiton
fellow with an object, you know! Just fancy—he wanted me to—”
“Oh, devil take what he wanted you to do! Don’t try to be too cunning
with me, young man!” shouted Gania. “If you are aware of the real reason
for my father’s present condition (and you have kept such an excellent
spying watch during these last few days that you are sure to be aware of it)
—you had no right whatever to torment the—unfortunate man, and to
worry my mother by your exaggerations of the affair; because the whole
business is nonsense—simply a drunken freak, and nothing more, quite
unproved by any evidence, and I don’t believe that much of it!” (he snapped
his fingers). “But you must needs spy and watch over us all, because you
are a—a—”
“Screw!” laughed Hippolyte.
“Because you are a humbug, sir; and thought fit to worry people for half
an hour, and tried to frighten them into believing that you would shoot
yourself with your little empty pistol, pirouetting about and playing at
suicide! I gave you hospitality, you have fattened on it, your cough has left
you, and you repay all this—”
“Excuse me—two words! I am Varvara Ardalionovna’s guest, not yours;
you have extended no hospitality to me. On the contrary, if I am not
mistaken, I believe you are yourself indebted to Mr. Ptitsin’s hospitality.
Four days ago I begged my mother to come down here and find lodgings,
because I certainly do feel better here, though I am not fat, nor have I

ceased to cough. I am today informed that my room is ready for me;
therefore, having thanked your sister and mother for their kindness to me, I
intend to leave the house this evening. I beg your pardon—I interrupted you
—I think you were about to add something?”
“Oh—if that is the state of affairs—” began Gania.
“Excuse me—I will take a seat,” interrupted Hippolyte once more, sitting
down deliberately; “for I am not strong yet. Now then, I am ready to hear
you. Especially as this is the last chance we shall have of a talk, and very
likely the last meeting we shall ever have at all.”
Gania felt a little guilty.
“I assure you I did not mean to reckon up debits and credits,” he began,
“and if you—”
“I don’t understand your condescension,” said Hippolyte. “As for me, I
promised myself, on the first day of my arrival in this house, that I would
have the satisfaction of settling accounts with you in a very thorough
manner before I said good-bye to you. I intend to perform this operation
now, if you like; after you, though, of course.”
“May I ask you to be so good as to leave this room?”
“You’d better speak out. You’ll be sorry afterwards if you don’t.”
“Hippolyte, stop, please! It’s so dreadfully undignified,” said Varia.
“Well, only for the sake of a lady,” said Hippolyte, laughing. “I am ready
to put off the reckoning, but only put it off, Varvara Ardalionovna, because
an explanation between your brother and myself has become an absolute
necessity, and I could not think of leaving the house without clearing up all
misunderstandings first.”
“In a word, you are a wretched little scandal-monger,” cried Gania, “and
you cannot go away without a scandal!”
“You see,” said Hippolyte, coolly, “you can’t restrain yourself. You’ll be
dreadfully sorry afterwards if you don’t speak out now. Come, you shall
have the first say. I’ll wait.”
Gania was silent and merely looked contemptuously at him.
“You won’t? Very well. I shall be as short as possible, for my part. Two
or three times to-day I have had the word ‘hospitality’ pushed down my
throat; this is not fair. In inviting me here you yourself entrapped me for

your own use; you thought I wished to revenge myself upon the prince. You
heard that Aglaya Ivanovna had been kind to me and read my confession.
Making sure that I should give myself up to your interests, you hoped that
you might get some assistance out of me. I will not go into details. I don’t
ask either admission or confirmation of this from yourself; I am quite
content to leave you to your conscience, and to feel that we understand one
another capitally.”
“What a history you are weaving out of the most ordinary
circumstances!” cried Varia.
“I told you the fellow was nothing but a scandal-monger,” said Gania.
“Excuse me, Varia Ardalionovna, I will proceed. I can, of course, neither
love nor respect the prince, though he is a good-hearted fellow, if a little
queer. But there is no need whatever for me to hate him. I quite understood
your brother when he first offered me aid against the prince, though I did
not show it; I knew well that your brother was making a ridiculous mistake
in me. I am ready to spare him, however, even now; but solely out of
respect for yourself, Varvara Ardalionovna.
“Having now shown you that I am not quite such a fool as I look, and
that I have to be fished for with a rod and line for a good long while before
I am caught, I will proceed to explain why I specially wished to make your
brother look a fool. That my motive power is hate, I do not attempt to
conceal. I have felt that before dying (and I am dying, however much fatter
I may appear to you), I must absolutely make a fool of, at least, one of that
class of men which has dogged me all my life, which I hate so cordially,
and which is so prominently represented by your much esteemed brother. I
should not enjoy paradise nearly so much without having done this first. I
hate you, Gavrila Ardalionovitch, solely (this may seem curious to you, but
I repeat)—solely because you are the type, and incarnation, and head, and
crown of the most impudent, the most self-satisfied, the most vulgar and
detestable form of commonplaceness. You are ordinary of the ordinary; you
have no chance of ever fathering the pettiest idea of your own. And yet you
are as jealous and conceited as you can possibly be; you consider yourself a
great genius; of this you are persuaded, although there are dark moments of
doubt and rage, when even this fact seems uncertain. There are spots of
darkness on your horizon, though they will disappear when you become

completely stupid. But a long and chequered path lies before you, and of
this I am glad. In the first place you will never gain a certain person.”
“Come, come! This is intolerable! You had better stop, you little
mischief-making wretch!” cried Varia. Gania had grown very pale; he
trembled, but said nothing.
Hippolyte paused, and looked at him intently and with great gratification.
He then turned his gaze upon Varia, bowed, and went out, without adding
another word.
Gania might justly complain of the hardness with which fate treated him.
Varia dared not speak to him for a long while, as he strode past her,
backwards and forwards. At last he went and stood at the window, looking
out, with his back turned towards her. There was a fearful row going on
upstairs again.
“Are you off?” said Gania, suddenly, remarking that she had risen and
was about to leave the room. “Wait a moment—look at this.”
He approached the table and laid a small sheet of paper before her. It
looked like a little note.
“Good heavens!” cried Varia, raising her hands.
This was the note:

“GAVRILA ARDOLIONOVITCH,—persuaded of your kindness of
heart, I have determined to ask your advice on a matter of
great importance to myself. I should like to meet you
tomorrow morning at seven o’clock by the green bench in
the park. It is not far from our house. Varvara Ardalionovna,
who must accompany you, knows the place well.

“A. E.”

“What on earth is one to make of a girl like that?” said Varia.
Gania, little as he felt inclined for swagger at this moment, could not
avoid showing his triumph, especially just after such humiliating remarks as
those of Hippolyte. A smile of self-satisfaction beamed on his face, and
Varia too was brimming over with delight.
“And this is the very day that they were to announce the engagement!
What will she do next?”

“What do you suppose she wants to talk about tomorrow?” asked Gania.
“Oh, that’s all the same! The chief thing is that she wants to see you after
six months’ absence. Look here, Gania, this is a serious business. Don’t
swagger again and lose the game—play carefully, but don’t funk, do you
understand? As if she could possibly avoid seeing what I have been
working for all this last six months! And just imagine, I was there this
morning and not a word of this! I was there, you know, on the sly. The old
lady did not know, or she would have kicked me out. I ran some risk for
you, you see. I did so want to find out, at all hazards.”
Here there was a frantic noise upstairs once more; several people seemed
to be rushing downstairs at once.
“Now, Gania,” cried Varia, frightened, “we can’t let him go out! We can’t
afford to have a breath of scandal about the town at this moment. Run after
him and beg his pardon—quick.”
But the father of the family was out in the road already. Colia was
carrying his bag for him; Nina Alexandrovna stood and cried on the
doorstep; she wanted to run after the general, but Ptitsin kept her back.
“You will only excite him more,” he said. “He has nowhere else to go to
—he’ll be back here in half an hour. I’ve talked it all over with Colia; let
him play the fool a bit, it will do him good.”
“What are you up to? Where are you off to? You’ve nowhere to go to,
you know,” cried Gania, out of the window.
“Come back, father; the neighbours will hear!” cried Varia.
The general stopped, turned round, raised his hands and remarked: “My
curse be upon this house!”
“Which observation should always be made in as theatrical a tone as
possible,” muttered Gania, shutting the window with a bang.
The neighbours undoubtedly did hear. Varia rushed out of the room.
No sooner had his sister left him alone, than Gania took the note out of
his pocket, kissed it, and pirouetted around.

III.

As a general rule, old General Ivolgin’s paroxysms ended in smoke. He
had before this experienced fits of sudden fury, but not very often, because
he was really a man of peaceful and kindly disposition. He had tried
hundreds of times to overcome the dissolute habits which he had contracted
of late years. He would suddenly remember that he was “a father,” would be
reconciled with his wife, and shed genuine tears. His feeling for Nina
Alexandrovna amounted almost to adoration; she had pardoned so much in
silence, and loved him still in spite of the state of degradation into which he
had fallen. But the general’s struggles with his own weakness never lasted
very long. He was, in his way, an impetuous man, and a quiet life of
repentance in the bosom of his family soon became insupportable to him. In
the end he rebelled, and flew into rages which he regretted, perhaps, even as
he gave way to them, but which were beyond his control. He picked
quarrels with everyone, began to hold forth eloquently, exacted unlimited
respect, and at last disappeared from the house, and sometimes did not
return for a long time. He had given up interfering in the affairs of his
family for two years now, and knew nothing about them but what he
gathered from hearsay.
But on this occasion there was something more serious than usual.
Everyone seemed to know something, but to be afraid to talk about it.
The general had turned up in the bosom of his family two or three days
before, but not, as usual, with the olive branch of peace in his hand, not in
the garb of penitence—in which he was usually clad on such occasions—
but, on the contrary, in an uncommonly bad temper. He had arrived in a
quarrelsome mood, pitching into everyone he came across, and talking
about all sorts and kinds of subjects in the most unexpected manner, so that
it was impossible to discover what it was that was really putting him out. At
moments he would be apparently quite bright and happy; but as a rule he
would sit moody and thoughtful. He would abruptly commence to hold
forth about the Epanchins, about Lebedeff, or the prince, and equally
abruptly would stop short and refuse to speak another word, answering all
further questions with a stupid smile, unconscious that he was smiling, or
that he had been asked a question. The whole of the previous night he had
spent tossing about and groaning, and poor Nina Alexandrovna had been
busy making cold compresses and warm fomentations and so on, without
being very clear how to apply them. He had fallen asleep after a while, but
not for long, and had awaked in a state of violent hypochondria which had

ended in his quarrel with Hippolyte, and the solemn cursing of Ptitsin’s
establishment generally. It was also observed during those two or three days
that he was in a state of morbid self-esteem, and was specially touchy on all
points of honour. Colia insisted, in discussing the matter with his mother,
that all this was but the outcome of abstinence from drink, or perhaps of
pining after Lebedeff, with whom up to this time the general had been upon
terms of the greatest friendship; but with whom, for some reason or other,
he had quarrelled a few days since, parting from him in great wrath. There
had also been a scene with the prince. Colia had asked an explanation of the
latter, but had been forced to conclude that he was not told the whole truth.
If Hippolyte and Nina Alexandrovna had, as Gania suspected, had some
special conversation about the general’s actions, it was strange that the
malicious youth, whom Gania had called a scandal-monger to his face, had
not allowed himself a similar satisfaction with Colia.
The fact is that probably Hippolyte was not quite so black as Gania
painted him; and it was hardly likely that he had informed Nina
Alexandrovna of certain events, of which we know, for the mere pleasure of
giving her pain. We must never forget that human motives are generally far
more complicated than we are apt to suppose, and that we can very rarely
accurately describe the motives of another. It is much better for the writer,
as a rule, to content himself with the bare statement of events; and we shall
take this line with regard to the catastrophe recorded above, and shall state
the remaining events connected with the general’s trouble shortly, because
we feel that we have already given to this secondary character in our story
more attention than we originally intended.
The course of events had marched in the following order. When Lebedeff
returned, in company with the general, after their expedition to town a few
days since, for the purpose of investigation, he brought the prince no
information whatever. If the latter had not himself been occupied with other
thoughts and impressions at the time, he must have observed that Lebedeff
not only was very uncommunicative, but even appeared anxious to avoid
him.
When the prince did give the matter a little attention, he recalled the fact
that during these days he had always found Lebedeff to be in radiantly good
spirits, when they happened to meet; and further, that the general and

Lebedeff were always together. The two friends did not seem ever to be
parted for a moment.
Occasionally the prince heard loud talking and laughing upstairs, and
once he detected the sound of a jolly soldier’s song going on above, and
recognized the unmistakable bass of the general’s voice. But the sudden
outbreak of song did not last; and for an hour afterwards the animated
sound of apparently drunken conversation continued to be heard from
above. At length there was the clearest evidence of a grand mutual
embracing, and someone burst into tears. Shortly after this, however, there
was a violent but short-lived quarrel, with loud talking on both sides.
All these days Colia had been in a state of great mental preoccupation.
Muishkin was usually out all day, and only came home late at night. On his
return he was invariably informed that Colia had been looking for him.
However, when they did meet, Colia never had anything particular to tell
him, excepting that he was highly dissatisfied with the general and his
present condition of mind and behaviour.
“They drag each other about the place,” he said, “and get drunk together
at the pub close by here, and quarrel in the street on the way home, and
embrace one another after it, and don’t seem to part for a moment.”
When the prince pointed out that there was nothing new about that, for
that they had always behaved in this manner together, Colia did not know
what to say; in fact he could not explain what it was that specially worried
him, just now, about his father.
On the morning following the bacchanalian songs and quarrels recorded
above, as the prince stepped out of the house at about eleven o’clock, the
general suddenly appeared before him, much agitated.
“I have long sought the honour and opportunity of meeting you—much-
esteemed Lef Nicolaievitch,” he murmured, pressing the prince’s hand very
hard, almost painfully so; “long—very long.”
The prince begged him to step in and sit down.
“No—I will not sit down,—I am keeping you, I see,—another time!—I
think I may be permitted to congratulate you upon the realization of your
heart’s best wishes, is it not so?”
“What best wishes?”

The prince blushed. He thought, as so many in his position do, that
nobody had seen, heard, noticed, or understood anything.
“Oh—be easy, sir, be easy! I shall not wound your tenderest feelings. I’ve
been through it all myself, and I know well how unpleasant it is when an
outsider sticks his nose in where he is not wanted. I experience this every
morning. I came to speak to you about another matter, though, an important
matter. A very important matter, prince.”
The latter requested him to take a seat once more, and sat down himself.
“Well—just for one second, then. The fact is, I came for advice. Of
course I live now without any very practical objects in life; but, being full
of self-respect, in which quality the ordinary Russian is so deficient as a
rule, and of activity, I am desirous, in a word, prince, of placing myself and
my wife and children in a position of—in fact, I want advice.”
The prince commended his aspirations with warmth.
“Quite so—quite so! But this is all mere nonsense. I came here to speak
of something quite different, something very important, prince. And I have
determined to come to you as to a man in whose sincerity and nobility of
feeling I can trust like—like—are you surprised at my words, prince?”
The prince was watching his guest, if not with much surprise, at all
events with great attention and curiosity.
The old man was very pale; every now and then his lips trembled, and his
hands seemed unable to rest quietly, but continually moved from place to
place. He had twice already jumped up from his chair and sat down again
without being in the least aware of it. He would take up a book from the
table and open it—talking all the while,—look at the heading of a chapter,
shut it and put it back again, seizing another immediately, but holding it
unopened in his hand, and waving it in the air as he spoke.
“But enough!” he cried, suddenly. “I see I have been boring you with my
—”
“Not in the least—not in the least, I assure you. On the contrary, I am
listening most attentively, and am anxious to guess—”
“Prince, I wish to place myself in a respectable position—I wish to
esteem myself—and to—”
“My dear sir, a man of such noble aspirations is worthy of all esteem by
virtue of those aspirations alone.”

The prince brought out his “copy-book sentence” in the firm belief that it
would produce a good effect. He felt instinctively that some such well-
sounding humbug, brought out at the proper moment, would soothe the old
man’s feelings, and would be specially acceptable to such a man in such a
position. At all hazards, his guest must be despatched with heart relieved
and spirit comforted; that was the problem before the prince at this moment.
The phrase flattered the general, touched him, and pleased him mightily.
He immediately changed his tone, and started off on a long and solemn
explanation. But listen as he would, the prince could make neither head nor
tail of it.
The general spoke hotly and quickly for ten minutes; he spoke as though
his words could not keep pace with his crowding thoughts. Tears stood in
his eyes, and yet his speech was nothing but a collection of disconnected
sentences, without beginning and without end—a string of unexpected
words and unexpected sentiments—colliding with one another, and jumping
over one another, as they burst from his lips.
“Enough!” he concluded at last, “you understand me, and that is the great
thing. A heart like yours cannot help understanding the sufferings of
another. Prince, you are the ideal of generosity; what are other men beside
yourself? But you are young—accept my blessing! My principal object is to
beg you to fix an hour for a most important conversation—that is my great
hope, prince. My heart needs but a little friendship and sympathy, and yet I
cannot always find means to satisfy it.”
“But why not now? I am ready to listen, and—”
“No, no—prince, not now! Now is a dream! And it is too, too important!
It is to be the hour of Fate to me—my own hour. Our interview is not to be
broken in upon by every chance comer, every impertinent guest—and there
are plenty of such stupid, impertinent fellows”—(he bent over and
whispered mysteriously, with a funny, frightened look on his face)—“who
are unworthy to tie your shoe, prince. I don’t say mine, mind—you will
understand me, prince. Only you understand me, prince—no one else. He
doesn’t understand me, he is absolutely—absolutely unable to sympathize.
The first qualification for understanding another is Heart.”
The prince was rather alarmed at all this, and was obliged to end by
appointing the same hour of the following day for the interview desired.

The general left him much comforted and far less agitated than when he had
arrived.
At seven in the evening, the prince sent to request Lebedeff to pay him a
visit. Lebedeff came at once, and “esteemed it an honour,” as he observed,
the instant he entered the room. He acted as though there had never been the
slightest suspicion of the fact that he had systematically avoided the prince
for the last three days.
He sat down on the edge of his chair, smiling and making faces, and
rubbing his hands, and looking as though he were in delighted expectation
of hearing some important communication, which had been long guessed by
all.
The prince was instantly covered with confusion; for it appeared to be
plain that everyone expected something of him—that everyone looked at
him as though anxious to congratulate him, and greeted him with hints, and
smiles, and knowing looks.
Keller, for instance, had run into the house three times of late, “just for a
moment,” and each time with the air of desiring to offer his congratulations.
Colia, too, in spite of his melancholy, had once or twice begun sentences in
much the same strain of suggestion or insinuation.
The prince, however, immediately began, with some show of annoyance,
to question Lebedeff categorically, as to the general’s present condition, and
his opinion thereon. He described the morning’s interview in a few words.
“Everyone has his worries, prince, especially in these strange and
troublous times of ours,” Lebedeff replied, drily, and with the air of a man
disappointed of his reasonable expectations.
“Dear me, what a philosopher you are!” laughed the prince.
“Philosophy is necessary, sir—very necessary—in our day. It is too much
neglected. As for me, much esteemed prince, I am sensible of having
experienced the honour of your confidence in a certain matter up to a
certain point, but never beyond that point. I do not for a moment complain
—”
“Lebedeff, you seem to be angry for some reason!” said the prince.
“Not the least bit in the world, esteemed and revered prince! Not the least
bit in the world!” cried Lebedeff, solemnly, with his hand upon his heart.
“On the contrary, I am too painfully aware that neither by my position in the

world, nor by my gifts of intellect and heart, nor by my riches, nor by any
former conduct of mine, have I in any way deserved your confidence,
which is far above my highest aspirations and hopes. Oh no, prince; I may
serve you, but only as your humble slave! I am not angry, oh no! Not angry;
pained perhaps, but nothing more.
“My dear Lebedeff, I—”
“Oh, nothing more, nothing more! I was saying to myself but now... ‘I
am quite unworthy of friendly relations with him,’ say I; ‘but perhaps as
landlord of this house I may, at some future date, in his good time, receive
information as to certain imminent and much to be desired changes—’”
So saying Lebedeff fixed the prince with his sharp little eyes, still in hope
that he would get his curiosity satisfied.
The prince looked back at him in amazement.
“I don’t understand what you are driving at!” he cried, almost angrily,
“and, and—what an intriguer you are, Lebedeff!” he added, bursting into a
fit of genuine laughter.
Lebedeff followed suit at once, and it was clear from his radiant face that
he considered his prospects of satisfaction immensely improved.
“And do you know,” the prince continued, “I am amazed at your naive
ways, Lebedeff! Don’t be angry with me—not only yours, everybody else’s
also! You are waiting to hear something from me at this very moment with
such simplicity that I declare I feel quite ashamed of myself for having
nothing whatever to tell you. I swear to you solemnly, that there is nothing
to tell. There! Can you take that in?” The prince laughed again.
Lebedeff assumed an air of dignity. It was true enough that he was
sometimes naive to a degree in his curiosity; but he was also an excessively
cunning gentleman, and the prince was almost converting him into an
enemy by his repeated rebuffs. The prince did not snub Lebedeff’s curiosity,
however, because he felt any contempt for him; but simply because the
subject was too delicate to talk about. Only a few days before he had looked
upon his own dreams almost as crimes. But Lebedeff considered the refusal
as caused by personal dislike to himself, and was hurt accordingly. Indeed,
there was at this moment a piece of news, most interesting to the prince,
which Lebedeff knew and even had wished to tell him, but which he now
kept obstinately to himself.

“And what can I do for you, esteemed prince? Since I am told you sent
for me just now,” he said, after a few moments’ silence.
“Oh, it was about the general,” began the prince, waking abruptly from
the fit of musing which he too had indulged in “and—and about the theft
you told me of.”
“That is—er—about—what theft?”
“Oh come! just as if you didn’t understand, Lukian Timofeyovitch! What
are you up to? I can’t make you out! The money, the money, sir! The four
hundred roubles that you lost that day. You came and told me about it one
morning, and then went off to Petersburg. There, now do you understand?”
“Oh—h—h! You mean the four hundred roubles!” said Lebedeff,
dragging the words out, just as though it had only just dawned upon him
what the prince was talking about. “Thanks very much, prince, for your
kind interest—you do me too much honour. I found the money, long ago!”
“You found it? Thank God for that!”
“Your exclamation proves the generous sympathy of your nature, prince;
for four hundred roubles—to a struggling family man like myself—is no
small matter!”
“I didn’t mean that; at least, of course, I’m glad for your sake, too,”
added the prince, correcting himself, “but—how did you find it?”
“Very simply indeed! I found it under the chair upon which my coat had
hung; so that it is clear the purse simply fell out of the pocket and on to the
floor!”
“Under the chair? Impossible! Why, you told me yourself that you had
searched every corner of the room? How could you not have looked in the
most likely place of all?”
“Of course I looked there,—of course I did! Very much so! I looked and
scrambled about, and felt for it, and wouldn’t believe it was not there, and
looked again and again. It is always so in such cases. One longs and expects
to find a lost article; one sees it is not there, and the place is as bare as one’s
palm; and yet one returns and looks again and again, fifteen or twenty
times, likely enough!”
“Oh, quite so, of course. But how was it in your case?—I don’t quite
understand,” said the bewildered prince. “You say it wasn’t there at first,

and that you searched the place thoroughly, and yet it turned up on that very
spot!”
“Yes, sir—on that very spot.” The prince gazed strangely at Lebedeff.
“And the general?” he asked, abruptly.
“The—the general? How do you mean, the general?” said Lebedeff,
dubiously, as though he had not taken in the drift of the prince’s remark.
“Oh, good heavens! I mean, what did the general say when the purse
turned up under the chair? You and he had searched for it together there,
hadn’t you?”
“Quite so—together! But the second time I thought better to say nothing
about finding it. I found it alone.”
“But—why in the world—and the money? Was it all there?”
“I opened the purse and counted it myself; right to a single rouble.”
“I think you might have come and told me,” said the prince, thoughtfully.
“Oh—I didn’t like to disturb you, prince, in the midst of your private and
doubtless most interesting personal reflections. Besides, I wanted to appear,
myself, to have found nothing. I took the purse, and opened it, and counted
the money, and shut it and put it down again under the chair.”
“What in the world for?”
“Oh, just out of curiosity,” said Lebedeff, rubbing his hands and
sniggering.
“What, it’s still there then, is it? Ever since the day before yesterday?”
“Oh no! You see, I was half in hopes the general might find it. Because if
I found it, why should not he too observe an object lying before his very
eyes? I moved the chair several times so as to expose the purse to view, but
the general never saw it. He is very absent just now, evidently. He talks and
laughs and tells stories, and suddenly flies into a rage with me, goodness
knows why.”
“Well, but—have you taken the purse away now?”
“No, it disappeared from under the chair in the night.”
“Where is it now, then?”
“Here,” laughed Lebedeff, at last, rising to his full height and looking
pleasantly at the prince, “here, in the lining of my coat. Look, you can feel
it for yourself, if you like!”

Sure enough there was something sticking out of the front of the coat—
something large. It certainly felt as though it might well be the purse fallen
through a hole in the pocket into the lining.
“I took it out and had a look at it; it’s all right. I’ve let it slip back into the
lining now, as you see, and so I have been walking about ever since
yesterday morning; it knocks against my legs when I walk along.”
“H’m! and you take no notice of it?”
“Quite so, I take no notice of it. Ha, ha! and think of this, prince, my
pockets are always strong and whole, and yet, here in one night, is a huge
hole. I know the phenomenon is unworthy of your notice; but such is the
case. I examined the hole, and I declare it actually looks as though it had
been made with a pen-knife, a most improbable contingency.”
“And—and—the general?”
“Ah, very angry all day, sir; all yesterday and all today. He shows
decided bacchanalian predilections at one time, and at another is tearful and
sensitive, but at any moment he is liable to paroxysms of such rage that I
assure you, prince, I am quite alarmed. I am not a military man, you know.
Yesterday we were sitting together in the tavern, and the lining of my coat
was—quite accidentally, of course—sticking out right in front. The general
squinted at it, and flew into a rage. He never looks me quite in the face now,
unless he is very drunk or maudlin; but yesterday he looked at me in such a
way that a shiver went all down my back. I intend to find the purse
tomorrow; but till then I am going to have another night of it with him.”
“What’s the good of tormenting him like this?” cried the prince.
“I don’t torment him, prince, I don’t indeed!” cried Lebedeff, hotly. “I
love him, my dear sir, I esteem him; and believe it or not, I love him all the
better for this business, yes—and value him more.”
Lebedeff said this so seriously that the prince quite lost his temper with
him.
“Nonsense! love him and torment him so! Why, by the very fact that he
put the purse prominently before you, first under the chair and then in your
lining, he shows that he does not wish to deceive you, but is anxious to beg
your forgiveness in this artless way. Do you hear? He is asking your pardon.
He confides in the delicacy of your feelings, and in your friendship for him.
And you can allow yourself to humiliate so thoroughly honest a man!”

“Thoroughly honest, quite so, prince, thoroughly honest!” said Lebedeff,
with flashing eyes. “And only you, prince, could have found so very
appropriate an expression. I honour you for it, prince. Very well, that’s
settled; I shall find the purse now and not tomorrow. Here, I find it and take
it out before your eyes! And the money is all right. Take it, prince, and keep
it till tomorrow, will you? Tomorrow or next day I’ll take it back again. I
think, prince, that the night after its disappearance it was buried under a
bush in the garden. So I believe—what do you think of that?”
“Well, take care you don’t tell him to his face that you have found the
purse. Simply let him see that it is no longer in the lining of your coat, and
form his own conclusions.”
“Do you think so? Had I not just better tell him I have found it, and
pretend I never guessed where it was?”
“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
—”
“I know, prince, of course I know, but I’m afraid I shall not carry it out;
for to do so one needs a heart like your own. He is so very irritable just
now, and so proud. At one moment he will embrace me, and the next he
flies out at me and sneers at me, and then I stick the lining forward on
purpose. Well, au revoir, prince, I see I am keeping you, and boring you,
too, interfering with your most interesting private reflections.”
“Now, do be careful! Secrecy, as before!”
“Oh, silence isn’t the word! Softly, softly!”
But in spite of this conclusion to the episode, the prince remained as
puzzled as ever, if not more so. He awaited next morning’s interview with
the general most impatiently.

IV.
The time appointed was twelve o’clock, and the prince, returning home
unexpectedly late, found the general waiting for him. At the first glance, he
saw that the latter was displeased, perhaps because he had been kept
waiting. The prince apologized, and quickly took a seat. He seemed

strangely timid before the general this morning, for some reason, and felt as
though his visitor were some piece of china which he was afraid of
breaking.
On scrutinizing him, the prince soon saw that the general was quite a
different man from what he had been the day before; he looked like one
who had come to some momentous resolve. His calmness, however, was
more apparent than real. He was courteous, but there was a suggestion of
injured innocence in his manner.
“I’ve brought your book back,” he began, indicating a book lying on the
table. “Much obliged to you for lending it to me.”
“Ah, yes. Well, did you read it, general? It’s curious, isn’t it?” said the
prince, delighted to be able to open up conversation upon an outside
subject.
“Curious enough, yes, but crude, and of course dreadful nonsense;
probably the man lies in every other sentence.”
The general spoke with considerable confidence, and dragged his words
out with a conceited drawl.
“Oh, but it’s only the simple tale of an old soldier who saw the French
enter Moscow. Some of his remarks were wonderfully interesting. Remarks
of an eye-witness are always valuable, whoever he be, don’t you think so?”
“Had I been the publisher I should not have printed it. As to the evidence
of eye-witnesses, in these days people prefer impudent lies to the stories of
men of worth and long service. I know of some notes of the year 1812,
which—I have determined, prince, to leave this house, Mr. Lebedeff’s
house.”
The general looked significantly at his host.
“Of course you have your own lodging at Pavlofsk at—at your
daughter’s house,” began the prince, quite at a loss what to say. He
suddenly recollected that the general had come for advice on a most
important matter, affecting his destiny.
“At my wife’s; in other words, at my own place, my daughter’s house.”
“I beg your pardon, I—”
“I leave Lebedeff’s house, my dear prince, because I have quarrelled with
this person. I broke with him last night, and am very sorry that I did not do

so before. I expect respect, prince, even from those to whom I give my
heart, so to speak. Prince, I have often given away my heart, and am nearly
always deceived. This person was quite unworthy of the gift.”
“There is much that might be improved in him,” said the prince,
moderately, “but he has some qualities which—though amid them one
cannot but discern a cunning nature—reveal what is often a diverting
intellect.”
The prince’s tone was so natural and respectful that the general could not
possibly suspect him of any insincerity.
“Oh, that he possesses good traits, I was the first to show, when I very
nearly made him a present of my friendship. I am not dependent upon his
hospitality, and upon his house; I have my own family. I do not attempt to
justify my own weakness. I have drunk with this man, and perhaps I deplore
the fact now, but I did not take him up for the sake of drink alone (excuse
the crudeness of the expression, prince); I did not make friends with him for
that alone. I was attracted by his good qualities; but when the fellow
declares that he was a child in 1812, and had his left leg cut off, and buried
in the Vagarkoff cemetery, in Moscow, such a cock-and-bull story amounts
to disrespect, my dear sir, to—to impudent exaggeration.”
“Oh, he was very likely joking; he said it for fun.”
“I quite understand you. You mean that an innocent lie for the sake of a
good joke is harmless, and does not offend the human heart. Some people
lie, if you like to put it so, out of pure friendship, in order to amuse their
fellows; but when a man makes use of extravagance in order to show his
disrespect and to make clear how the intimacy bores him, it is time for a
man of honour to break off the said intimacy, and to teach the offender his
place.”
The general flushed with indignation as he spoke.
“Oh, but Lebedeff cannot have been in Moscow in 1812. He is much too
young; it is all nonsense.”
“Very well, but even if we admit that he was alive in 1812, can one
believe that a French chasseur pointed a cannon at him for a lark, and shot
his left leg off? He says he picked his own leg up and took it away and
buried it in the cemetery. He swore he had a stone put up over it with the
inscription: ‘Here lies the leg of Collegiate Secretary Lebedeff,’ and on the

other side, ‘Rest, beloved ashes, till the morn of joy,’ and that he has a
service read over it every year (which is simply sacrilege), and goes to
Moscow once a year on purpose. He invites me to Moscow in order to
prove his assertion, and show me his leg’s tomb, and the very cannon that
shot him; he says it’s the eleventh from the gate of the Kremlin, an old-
fashioned falconet taken from the French afterwards.”
“And, meanwhile both his legs are still on his body,” said the prince,
laughing. “I assure you, it is only an innocent joke, and you need not be
angry about it.”
“Excuse me—wait a minute—he says that the leg we see is a wooden
one, made by Tchernosvitoff.”
“They do say one can dance with those!”
“Quite so, quite so; and he swears that his wife never found out that one
of his legs was wooden all the while they were married. When I showed
him the ridiculousness of all this, he said, ‘Well, if you were one of
Napoleon’s pages in 1812, you might let me bury my leg in the Moscow
cemetery.’”
“Why, did you say—” began the prince, and paused in confusion.
The general gazed at his host disdainfully.
“Oh, go on,” he said, “finish your sentence, by all means. Say how odd it
appears to you that a man fallen to such a depth of humiliation as I, can ever
have been the actual eye-witness of great events. Go on, I don’t mind! Has
he found time to tell you scandal about me?”
“No, I’ve heard nothing of this from Lebedeff, if you mean Lebedeff.”
“H’m; I thought differently. You see, we were talking over this period of
history. I was criticizing a current report of something which then
happened, and having been myself an eye-witness of the occurrence—you
are smiling, prince—you are looking at my face as if—”
“Oh no! not at all—I—”
“I am rather young-looking, I know; but I am actually older than I appear
to be. I was ten or eleven in the year 1812. I don’t know my age exactly, but
it has always been a weakness of mine to make it out less than it really is.”
“I assure you, general, I do not in the least doubt your statement. One of
our living autobiographers states that when he was a small baby in Moscow

in 1812 the French soldiers fed him with bread.”
“Well, there you see!” said the general, condescendingly. “There is
nothing whatever unusual about my tale. Truth very often appears to be
impossible. I was a page—it sounds strange, I dare say. Had I been fifteen
years old I should probably have been terribly frightened when the French
arrived, as my mother was (who had been too slow about clearing out of
Moscow); but as I was only just ten I was not in the least alarmed, and
rushed through the crowd to the very door of the palace when Napoleon
alighted from his horse.”
“Undoubtedly, at ten years old you would not have felt the sense of fear,
as you say,” blurted out the prince, horribly uncomfortable in the sensation
that he was just about to blush.
“Of course; and it all happened so easily and naturally. And yet, were a
novelist to describe the episode, he would put in all kinds of impossible and
incredible details.”
“Oh,” cried the prince, “I have often thought that! Why, I know of a
murder, for the sake of a watch. It’s in all the papers now. But if some writer
had invented it, all the critics would have jumped down his throat and said
the thing was too improbable for anything. And yet you read it in the paper,
and you can’t help thinking that out of these strange disclosures is to be
gained the full knowledge of Russian life and character. You said that well,
general; it is so true,” concluded the prince, warmly, delighted to have
found a refuge from the fiery blushes which had covered his face.
“Yes, it’s quite true, isn’t it?” cried the general, his eyes sparkling with
gratification. “A small boy, a child, would naturally realize no danger; he
would shove his way through the crowds to see the shine and glitter of the
uniforms, and especially the great man of whom everyone was speaking, for
at that time all the world had been talking of no one but this man for some
years past. The world was full of his name; I—so to speak—drew it in with
my mother’s milk. Napoleon, passing a couple of paces from me, caught
sight of me accidentally. I was very well dressed, and being all alone, in that
crowd, as you will easily imagine...”
“Oh, of course! Naturally the sight impressed him, and proved to him
that not all the aristocracy had left Moscow; that at least some nobles and
their children had remained behind.”

“Just so! just so! He wanted to win over the aristocracy! When his eagle
eye fell on me, mine probably flashed back in response. ‘Voilà un garçon
bien éveillé! Qui est ton père?’ I immediately replied, almost panting with
excitement, ‘A general, who died on the battle-fields of his country!’ ‘Le fils
d’un boyard et d’un brave, pardessus le marché. J’aime les boyards.
M’aimes-tu, petit?’
“To this keen question I replied as keenly, ‘The Russian heart can
recognize a great man even in the bitter enemy of his country.’ At least, I
don’t remember the exact words, you know, but the idea was as I say.
Napoleon was struck; he thought a minute and then said to his suite: ‘I like
that boy’s pride; if all Russians think like this child, then—’ he didn’t finish,
but went on and entered the palace. I instantly mixed with his suite, and
followed him. I was already in high favour. I remember when he came into
the first hall, the emperor stopped before a portrait of the Empress
Katherine, and after a thoughtful glance remarked, ‘That was a great
woman,’ and passed on.
“Well, in a couple of days I was known all over the palace and the
Kremlin as ‘le petit boyard.’ I only went home to sleep. They were nearly
out of their minds about me at home. A couple of days after this,
Napoleon’s page, De Bazancour, died; he had not been able to stand the
trials of the campaign. Napoleon remembered me; I was taken away
without explanation; the dead page’s uniform was tried on me, and when I
was taken before the emperor, dressed in it, he nodded his head to me, and I
was told that I was appointed to the vacant post of page.
“Well, I was glad enough, for I had long felt the greatest sympathy for
this man; and then the pretty uniform and all that—only a child, you know
—and so on. It was a dark green dress coat with gold buttons—red facings,
white trousers, and a white silk waistcoat—silk stockings, shoes with
buckles, and top-boots if I were riding out with his majesty or with the
suite.
“Though the position of all of us at that time was not particularly
brilliant, and the poverty was dreadful all round, yet the etiquette at court
was strictly preserved, and the more strictly in proportion to the growth of
the forebodings of disaster.”
“Quite so, quite so, of course!” murmured the poor prince, who didn’t
know where to look. “Your memoirs would be most interesting.”

The general was, of course, repeating what he had told Lebedeff the night
before, and thus brought it out glibly enough, but here he looked
suspiciously at the prince out of the corners of his eyes.
“My memoirs!” he began, with redoubled pride and dignity. “Write my
memoirs? The idea has not tempted me. And yet, if you please, my memoirs
have long been written, but they shall not see the light until dust returns to
dust. Then, I doubt not, they will be translated into all languages, not of
course on account of their actual literary merit, but because of the great
events of which I was the actual witness, though but a child at the time. As
a child, I was able to penetrate into the secrecy of the great man’s private
room. At nights I have heard the groans and wailings of this ‘giant in
distress.’ He could feel no shame in weeping before such a mere child as I
was, though I understood even then that the reason for his suffering was the
silence of the Emperor Alexander.”
“Yes, of course; he had written letters to the latter with proposals of
peace, had he not?” put in the prince.
“We did not know the details of his proposals, but he wrote letter after
letter, all day and every day. He was dreadfully agitated. Sometimes at night
I would throw myself upon his breast with tears (Oh, how I loved that
man!). ‘Ask forgiveness, Oh, ask forgiveness of the Emperor Alexander!’ I
would cry. I should have said, of course, ‘Make peace with Alexander,’ but
as a child I expressed my idea in the naive way recorded. ‘Oh, my child,’ he
would say (he loved to talk to me and seemed to forget my tender years),
‘Oh, my child, I am ready to kiss Alexander’s feet, but I hate and abominate
the King of Prussia and the Austrian Emperor, and—and—but you know
nothing of politics, my child.’ He would pull up, remembering whom he
was speaking to, but his eyes would sparkle for a long while after this. Well
now, if I were to describe all this, and I have seen greater events than these,
all these critical gentlemen of the press and political parties—Oh, no
thanks! I’m their very humble servant, but no thanks!”
“Quite so—parties—you are very right,” said the prince. “I was reading a
book about Napoleon and the Waterloo campaign only the other day, by
Charasse, in which the author does not attempt to conceal his joy at
Napoleon’s discomfiture at every page. Well now, I don’t like that; it smells
of ‘party,’ you know. You are quite right. And were you much occupied with
your service under Napoleon?”

The general was in ecstasies, for the prince’s remarks, made, as they
evidently were, in all seriousness and simplicity, quite dissipated the last
relics of his suspicion.
“I know Charasse’s book! Oh! I was so angry with his work! I wrote to
him and said—I forget what, at this moment. You ask whether I was very
busy under the Emperor? Oh no! I was called ‘page,’ but hardly took my
duty seriously. Besides, Napoleon very soon lost hope of conciliating the
Russians, and he would have forgotten all about me had he not loved me—
for personal reasons—I don’t mind saying so now. My heart was greatly
drawn to him, too. My duties were light. I merely had to be at the palace
occasionally to escort the Emperor out riding, and that was about all. I rode
very fairly well. He used to have a ride before dinner, and his suite on those
occasions were generally Davoust, myself, and Roustan.”
“Constant?” said the prince, suddenly, and quite involuntarily.
“No; Constant was away then, taking a letter to the Empress Josephine.
Instead of him there were always a couple of orderlies—and that was all,
excepting, of course, the generals and marshals whom Napoleon always
took with him for the inspection of various localities, and for the sake of
consultation generally. I remember there was one—Davoust—nearly
always with him—a big man with spectacles. They used to argue and
quarrel sometimes. Once they were in the Emperor’s study together—just
those two and myself—I was unobserved—and they argued, and the
Emperor seemed to be agreeing to something under protest. Suddenly his
eye fell on me and an idea seemed to flash across him.
“‘Child,’ he said, abruptly. ‘If I were to recognize the Russian orthodox
religion and emancipate the serfs, do you think Russia would come over to
me?’”
“‘Never!’ I cried, indignantly.”
“The Emperor was much struck.”
“‘In the flashing eyes of this patriotic child I read and accept the fiat of
the Russian people. Enough, Davoust, it is mere phantasy on our part.
Come, let’s hear your other project.’”
“Yes, but that was a great idea,” said the prince, clearly interested. “You
ascribe it to Davoust, do you?”

“Well, at all events, they were consulting together at the time. Of course
it was the idea of an eagle, and must have originated with Napoleon; but the
other project was good too—it was the ‘Conseil du lion!’ as Napoleon
called it. This project consisted in a proposal to occupy the Kremlin with
the whole army; to arm and fortify it scientifically, to kill as many horses as
could be got, and salt their flesh, and spend the winter there; and in spring
to fight their way out. Napoleon liked the idea—it attracted him. We rode
round the Kremlin walls every day, and Napoleon used to give orders where
they were to be patched, where built up, where pulled down and so on. All
was decided at last. They were alone together—those two and myself.
“Napoleon was walking up and down with folded arms. I could not take
my eyes off his face—my heart beat loudly and painfully.
“‘I’m off,’ said Davoust. ‘Where to?’ asked Napoleon.
“‘To salt horse-flesh,’ said Davoust. Napoleon shuddered—his fate was
being decided.
“‘Child,’ he addressed me suddenly, ‘what do you think of our plan?’ Of
course he only applied to me as a sort of toss-up, you know. I turned to
Davoust and addressed my reply to him. I said, as though inspired:
“‘Escape, general! Go home!—’
“The project was abandoned; Davoust shrugged his shoulders and went
out, whispering to himself—‘Bah, il devient superstitieux!’ Next morning
the order to retreat was given.”
“All this is most interesting,” said the prince, very softly, “if it really was
so—that is, I mean—” he hastened to correct himself.
“Oh, my dear prince,” cried the general, who was now so intoxicated
with his own narrative that he probably could not have pulled up at the most
patent indiscretion. “You say, ‘if it really was so!’ There was more—much
more, I assure you! These are merely a few little political acts. I tell you I
was the eye-witness of the nightly sorrow and groanings of the great man,
and of that no one can speak but myself. Towards the end he wept no more,
though he continued to emit an occasional groan; but his face grew more
overcast day by day, as though Eternity were wrapping its gloomy mantle
about him. Occasionally we passed whole hours of silence together at night,
Roustan snoring in the next room—that fellow slept like a pig. ‘But he’s
loyal to me and my dynasty,’ said Napoleon of him.

“Sometimes it was very painful to me, and once he caught me with tears
in my eyes. He looked at me kindly. ‘You are sorry for me,’ he said, ‘you,
my child, and perhaps one other child—my son, the King of Rome—may
grieve for me. All the rest hate me; and my brothers are the first to betray
me in misfortune.’ I sobbed and threw myself into his arms. He could not
resist me—he burst into tears, and our tears mingled as we folded each
other in a close embrace.
“‘Write, oh, write a letter to the Empress Josephine!’ I cried, sobbing.
Napoleon started, reflected, and said, ‘You remind me of a third heart which
loves me. Thank you, my friend;’ and then and there he sat down and wrote
that letter to Josephine, with which Constant was sent off next day.”
“You did a good action,” said the prince, “for in the midst of his angry
feelings you insinuated a kind thought into his heart.”
“Just so, prince, just so. How well you bring out that fact! Because your
own heart is good!” cried the ecstatic old gentleman, and, strangely enough,
real tears glistened in his eyes. “Yes, prince, it was a wonderful spectacle.
And, do you know, I all but went off to Paris, and should assuredly have
shared his solitary exile with him; but, alas, our destinies were otherwise
ordered! We parted, he to his island, where I am sure he thought of the
weeping child who had embraced him so affectionately at parting in
Moscow; and I was sent off to the cadet corps, where I found nothing but
roughness and harsh discipline. Alas, my happy days were done!”
“‘I do not wish to deprive your mother of you, and, therefore, I will not
ask you to go with me,’ he said, the morning of his departure, ‘but I should
like to do something for you.’ He was mounting his horse as he spoke.
‘Write something in my sister’s album for me,’ I said rather timidly, for he
was in a state of great dejection at the moment. He turned, called for a pen,
took the album. ‘How old is your sister?’ he asked, holding the pen in his
hand. ‘Three years old,’ I said. ‘Ah, petite fille alors!’ and he wrote in the
album:
“‘Ne mentez jamais! NAPOLÉON (votre ami sincère).’
“Such advice, and at such a moment, you must allow, prince, was—”
“Yes, quite so; very remarkable.”
“This page of the album, framed in gold, hung on the wall of my sister’s
drawing-room all her life, in the most conspicuous place, till the day of her

death; where it is now, I really don’t know. Heavens! it’s two o’clock! How
I have kept you, prince! It is really most unpardonable of me.”
The general rose.
“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.”
“Prince,” said the general, pressing his hand, and looking at him with
flashing eyes, and an expression as though he were under the influence of a
sudden thought which had come upon him with stunning force. “Prince, you
are so kind, so simple-minded, that sometimes I really feel sorry for you! I
gaze at you with a feeling of real affection. Oh, Heaven bless you! May
your life blossom and fructify in love. Mine is over. Forgive me, forgive
me!”
He left the room quickly, covering his face with his hands.
The prince could not doubt the sincerity of his agitation. He understood,
too, that the old man had left the room intoxicated with his own success.
The general belonged to that class of liars, who, in spite of their transports
of lying, invariably suspect that they are not believed. On this occasion,
when he recovered from his exaltation, he would probably suspect
Muishkin of pitying him, and feel insulted.
“Have I been acting rightly in allowing him to develop such vast
resources of imagination?” the prince asked himself. But his answer was a
fit of violent laughter which lasted ten whole minutes. He tried to reproach
himself for the laughing fit, but eventually concluded that he needn’t do so,
since in spite of it he was truly sorry for the old man. The same evening he
received a strange letter, short but decided. The general informed him that
they must part for ever; that he was grateful, but that even from him he
could not accept “signs of sympathy which were humiliating to the dignity
of a man already miserable enough.”
When the prince heard that the old man had gone to Nina Alexandrovna,
though, he felt almost easy on his account.
We have seen, however, that the general paid a visit to Lizabetha
Prokofievna and caused trouble there, the final upshot being that he
frightened Mrs. Epanchin, and angered her by bitter hints as to his son
Gania.

He had been turned out in disgrace, eventually, and this was the cause of
his bad night and quarrelsome day, which ended in his sudden departure
into the street in a condition approaching insanity, as recorded before.
Colia did not understand the position. He tried severity with his father, as
they stood in the street after the latter had cursed the household, hoping to
bring him round that way.
“Well, where are we to go to now, father?” he asked. “You don’t want to
go to the prince’s; you have quarrelled with Lebedeff; you have no money; I
never have any; and here we are in the middle of the road, in a nice sort of
mess.”
“Better to be of a mess than in a mess! I remember making a joke
something like that at the mess in eighteen hundred and forty—forty—I
forget. ‘Where is my youth, where is my golden youth?’ Who was it said
that, Colia?”
“It was Gogol, in Dead Souls, father,” cried Colia, glancing at him in
some alarm.
“‘Dead Souls,’ yes, of course, dead. When I die, Colia, you must engrave
on my tomb:
“‘Here lies a Dead Soul,
Shame pursues me.’

“Who said that, Colia?”
“I don’t know, father.”
“There was no Eropegoff? Eroshka Eropegoff?” he cried, suddenly,
stopping in the road in a frenzy. “No Eropegoff! And my own son to say it!
Eropegoff was in the place of a brother to me for eleven months. I fought a
duel for him. He was married afterwards, and then killed on the field of
battle. The bullet struck the cross on my breast and glanced off straight into
his temple. ‘I’ll never forget you,’ he cried, and expired. I served my
country well and honestly, Colia, but shame, shame has pursued me! You
and Nina will come to my grave, Colia; poor Nina, I always used to call her
Nina in the old days, and how she loved.... Nina, Nina, oh, Nina. What have
I ever done to deserve your forgiveness and long-suffering? Oh, Colia, your
mother has an angelic spirit, an angelic spirit, Colia!”
“I know that, father. Look here, dear old father, come back home! Let’s
go back to mother. Look, she ran after us when we came out. What have

you stopped her for, just as though you didn’t take in what I said? Why are
you crying, father?”
Poor Colia cried himself, and kissed the old man’s hands
“You kiss my hands, mine?”
“Yes, yes, yours, yours! What is there to surprise anyone in that? Come,
come, you mustn’t go on like this, crying in the middle of the road; and you
a general too, a military man! Come, let’s go back.”
“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!”
“Come, come, what does all this mean?” cried Colia beside himself at
last. “What is it? What has happened to you? Why don’t you wish to come
back home? Why have you gone out of your mind, like this?”
“I’ll explain it, I’ll explain all to you. Don’t shout! You shall hear. Le roi
de Rome. Oh, I am sad, I am melancholy!
“‘Nurse, where is your tomb?’
“Who said that, Colia?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know who said it. Come home at once; come on!
I’ll punch Gania’s head myself, if you like—only come. Oh, where are you
off to again?” The general was dragging him away towards the door of a
house nearby. He sat down on the step, still holding Colia by the hand.
“Bend down—bend down your ear. I’ll tell you all—disgrace—bend
down, I’ll tell you in your ear.”
“What are you dreaming of?” said poor, frightened Colia, stooping down
towards the old man, all the same.
“Le roi de Rome,” whispered the general, trembling all over.
“What? What do you mean? What roi de Rome?”
“I—I,” the general continued to whisper, clinging more and more tightly
to the boy’s shoulder. “I—wish—to tell you—all—Maria—Maria Petrovna
—Su—Su—Su.......”
Colia broke loose, seized his father by the shoulders, and stared into his
eyes with frenzied gaze. The old man had grown livid—his lips were
shaking, convulsions were passing over his features. Suddenly he leant over
and began to sink slowly into Colia’s arms.

“He’s got a stroke!” cried Colia, loudly, realizing what was the matter at
last.

V.
In point of fact, Varia had rather exaggerated the certainty of her news as
to the prince’s betrothal to Aglaya. Very likely, with the perspicacity of her
sex, she gave out as an accomplished fact what she felt was pretty sure to
become a fact in a few days. Perhaps she could not resist the satisfaction of
pouring one last drop of bitterness into her brother Gania’s cup, in spite of
her love for him. At all events, she had been unable to obtain any definite
news from the Epanchin girls—the most she could get out of them being
hints and surmises, and so on. Perhaps Aglaya’s sisters had merely been
pumping Varia for news while pretending to impart information; or perhaps,
again, they had been unable to resist the feminine gratification of teasing a
friend—for, after all this time, they could scarcely have helped divining the
aim of her frequent visits.
On the other hand, the prince, although he had told Lebedeff,—as we
know, that nothing had happened, and that he had nothing to impart,—the
prince may have been in error. Something strange seemed to have
happened, without anything definite having actually happened. Varia had
guessed that with her true feminine instinct.
How or why it came about that everyone at the Epanchins’ became
imbued with one conviction—that something very important had happened
to Aglaya, and that her fate was in process of settlement—it would be very
difficult to explain. But no sooner had this idea taken root, than all at once
declared that they had seen and observed it long ago; that they had
remarked it at the time of the “poor knight” joke, and even before, though
they had been unwilling to believe in such nonsense.
So said the sisters. Of course, Lizabetha Prokofievna had foreseen it long
before the rest; her “heart had been sore” for a long while, she declared, and
it was now so sore that she appeared to be quite overwhelmed, and the very
thought of the prince became distasteful to her.
There was a question to be decided—most important, but most difficult;
so much so, that Mrs. Epanchin did not even see how to put it into words.
Would the prince do or not? Was all this good or bad? If good (which might

be the case, of course), why good? If bad (which was hardly doubtful),
wherein, especially, bad? Even the general, the paterfamilias, though
astonished at first, suddenly declared that, “upon his honour, he really
believed he had fancied something of the kind, after all. At first, it seemed a
new idea, and then, somehow, it looked as familiar as possible.” His wife
frowned him down there. This was in the morning; but in the evening, alone
with his wife, he had given tongue again.
“Well, really, you know”—(silence)—“of course, you know all this is
very strange, if true, which I cannot deny; but”—(silence).—“But, on the
other hand, if one looks things in the face, you know—upon my honour, the
prince is a rare good fellow—and—and—and—well, his name, you know
—your family name—all this looks well, and perpetuates the name and title
and all that—which at this moment is not standing so high as it might—
from one point of view—don’t you know? The world, the world is the
world, of course—and people will talk—and—and—the prince has
property, you know—if it is not very large—and then he—he—”
(Continued silence, and collapse of the general.)
Hearing these words from her husband, Lizabetha Prokofievna was
driven beside herself.
According to her opinion, the whole thing had been one huge, fantastical,
absurd, unpardonable mistake. “First of all, this prince is an idiot, and,
secondly, he is a fool—knows nothing of the world, and has no place in it.
Whom can he be shown to? Where can you take him to? What will old
Bielokonski say? We never thought of such a husband as that for our
Aglaya!”
Of course, the last argument was the chief one. The maternal heart
trembled with indignation to think of such an absurdity, although in that
heart there rose another voice, which said: “And why is not the prince such
a husband as you would have desired for Aglaya?” It was this voice which
annoyed Lizabetha Prokofievna more than anything else.
For some reason or other, the sisters liked the idea of the prince. They did
not even consider it very strange; in a word, they might be expected at any
moment to range themselves strongly on his side. But both of them decided
to say nothing either way. It had always been noticed in the family that the
stronger Mrs. Epanchin’s opposition was to any project, the nearer she was,
in reality, to giving in.

Alexandra, however, found it difficult to keep absolute silence on the
subject. Long since holding, as she did, the post of “confidential adviser to
mamma,” she was now perpetually called in council, and asked her opinion,
and especially her assistance, in order to recollect “how on earth all this
happened?” Why did no one see it? Why did no one say anything about it?
What did all that wretched “poor knight” joke mean? Why was she,
Lizabetha Prokofievna, driven to think, and foresee, and worry for
everybody, while they all sucked their thumbs, and counted the crows in the
garden, and did nothing? At first, Alexandra had been very careful, and had
merely replied that perhaps her father’s remark was not so far out: that, in
the eyes of the world, probably the choice of the prince as a husband for
one of the Epanchin girls would be considered a very wise one. Warming
up, however, she added that the prince was by no means a fool, and never
had been; and that as to “place in the world,” no one knew what the position
of a respectable person in Russia would imply in a few years—whether it
would depend on successes in the government service, on the old system, or
what.
To all this her mother replied that Alexandra was a freethinker, and that
all this was due to that “cursed woman’s rights question.”
Half an hour after this conversation, she went off to town, and thence to
the Kammenny Ostrof, [“Stone Island,” a suburb and park of St. Petersburg]
to see Princess Bielokonski, who had just arrived from Moscow on a short
visit. The princess was Aglaya’s godmother.
“Old Bielokonski” listened to all the fevered and despairing lamentations
of Lizabetha Prokofievna without the least emotion; the tears of this
sorrowful mother did not evoke answering sighs—in fact, she laughed at
her. She was a dreadful old despot, this princess; she could not allow
equality in anything, not even in friendship of the oldest standing, and she
insisted on treating Mrs. Epanchin as her protégée, as she had been thirty-
five years ago. She could never put up with the independence and energy of
Lizabetha’s character. She observed that, as usual, the whole family had
gone much too far ahead, and had converted a fly into an elephant; that, so
far as she had heard their story, she was persuaded that nothing of any
seriousness had occurred; that it would surely be better to wait until
something did happen; that the prince, in her opinion, was a very decent
young fellow, though perhaps a little eccentric, through illness, and not

quite as weighty in the world as one could wish. The worst feature was, she
said, Nastasia Philipovna.
Lizabetha Prokofievna well understood that the old lady was angry at the
failure of Evgenie Pavlovitch—her own recommendation. She returned
home to Pavlofsk in a worse humour than when she left, and of course
everybody in the house suffered. She pitched into everyone, because, she
declared, they had ‘gone mad.’ Why were things always mismanaged in her
house? Why had everybody been in such a frantic hurry in this matter? So
far as she could see, nothing whatever had happened. Surely they had better
wait and see what was to happen, instead of making mountains out of
molehills.
And so the conclusion of the matter was that it would be far better to take
it quietly, and wait coolly to see what would turn up. But, alas! peace did
not reign for more than ten minutes. The first blow dealt to its power was in
certain news communicated to Lizabetha Prokofievna as to events which
had happened during her trip to see the princess. (This trip had taken place
the day after that on which the prince had turned up at the Epanchins at
nearly one o’clock at night, thinking it was nine.)
The sisters replied candidly and fully enough to their mother’s impatient
questions on her return. They said, in the first place, that nothing particular
had happened since her departure; that the prince had been, and that Aglaya
had kept him waiting a long while before she appeared—half an hour, at
least; that she had then come in, and immediately asked the prince to have a
game of chess; that the prince did not know the game, and Aglaya had
beaten him easily; that she had been in a wonderfully merry mood, and had
laughed at the prince, and chaffed him so unmercifully that one was quite
sorry to see his wretched expression.
She had then asked him to play cards—the game called “little fools.” At
this game the tables were turned completely, for the prince had shown
himself a master at it. Aglaya had cheated and changed cards, and stolen
others, in the most bare-faced way, but, in spite of everything the prince had
beaten her hopelessly five times running, and she had been left “little fool”
each time.
Aglaya then lost her temper, and began to say such awful things to the
prince that he laughed no more, but grew dreadfully pale, especially when
she said that she should not remain in the house with him, and that he ought

to be ashamed of coming to their house at all, especially at night, “after all
that had happened.”
So saying, she had left the room, banging the door after her, and the
prince went off, looking as though he were on his way to a funeral, in spite
of all their attempts at consolation.
Suddenly, a quarter of an hour after the prince’s departure, Aglaya had
rushed out of her room in such a hurry that she had not even wiped her
eyes, which were full of tears. She came back because Colia had brought a
hedgehog. Everybody came in to see the hedgehog. In answer to their
questions Colia explained that the hedgehog was not his, and that he had
left another boy, Kostia Lebedeff, waiting for him outside. Kostia was too
shy to come in, because he was carrying a hatchet; they had bought the
hedgehog and the hatchet from a peasant whom they had met on the road.
He had offered to sell them the hedgehog, and they had paid fifty copecks
for it; and the hatchet had so taken their fancy that they had made up their
minds to buy it of their own accord. On hearing this, Aglaya urged Colia to
sell her the hedgehog; she even called him “dear Colia,” in trying to coax
him. He refused for a long time, but at last he could hold out no more, and
went to fetch Kostia Lebedeff. The latter appeared, carrying his hatchet, and
covered with confusion. Then it came out that the hedgehog was not theirs,
but the property of a schoolmate, one Petroff, who had given them some
money to buy Schlosser’s History for him, from another schoolfellow who
at that moment was driven to raising money by the sale of his books. Colia
and Kostia were about to make this purchase for their friend when chance
brought the hedgehog to their notice, and they had succumbed to the
temptation of buying it. They were now taking Petroff the hedgehog and
hatchet which they had bought with his money, instead of Schlosser’s
History. But Aglaya so entreated them that at last they consented to sell her
the hedgehog. As soon as she had got possession of it, she put it in a wicker
basket with Colia’s help, and covered it with a napkin. Then she said to
Colia: “Go and take this hedgehog to the prince from me, and ask him to
accept it as a token of my profound respect.” Colia joyfully promised to do
the errand, but he demanded explanations. “What does the hedgehog mean?
What is the meaning of such a present?” Aglaya replied that it was none of
his business. “I am sure that there is some allegory about it,” Colia
persisted. Aglaya grew angry, and called him “a silly boy.” “If I did not
respect all women in your person,” replied Colia, “and if my own principles

would permit it, I would soon prove to you, that I know how to answer such
an insult!” But, in the end, Colia went off with the hedgehog in great
delight, followed by Kostia Lebedeff. Aglaya’s annoyance was soon over,
and seeing that Colia was swinging the hedgehog’s basket violently to and
fro, she called out to him from the verandah, as if they had never quarrelled:
“Colia, dear, please take care not to drop him!” Colia appeared to have no
grudge against her, either, for he stopped, and answered most cordially:
“No, I will not drop him! Don’t be afraid, Aglaya Ivanovna!” After which
he went on his way. Aglaya burst out laughing and ran up to her room,
highly delighted. Her good spirits lasted the whole day.
All this filled poor Lizabetha’s mind with chaotic confusion. What on
earth did it all mean? The most disturbing feature was the hedgehog. What
was the symbolic signification of a hedgehog? What did they understand by
it? What underlay it? Was it a cryptic message?
Poor General Epanchin “put his foot in it” by answering the above
questions in his own way. He said there was no cryptic message at all. As
for the hedgehog, it was just a hedgehog, which meant nothing—unless,
indeed, it was a pledge of friendship,—the sign of forgetting of offences
and so on. At all events, it was a joke, and, of course, a most pardonable and
innocent one.
We may as well remark that the general had guessed perfectly accurately.
The prince, returning home from the interview with Aglaya, had sat
gloomy and depressed for half an hour. He was almost in despair when
Colia arrived with the hedgehog.
Then the sky cleared in a moment. The prince seemed to arise from the
dead; he asked Colia all about it, made him repeat the story over and over
again, and laughed and shook hands with the boys in his delight.
It seemed clear to the prince that Aglaya forgave him, and that he might
go there again this very evening; and in his eyes that was not only the main
thing, but everything in the world.
“What children we are still, Colia!” he cried at last, enthusiastically,
—“and how delightful it is that we can be children still!”
“Simply—my dear prince,—simply she is in love with you,—that’s the
whole of the secret!” replied Colia, with authority.

The prince blushed, but this time he said nothing. Colia burst out
laughing and clapped his hands. A minute later the prince laughed too, and
from this moment until the evening he looked at his watch every other
minute to see how much time he had to wait before evening came.
But the situation was becoming rapidly critical.
Mrs. Epanchin could bear her suspense no longer, and in spite of the
opposition of husband and daughters, she sent for Aglaya, determined to get
a straightforward answer out of her, once for all.
“Otherwise,” she observed hysterically, “I shall die before evening.”
It was only now that everyone realized to what a ridiculous dead-lock the
whole matter had been brought. Excepting feigned surprise, indignation,
laughter, and jeering—both at the prince and at everyone who asked her
questions,—nothing could be got out of Aglaya.
Lizabetha Prokofievna went to bed and only rose again in time for tea,
when the prince might be expected.
She awaited him in trembling agitation; and when he at last arrived she
nearly went off into hysterics.
Muishkin himself came in very timidly. He seemed to feel his way, and
looked in each person’s eyes in a questioning way,—for Aglaya was absent,
which fact alarmed him at once.
This evening there were no strangers present—no one but the immediate
members of the family. Prince S. was still in town, occupied with the affairs
of Evgenie Pavlovitch’s uncle.
“I wish at least he would come and say something!” complained poor
Lizabetha Prokofievna.
The general sat still with a most preoccupied air. The sisters were looking
very serious and did not speak a word, and Lizabetha Prokofievna did not
know how to commence the conversation.
At length she plunged into an energetic and hostile criticism of railways,
and glared at the prince defiantly.
Alas Aglaya still did not come—and the prince was quite lost. He had the
greatest difficulty in expressing his opinion that railways were most useful
institutions,—and in the middle of his speech Adelaida laughed, which
threw him into a still worse state of confusion.

At this moment in marched Aglaya, as calm and collected as could be.
She gave the prince a ceremonious bow and solemnly took up a prominent
position near the big round table. She looked at the prince questioningly.
All present realized that the moment for the settlement of perplexities had
arrived.
“Did you get my hedgehog?” she inquired, firmly and almost angrily.
“Yes, I got it,” said the prince, blushing.
“Tell us now, at once, what you made of the present? I must have you
answer this question for mother’s sake; she needs pacifying, and so do all
the rest of the family!”
“Look here, Aglaya—” began the general.
“This—this is going beyond all limits!” said Lizabetha Prokofievna,
suddenly alarmed.
“It is not in the least beyond all limits, mamma!” said her daughter,
firmly. “I sent the prince a hedgehog this morning, and I wish to hear his
opinion of it. Go on, prince.”
“What—what sort of opinion, Aglaya Ivanovna?”
“About the hedgehog.”
“That is—I suppose you wish to know how I received the hedgehog,
Aglaya Ivanovna,—or, I should say, how I regarded your sending him to
me? In that case, I may tell you—in a word—that I—in fact—”
He paused, breathless.
“Come—you haven’t told us much!” said Aglaya, after waiting some five
seconds. “Very well, I am ready to drop the hedgehog, if you like; but I am
anxious to be able to clear up this accumulation of misunderstandings.
Allow me to ask you, prince,—I wish to hear from you, personally—are
you making me an offer, or not?”
“Gracious heavens!” exclaimed Lizabetha Prokofievna. The prince
started. The general stiffened in his chair; the sisters frowned.
“Don’t deceive me now, prince—tell the truth. All these people persecute
me with astounding questions—about you. Is there any ground for all these
questions, or not? Come!”
“I have not asked you to marry me yet, Aglaya Ivanovna,” said the
prince, becoming suddenly animated; “but you know yourself how much I

love you and trust you.”
“No—I asked you this—answer this! Do you intend to ask for my hand,
or not?”
“Yes—I do ask for it!” said the prince, more dead than alive now.
There was a general stir in the room.
“No—no—my dear girl,” began the general. “You cannot proceed like
this, Aglaya, if that’s how the matter stands. It’s impossible. Prince, forgive
it, my dear fellow, but—Lizabetha Prokofievna!”—he appealed to his
spouse for help—“you must really—”
“Not I—not I! I retire from all responsibility,” said Lizabetha
Prokofievna, with a wave of the hand.
“Allow me to speak, please, mamma,” said Aglaya. “I think I ought to
have something to say in the matter. An important moment of my destiny is
about to be decided”—(this is how Aglaya expressed herself)—“and I wish
to find out how the matter stands, for my own sake, though I am glad you
are all here. Allow me to ask you, prince, since you cherish those intentions,
how you consider that you will provide for my happiness?”
“I—I don’t quite know how to answer your question, Aglaya Ivanovna.
What is there to say to such a question? And—and must I answer?”
“I think you are rather overwhelmed and out of breath. Have a little rest,
and try to recover yourself. Take a glass of water, or—but they’ll give you
some tea directly.”
“I love you, Aglaya Ivanovna,—I love you very much. I love only you—
and—please don’t jest about it, for I do love you very much.”
“Well, this matter is important. We are not children—we must look into it
thoroughly. Now then, kindly tell me—what does your fortune consist of?”
“No—Aglaya—come, enough of this, you mustn’t behave like this,” said
her father, in dismay.
“It’s disgraceful,” said Lizabetha Prokofievna in a loud whisper.
“She’s mad—quite!” said Alexandra.
“Fortune—money—do you mean?” asked the prince in some surprise.
“Just so.”
“I have now—let’s see—I have a hundred and thirty-five thousand
roubles,” said the prince, blushing violently.

“Is that all, really?” said Aglaya, candidly, without the slightest show of
confusion. “However, it’s not so bad, especially if managed with economy.
Do you intend to serve?”
“I—I intended to try for a certificate as private tutor.”
“Very good. That would increase our income nicely. Have you any
intention of being a Kammer-junker?”
“A Kammer-junker? I had not thought of it, but—”
But here the two sisters could restrain themselves no longer, and both of
them burst into irrepressible laughter.
Adelaida had long since detected in Aglaya’s features the gathering signs
of an approaching storm of laughter, which she restrained with amazing
self-control.
Aglaya looked menacingly at her laughing sisters, but could not contain
herself any longer, and the next minute she too had burst into an
irrepressible, and almost hysterical, fit of mirth. At length she jumped up,
and ran out of the room.
“I knew it was all a joke!” cried Adelaida. “I felt it ever since—since the
hedgehog.”
“No, no! I cannot allow this,—this is a little too much,” cried Lizabetha
Prokofievna, exploding with rage, and she rose from her seat and followed
Aglaya out of the room as quickly as she could.
The two sisters hurriedly went after her.
The prince and the general were the only two persons left in the room.
“It’s—it’s really—now could you have imagined anything like it, Lef
Nicolaievitch?” cried the general. He was evidently so much agitated that
he hardly knew what he wished to say. “Seriously now, seriously I mean—”
“I only see that Aglaya Ivanovna is laughing at me,” said the poor prince,
sadly.
“Wait a bit, my boy, I’ll just go—you stay here, you know. But do just
explain, if you can, Lef Nicolaievitch, how in the world has all this come
about? And what does it all mean? You must understand, my dear fellow; I
am a father, you see, and I ought to be allowed to understand the matter—
do explain, I beg you!”

“I love Aglaya Ivanovna—she knows it,—and I think she must have long
known it.”
The general shrugged his shoulders.
“Strange—it’s strange,” he said, “and you love her very much?”
“Yes, very much.”
“Well—it’s all most strange to me. That is—my dear fellow, it is such a
surprise—such a blow—that... You see, it is not your financial position
(though I should not object if you were a bit richer)—I am thinking of my
daughter’s happiness, of course, and the thing is—are you able to give her
the happiness she deserves? And then—is all this a joke on her part, or is
she in earnest? I don’t mean on your side, but on hers.”
At this moment Alexandra’s voice was heard outside the door, calling out
“Papa!”
“Wait for me here, my boy—will you? Just wait and think it all over, and
I’ll come back directly,” he said hurriedly, and made off with what looked
like the rapidity of alarm in response to Alexandra’s call.
He found the mother and daughter locked in one another’s arms,
mingling their tears.
These were the tears of joy and peace and reconciliation. Aglaya was
kissing her mother’s lips and cheeks and hands; they were hugging each
other in the most ardent way.
“There, look at her now—Ivan Fedorovitch! Here she is—all of her! This
is our real Aglaya at last!” said Lizabetha Prokofievna.
Aglaya raised her happy, tearful face from her mother’s breast, glanced at
her father, and burst out laughing. She sprang at him and hugged him too,
and kissed him over and over again. She then rushed back to her mother and
hid her face in the maternal bosom, and there indulged in more tears. Her
mother covered her with a corner of her shawl.
“Oh, you cruel little girl! How will you treat us all next, I wonder?” she
said, but she spoke with a ring of joy in her voice, and as though she
breathed at last without the oppression which she had felt so long.
“Cruel?” sobbed Aglaya. “Yes, I am cruel, and worthless, and spoiled—
tell father so,—oh, here he is—I forgot Father, listen!” She laughed through
her tears.

“My darling, my little idol,” cried the general, kissing and fondling her
hands (Aglaya did not draw them away); “so you love this young man, do
you?”
“No, no, no, can’t bear him, I can’t bear your young man!” cried Aglaya,
raising her head. “And if you dare say that once more, papa—I’m serious,
you know, I’m,—do you hear me—I’m serious!”
She certainly did seem to be serious enough. She had flushed up all over
and her eyes were blazing.
The general felt troubled and remained silent, while Lizabetha
Prokofievna telegraphed to him from behind Aglaya to ask no questions.
“If that’s the case, darling—then, of course, you shall do exactly as you
like. He is waiting alone downstairs. Hadn’t I better hint to him gently that
he can go?” The general telegraphed to Lizabetha Prokofievna in his turn.
“No, no, you needn’t do anything of the sort; you mustn’t hint gently at
all. I’ll go down myself directly. I wish to apologize to this young man,
because I hurt his feelings.”
“Yes, seriously,” said the general, gravely.
“Well, you’d better stay here, all of you, for a little, and I’ll go down to
him alone to begin with. I’ll just go in and then you can follow me almost at
once. That’s the best way.”
She had almost reached the door when she turned round again.
“I shall laugh—I know I shall; I shall die of laughing,” she said,
lugubriously.
However, she turned and ran down to the prince as fast as her feet could
carry her.
“Well, what does it all mean? What do you make of it?” asked the general
of his spouse, hurriedly.
“I hardly dare say,” said Lizabetha, as hurriedly, “but I think it’s as plain
as anything can be.”
“I think so too, as clear as day; she loves him.”
“Loves him? She is head over ears in love, that’s what she is,” put in
Alexandra.
“Well, God bless her, God bless her, if such is her destiny,” said
Lizabetha, crossing herself devoutly.

“H’m destiny it is,” said the general, “and there’s no getting out of
destiny.”
With these words they all moved off towards the drawing-room, where
another surprise awaited them. Aglaya had not only not laughed, as she had
feared, but had gone to the prince rather timidly, and said to him:
“Forgive a silly, horrid, spoilt girl”—(she took his hand here)—“and be
quite assured that we all of us esteem you beyond all words. And if I dared
to turn your beautiful, admirable simplicity to ridicule, forgive me as you
would a little child its mischief. Forgive me all my absurdity of just now,
which, of course, meant nothing, and could not have the slightest
consequence.” She spoke these words with great emphasis.
Her father, mother, and sisters came into the room and were much struck
with the last words, which they just caught as they entered—“absurdity
which of course meant nothing”—and still more so with the emphasis with
which Aglaya had spoken.
They exchanged glances questioningly, but the prince did not seem to
have understood the meaning of Aglaya’s words; he was in the highest
heaven of delight.
“Why do you speak so?” he murmured. “Why do you ask my
forgiveness?”
He wished to add that he was unworthy of being asked for forgiveness by
her, but paused. Perhaps he did understand Aglaya’s sentence about
“absurdity which meant nothing,” and like the strange fellow that he was,
rejoiced in the words.
Undoubtedly the fact that he might now come and see Aglaya as much as
he pleased again was quite enough to make him perfectly happy; that he
might come and speak to her, and see her, and sit by her, and walk with her
—who knows, but that all this was quite enough to satisfy him for the
whole of his life, and that he would desire no more to the end of time?
(Lizabetha Prokofievna felt that this might be the case, and she didn’t
like it; though very probably she could not have put the idea into words.)
It would be difficult to describe the animation and high spirits which
distinguished the prince for the rest of the evening.
He was so happy that “it made one feel happy to look at him,” as
Aglaya’s sisters expressed it afterwards. He talked, and told stories just as

he had done once before, and never since, namely on the very first morning
of his acquaintance with the Epanchins, six months ago. Since his return to
Petersburg from Moscow, he had been remarkably silent, and had told
Prince S. on one occasion, before everyone, that he did not think himself
justified in degrading any thought by his unworthy words.
But this evening he did nearly all the talking himself, and told stories by
the dozen, while he answered all questions put to him clearly, gladly, and
with any amount of detail.
There was nothing, however, of love-making in his talk. His ideas were
all of the most serious kind; some were even mystical and profound.
He aired his own views on various matters, some of his most private
opinions and observations, many of which would have seemed rather funny,
so his hearers agreed afterwards, had they not been so well expressed.
The general liked serious subjects of conversation; but both he and
Lizabetha Prokofievna felt that they were having a little too much of a good
thing tonight, and as the evening advanced, they both grew more or less
melancholy; but towards night, the prince fell to telling funny stories, and
was always the first to burst out laughing himself, which he invariably did
so joyously and simply that the rest laughed just as much at him as at his
stories.
As for Aglaya, she hardly said a word all the evening; but she listened
with all her ears to Lef Nicolaievitch’s talk, and scarcely took her eyes off
him.
“She looked at him, and stared and stared, and hung on every word he
said,” said Lizabetha afterwards, to her husband, “and yet, tell her that she
loves him, and she is furious!”
“What’s to be done? It’s fate,” said the general, shrugging his shoulders,
and, for a long while after, he continued to repeat: “It’s fate, it’s fate!”
We may add that to a business man like General Epanchin the present
position of affairs was most unsatisfactory. He hated the uncertainty in
which they had been, perforce, left. However, he decided to say no more
about it, and merely to look on, and take his time and tune from Lizabetha
Prokofievna.
The happy state in which the family had spent the evening, as just
recorded, was not of very long duration. Next day Aglaya quarrelled with

the prince again, and so she continued to behave for the next few days. For
whole hours at a time she ridiculed and chaffed the wretched man, and
made him almost a laughing-stock.
It is true that they used to sit in the little summer-house together for an
hour or two at a time, very often, but it was observed that on these
occasions the prince would read the paper, or some book, aloud to Aglaya.
“Do you know,” Aglaya said to him once, interrupting the reading, “I’ve
remarked that you are dreadfully badly educated. You never know anything
thoroughly, if one asks you; neither anyone’s name, nor dates, nor about
treaties and so on. It’s a great pity, you know!”
“I told you I had not had much of an education,” replied the prince.
“How am I to respect you, if that’s the case? Read on now. No—don’t!
Stop reading!”
And once more, that same evening, Aglaya mystified them all. Prince S.
had returned, and Aglaya was particularly amiable to him, and asked a great
deal after Evgenie Pavlovitch. (Muishkin had not come in as yet.)
Suddenly Prince S. hinted something about “a new and approaching
change in the family.” He was led to this remark by a communication
inadvertently made to him by Lizabetha Prokofievna, that Adelaida’s
marriage must be postponed a little longer, in order that the two weddings
might come off together.
It is impossible to describe Aglaya’s irritation. She flared up, and said
some indignant words about “all these silly insinuations.” She added that
“she had no intentions as yet of replacing anybody’s mistress.”
These words painfully impressed the whole party; but especially her
parents. Lizabetha Prokofievna summoned a secret council of two, and
insisted upon the general’s demanding from the prince a full explanation of
his relations with Nastasia Philipovna. The general argued that it was only a
whim of Aglaya’s; and that, had not Prince S. unfortunately made that
remark, which had confused the child and made her blush, she never would
have said what she did; and that he was sure Aglaya knew well that
anything she might have heard of the prince and Nastasia Philipovna was
merely the fabrication of malicious tongues, and that the woman was going
to marry Rogojin. He insisted that the prince had nothing whatever to do

with Nastasia Philipovna, so far as any liaison was concerned; and, if the
truth were to be told about it, he added, never had had.
Meanwhile nothing put the prince out, and he continued to be in the
seventh heaven of bliss. Of course he could not fail to observe some
impatience and ill-temper in Aglaya now and then; but he believed in
something else, and nothing could now shake his conviction. Besides,
Aglaya’s frowns never lasted long; they disappeared of themselves.
Perhaps he was too easy in his mind. So thought Hippolyte, at all events,
who met him in the park one day.
“Didn’t I tell you the truth now, when I said you were in love?” he said,
coming up to Muishkin of his own accord, and stopping him.
The prince gave him his hand and congratulated him upon “looking so
well.”
Hippolyte himself seemed to be hopeful about his state of health, as is
often the case with consumptives.
He had approached the prince with the intention of talking sarcastically
about his happy expression of face, but very soon forgot his intention and
began to talk about himself. He began complaining about everything,
disconnectedly and endlessly, as was his wont.
“You wouldn’t believe,” he concluded, “how irritating they all are there.
They are such wretchedly small, vain, egotistical, commonplace people!
Would you believe it, they invited me there under the express condition that
I should die quickly, and they are all as wild as possible with me for not
having died yet, and for being, on the contrary, a good deal better! Isn’t it a
comedy? I don’t mind betting that you don’t believe me!”
The prince said nothing.
“I sometimes think of coming over to you again,” said Hippolyte,
carelessly. “So you don’t think them capable of inviting a man on the
condition that he is to look sharp and die?”
“I certainly thought they invited you with quite other views.”
“Ho, ho! you are not nearly so simple as they try to make you out! This is
not the time for it, or I would tell you a thing or two about that beauty,
Gania, and his hopes. You are being undermined, pitilessly undermined, and
—and it is really melancholy to see you so calm about it. But alas! it’s your
nature—you can’t help it!”

“My word! what a thing to be melancholy about! Why, do you think I
should be any happier if I were to feel disturbed about the excavations you
tell me of?”
“It is better to be unhappy and know the worst, than to be happy in a
fool’s paradise! I suppose you don’t believe that you have a rival in that
quarter?”
“Your insinuations as to rivalry are rather cynical, Hippolyte. I’m sorry to
say I have no right to answer you! As for Gania, I put it to you, can any
man have a happy mind after passing through what he has had to suffer? I
think that is the best way to look at it. He will change yet, he has lots of
time before him, and life is rich; besides—besides...” the prince hesitated.
“As to being undermined, I don’t know what in the world you are driving
at, Hippolyte. I think we had better drop the subject!”
“Very well, we’ll drop it for a while. You can’t look at anything but in
your exalted, generous way. You must put out your finger and touch a thing
before you’ll believe it, eh? Ha! ha! ha! I suppose you despise me
dreadfully, prince, eh? What do you think?”
“Why? Because you have suffered more than we have?”
“No; because I am unworthy of my sufferings, if you like!”
“Whoever can suffer is worthy to suffer, I should think. Aglaya Ivanovna
wished to see you, after she had read your confession, but—”
“She postponed the pleasure—I see—I quite understand!” said
Hippolyte, hurriedly, as though he wished to banish the subject. “I hear—
they tell me—that you read her all that nonsense aloud? Stupid bosh it was
—written in delirium. And I can’t understand how anyone can be so—I
won’t say cruel, because the word would be humiliating to myself, but we’ll
say childishly vain and revengeful, as to reproach me with this confession,
and use it as a weapon against me. Don’t be afraid, I’m not referring to
yourself.”
“Oh, but I’m sorry you repudiate the confession, Hippolyte—it is sincere;
and, do you know, even the absurd parts of it—and these are many” (here
Hippolyte frowned savagely) “are, as it were, redeemed by suffering—for it
must have cost you something to admit what you there say—great torture,
perhaps, for all I know. Your motive must have been a very noble one all
through. Whatever may have appeared to the contrary, I give you my word,

I see this more plainly every day. I do not judge you; I merely say this to
have it off my mind, and I am only sorry that I did not say it all then—”
Hippolyte flushed hotly. He had thought at first that the prince was
“humbugging” him; but on looking at his face he saw that he was absolutely
serious, and had no thought of any deception. Hippolyte beamed with
gratification.
“And yet I must die,” he said, and almost added: “a man like me!
“And imagine how that Gania annoys me! He has developed the idea—or
pretends to believe—that in all probability three or four others who heard
my confession will die before I do. There’s an idea for you—and all this by
way of consoling me! Ha! ha! ha! In the first place they haven’t died yet;
and in the second, if they did die—all of them—what would be the
satisfaction to me in that? He judges me by himself. But he goes further, he
actually pitches into me because, as he declares, ‘any decent fellow’ would
die quietly, and that ‘all this’ is mere egotism on my part. He doesn’t see
what refinement of egotism it is on his own part—and at the same time,
what ox-like coarseness! Have you ever read of the death of one Stepan
Gleboff, in the eighteenth century? I read of it yesterday by chance.”
“Who was he?”
“He was impaled on a stake in the time of Peter.”
“I know, I know! He lay there fifteen hours in the hard frost, and died
with the most extraordinary fortitude—I know—what of him?”
“Only that God gives that sort of dying to some, and not to others.
Perhaps you think, though, that I could not die like Gleboff?”
“Not at all!” said the prince, blushing. “I was only going to say that you
—not that you could not be like Gleboff—but that you would have been
more like—”
“I guess what you mean—I should be an Osterman, not a Gleboff—eh?
Is that what you meant?”
“What Osterman?” asked the prince in some surprise.
“Why, Osterman—the diplomatist. Peter’s Osterman,” muttered
Hippolyte, confused. There was a moment’s pause of mutual confusion.
“Oh, no, no!” said the prince at last, “that was not what I was going to
say—oh no! I don’t think you would ever have been like Osterman.”

Hippolyte frowned gloomily.
“I’ll tell you why I draw the conclusion,” explained the prince, evidently
desirous of clearing up the matter a little. “Because, though I often think
over the men of those times, I cannot for the life of me imagine them to be
like ourselves. It really appears to me that they were of another race
altogether than ourselves of today. At that time people seemed to stick so to
one idea; now, they are more nervous, more sensitive, more enlightened—
people of two or three ideas at once—as it were. The man of today is a
broader man, so to speak—and I declare I believe that is what prevents him
from being so self-contained and independent a being as his brother of
those earlier days. Of course my remark was only made under this
impression, and not in the least—”
“I quite understand. You are trying to comfort me for the naiveness with
which you disagreed with me—eh? Ha! ha! ha! You are a regular child,
prince! However, I cannot help seeing that you always treat me like—like a
fragile china cup. Never mind, never mind, I’m not a bit angry! At all
events we have had a very funny talk. Do you know, all things considered, I
should like to be something better than Osterman! I wouldn’t take the
trouble to rise from the dead to be an Osterman. However, I see I must
make arrangements to die soon, or I myself—. Well—leave me now! Au
revoir. Look here—before you go, just give me your opinion: how do you
think I ought to die, now? I mean—the best, the most virtuous way? Tell
me!”
“You should pass us by and forgive us our happiness,” said the prince in
a low voice.
“Ha! ha! ha! I thought so. I thought I should hear something like that.
Well, you are—you really are—oh dear me! Eloquence, eloquence! Good-
bye!”

VI.
As to the evening party at the Epanchins’ at which Princess Bielokonski
was to be present, Varia had reported with accuracy; though she had
perhaps expressed herself too strongly.

The thing was decided in a hurry and with a certain amount of quite
unnecessary excitement, doubtless because “nothing could be done in this
house like anywhere else.”
The impatience of Lizabetha Prokofievna “to get things settled”
explained a good deal, as well as the anxiety of both parents for the
happiness of their beloved daughter. Besides, Princess Bielokonski was
going away soon, and they hoped that she would take an interest in the
prince. They were anxious that he should enter society under the auspices of
this lady, whose patronage was the best of recommendations for any young
man.
Even if there seems something strange about the match, the general and
his wife said to each other, the “world” will accept Aglaya’s fiance without
any question if he is under the patronage of the princess. In any case, the
prince would have to be “shown” sooner or later; that is, introduced into
society, of which he had, so far, not the least idea. Moreover, it was only a
question of a small gathering of a few intimate friends. Besides Princess
Bielokonski, only one other lady was expected, the wife of a high dignitary.
Evgenie Pavlovitch, who was to escort the princess, was the only young
man.
Muishkin was told of the princess’s visit three days beforehand, but
nothing was said to him about the party until the night before it was to take
place.
He could not help observing the excited and agitated condition of all
members of the family, and from certain hints dropped in conversation he
gathered that they were all anxious as to the impression he should make
upon the princess. But the Epanchins, one and all, believed that Muishkin,
in his simplicity of mind, was quite incapable of realizing that they could be
feeling any anxiety on his account, and for this reason they all looked at
him with dread and uneasiness.
In point of fact, he did attach marvellously little importance to the
approaching event. He was occupied with altogether different thoughts.
Aglaya was growing hourly more capricious and gloomy, and this
distressed him. When they told him that Evgenie Pavlovitch was expected,
he evinced great delight, and said that he had long wished to see him—and
somehow these words did not please anyone.

Aglaya left the room in a fit of irritation, and it was not until late in the
evening, past eleven, when the prince was taking his departure, that she said
a word or two to him, privately, as she accompanied him as far as the front
door.
“I should like you,” she said, “not to come here tomorrow until evening,
when the guests are all assembled. You know there are to be guests, don’t
you?”
She spoke impatiently and with severity; this was the first allusion she
had made to the party of tomorrow.
She hated the idea of it, everyone saw that; and she would probably have
liked to quarrel about it with her parents, but pride and modesty prevented
her from broaching the subject.
The prince jumped to the conclusion that Aglaya, too, was nervous about
him, and the impression he would make, and that she did not like to admit
her anxiety; and this thought alarmed him.
“Yes, I am invited,” he replied.
She was evidently in difficulties as to how best to go on. “May I speak of
something serious to you, for once in my life?” she asked, angrily. She was
irritated at she knew not what, and could not restrain her wrath.
“Of course you may; I am very glad to listen,” replied Muishkin.
Aglaya was silent a moment and then began again with evident dislike of
her subject:
“I do not wish to quarrel with them about this; in some things they won’t
be reasonable. I always did feel a loathing for the laws which seem to guide
mamma’s conduct at times. I don’t speak of father, for he cannot be
expected to be anything but what he is. Mother is a noble-minded woman, I
know; you try to suggest anything mean to her, and you’ll see! But she is
such a slave to these miserable creatures! I don’t mean old Bielokonski
alone. She is a contemptible old thing, but she is able to twist people round
her little finger, and I admire that in her, at all events! How mean it all is,
and how foolish! We were always middle-class, thoroughly middle-class,
people. Why should we attempt to climb into the giddy heights of the
fashionable world? My sisters are all for it. It’s Prince S. they have to thank
for poisoning their minds. Why are you so glad that Evgenie Pavlovitch is
coming?”

“Listen to me, Aglaya,” said the prince, “I do believe you are nervous lest
I shall make a fool of myself tomorrow at your party?”
“Nervous about you?” Aglaya blushed. “Why should I be nervous about
you? What would it matter to me if you were to make ever such a fool of
yourself? How can you say such a thing? What do you mean by ‘making a
fool of yourself’? What a vulgar expression! I suppose you intend to talk in
that sort of way tomorrow evening? Look up a few more such expressions
in your dictionary; do, you’ll make a grand effect! I’m sorry that you seem
to be able to come into a room as gracefully as you do; where did you learn
the art? Do you think you can drink a cup of tea decently, when you know
everybody is looking at you, on purpose to see how you do it?”
“Yes, I think I can.”
“Can you? I’m sorry for it then, for I should have had a good laugh at
you otherwise. Do break something at least, in the drawing-room! Upset the
Chinese vase, won’t you? It’s a valuable one; do break it. Mamma values it,
and she’ll go out of her mind—it was a present. She’ll cry before everyone,
you’ll see! Wave your hand about, you know, as you always do, and just
smash it. Sit down near it on purpose.”
“On the contrary, I shall sit as far from it as I can. Thanks for the hint.”
“Ha, ha! Then you are afraid you will wave your arms about! I wouldn’t
mind betting that you’ll talk about some lofty subject, something serious
and learned. How delightful, how tactful that will be!”
“I should think it would be very foolish indeed, unless it happened to
come in appropriately.”
“Look here, once for all,” cried Aglaya, boiling over, “if I hear you
talking about capital punishment, or the economical condition of Russia, or
about Beauty redeeming the world, or anything of that sort, I’ll—well, of
course I shall laugh and seem very pleased, but I warn you beforehand,
don’t look me in the face again! I’m serious now, mind, this time I am
really serious.” She certainly did say this very seriously, so much so, that
she looked quite different from what she usually was, and the prince could
not help noticing the fact. She did not seem to be joking in the slightest
degree.
“Well, you’ve put me into such a fright that I shall certainly make a fool
of myself, and very likely break something too. I wasn’t a bit alarmed

before, but now I’m as nervous as can be.”
“Then don’t speak at all. Sit still and don’t talk.”
“Oh, I can’t do that, you know! I shall say something foolish out of pure
‘funk,’ and break something for the same excellent reason; I know I shall.
Perhaps I shall slip and fall on the slippery floor; I’ve done that before now,
you know. I shall dream of it all night now. Why did you say anything about
it?”
Aglaya looked blackly at him.
“Do you know what, I had better not come at all tomorrow! I’ll plead
sick-list and stay away,” said the prince, with decision.
Aglaya stamped her foot, and grew quite pale with anger.
“Oh, my goodness! Just listen to that! ‘Better not come,’ when the party
is on purpose for him! Good Lord! What a delightful thing it is to have to
do with such a—such a stupid as you are!”
“Well, I’ll come, I’ll come,” interrupted the prince, hastily, “and I’ll give
you my word of honour that I will sit the whole evening and not say a
word.”
“I believe that’s the best thing you can do. You said you’d ‘plead sick-
list’ just now; where in the world do you get hold of such expressions? Why
do you talk to me like this? Are you trying to irritate me, or what?”
“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.”
Aglaya wanted to be angry, of course, but suddenly some quite
unexpected feeling seized upon her heart, all in a moment.
“And you won’t reproach me for all these rude words of mine—some day
—afterwards?” she asked, of a sudden.
“What an idea! Of course not. And what are you blushing for again? And
there comes that frown once more! You’ve taken to looking too gloomy
sometimes, Aglaya, much more than you used to. I know why it is.”

“Be quiet, do be quiet!”
“No, no, I had much better speak out. I have long wished to say it, and
have said it, but that’s not enough, for you didn’t believe me. Between us
two there stands a being who—”
“Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet, be quiet!” Aglaya struck in, suddenly,
seizing his hand in hers, and gazing at him almost in terror.
At this moment she was called by someone. She broke loose from him
with an air of relief and ran away.
The prince was in a fever all night. It was strange, but he had suffered
from fever for several nights in succession. On this particular night, while
in semi-delirium, he had an idea: what if on the morrow he were to have a
fit before everybody? The thought seemed to freeze his blood within him.
All night he fancied himself in some extraordinary society of strange
persons. The worst of it was that he was talking nonsense; he knew that he
ought not to speak at all, and yet he talked the whole time; he seemed to be
trying to persuade them all to something. Evgenie and Hippolyte were
among the guests, and appeared to be great friends.
He awoke towards nine o’clock with a headache, full of confused ideas
and strange impressions. For some reason or other he felt most anxious to
see Rogojin, to see and talk to him, but what he wished to say he could not
tell. Next, he determined to go and see Hippolyte. His mind was in a
confused state, so much so that the incidents of the morning seemed to be
imperfectly realized, though acutely felt.
One of these incidents was a visit from Lebedeff. Lebedeff came rather
early—before ten—but he was tipsy already. Though the prince was not in
an observant condition, yet he could not avoid seeing that for at least three
days—ever since General Ivolgin had left the house Lebedeff had been
behaving very badly. He looked untidy and dirty at all times of the day, and
it was said that he had begun to rage about in his own house, and that his
temper was very bad. As soon as he arrived this morning, he began to hold
forth, beating his breast and apparently blaming himself for something.
“I’ve—I’ve had a reward for my meanness—I’ve had a slap in the face,”
he concluded, tragically.
“A slap in the face? From whom? And so early in the morning?”

“Early?” said Lebedeff, sarcastically. “Time counts for nothing, even in
physical chastisement; but my slap in the face was not physical, it was
moral.”
He suddenly took a seat, very unceremoniously, and began his story. It
was very disconnected; the prince frowned, and wished he could get away;
but suddenly a few words struck him. He sat stiff with wonder—Lebedeff
said some extraordinary things.
In the first place he began about some letter; the name of Aglaya
Ivanovna came in. Then suddenly he broke off and began to accuse the
prince of something; he was apparently offended with him. At first he
declared that the prince had trusted him with his confidences as to “a certain
person” (Nastasia Philipovna), but that of late his friendship had been thrust
back into his bosom, and his innocent question as to “approaching family
changes” had been curtly put aside, which Lebedeff declared, with tipsy
tears, he could not bear; especially as he knew so much already both from
Rogojin and Nastasia Philipovna and her friend, and from Varvara
Ardalionovna, and even from Aglaya Ivanovna, through his daughter Vera.
“And who told Lizabetha Prokofievna something in secret, by letter? Who
told her all about the movements of a certain person called Nastasia
Philipovna? Who was the anonymous person, eh? Tell me!”
“Surely not you?” cried the prince.
“Just so,” said Lebedeff, with dignity; “and only this very morning I have
sent up a letter to the noble lady, stating that I have a matter of great
importance to communicate. She received the letter; I know she got it; and
she received me, too.”
“Have you just seen Lizabetha Prokofievna?” asked the prince, scarcely
believing his ears.
“Yes, I saw her, and got the said slap in the face as mentioned. She
chucked the letter back to me unopened, and kicked me out of the house,
morally, not physically, although not far off it.”
“What letter do you mean she returned unopened?”
“What! didn’t I tell you? Ha, ha, ha! I thought I had. Why, I received a
letter, you know, to be handed over—”
“From whom? To whom?”

But it was difficult, if not impossible, to extract anything from Lebedeff.
All the prince could gather was, that the letter had been received very early,
and had a request written on the outside that it might be sent on to the
address given.
“Just as before, sir, just as before! To a certain person, and from a certain
hand. The individual’s name who wrote the letter is to be represented by the
letter A.—”
“What? Impossible! To Nastasia Philipovna? Nonsense!” cried the
prince.
“It was, I assure you, and if not to her then to Rogojin, which is the same
thing. Mr. Hippolyte has had letters, too, and all from the individual whose
name begins with an A.,” smirked Lebedeff, with a hideous grin.
As he kept jumping from subject to subject, and forgetting what he had
begun to talk about, the prince said nothing, but waited, to give him time.
It was all very vague. Who had taken the letters, if letters there were?
Probably Vera—and how could Lebedeff have got them? In all probability,
he had managed to steal the present letter from Vera, and had himself gone
over to Lizabetha Prokofievna with some idea in his head. So the prince
concluded at last.
“You are mad!” he cried, indignantly.
“Not quite, esteemed prince,” replied Lebedeff, with some acerbity. “I
confess I thought of doing you the service of handing the letter over to
yourself, but I decided that it would pay me better to deliver it up to the
noble lady aforesaid, as I had informed her of everything hitherto by
anonymous letters; so when I sent her up a note from myself, with the letter,
you know, in order to fix a meeting for eight o’clock this morning, I signed
it ‘your secret correspondent.’ They let me in at once—very quickly—by
the back door, and the noble lady received me.”
“Well? Go on.”
“Oh, well, when I saw her she almost punched my head, as I say; in fact
so nearly that one might almost say she did punch my head. She threw the
letter in my face; she seemed to reflect first, as if she would have liked to
keep it, but thought better of it and threw it in my face instead. ‘If anybody
can have been such a fool as to trust a man like you to deliver the letter,’

says she, ‘take it and deliver it!’ Hey! she was grandly indignant. A fierce,
fiery lady that, sir!”
“Where’s the letter now?”
“Oh, I’ve still got it, here!”
And he handed the prince the very letter from Aglaya to Gania, which the
latter showed with so much triumph to his sister at a later hour.
“This letter cannot be allowed to remain in your hands.”
“It’s for you—for you! I’ve brought it you on purpose!” cried Lebedeff,
excitedly. “Why, I’m yours again now, heart and hand, your slave; there was
but a momentary pause in the flow of my love and esteem for you. Mea
culpa, mea culpa! as the Pope of Rome says.”
“This letter should be sent on at once,” said the prince, disturbed. “I’ll
hand it over myself.”
“Wouldn’t it be better, esteemed prince, wouldn’t it be better—to—don’t
you know—”
Lebedeff made a strange and very expressive grimace; he twisted about
in his chair, and did something, apparently symbolical, with his hands.
“What do you mean?” said the prince.
“Why, open it, for the time being, don’t you know?” he said, most
confidentially and mysteriously.
The prince jumped up so furiously that Lebedeff ran towards the door;
having gained which strategic position, however, he stopped and looked
back to see if he might hope for pardon.
“Oh, Lebedeff, Lebedeff! Can a man really sink to such depths of
meanness?” said the prince, sadly.
Lebedeff’s face brightened.
“Oh, I’m a mean wretch—a mean wretch!” he said, approaching the
prince once more, and beating his breast, with tears in his eyes.
“It’s abominable dishonesty, you know!”
“Dishonesty—it is, it is! That’s the very word!”
“What in the world induces you to act so? You are nothing but a spy.
Why did you write anonymously to worry so noble and generous a lady?
Why should not Aglaya Ivanovna write a note to whomever she pleases?

What did you mean to complain of today? What did you expect to get by it?
What made you go at all?”
“Pure amiable curiosity,—I assure you—desire to do a service. That’s all.
Now I’m entirely yours again, your slave; hang me if you like!”
“Did you go before Lizabetha Prokofievna in your present condition?”
inquired the prince.
“No—oh no, fresher—more the correct card. I only became this like after
the humiliation I suffered there.”
“Well—that’ll do; now leave me.”
This injunction had to be repeated several times before the man could be
persuaded to move. Even then he turned back at the door, came as far as the
middle of the room, and there went through his mysterious motions
designed to convey the suggestion that the prince should open the letter. He
did not dare put his suggestion into words again.
After this performance, he smiled sweetly and left the room on tiptoe.
All this had been very painful to listen to. One fact stood out certain and
clear, and that was that poor Aglaya must be in a state of great distress and
indecision and mental torment (“from jealousy,” the prince whispered to
himself). Undoubtedly in this inexperienced, but hot and proud little head,
there were all sorts of plans forming, wild and impossible plans, maybe;
and the idea of this so frightened the prince that he could not make up his
mind what to do. Something must be done, that was clear.
He looked at the address on the letter once more. Oh, he was not in the
least degree alarmed about Aglaya writing such a letter; he could trust her.
What he did not like about it was that he could not trust Gania.
However, he made up his mind that he would himself take the note and
deliver it. Indeed, he went so far as to leave the house and walk up the road,
but changed his mind when he had nearly reached Ptitsin’s door. However,
he there luckily met Colia, and commissioned him to deliver the letter to his
brother as if direct from Aglaya. Colia asked no questions but simply
delivered it, and Gania consequently had no suspicion that it had passed
through so many hands.
Arrived home again, the prince sent for Vera Lebedeff and told her as
much as was necessary, in order to relieve her mind, for she had been in a
dreadful state of anxiety since she had missed the letter. She heard with

horror that her father had taken it. Muishkin learned from her that she had
on several occasions performed secret missions both for Aglaya and for
Rogojin, without, however, having had the slightest idea that in so doing
she might injure the prince in any way.
The latter, with one thing and another, was now so disturbed and
confused, that when, a couple of hours or so later, a message came from
Colia that the general was ill, he could hardly take the news in.
However, when he did master the fact, it acted upon him as a tonic by
completely distracting his attention. He went at once to Nina
Alexandrovna’s, whither the general had been carried, and stayed there until
the evening. He could do no good, but there are people whom to have near
one is a blessing at such times. Colia was in an almost hysterical state; he
cried continuously, but was running about all day, all the same; fetching
doctors, of whom he collected three; going to the chemist’s, and so on.
The general was brought round to some extent, but the doctors declared
that he could not be said to be out of danger. Varia and Nina Alexandrovna
never left the sick man’s bedside; Gania was excited and distressed, but
would not go upstairs, and seemed afraid to look at the patient. He wrung
his hands when the prince spoke to him, and said that “such a misfortune at
such a moment” was terrible.
The prince thought he knew what Gania meant by “such a moment.”
Hippolyte was not in the house. Lebedeff turned up late in the afternoon;
he had been asleep ever since his interview with the prince in the morning.
He was quite sober now, and cried with real sincerity over the sick general
—mourning for him as though he were his own brother. He blamed himself
aloud, but did not explain why. He repeated over and over again to Nina
Alexandrovna that he alone was to blame—no one else—but that he had
acted out of “pure amiable curiosity,” and that “the deceased,” as he insisted
upon calling the still living general, had been the greatest of geniuses.
He laid much stress on the genius of the sufferer, as if this idea must be
one of immense solace in the present crisis.
Nina Alexandrovna—seeing his sincerity of feeling—said at last, and
without the faintest suspicion of reproach in her voice: “Come, come—
don’t cry! God will forgive you!”

Lebedeff was so impressed by these words, and the tone in which they
were spoken, that he could not leave Nina Alexandrovna all the evening—
in fact, for several days. Till the general’s death, indeed, he spent almost all
his time at his side.
Twice during the day a messenger came to Nina Alexandrovna from the
Epanchins to inquire after the invalid.
When—late in the evening—the prince made his appearance in Lizabetha
Prokofievna’s drawing-room, he found it full of guests. Mrs. Epanchin
questioned him very fully about the general as soon as he appeared; and
when old Princess Bielokonski wished to know “who this general was, and
who was Nina Alexandrovna,” she proceeded to explain in a manner which
pleased the prince very much.
He himself, when relating the circumstances of the general’s illness to
Lizabetha Prokofievna, “spoke beautifully,” as Aglaya’s sisters declared
afterwards—“modestly, quietly, without gestures or too many words, and
with great dignity.” He had entered the room with propriety and grace, and
he was perfectly dressed; he not only did not “fall down on the slippery
floor,” as he had expressed it, but evidently made a very favourable
impression upon the assembled guests.
As for his own impression on entering the room and taking his seat, he
instantly remarked that the company was not in the least such as Aglaya’s
words had led him to fear, and as he had dreamed of—in nightmare form—
all night.
This was the first time in his life that he had seen a little corner of what
was generally known by the terrible name of “society.” He had long
thirsted, for reasons of his own, to penetrate the mysteries of the magic
circle, and, therefore, this assemblage was of the greatest possible interest
to him.
His first impression was one of fascination. Somehow or other he felt that
all these people must have been born on purpose to be together! It seemed
to him that the Epanchins were not having a party at all; that these people
must have been here always, and that he himself was one of them—returned
among them after a long absence, but one of them, naturally and
indisputably.
It never struck him that all this refined simplicity and nobility and wit
and personal dignity might possibly be no more than an exquisite artistic

polish. The majority of the guests—who were somewhat empty-headed,
after all, in spite of their aristocratic bearing—never guessed, in their self-
satisfied composure, that much of their superiority was mere veneer, which
indeed they had adopted unconsciously and by inheritance.
The prince would never so much as suspect such a thing in the delight of
his first impression.
He saw, for instance, that one important dignitary, old enough to be his
grandfather, broke off his own conversation in order to listen to him—a
young and inexperienced man; and not only listened, but seemed to attach
value to his opinion, and was kind and amiable, and yet they were strangers
and had never seen each other before. Perhaps what most appealed to the
prince’s impressionability was the refinement of the old man’s courtesy
towards him. Perhaps the soil of his susceptible nature was really
predisposed to receive a pleasant impression.
Meanwhile all these people—though friends of the family and of each
other to a certain extent—were very far from being such intimate friends of
the family and of each other as the prince concluded. There were some
present who never would think of considering the Epanchins their equals.
There were even some who hated one another cordially. For instance, old
Princess Bielokonski had all her life despised the wife of the “dignitary,”
while the latter was very far from loving Lizabetha Prokofievna. The
dignitary himself had been General Epanchin’s protector from his youth up;
and the general considered him so majestic a personage that he would have
felt a hearty contempt for himself if he had even for one moment allowed
himself to pose as the great man’s equal, or to think of him—in his fear and
reverence—as anything less than an Olympic God! There were others
present who had not met for years, and who had no feeling whatever for
each other, unless it were dislike; and yet they met tonight as though they
had seen each other but yesterday in some friendly and intimate assembly
of kindred spirits.
It was not a large party, however. Besides Princess Bielokonski and the
old dignitary (who was really a great man) and his wife, there was an old
military general—a count or baron with a German name, a man reputed to
possess great knowledge and administrative ability. He was one of those
Olympian administrators who know everything except Russia, pronounce a
word of extraordinary wisdom, admired by all, about once in five years,

and, after being an eternity in the service, generally die full of honour and
riches, though they have never done anything great, and have even been
hostile to all greatness. This general was Ivan Fedorovitch’s immediate
superior in the service; and it pleased the latter to look upon him also as a
patron. On the other hand, the great man did not at all consider himself
Epanchin’s patron. He was always very cool to him, while taking advantage
of his ready services, and would instantly have put another in his place if
there had been the slightest reason for the change.
Another guest was an elderly, important-looking gentleman, a distant
relative of Lizabetha Prokofievna’s. This gentleman was rich, held a good
position, was a great talker, and had the reputation of being “one of the
dissatisfied,” though not belonging to the dangerous sections of that class.
He had the manners, to some extent, of the English aristocracy, and some of
their tastes (especially in the matter of under-done roast beef, harness, men-
servants, etc.). He was a great friend of the dignitary’s, and Lizabetha
Prokofievna, for some reason or other, had got hold of the idea that this
worthy intended at no distant date to offer the advantages of his hand and
heart to Alexandra.
Besides the elevated and more solid individuals enumerated, there were
present a few younger though not less elegant guests. Besides Prince S. and
Evgenie Pavlovitch, we must name the eminent and fascinating Prince N.—
once the vanquisher of female hearts all over Europe. This gentleman was
no longer in the first bloom of youth—he was forty-five, but still very
handsome. He was well off, and lived, as a rule, abroad, and was noted as a
good teller of stories. Then came a few guests belonging to a lower stratum
of society—people who, like the Epanchins themselves, moved only
occasionally in this exalted sphere. The Epanchins liked to draft among
their more elevated guests a few picked representatives of this lower
stratum, and Lizabetha Prokofievna received much praise for this practice,
which proved, her friends said, that she was a woman of tact. The
Epanchins prided themselves upon the good opinion people held of them.
One of the representatives of the middle-class present today was a
colonel of engineers, a very serious man and a great friend of Prince S.,
who had introduced him to the Epanchins. He was extremely silent in
society, and displayed on the forefinger of his right hand a large ring,
probably bestowed upon him for services of some sort. There was also a

poet, German by name, but a Russian poet; very presentable, and even
handsome—the sort of man one could bring into society with impunity.
This gentleman belonged to a German family of decidedly bourgeois origin,
but he had a knack of acquiring the patronage of “big-wigs,” and of
retaining their favour. He had translated some great German poem into
Russian verse, and claimed to have been a friend of a famous Russian poet,
since dead. (It is strange how great a multitude of literary people there are
who have had the advantages of friendship with some great man of their
own profession who is, unfortunately, dead.) The dignitary’s wife had
introduced this worthy to the Epanchins. This lady posed as the patroness of
literary people, and she certainly had succeeded in obtaining pensions for a
few of them, thanks to her influence with those in authority on such matters.
She was a lady of weight in her own way. Her age was about forty-five, so
that she was a very young wife for such an elderly husband as the dignitary.
She had been a beauty in her day and still loved, as many ladies of forty-
five do love, to dress a little too smartly. Her intellect was nothing to boast
of, and her literary knowledge very doubtful. Literary patronage was,
however, with her as much a mania as was the love of gorgeous clothes.
Many books and translations were dedicated to her by her proteges, and a
few of these talented individuals had published some of their own letters to
her, upon very weighty subjects.
This, then, was the society that the prince accepted at once as true coin,
as pure gold without alloy.
It so happened, however, that on this particular evening all these good
people were in excellent humour and highly pleased with themselves. Every
one of them felt that they were doing the Epanchins the greatest possible
honour by their presence. But alas! the prince never suspected any such
subtleties! For instance, he had no suspicion of the fact that the Epanchins,
having in their mind so important a step as the marriage of their daughter,
would never think of presuming to take it without having previously
“shown off” the proposed husband to the dignitary—the recognized patron
of the family. The latter, too, though he would probably have received news
of a great disaster to the Epanchin family with perfect composure, would
nevertheless have considered it a personal offence if they had dared to
marry their daughter without his advice, or we might almost say, his leave.

The amiable and undoubtedly witty Prince N. could not but feel that he
was as a sun, risen for one night only to shine upon the Epanchin drawing-
room. He accounted them immeasurably his inferiors, and it was this
feeling which caused his special amiability and delightful ease and grace
towards them. He knew very well that he must tell some story this evening
for the edification of the company, and led up to it with the inspiration of
anticipatory triumph.
The prince, when he heard the story afterwards, felt that he had never yet
come across so wonderful a humorist, or such remarkable brilliancy as was
shown by this man; and yet if he had only known it, this story was the
oldest, stalest, and most worn-out yarn, and every drawing-room in town
was sick to death of it. It was only in the innocent Epanchin household that
it passed for a new and brilliant tale—as a sudden and striking reminiscence
of a splendid and talented man.
Even the German poet, though as amiable as possible, felt that he was
doing the house the greatest of honours by his presence in it.
But the prince only looked at the bright side; he did not turn the coat and
see the shabby lining.
Aglaya had not foreseen that particular calamity. She herself looked
wonderfully beautiful this evening. All three sisters were dressed very
tastefully, and their hair was done with special care.
Aglaya sat next to Evgenie Pavlovitch, and laughed and talked to him
with an unusual display of friendliness. Evgenie himself behaved rather
more sedately than usual, probably out of respect to the dignitary. Evgenie
had been known in society for a long while. He had appeared at the
Epanchins’ today with crape on his hat, and Princess Bielokonski had
commended this action on his part. Not every society man would have worn
crape for “such an uncle.” Lizabetha Prokofievna had liked it also, but was
too preoccupied to take much notice. The prince remarked that Aglaya
looked attentively at him two or three times, and seemed to be satisfied with
his behaviour.
Little by little he became very happy indeed. All his late anxieties and
apprehensions (after his conversation with Lebedeff) now appeared like so
many bad dreams—impossible, and even laughable.
He did not speak much, only answering such questions as were put to
him, and gradually settled down into unbroken silence, listening to what

went on, and steeped in perfect satisfaction and contentment.
Little by little a sort of inspiration, however, began to stir within him,
ready to spring into life at the right moment. When he did begin to speak, it
was accidentally, in response to a question, and apparently without any
special object.

VII.
While he feasted his eyes upon Aglaya, as she talked merrily with
Evgenie and Prince N., suddenly the old anglomaniac, who was talking to
the dignitary in another corner of the room, apparently telling him a story
about something or other—suddenly this gentleman pronounced the name
of “Nicolai Andreevitch Pavlicheff” aloud. The prince quickly turned
towards him, and listened.
The conversation had been on the subject of land, and the present
disorders, and there must have been something amusing said, for the old
man had begun to laugh at his companion’s heated expressions.
The latter was describing in eloquent words how, in consequence of
recent legislation, he was obliged to sell a beautiful estate in the N.
province, not because he wanted ready money—in fact, he was obliged to
sell it at half its value. “To avoid another lawsuit about the Pavlicheff estate,
I ran away,” he said. “With a few more inheritances of that kind I should
soon be ruined!”
At this point General Epanchin, noticing how interested Muishkin had
become in the conversation, said to him, in a low tone:
“That gentleman—Ivan Petrovitch—is a relation of your late friend, Mr.
Pavlicheff. You wanted to find some of his relations, did you not?”
The general, who had been talking to his chief up to this moment, had
observed the prince’s solitude and silence, and was anxious to draw him
into the conversation, and so introduce him again to the notice of some of
the important personages.
“Lef Nicolaievitch was a ward of Nicolai Andreevitch Pavlicheff, after
the death of his own parents,” he remarked, meeting Ivan Petrovitch’s eye.
“Very happy to meet him, I’m sure,” remarked the latter. “I remember
Lef Nicolaievitch well. When General Epanchin introduced us just now, I
recognized you at once, prince. You are very little changed, though I saw
you last as a child of some ten or eleven years old. There was something in
your features, I suppose, that—”

“You saw me as a child!” exclaimed the prince, with surprise.
“Oh! yes, long ago,” continued Ivan Petrovitch, “while you were living
with my cousin at Zlatoverhoff. You don’t remember me? No, I dare say
you don’t; you had some malady at the time, I remember. It was so serious
that I was surprised—”
“No; I remember nothing!” said the prince. A few more words of
explanation followed, words which were spoken without the smallest
excitement by his companion, but which evoked the greatest agitation in the
prince; and it was discovered that two old ladies to whose care the prince
had been left by Pavlicheff, and who lived at Zlatoverhoff, were also
relations of Ivan Petrovitch.
The latter had no idea and could give no information as to why Pavlicheff
had taken so great an interest in the little prince, his ward.
“In point of fact I don’t think I thought much about it,” said the old
fellow. He seemed to have a wonderfully good memory, however, for he
told the prince all about the two old ladies, Pavlicheff’s cousins, who had
taken care of him, and whom, he declared, he had taken to task for being
too severe with the prince as a small sickly boy—the elder sister, at least;
the younger had been kind, he recollected. They both now lived in another
province, on a small estate left to them by Pavlicheff. The prince listened to
all this with eyes sparkling with emotion and delight.
He declared with unusual warmth that he would never forgive himself for
having travelled about in the central provinces during these last six months
without having hunted up his two old friends.
He declared, further, that he had intended to go every day, but had always
been prevented by circumstances; but that now he would promise himself
the pleasure—however far it was, he would find them out. And so Ivan
Petrovitch really knew Natalia Nikitishna!—what a saintly nature was hers!
—and Martha Nikitishna! Ivan Petrovitch must excuse him, but really he
was not quite fair on dear old Martha. She was severe, perhaps; but then
what else could she be with such a little idiot as he was then? (Ha, ha.) He
really was an idiot then, Ivan Petrovitch must know, though he might not
believe it. (Ha, ha.) So he had really seen him there! Good heavens! And
was he really and truly and actually a cousin of Pavlicheff’s?
“I assure you of it,” laughed Ivan Petrovitch, gazing amusedly at the
prince.

“Oh! I didn’t say it because I doubt the fact, you know. (Ha, ha.) How
could I doubt such a thing? (Ha, ha, ha.) I made the remark because—
because Nicolai Andreevitch Pavlicheff was such a splendid man, don’t you
see! Such a high-souled man, he really was, I assure you.”
The prince did not exactly pant for breath, but he “seemed almost to
choke out of pure simplicity and goodness of heart,” as Adelaida expressed
it, on talking the party over with her fiance, the Prince S., next morning.
“But, my goodness me,” laughed Ivan Petrovitch, “why can’t I be cousin
to even a splendid man?”
“Oh, dear!” cried the prince, confused, trying to hurry his words out, and
growing more and more eager every moment: “I’ve gone and said another
stupid thing. I don’t know what to say. I—I didn’t mean that, you know—I
—I—he really was such a splendid man, wasn’t he?”
The prince trembled all over. Why was he so agitated? Why had he flown
into such transports of delight without any apparent reason? He had far
outshot the measure of joy and emotion consistent with the occasion. Why
this was it would be difficult to say.
He seemed to feel warmly and deeply grateful to someone for something
or other—perhaps to Ivan Petrovitch; but likely enough to all the guests,
individually, and collectively. He was much too happy.
Ivan Petrovitch began to stare at him with some surprise; the dignitary,
too, looked at him with considerable attention; Princess Bielokonski glared
at him angrily, and compressed her lips. Prince N., Evgenie, Prince S., and
the girls, all broke off their own conversations and listened. Aglaya seemed
a little startled; as for Lizabetha Prokofievna, her heart sank within her.
This was odd of Lizabetha Prokofievna and her daughters. They had
themselves decided that it would be better if the prince did not talk all the
evening. Yet seeing him sitting silent and alone, but perfectly happy, they
had been on the point of exerting themselves to draw him into one of the
groups of talkers around the room. Now that he was in the midst of a talk
they became more than ever anxious and perturbed.
“That he was a splendid man is perfectly true; you are quite right,”
repeated Ivan Petrovitch, but seriously this time. “He was a fine and a
worthy fellow—worthy, one may say, of the highest respect,” he added,

more and more seriously at each pause; “and it is agreeable to see, on your
part, such—”
“Wasn’t it this same Pavlicheff about whom there was a strange story in
connection with some abbot? I don’t remember who the abbot was, but I
remember at one time everybody was talking about it,” remarked the old
dignitary.
“Yes—Abbot Gurot, a Jesuit,” said Ivan Petrovitch. “Yes, that’s the sort
of thing our best men are apt to do. A man of rank, too, and rich—a man
who, if he had continued to serve, might have done anything; and then to
throw up the service and everything else in order to go over to Roman
Catholicism and turn Jesuit—openly, too—almost triumphantly. By Jove! it
was positively a mercy that he died when he did—it was indeed—everyone
said so at the time.”
The prince was beside himself.
“Pavlicheff?—Pavlicheff turned Roman Catholic? Impossible!” he cried,
in horror.
“H’m! impossible is rather a strong word,” said Ivan Petrovitch. “You
must allow, my dear prince... However, of course you value the memory of
the deceased so very highly; and he certainly was the kindest of men; to
which fact, by the way, I ascribe, more than to anything else, the success of
the abbot in influencing his religious convictions. But you may ask me, if
you please, how much trouble and worry I, personally, had over that
business, and especially with this same Gurot! Would you believe it,” he
continued, addressing the dignitary, “they actually tried to put in a claim
under the deceased’s will, and I had to resort to the very strongest measures
in order to bring them to their senses? I assure you they knew their cue, did
these gentlemen—wonderful! Thank goodness all this was in Moscow, and
I got the Court, you know, to help me, and we soon brought them to their
senses.”
“You wouldn’t believe how you have pained and astonished me,” cried
the prince.
“Very sorry; but in point of fact, you know, it was all nonsense and would
have ended in smoke, as usual—I’m sure of that. Last year,”—he turned to
the old man again,—“Countess K. joined some Roman Convent abroad.
Our people never seem to be able to offer any resistance so soon as they get
into the hands of these—intriguers—especially abroad.”

“That is all thanks to our lassitude, I think,” replied the old man, with
authority. “And then their way of preaching; they have a skilful manner of
doing it! And they know how to startle one, too. I got quite a fright myself
in ’32, in Vienna, I assure you; but I didn’t cave in to them, I ran away
instead, ha, ha!”
“Come, come, I’ve always heard that you ran away with the beautiful
Countess Levitsky that time—throwing up everything in order to do it—and
not from the Jesuits at all,” said Princess Bielokonski, suddenly.
“Well, yes—but we call it from the Jesuits, you know; it comes to the
same thing,” laughed the old fellow, delighted with the pleasant
recollection.
“You seem to be very religious,” he continued, kindly, addressing the
prince, “which is a thing one meets so seldom nowadays among young
people.”
The prince was listening open-mouthed, and still in a condition of excited
agitation. The old man was evidently interested in him, and anxious to study
him more closely.
“Pavlicheff was a man of bright intellect and a good Christian, a sincere
Christian,” said the prince, suddenly. “How could he possibly embrace a
faith which is unchristian? Roman Catholicism is, so to speak, simply the
same thing as unchristianity,” he added with flashing eyes, which seemed to
take in everybody in the room.
“Come, that’s a little too strong, isn’t it?” murmured the old man,
glancing at General Epanchin in surprise.
“How do you make out that the Roman Catholic religion is unchristian?
What is it, then?” asked Ivan Petrovitch, turning to the prince.
“It is not a Christian religion, in the first place,” said the latter, in extreme
agitation, quite out of proportion to the necessity of the moment. “And in
the second place, Roman Catholicism is, in my opinion, worse than
Atheism itself. Yes—that is my opinion. Atheism only preaches a negation,
but Romanism goes further; it preaches a disfigured, distorted Christ—it
preaches Anti-Christ—I assure you, I swear it! This is my own personal
conviction, and it has long distressed me. The Roman Catholic believes that
the Church on earth cannot stand without universal temporal Power. He
cries ‘non possumus!’ In my opinion the Roman Catholic religion is not a

faith at all, but simply a continuation of the Roman Empire, and everything
is subordinated to this idea—beginning with faith. The Pope has seized
territories and an earthly throne, and has held them with the sword. And so
the thing has gone on, only that to the sword they have added lying,
intrigue, deceit, fanaticism, superstition, swindling;—they have played fast
and loose with the most sacred and sincere feelings of men;—they have
exchanged everything—everything for money, for base earthly power! And
is this not the teaching of Anti-Christ? How could the upshot of all this be
other than Atheism? Atheism is the child of Roman Catholicism—it
proceeded from these Romans themselves, though perhaps they would not
believe it. It grew and fattened on hatred of its parents; it is the progeny of
their lies and spiritual feebleness. Atheism! In our country it is only among
the upper classes that you find unbelievers; men who have lost the root or
spirit of their faith; but abroad whole masses of the people are beginning to
profess unbelief—at first because of the darkness and lies by which they
were surrounded; but now out of fanaticism, out of loathing for the Church
and Christianity!”
The prince paused to get breath. He had spoken with extraordinary
rapidity, and was very pale.
All present interchanged glances, but at last the old dignitary burst out
laughing frankly. Prince N. took out his eye-glass to have a good look at the
speaker. The German poet came out of his corner and crept nearer to the
table, with a spiteful smile.
“You exaggerate the matter very much,” said Ivan Petrovitch, with rather
a bored air. “There are, in the foreign Churches, many representatives of
their faith who are worthy of respect and esteem.”
“Oh, but I did not speak of individual representatives. I was merely
talking about Roman Catholicism, and its essence—of Rome itself. A
Church can never entirely disappear; I never hinted at that!”
“Agreed that all this may be true; but we need not discuss a subject
which belongs to the domain of theology.”
“Oh, no; oh, no! Not to theology alone, I assure you! Why, Socialism is
the progeny of Romanism and of the Romanistic spirit. It and its brother
Atheism proceed from Despair in opposition to Catholicism. It seeks to
replace in itself the moral power of religion, in order to appease the spiritual
thirst of parched humanity and save it; not by Christ, but by force. ‘Don’t

dare to believe in God, don’t dare to possess any individuality, any
property! Fraternité ou la Mort; two million heads. ‘By their works ye shall
know them’—we are told. And we must not suppose that all this is harmless
and without danger to ourselves. Oh, no; we must resist, and quickly,
quickly! We must let our Christ shine forth upon the Western nations, our
Christ whom we have preserved intact, and whom they have never known.
Not as slaves, allowing ourselves to be caught by the hooks of the Jesuits,
but carrying our Russian civilization to them, we must stand before them,
not letting it be said among us that their preaching is ‘skilful,’ as someone
expressed it just now.”
“But excuse me, excuse me;” cried Ivan Petrovitch considerably
disturbed, and looking around uneasily. “Your ideas are, of course, most
praiseworthy, and in the highest degree patriotic; but you exaggerate the
matter terribly. It would be better if we dropped the subject.”
“No, sir, I do not exaggerate, I understate the matter, if anything,
undoubtedly understate it; simply because I cannot express myself as I
should like, but—”
“Allow me!”
The prince was silent. He sat straight up in his chair and gazed fervently
at Ivan Petrovitch.
“It seems to me that you have been too painfully impressed by the news
of what happened to your good benefactor,” said the old dignitary, kindly,
and with the utmost calmness of demeanour. “You are excitable, perhaps as
the result of your solitary life. If you would make up your mind to live more
among your fellows in society, I trust, I am sure, that the world would be
glad to welcome you, as a remarkable young man; and you would soon find
yourself able to look at things more calmly. You would see that all these
things are much simpler than you think; and, besides, these rare cases come
about, in my opinion, from ennui and from satiety.”
“Exactly, exactly! That is a true thought!” cried the prince. “From ennui,
from our ennui but not from satiety! Oh, no, you are wrong there! Say from
thirst if you like; the thirst of fever! And please do not suppose that this is
so small a matter that we may have a laugh at it and dismiss it; we must be
able to foresee our disasters and arm against them. We Russians no sooner
arrive at the brink of the water, and realize that we are really at the brink,
than we are so delighted with the outlook that in we plunge and swim to the

farthest point we can see. Why is this? You say you are surprised at
Pavlicheff’s action; you ascribe it to madness, to kindness of heart, and
what not, but it is not so.
“Our Russian intensity not only astonishes ourselves; all Europe wonders
at our conduct in such cases! For, if one of us goes over to Roman
Catholicism, he is sure to become a Jesuit at once, and a rabid one into the
bargain. If one of us becomes an Atheist, he must needs begin to insist on
the prohibition of faith in God by force, that is, by the sword. Why is this?
Why does he then exceed all bounds at once? Because he has found land at
last, the fatherland that he sought in vain before; and, because his soul is
rejoiced to find it, he throws himself upon it and kisses it! Oh, it is not from
vanity alone, it is not from feelings of vanity that Russians become Atheists
and Jesuits! But from spiritual thirst, from anguish of longing for higher
things, for dry firm land, for foothold on a fatherland which they never
believed in because they never knew it. It is easier for a Russian to become
an Atheist, than for any other nationality in the world. And not only does a
Russian ‘become an Atheist,’ but he actually believes in Atheism, just as
though he had found a new faith, not perceiving that he has pinned his faith
to a negation. Such is our anguish of thirst! ‘Whoso has no country has no
God.’ That is not my own expression; it is the expression of a merchant, one
of the Old Believers, whom I once met while travelling. He did not say
exactly these words. I think his expression was:
“‘Whoso forsakes his country forsakes his God.’
“But let these thirsty Russian souls find, like Columbus’ discoverers, a
new world; let them find the Russian world, let them search and discover all
the gold and treasure that lies hid in the bosom of their own land! Show
them the restitution of lost humanity, in the future, by Russian thought
alone, and by means of the God and of the Christ of our Russian faith, and
you will see how mighty and just and wise and good a giant will rise up
before the eyes of the astonished and frightened world; astonished because
they expect nothing but the sword from us, because they think they will get
nothing out of us but barbarism. This has been the case up to now, and the
longer matters go on as they are now proceeding, the more clear will be the
truth of what I say; and I—”
But at this moment something happened which put a most unexpected
end to the orator’s speech. All this heated tirade, this outflow of passionate

words and ecstatic ideas which seemed to hustle and tumble over each other
as they fell from his lips, bore evidence of some unusually disturbed mental
condition in the young fellow who had “boiled over” in such a remarkable
manner, without any apparent reason.
Of those who were present, such as knew the prince listened to his
outburst in a state of alarm, some with a feeling of mortification. It was so
unlike his usual timid self-constraint; so inconsistent with his usual taste
and tact, and with his instinctive feeling for the higher proprieties. They
could not understand the origin of the outburst; it could not be simply the
news of Pavlicheff’s perversion. By the ladies the prince was regarded as
little better than a lunatic, and Princess Bielokonski admitted afterwards
that “in another minute she would have bolted.”
The two old gentlemen looked quite alarmed. The old general
(Epanchin’s chief) sat and glared at the prince in severe displeasure. The
colonel sat immovable. Even the German poet grew a little pale, though he
wore his usual artificial smile as he looked around to see what the others
would do.
In point of fact it is quite possible that the matter would have ended in a
very commonplace and natural way in a few minutes. The undoubtedly
astonished, but now more collected, General Epanchin had several times
endeavoured to interrupt the prince, and not having succeeded he was now
preparing to take firmer and more vigorous measures to attain his end. In
another minute or two he would probably have made up his mind to lead
the prince quietly out of the room, on the plea of his being ill (and it was
more than likely that the general was right in his belief that the prince was
actually ill), but it so happened that destiny had something different in store.
At the beginning of the evening, when the prince first came into the
room, he had sat down as far as possible from the Chinese vase which
Aglaya had spoken of the day before.
Will it be believed that, after Aglaya’s alarming words, an ineradicable
conviction had taken possession of his mind that, however he might try to
avoid this vase next day, he must certainly break it? But so it was.
During the evening other impressions began to awaken in his mind, as we
have seen, and he forgot his presentiment. But when Pavlicheff was
mentioned and the general introduced him to Ivan Petrovitch, he had
changed his place, and went over nearer to the table; when, it so happened,

he took the chair nearest to the beautiful vase, which stood on a pedestal
behind him, just about on a level with his elbow.
As he spoke his last words he had risen suddenly from his seat with a
wave of his arm, and there was a general cry of horror.
The huge vase swayed backwards and forwards; it seemed to be
uncertain whether or no to topple over on to the head of one of the old men,
but eventually determined to go the other way, and came crashing over
towards the German poet, who darted out of the way in terror.
The crash, the cry, the sight of the fragments of valuable china covering
the carpet, the alarm of the company—what all this meant to the poor
prince it would be difficult to convey to the mind of the reader, or for him to
imagine.
But one very curious fact was that all the shame and vexation and
mortification which he felt over the accident were less powerful than the
deep impression of the almost supernatural truth of his premonition. He
stood still in alarm—in almost superstitious alarm, for a moment; then all
mists seemed to clear away from his eyes; he was conscious of nothing but
light and joy and ecstasy; his breath came and went; but the moment
passed. Thank God it was not that! He drew a long breath and looked
around.
For some minutes he did not seem to comprehend the excitement around
him; that is, he comprehended it and saw everything, but he stood aside, as
it were, like someone invisible in a fairy tale, as though he had nothing to
do with what was going on, though it pleased him to take an interest in it.
He saw them gather up the broken bits of china; he heard the loud talking
of the guests and observed how pale Aglaya looked, and how very strangely
she was gazing at him. There was no hatred in her expression, and no anger
whatever. It was full of alarm for him, and sympathy and affection, while
she looked around at the others with flashing, angry eyes. His heart filled
with a sweet pain as he gazed at her.
At length he observed, to his amazement, that all had taken their seats
again, and were laughing and talking as though nothing had happened.
Another minute and the laughter grew louder—they were laughing at him,
at his dumb stupor—laughing kindly and merrily. Several of them spoke to
him, and spoke so kindly and cordially, especially Lizabetha Prokofievna—
she was saying the kindest possible things to him.

Suddenly he became aware that General Epanchin was tapping him on
the shoulder; Ivan Petrovitch was laughing too, but still more kind and
sympathizing was the old dignitary. He took the prince by the hand and
pressed it warmly; then he patted it, and quietly urged him to recollect
himself—speaking to him exactly as he would have spoken to a little
frightened child, which pleased the prince wonderfully; and next seated him
beside himself.
The prince gazed into his face with pleasure, but still seemed to have no
power to speak. His breath failed him. The old man’s face pleased him
greatly.
“Do you really forgive me?” he said at last. “And—and Lizabetha
Prokofievna too?” The laugh increased, tears came into the prince’s eyes, he
could not believe in all this kindness—he was enchanted.
“The vase certainly was a very beautiful one. I remember it here for
fifteen years—yes, quite that!” remarked Ivan Petrovitch.
“Oh, what a dreadful calamity! A wretched vase smashed, and a man half
dead with remorse about it,” said Lizabetha Prokofievna, loudly. “What
made you so dreadfully startled, Lef Nicolaievitch?” she added, a little
timidly. “Come, my dear boy! cheer up. You really alarm me, taking the
accident so to heart.”
“Do you forgive me all—all, besides the vase, I mean?” said the prince,
rising from his seat once more, but the old gentleman caught his hand and
drew him down again—he seemed unwilling to let him go.
“C’est très-curieux et c’est très-sérieux,” he whispered across the table to
Ivan Petrovitch, rather loudly. Probably the prince heard him.
“So that I have not offended any of you? You will not believe how happy
I am to be able to think so. It is as it should be. As if I could offend anyone
here! I should offend you again by even suggesting such a thing.”
“Calm yourself, my dear fellow. You are exaggerating again; you really
have no occasion to be so grateful to us. It is a feeling which does you great
credit, but an exaggeration, for all that.”
“I am not exactly thanking you, I am only feeling a growing admiration
for you—it makes me happy to look at you. I dare say I am speaking very
foolishly, but I must speak—I must explain, if it be out of nothing better
than self-respect.”

All he said and did was abrupt, confused, feverish—very likely the words
he spoke, as often as not, were not those he wished to say. He seemed to
inquire whether he might speak. His eyes lighted on Princess Bielokonski.
“All right, my friend, talk away, talk away!” she remarked. “Only don’t
lose your breath; you were in such a hurry when you began, and look what
you’ve come to now! Don’t be afraid of speaking—all these ladies and
gentlemen have seen far stranger people than yourself; you don’t astonish
them. You are nothing out-of-the-way remarkable, you know. You’ve done
nothing but break a vase, and give us all a fright.”
The prince listened, smiling.
“Wasn’t it you,” he said, suddenly turning to the old gentleman, “who
saved the student Porkunoff and a clerk called Shoabrin from being sent to
Siberia, two or three months since?”
The old dignitary blushed a little, and murmured that the prince had
better not excite himself further.
“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.”
“Oh, come, come! You are exaggerating,” said Ivan Petrovitch, beaming
with satisfaction, all the same. He was right, however, in this instance, for
the report had reached the prince’s ears in an incorrect form.
“And you, princess,” he went on, addressing Princess Bielokonski, “was
it not you who received me in Moscow, six months since, as kindly as
though I had been your own son, in response to a letter from Lizabetha
Prokofievna; and gave me one piece of advice, again as to your own son,
which I shall never forget? Do you remember?”
“What are you making such a fuss about?” said the old lady, with
annoyance. “You are a good fellow, but very silly. One gives you a
halfpenny, and you are as grateful as though one had saved your life. You
think this is praiseworthy on your part, but it is not—it is not, indeed.”
She seemed to be very angry, but suddenly burst out laughing, quite
good-humouredly.
Lizabetha Prokofievna’s face brightened up, too; so did that of General
Epanchin.

“I told you Lef Nicolaievitch was a man—a man—if only he would not
be in such a hurry, as the princess remarked,” said the latter, with delight.
Aglaya alone seemed sad and depressed; her face was flushed, perhaps
with indignation.
“He really is very charming,” whispered the old dignitary to Ivan
Petrovitch.
“I came into this room with anguish in my heart,” continued the prince,
with ever-growing agitation, speaking quicker and quicker, and with
increasing strangeness. “I—I was afraid of you all, and afraid of myself. I
was most afraid of myself. When I returned to Petersburg, I promised
myself to make a point of seeing our greatest men, and members of our
oldest families—the old families like my own. I am now among princes like
myself, am I not? I wished to know you, and it was necessary, very, very
necessary. I had always heard so much that was evil said of you all—more
evil than good; as to how small and petty were your interests, how absurd
your habits, how shallow your education, and so on. There is so much
written and said about you! I came here today with anxious curiosity; I
wished to see for myself and form my own convictions as to whether it
were true that the whole of this upper stratum of Russian society is
worthless, has outlived its time, has existed too long, and is only fit to die—
and yet is dying with petty, spiteful warring against that which is destined to
supersede it and take its place—hindering the Coming Men, and knowing
not that itself is in a dying condition. I did not fully believe in this view
even before, for there never was such a class among us—excepting perhaps
at court, by accident—or by uniform; but now there is not even that, is
there? It has vanished, has it not?”
“No, not a bit of it,” said Ivan Petrovitch, with a sarcastic laugh.
“Good Lord, he’s off again!” said Princess Bielokonski, impatiently.
“Laissez-le dire! He is trembling all over,” said the old man, in a warning
whisper.
The prince certainly was beside himself.
“Well? What have I seen?” he continued. “I have seen men of graceful
simplicity of intellect; I have seen an old man who is not above speaking
kindly and even listening to a boy like myself; I see before me persons who
can understand, who can forgive—kind, good Russian hearts—hearts

almost as kind and cordial as I met abroad. Imagine how delighted I must
have been, and how surprised! Oh, let me express this feeling! I have so
often heard, and I have even believed, that in society there was nothing but
empty forms, and that reality had vanished; but I now see for myself that
this can never be the case here, among us—it may be the order elsewhere,
but not in Russia. Surely you are not all Jesuits and deceivers! I heard
Prince N.‘s story just now. Was it not simple-minded, spontaneous humour?
Could such words come from the lips of a man who is dead?—a man whose
heart and talents are dried up? Could dead men and women have treated me
so kindly as you have all been treating me to-day? Is there not material for
the future in all this—for hope? Can such people fail to understand? Can
such men fall away from reality?”
“Once more let us beg you to be calm, my dear boy. We’ll talk of all this
another time—I shall do so with the greatest pleasure, for one,” said the old
dignitary, with a smile.
Ivan Petrovitch grunted and twisted round in his chair. General Epanchin
moved nervously. The latter’s chief had started a conversation with the wife
of the dignitary, and took no notice whatever of the prince, but the old lady
very often glanced at him, and listened to what he was saying.
“No, I had better speak,” continued the prince, with a new outburst of
feverish emotion, and turning towards the old man with an air of
confidential trustfulness. “Yesterday, Aglaya Ivanovna forbade me to talk,
and even specified the particular subjects I must not touch upon—she
knows well enough that I am odd when I get upon these matters. I am
nearly twenty-seven years old, and yet I know I am little better than a child.
I have no right to express my ideas, and said so long ago. Only in Moscow,
with Rogojin, did I ever speak absolutely freely! He and I read Pushkin
together—all his works. Rogojin knew nothing of Pushkin, had not even
heard his name. I am always afraid of spoiling a great Thought or Idea by
my absurd manner. I have no eloquence, I know. I always make the wrong
gestures—inappropriate gestures—and therefore I degrade the Thought, and
raise a laugh instead of doing my subject justice. I have no sense of
proportion either, and that is the chief thing. I know it would be much better
if I were always to sit still and say nothing. When I do so, I appear to be
quite a sensible sort of a person, and what’s more, I think about things. But
now I must speak; it is better that I should. I began to speak because you

looked so kindly at me; you have such a beautiful face. I promised Aglaya
Ivanovna yesterday that I would not speak all the evening.”
“Really?” said the old man, smiling.
“But, at times, I can’t help thinking that I am wrong in feeling so about it,
you know. Sincerity is more important than elocution, isn’t it?”
“Sometimes.”
“I want to explain all to you—everything—everything! I know you think
me Utopian, don’t you—an idealist? Oh, no! I’m not, indeed—my ideas are
all so simple. You don’t believe me? You are smiling. Do you know, I am
sometimes very wicked—for I lose my faith? This evening as I came here, I
thought to myself, ‘What shall I talk about? How am I to begin, so that they
may be able to understand partially, at all events?’ How afraid I was—
dreadfully afraid! And yet, how could I be afraid—was it not shameful of
me? Was I afraid of finding a bottomless abyss of empty selfishness? Ah!
that’s why I am so happy at this moment, because I find there is no
bottomless abyss at all—but good, healthy material, full of life.
“It is not such a very dreadful circumstance that we are odd people, is it?
For we really are odd, you know—careless, reckless, easily wearied of
anything. We don’t look thoroughly into matters—don’t care to understand
things. We are all like this—you and I, and all of them! Why, here are you,
now—you are not a bit angry with me for calling you ‘odd,’ are you? And,
if so, surely there is good material in you? Do you know, I sometimes think
it is a good thing to be odd. We can forgive one another more easily, and be
more humble. No one can begin by being perfect—there is much one
cannot understand in life at first. In order to attain to perfection, one must
begin by failing to understand much. And if we take in knowledge too
quickly, we very likely are not taking it in at all. I say all this to you—you
who by this time understand so much—and doubtless have failed to
understand so much, also. I am not afraid of you any longer. You are not
angry that a mere boy should say such words to you, are you? Of course
not! You know how to forget and to forgive. You are laughing, Ivan
Petrovitch? You think I am a champion of other classes of people—that I
am their advocate, a democrat, and an orator of Equality?” The prince
laughed hysterically; he had several times burst into these little, short
nervous laughs. “Oh, no—it is for you, for myself, and for all of us
together, that I am alarmed. I am a prince of an old family myself, and I am

sitting among my peers; and I am talking like this in the hope of saving us
all; in the hope that our class will not disappear altogether—into the
darkness—unguessing its danger—blaming everything around it, and losing
ground every day. Why should we disappear and give place to others, when
we may still, if we choose, remain in the front rank and lead the battle? Let
us be servants, that we may become lords in due season!”
He tried to get upon his feet again, but the old man still restrained him,
gazing at him with increasing perturbation as he went on.
“Listen—I know it is best not to speak! It is best simply to give a good
example—simply to begin the work. I have done this—I have begun, and—
and—oh! can anyone be unhappy, really? Oh! what does grief matter—
what does misfortune matter, if one knows how to be happy? Do you know,
I cannot understand how anyone can pass by a green tree, and not feel
happy only to look at it! How anyone can talk to a man and not feel happy
in loving him! Oh, it is my own fault that I cannot express myself well
enough! But there are lovely things at every step I take—things which even
the most miserable man must recognize as beautiful. Look at a little child—
look at God’s day dawn—look at the grass growing—look at the eyes that
love you, as they gaze back into your eyes!”
He had risen, and was speaking standing up. The old gentleman was
looking at him now in unconcealed alarm. Lizabetha Prokofievna wrung her
hands. “Oh, my God!” she cried. She had guessed the state of the case
before anyone else.
Aglaya rushed quickly up to him, and was just in time to receive him in
her arms, and to hear with dread and horror that awful, wild cry as he fell
writhing to the ground.
There he lay on the carpet, and someone quickly placed a cushion under
his head.
No one had expected this.
In a quarter of an hour or so Prince N. and Evgenie Pavlovitch and the
old dignitary were hard at work endeavouring to restore the harmony of the
evening, but it was of no avail, and very soon after the guests separated and
went their ways.
A great deal of sympathy was expressed; a considerable amount of advice
was volunteered; Ivan Petrovitch expressed his opinion that the young man

was “a Slavophile, or something of that sort”; but that it was not a
dangerous development. The old dignitary said nothing.
True enough, most of the guests, next day and the day after, were not in
very good humour. Ivan Petrovitch was a little offended, but not seriously
so. General Epanchin’s chief was rather cool towards him for some while
after the occurrence. The old dignitary, as patron of the family, took the
opportunity of murmuring some kind of admonition to the general, and
added, in flattering terms, that he was most interested in Aglaya’s future. He
was a man who really did possess a kind heart, although his interest in the
prince, in the earlier part of the evening, was due, among other reasons, to
the latter’s connection with Nastasia Philipovna, according to popular
report. He had heard a good deal of this story here and there, and was
greatly interested in it, so much so that he longed to ask further questions
about it.
Princess Bielokonski, as she drove away on this eventful evening, took
occasion to say to Lizabetha Prokofievna:
“Well—he’s a good match—and a bad one; and if you want my opinion,
more bad than good. You can see for yourself the man is an invalid.”
Lizabetha therefore decided that the prince was impossible as a husband
for Aglaya; and during the ensuing night she made a vow that never while
she lived should he marry Aglaya. With this resolve firmly impressed upon
her mind, she awoke next day; but during the morning, after her early
lunch, she fell into a condition of remarkable inconsistency.
In reply to a very guarded question of her sisters’, Aglaya had answered
coldly, but exceedingly haughtily:
“I have never given him my word at all, nor have I ever counted him as
my future husband—never in my life. He is just as little to me as all the
rest.”
Lizabetha Prokofievna suddenly flared up.
“I did not expect that of you, Aglaya,” she said. “He is an impossible
husband for you,—I know it; and thank God that we agree upon that point;
but I did not expect to hear such words from you. I thought I should hear a
very different tone from you. I would have turned out everyone who was in
the room last night and kept him,—that’s the sort of man he is, in my
opinion!”

Here she suddenly paused, afraid of what she had just said. But she little
knew how unfair she was to her daughter at that moment. It was all settled
in Aglaya’s mind. She was only waiting for the hour that would bring the
matter to a final climax; and every hint, every careless probing of her
wound, did but further lacerate her heart.

VIII.
This same morning dawned for the prince pregnant with no less painful
presentiments,—which fact his physical state was, of course, quite enough
to account for; but he was so indefinably melancholy,—his sadness could
not attach itself to anything in particular, and this tormented him more than
anything else. Of course certain facts stood before him, clear and painful,
but his sadness went beyond all that he could remember or imagine; he
realized that he was powerless to console himself unaided. Little by little he
began to develop the expectation that this day something important,
something decisive, was to happen to him.
His attack of yesterday had been a slight one. Excepting some little
heaviness in the head and pain in the limbs, he did not feel any particular
effects. His brain worked all right, though his soul was heavy within him.
He rose late, and immediately upon waking remembered all about the
previous evening; he also remembered, though not quite so clearly, how,
half an hour after his fit, he had been carried home.
He soon heard that a messenger from the Epanchins’ had already been to
inquire after him. At half-past eleven another arrived; and this pleased him.
Vera Lebedeff was one of the first to come to see him and offer her
services. No sooner did she catch sight of him than she burst into tears; but
when he tried to soothe her she began to laugh. He was quite struck by the
girl’s deep sympathy for him; he seized her hand and kissed it. Vera flushed
crimson.
“Oh, don’t, don’t!” she exclaimed in alarm, snatching her hand away. She
went hastily out of the room in a state of strange confusion.
Lebedeff also came to see the prince, in a great hurry to get away to the
“deceased,” as he called General Ivolgin, who was alive still, but very ill.
Colia also turned up, and begged the prince for pity’s sake to tell him all he

knew about his father which had been concealed from him till now. He said
he had found out nearly everything since yesterday; the poor boy was in a
state of deep affliction. With all the sympathy which he could bring into
play, the prince told Colia the whole story without reserve, detailing the
facts as clearly as he could. The tale struck Colia like a thunderbolt. He
could not speak. He listened silently, and cried softly to himself the while.
The prince perceived that this was an impression which would last for the
whole of the boy’s life. He made haste to explain his view of the matter, and
pointed out that the old man’s approaching death was probably brought on
by horror at the thought of his action; and that it was not everyone who was
capable of such a feeling.
Colia’s eyes flashed as he listened.
“Gania and Varia and Ptitsin are a worthless lot! I shall not quarrel with
them; but from this moment our feet shall not travel the same road. Oh,
prince, I have felt much that is quite new to me since yesterday! It is a
lesson for me. I shall now consider my mother as entirely my responsibility;
though she may be safe enough with Varia. Still, meat and drink is not
everything.”
He jumped up and hurried off, remembering suddenly that he was wanted
at his father’s bedside; but before he went out of the room he inquired
hastily after the prince’s health, and receiving the latter’s reply, added:
“Isn’t there something else, prince? I heard yesterday, but I have no right
to talk about this... If you ever want a true friend and servant—neither you
nor I are so very happy, are we?—come to me. I won’t ask you questions,
though.”
He ran off and left the prince more dejected than ever.
Everyone seemed to be speaking prophetically, hinting at some
misfortune or sorrow to come; they had all looked at him as though they
knew something which he did not know. Lebedeff had asked questions,
Colia had hinted, and Vera had shed tears. What was it?
At last, with a sigh of annoyance, he said to himself that it was nothing
but his own cursed sickly suspicion. His face lighted up with joy when, at
about two o’clock, he espied the Epanchins coming along to pay him a
short visit, “just for a minute.” They really had only come for a minute.

Lizabetha Prokofievna had announced, directly after lunch, that they
would all take a walk together. The information was given in the form of a
command, without explanation, drily and abruptly. All had issued forth in
obedience to the mandate; that is, the girls, mamma, and Prince S.
Lizabetha Prokofievna went off in a direction exactly contrary to the usual
one, and all understood very well what she was driving at, but held their
peace, fearing to irritate the good lady. She, as though anxious to avoid any
conversation, walked ahead, silent and alone. At last Adelaida remarked that
it was no use racing along at such a pace, and that she could not keep up
with her mother.
“Look here,” said Lizabetha Prokofievna, turning round suddenly; “we
are passing his house. Whatever Aglaya may think, and in spite of anything
that may happen, he is not a stranger to us; besides which, he is ill and in
misfortune. I, for one, shall call in and see him. Let anyone follow me who
cares to.”
Of course every one of them followed her.
The prince hastened to apologize, very properly, for yesterday’s mishap
with the vase, and for the scene generally.
“Oh, that’s nothing,” replied Lizabetha; “I’m not sorry for the vase, I’m
sorry for you. H’m! so you can see that there was a ‘scene,’ can you? Well,
it doesn’t matter much, for everyone must realize now that it is impossible
to be hard on you. Well, au revoir. I advise you to have a walk, and then go
to sleep again if you can. Come in as usual, if you feel inclined; and be
assured, once for all, whatever happens, and whatever may have happened,
you shall always remain the friend of the family—mine, at all events. I can
answer for myself.”
In response to this challenge all the others chimed in and re-echoed
mamma’s sentiments.
And so they took their departure; but in this hasty and kindly designed
visit there was hidden a fund of cruelty which Lizabetha Prokofievna never
dreamed of. In the words “as usual,” and again in her added, “mine, at all
events,” there seemed an ominous knell of some evil to come.
The prince began to think of Aglaya. She had certainly given him a
wonderful smile, both at coming and again at leave-taking, but had not said
a word, not even when the others all professed their friendship for him. She

had looked very intently at him, but that was all. Her face had been paler
than usual; she looked as though she had slept badly.
The prince made up his mind that he would make a point of going there
“as usual,” tonight, and looked feverishly at his watch.
Vera came in three minutes after the Epanchins had left. “Lef
Nicolaievitch,” she said, “Aglaya Ivanovna has just given me a message for
you.”
The prince trembled.
“Is it a note?”
“No, a verbal message; she had hardly time even for that. She begs you
earnestly not to go out of the house for a single moment all to-day, until
seven o’clock in the evening. It may have been nine; I didn’t quite hear.”
“But—but, why is this? What does it mean?”
“I don’t know at all; but she said I was to tell you particularly.”
“Did she say that?”
“Not those very words. She only just had time to whisper as she went by;
but by the way she looked at me I knew it was important. She looked at me
in a way that made my heart stop beating.”
The prince asked a few more questions, and though he learned nothing
else, he became more and more agitated.
Left alone, he lay down on the sofa, and began to think.
“Perhaps,” he thought, “someone is to be with them until nine tonight
and she is afraid that I may come and make a fool of myself again, in
public.” So he spent his time longing for the evening and looking at his
watch. But the clearing-up of the mystery came long before the evening,
and came in the form of a new and agonizing riddle.
Half an hour after the Epanchins had gone, Hippolyte arrived, so tired
that, almost unconscious, he sank into a chair, and broke into such a fit of
coughing that he could not stop. He coughed till the blood came. His eyes
glittered, and two red spots on his cheeks grew brighter and brighter. The
prince murmured something to him, but Hippolyte only signed that he must
be left alone for a while, and sat silent. At last he came to himself.
“I am off,” he said, hoarsely, and with difficulty.

“Shall I see you home?” asked the prince, rising from his seat, but
suddenly stopping short as he remembered Aglaya’s prohibition against
leaving the house. Hippolyte laughed.
“I don’t mean that I am going to leave your house,” he continued, still
gasping and coughing. “On the contrary, I thought it absolutely necessary to
come and see you; otherwise I should not have troubled you. I am off there,
you know, and this time I believe, seriously, that I am off! It’s all over. I did
not come here for sympathy, believe me. I lay down this morning at ten
o’clock with the intention of not rising again before that time; but I thought
it over and rose just once more in order to come here; from which you may
deduce that I had some reason for wishing to come.”
“It grieves me to see you so, Hippolyte. Why didn’t you send me a
message? I would have come up and saved you this trouble.”
“Well, well! Enough! You’ve pitied me, and that’s all that good manners
exact. I forgot, how are you?”
“I’m all right; yesterday I was a little—”
“I know, I heard; the china vase caught it! I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I’ve
come about something important. In the first place I had, the pleasure of
seeing Gavrila Ardalionovitch and Aglaya Ivanovna enjoying a rendezvous
on the green bench in the park. I was astonished to see what a fool a man
can look. I remarked upon the fact to Aglaya Ivanovna when he had gone. I
don’t think anything ever surprises you, prince!” added Hippolyte, gazing
incredulously at the prince’s calm demeanour. “To be astonished by nothing
is a sign, they say, of a great intellect. In my opinion it would serve equally
well as a sign of great foolishness. I am not hinting about you; pardon me! I
am very unfortunate today in my expressions.”
“I knew yesterday that Gavrila Ardalionovitch—” began the prince, and
paused in evident confusion, though Hippolyte had shown annoyance at his
betraying no surprise.
“You knew it? Come, that’s news! But no—perhaps better not tell me.
And were you a witness of the meeting?”
“If you were there yourself you must have known that I was not there!”
“Oh! but you may have been sitting behind the bushes somewhere.
However, I am very glad, on your account, of course. I was beginning to be
afraid that Mr. Gania—might have the preference!”

“May I ask you, Hippolyte, not to talk of this subject? And not to use
such expressions?”
“Especially as you know all, eh?”
“You are wrong. I know scarcely anything, and Aglaya Ivanovna is aware
that I know nothing. I knew nothing whatever about this meeting. You say
there was a meeting. Very well; let’s leave it so—”
“Why, what do you mean? You said you knew, and now suddenly you
know nothing! You say ‘very well; let’s leave it so.’ But I say, don’t be so
confiding, especially as you know nothing. You are confiding simply
because you know nothing. But do you know what these good people have
in their minds’ eye—Gania and his sister? Perhaps you are suspicious?
Well, well, I’ll drop the subject!” he added, hastily, observing the prince’s
impatient gesture. “But I’ve come to you on my own business; I wish to
make you a clear explanation. What a nuisance it is that one cannot die
without explanations! I have made such a quantity of them already. Do you
wish to hear what I have to say?”
“Speak away, I am listening.”
“Very well, but I’ll change my mind, and begin about Gania. Just fancy
to begin with, if you can, that I, too, was given an appointment at the green
bench today! However, I won’t deceive you; I asked for the appointment. I
said I had a secret to disclose. I don’t know whether I came there too early, I
think I must have; but scarcely had I sat down beside Aglaya Ivanovna than
I saw Gavrila Ardalionovitch and his sister Varia coming along, arm in arm,
just as though they were enjoying a morning walk together. Both of them
seemed very much astonished, not to say disturbed, at seeing me; they
evidently had not expected the pleasure. Aglaya Ivanovna blushed up, and
was actually a little confused. I don’t know whether it was merely because I
was there, or whether Gania’s beauty was too much for her! But anyway,
she turned crimson, and then finished up the business in a very funny
manner. She jumped up from her seat, bowed back to Gania, smiled to
Varia, and suddenly observed: ‘I only came here to express my gratitude for
all your kind wishes on my behalf, and to say that if I find I need your
services, believe me—’ Here she bowed them away, as it were, and they
both marched off again, looking very foolish. Gania evidently could not
make head nor tail of the matter, and turned as red as a lobster; but Varia
understood at once that they must get away as quickly as they could, so she

dragged Gania away; she is a great deal cleverer than he is. As for myself, I
went there to arrange a meeting to be held between Aglaya Ivanovna and
Nastasia Philipovna.”
“Nastasia Philipovna!” cried the prince.
“Aha! I think you are growing less cool, my friend, and are beginning to
be a trifle surprised, aren’t you? I’m glad that you are not above ordinary
human feelings, for once. I’ll console you a little now, after your
consternation. See what I get for serving a young and high-souled maiden!
This morning I received a slap in the face from the lady!”
“A—a moral one?” asked the prince, involuntarily.
“Yes—not a physical one! I don’t suppose anyone—even a woman—
would raise a hand against me now. Even Gania would hesitate! I did think
at one time yesterday, that he would fly at me, though. I bet anything that I
know what you are thinking of now! You are thinking: ‘Of course one can’t
strike the little wretch, but one could suffocate him with a pillow, or a wet
towel, when he is asleep! One ought to get rid of him somehow.’ I can see
in your face that you are thinking that at this very second.”
“I never thought of such a thing for a moment,” said the prince, with
disgust.
“I don’t know—I dreamed last night that I was being suffocated with a
wet cloth by—somebody. I’ll tell you who it was—Rogojin! What do you
think, can a man be suffocated with a wet cloth?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ve heard so. Well, we’ll leave that question just now. Why am I a
scandal-monger? Why did she call me a scandal-monger? And mind, after
she had heard every word I had to tell her, and had asked all sorts of
questions besides—but such is the way of women. For her sake I entered
into relations with Rogojin—an interesting man! At her request I arranged a
personal interview between herself and Nastasia Philipovna. Could she
have been angry because I hinted that she was enjoying Nastasia
Philipovna’s ‘leavings’? Why, I have been impressing it upon her all this
while for her own good. Two letters have I written her in that strain, and I
began straight off today about its being humiliating for her. Besides, the
word ‘leavings’ is not my invention. At all events, they all used it at
Gania’s, and she used it herself. So why am I a scandal-monger? I see—I

see you are tremendously amused, at this moment! Probably you are
laughing at me and fitting those silly lines to my case—
“‘Maybe sad Love upon his setting smiles, And with vain hopes his
farewell hour beguiles.’
“Ha, ha, ha!”
Hippolyte suddenly burst into a fit of hysterical laughter, which turned
into a choking cough.
“Observe,” he gasped, through his coughing, “what a fellow Gania is! He
talks about Nastasia’s ‘leavings,’ but what does he want to take himself?”
The prince sat silent for a long while. His mind was filled with dread and
horror.
“You spoke of a meeting with Nastasia Philipovna,” he said at last, in a
low voice.
“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?”
“It’s a most improbable story.”
“Oh, very well! if it’s improbable—it is—that’s all! And yet—where
should you have heard it? Though I must say, if a fly crosses the room it’s
known all over the place here. However, I’ve warned you, and you may be
grateful to me. Well—au revoir—probably in the next world! One more
thing—don’t think that I am telling you all this for your sake. Oh, dear, no!
Do you know that I dedicated my confession to Aglaya Ivanovna? I did
though, and how she took it, ha, ha! Oh, no! I am not acting from any high,
exalted motives. But though I may have behaved like a cad to you, I have
not done her any harm. I don’t apologize for my words about ‘leavings’ and
all that. I am atoning for that, you see, by telling you the place and time of
the meeting. Goodbye! You had better take your measures, if you are

worthy the name of a man! The meeting is fixed for this evening—that’s
certain.”
Hippolyte walked towards the door, but the prince called him back and he
stopped.
“Then you think Aglaya Ivanovna herself intends to go to Nastasia
Philipovna’s tonight?” he asked, and bright hectic spots came out on his
cheeks and forehead.
“I don’t know absolutely for certain; but in all probability it is so,”
replied Hippolyte, looking round. “Nastasia would hardly go to her; and
they can’t meet at Gania’s, with a man nearly dead in the house.”
“It’s impossible, for that very reason,” said the prince. “How would she
get out if she wished to? You don’t know the habits of that house—she
could not get away alone to Nastasia Philipovna’s! It’s all nonsense!”
“Look here, my dear prince, no one jumps out of the window if they can
help it; but when there’s a fire, the dandiest gentleman or the finest lady in
the world will skip out! When the moment comes, and there’s nothing else
to be done—our young lady will go to Nastasia Philipovna’s! Don’t they let
the young ladies out of the house alone, then?”
“I didn’t mean that exactly.”
“If you didn’t mean that, then she has only to go down the steps and walk
off, and she need never come back unless she chooses: Ships are burned
behind one sometimes, and one doesn’t care to return whence one came.
Life need not consist only of lunches, and dinners, and Prince S’s. It strikes
me you take Aglaya Ivanovna for some conventional boarding-school girl. I
said so to her, and she quite agreed with me. Wait till seven or eight o’clock.
In your place I would send someone there to keep watch, so as to seize the
exact moment when she steps out of the house. Send Colia. He’ll play the
spy with pleasure—for you at least. Ha, ha, ha!”
Hippolyte went out.
There was no reason for the prince to set anyone to watch, even if he had
been capable of such a thing. Aglaya’s command that he should stay at
home all day seemed almost explained now. Perhaps she meant to call for
him, herself, or it might be, of course, that she was anxious to make sure of
his not coming there, and therefore bade him remain at home. His head

whirled; the whole room seemed to be turning round. He lay down on the
sofa, and closed his eyes.
One way or the other the question was to be decided at last—finally.
Oh, no, he did not think of Aglaya as a boarding-school miss, or a young
lady of the conventional type! He had long since feared that she might take
some such step as this. But why did she wish to see Nastasia?
He shivered all over as he lay; he was in high fever again.
No! he did not account her a child. Certain of her looks, certain of her
words, of late, had filled him with apprehension. At times it had struck him
that she was putting too great a restraint upon herself, and he remembered
that he had been alarmed to observe this. He had tried, all these days, to
drive away the heavy thoughts that oppressed him; but what was the hidden
mystery of that soul? The question had long tormented him, although he
implicitly trusted that soul. And now it was all to be cleared up. It was a
dreadful thought. And “that woman” again! Why did he always feel as
though “that woman” were fated to appear at each critical moment of his
life, and tear the thread of his destiny like a bit of rotten string? That he
always had felt this he was ready to swear, although he was half delirious at
the moment. If he had tried to forget her, all this time, it was simply because
he was afraid of her. Did he love the woman or hate her? This question he
did not once ask himself today; his heart was quite pure. He knew whom he
loved. He was not so much afraid of this meeting, nor of its strangeness, nor
of any reasons there might be for it, unknown to himself; he was afraid of
the woman herself, Nastasia Philipovna. He remembered, some days
afterwards, how during all those fevered hours he had seen but her eyes, her
look, had heard her voice, strange words of hers; he remembered that this
was so, although he could not recollect the details of his thoughts.
He could remember that Vera brought him some dinner, and that he took
it; but whether he slept after dinner, or no, he could not recollect.
He only knew that he began to distinguish things clearly from the
moment when Aglaya suddenly appeared, and he jumped up from the sofa
and went to meet her. It was just a quarter past seven then.
Aglaya was quite alone, and dressed, apparently hastily, in a light mantle.
Her face was pale, as it had been in the morning, and her eyes were ablaze
with bright but subdued fire. He had never seen that expression in her eyes
before.

She gazed attentively at him.
“You are quite ready, I observe,” she said, with absolute composure,
“dressed, and your hat in your hand. I see somebody has thought fit to warn
you, and I know who. Hippolyte?”
“Yes, he told me,” said the prince, feeling only half alive.
“Come then. You know, I suppose, that you must escort me there? You
are well enough to go out, aren’t you?”
“I am well enough; but is it really possible?—”
He broke off abruptly, and could not add another word. This was his one
attempt to stop the mad child, and, after he had made it, he followed her as
though he had no will of his own. Confused as his thoughts were, he was,
nevertheless, capable of realizing the fact that if he did not go with her, she
would go alone, and so he must go with her at all hazards. He guessed the
strength of her determination; it was beyond him to check it.
They walked silently, and said scarcely a word all the way. He only
noticed that she seemed to know the road very well; and once, when he
thought it better to go by a certain lane, and remarked to her that it would be
quieter and less public, she only said, “it’s all the same,” and went on.
When they were almost arrived at Daria Alexeyevna’s house (it was a
large wooden structure of ancient date), a gorgeously-dressed lady and a
young girl came out of it. Both these ladies took their seats in a carriage,
which was waiting at the door, talking and laughing loudly the while, and
drove away without appearing to notice the approaching couple.
No sooner had the carriage driven off than the door opened once more;
and Rogojin, who had apparently been awaiting them, let them in and
closed it after them.
“There is not another soul in the house now excepting our four selves,”
he said aloud, looking at the prince in a strange way.
Nastasia Philipovna was waiting for them in the first room they went
into. She was dressed very simply, in black.
She rose at their entrance, but did not smile or give her hand, even to the
prince. Her anxious eyes were fixed upon Aglaya. Both sat down, at a little
distance from one another—Aglaya on the sofa, in the corner of the room,
Nastasia by the window. The prince and Rogojin remained standing, and
were not invited to sit.

Muishkin glanced at Rogojin in perplexity, but the latter only smiled
disagreeably, and said nothing. The silence continued for some few
moments.
An ominous expression passed over Nastasia Philipovna’s face, of a
sudden. It became obstinate-looking, hard, and full of hatred; but she did
not take her eyes off her visitors for a moment.
Aglaya was clearly confused, but not frightened. On entering she had
merely glanced momentarily at her rival, and then had sat still, with her
eyes on the ground, apparently in thought. Once or twice she glanced
casually round the room. A shade of disgust was visible in her expression;
she looked as though she were afraid of contamination in this place.
She mechanically arranged her dress, and fidgeted uncomfortably,
eventually changing her seat to the other end of the sofa. Probably she was
unconscious of her own movements; but this very unconsciousness added to
the offensiveness of their suggested meaning.
At length she looked straight into Nastasia’s eyes, and instantly read all
there was to read in her rival’s expression. Woman understood woman!
Aglaya shuddered.
“You know of course why I requested this meeting?” she said at last,
quietly, and pausing twice in the delivery of this very short sentence.
“No—I know nothing about it,” said Nastasia, drily and abruptly.
Aglaya blushed. Perhaps it struck her as very strange and impossible that
she should really be sitting here and waiting for “that woman’s” reply to her
question.
At the first sound of Nastasia’s voice a shudder ran through her frame. Of
course “that woman” observed and took in all this.
“You know quite well, but you are pretending to be ignorant,” said
Aglaya, very low, with her eyes on the ground.
“Why should I?” asked Nastasia Philipovna, smiling slightly.
“You want to take advantage of my position, now that I am in your
house,” continued Aglaya, awkwardly.
“For that position you are to blame and not I,” said Nastasia, flaring up
suddenly. “I did not invite you, but you me; and to this moment I am quite
ignorant as to why I am thus honoured.”

Aglaya raised her head haughtily.
“Restrain your tongue!” she said. “I did not come here to fight you with
your own weapons.
“Oh! then you did come ‘to fight,’ I may conclude? Dear me!—and I
thought you were cleverer—”
They looked at one another with undisguised malice. One of these
women had written to the other, so lately, such letters as we have seen; and
it all was dispersed at their first meeting. Yet it appeared that not one of the
four persons in the room considered this in any degree strange.
The prince who, up to yesterday, would not have believed that he could
even dream of such an impossible scene as this, stood and listened and
looked on, and felt as though he had long foreseen it all. The most fantastic
dream seemed suddenly to have been metamorphosed into the most vivid
reality.
One of these women so despised the other, and so longed to express her
contempt for her (perhaps she had only come for that very purpose, as
Rogojin said next day), that howsoever fantastical was the other woman,
howsoever afflicted her spirit and disturbed her understanding, no
preconceived idea of hers could possibly stand up against that deadly
feminine contempt of her rival. The prince felt sure that Nastasia would say
nothing about the letters herself; but he could judge by her flashing eyes
and the expression of her face what the thought of those letters must be
costing her at this moment. He would have given half his life to prevent
Aglaya from speaking of them. But Aglaya suddenly braced herself up, and
seemed to master herself fully, all in an instant.
“You have not quite understood,” she said. “I did not come to quarrel
with you, though I do not like you. I came to speak to you as... as one
human being to another. I came with my mind made up as to what I had to
say to you, and I shall not change my intention, although you may
misunderstand me. So much the worse for you, not for myself! I wished to
reply to all you have written to me and to reply personally, because I think
that is the more convenient way. Listen to my reply to all your letters. I
began to be sorry for Prince Lef Nicolaievitch on the very day I made his
acquaintance, and when I heard—afterwards—of all that took place at your
house in the evening, I was sorry for him because he was such a simple-
minded man, and because he, in the simplicity of his soul, believed that he

could be happy with a woman of your character. What I feared actually took
place; you could not love him, you tortured him, and threw him over. You
could not love him because you are too proud—no, not proud, that is an
error; because you are too vain—no, not quite that either; too self-loving;
you are self-loving to madness. Your letters to me are a proof of it. You
could not love so simple a soul as his, and perhaps in your heart you
despised him and laughed at him. All you could love was your shame and
the perpetual thought that you were disgraced and insulted. If you were less
shameful, or had no cause at all for shame, you would be still more
unhappy than you are now.”
Aglaya brought out these thronging words with great satisfaction. They
came from her lips hurriedly and impetuously, and had been prepared and
thought out long ago, even before she had ever dreamed of the present
meeting. She watched with eagerness the effect of her speech as shown in
Nastasia’s face, which was distorted with agitation.
“You remember,” she continued, “he wrote me a letter at that time; he
says you know all about that letter and that you even read it. I understand
all by means of this letter, and understand it correctly. He has since
confirmed it all to me—what I now say to you, word for word. After
receiving his letter I waited; I guessed that you would soon come back here,
because you could never do without Petersburg; you are still too young and
lovely for the provinces. However, this is not my own idea,” she added,
blushing dreadfully; and from this moment the colour never left her cheeks
to the end of her speech. “When I next saw the prince I began to feel
terribly pained and hurt on his account. Do not laugh; if you laugh you are
unworthy of understanding what I say.”
“Surely you see that I am not laughing,” said Nastasia, sadly and sternly.
“However, it’s all the same to me; laugh or not, just as you please. When
I asked him about you, he told me that he had long since ceased to love you,
that the very recollection of you was a torture to him, but that he was sorry
for you; and that when he thought of you his heart was pierced. I ought to
tell you that I never in my life met a man anything like him for noble
simplicity of mind and for boundless trustfulness. I guessed that anyone
who liked could deceive him, and that he would immediately forgive
anyone who did deceive him; and it was for this that I grew to love him—”

Aglaya paused for a moment, as though suddenly brought up in
astonishment that she could have said these words, but at the same time a
great pride shone in her eyes, like a defiant assertion that it would not
matter to her if “this woman” laughed in her face for the admission just
made.
“I have told you all now, and of course you understand what I wish of
you.”
“Perhaps I do; but tell me yourself,” said Nastasia Philipovna, quietly.
Aglaya flushed up angrily.
“I wished to find out from you,” she said, firmly, “by what right you dare
to meddle with his feelings for me? By what right you dared send me those
letters? By what right do you continually remind both me and him that you
love him, after you yourself threw him over and ran away from him in so
insulting and shameful a way?”
“I never told either him or you that I loved him!” replied Nastasia
Philipovna, with an effort. “And—and I did run away from him—you are
right there,” she added, scarcely audibly.
“Never told either him or me?” cried Aglaya. “How about your letters?
Who asked you to try to persuade me to marry him? Was not that a
declaration from you? Why do you force yourself upon us in this way? I
confess I thought at first that you were anxious to arouse an aversion for
him in my heart by your meddling, in order that I might give him up; and it
was only afterwards that I guessed the truth. You imagined that you were
doing an heroic action! How could you spare any love for him, when you
love your own vanity to such an extent? Why could you not simply go away
from here, instead of writing me those absurd letters? Why do you not now
marry that generous man who loves you, and has done you the honour of
offering you his hand? It is plain enough why; if you marry Rogojin you
lose your grievance; you will have nothing more to complain of. You will
be receiving too much honour. Evgenie Pavlovitch was saying the other day
that you had read too many poems and are too well educated for—your
position; and that you live in idleness. Add to this your vanity, and, there
you have reason enough—”
“And do you not live in idleness?”

Things had come to this unexpected point too quickly. Unexpected
because Nastasia Philipovna, on her way to Pavlofsk, had thought and
considered a good deal, and had expected something different, though
perhaps not altogether good, from this interview; but Aglaya had been
carried away by her own outburst, just as a rolling stone gathers impetus as
it careers downhill, and could not restrain herself in the satisfaction of
revenge.
It was strange, Nastasia Philipovna felt, to see Aglaya like this. She gazed
at her, and could hardly believe her eyes and ears for a moment or two.
Whether she were a woman who had read too many poems, as Evgenie
Pavlovitch supposed, or whether she were mad, as the prince had assured
Aglaya, at all events, this was a woman who, in spite of her occasionally
cynical and audacious manner, was far more refined and trustful and
sensitive than appeared. There was a certain amount of romantic dreaminess
and caprice in her, but with the fantastic was mingled much that was strong
and deep.
The prince realized this, and great suffering expressed itself in his face.
Aglaya observed it, and trembled with anger.
“How dare you speak so to me?” she said, with a haughtiness which was
quite indescribable, replying to Nastasia’s last remark.
“You must have misunderstood what I said,” said Nastasia, in some
surprise.
“If you wished to preserve your good name, why did you not give up
your—your ‘guardian,’ Totski, without all that theatrical posturing?” said
Aglaya, suddenly a propos of nothing.
“What do you know of my position, that you dare to judge me?” cried
Nastasia, quivering with rage, and growing terribly white.
“I know this much, that you did not go out to honest work, but went away
with a rich man, Rogojin, in order to pose as a fallen angel. I don’t wonder
that Totski was nearly driven to suicide by such a fallen angel.”
“Silence!” cried Nastasia Philipovna. “You are about as fit to understand
me as the housemaid here, who bore witness against her lover in court the
other day. She would understand me better than you do.”
“Probably an honest girl living by her own toil. Why do you speak of a
housemaid so contemptuously?”

“I do not despise toil; I despise you when you speak of toil.”
“If you had cared to be an honest woman, you would have gone out as a
laundress.”
Both had risen, and were gazing at one another with pallid faces.
“Aglaya, don’t! This is unfair,” cried the prince, deeply distressed.
Rogojin was not smiling now; he sat and listened with folded arms, and
lips tight compressed.
“There, look at her,” cried Nastasia, trembling with passion. “Look at this
young lady! And I imagined her an angel! Did you come to me without
your governess, Aglaya Ivanovna? Oh, fie, now shall I just tell you why you
came here today? Shall I tell you without any embellishments? You came
because you were afraid of me!”
“Afraid of you?” asked Aglaya, beside herself with naive amazement that
the other should dare talk to her like this.
“Yes, me, of course! Of course you were afraid of me, or you would not
have decided to come. You cannot despise one you fear. And to think that I
have actually esteemed you up to this very moment! Do you know why you
are afraid of me, and what is your object now? You wished to satisfy
yourself with your own eyes as to which he loves best, myself or you,
because you are fearfully jealous.”
“He has told me already that he hates you,” murmured Aglaya, scarcely
audibly.
“Perhaps, perhaps! I am not worthy of him, I know. But I think you are
lying, all the same. He cannot hate me, and he cannot have said so. I am
ready to forgive you, in consideration of your position; but I confess I
thought better of you. I thought you were wiser, and more beautiful, too; I
did, indeed! Well, take your treasure! See, he is gazing at you, he can’t
recollect himself. Take him, but on one condition; go away at once, this
instant!”
She fell back into a chair, and burst into tears. But suddenly some new
expression blazed in her eyes. She stared fixedly at Aglaya, and rose from
her seat.
“Or would you like me to bid him, bid him, do you hear, command him,
now, at once, to throw you up, and remain mine for ever? Shall I? He will
stay, and he will marry me too, and you shall trot home all alone. Shall I?—

shall I say the word?” she screamed like a madwoman, scarcely believing
herself that she could really pronounce such wild words.
Aglaya had made for the door in terror, but she stopped at the threshold,
and listened. “Shall I turn Rogojin off? Ha! ha! you thought I would marry
him for your benefit, did you? Why, I’ll call out now, if you like, in your
presence, ‘Rogojin, get out!’ and say to the prince, ‘Do you remember what
you promised me?’ Heavens! what a fool I have been to humiliate myself
before them! Why, prince, you yourself gave me your word that you would
marry me whatever happened, and would never abandon me. You said you
loved me and would forgive me all, and—and resp—yes, you even said
that! I only ran away from you in order to set you free, and now I don’t care
to let you go again. Why does she treat me so—so shamefully? I am not a
loose woman—ask Rogojin there! He’ll tell you. Will you go again now
that she has insulted me, before your eyes, too; turn away from me and lead
her away, arm-in-arm? May you be accursed too, for you were the only one
I trusted among them all! Go away, Rogojin, I don’t want you,” she
continued, blind with fury, and forcing the words out with dry lips and
distorted features, evidently not believing a single word of her own tirade,
but, at the same time, doing her utmost to prolong the moment of self-
deception.
The outburst was so terribly violent that the prince thought it would have
killed her.
“There he is!” she shrieked again, pointing to the prince and addressing
Aglaya. “There he is! and if he does not approach me at once and take me
and throw you over, then have him for your own—I give him up to you! I
don’t want him!”
Both she and Aglaya stood and waited as though in expectation, and both
looked at the prince like madwomen.
But he, perhaps, did not understand the full force of this challenge; in
fact, it is certain he did not. All he could see was the poor despairing face
which, as he had said to Aglaya, “had pierced his heart for ever.”
He could bear it no longer, and with a look of entreaty, mingled with
reproach, he addressed Aglaya, pointing to Nastasia the while:
“How can you?” he murmured; “she is so unhappy.”

But he had no time to say another word before Aglaya’s terrible look
bereft him of speech. In that look was embodied so dreadful a suffering and
so deadly a hatred, that he gave a cry and flew to her; but it was too late.
She could not hold out long enough even to witness his movement in her
direction. She had hidden her face in her hands, cried once “Oh, my God!”
and rushed out of the room. Rogojin followed her to undo the bolts of the
door and let her out into the street.
The prince made a rush after her, but he was caught and held back. The
distorted, livid face of Nastasia gazed at him reproachfully, and her blue
lips whispered:
“What? Would you go to her—to her?”
She fell senseless into his arms.
He raised her, carried her into the room, placed her in an arm-chair, and
stood over her, stupefied. On the table stood a tumbler of water. Rogojin,
who now returned, took this and sprinkled a little in her face. She opened
her eyes, but for a moment she understood nothing.
Suddenly she looked around, shuddered, gave a loud cry, and threw
herself in the prince’s arms.
“Mine, mine!” she cried. “Has the proud young lady gone? Ha, ha, ha!”
she laughed hysterically. “And I had given him up to her! Why—why did I?
Mad—mad! Get away, Rogojin! Ha, ha, ha!”
Rogojin stared intently at them; then he took his hat, and without a word,
left the room.
A few moments later, the prince was seated by Nastasia on the sofa,
gazing into her eyes and stroking her face and hair, as he would a little
child’s. He laughed when she laughed, and was ready to cry when she cried.
He did not speak, but listened to her excited, disconnected chatter, hardly
understanding a word of it the while. No sooner did he detect the slightest
appearance of complaining, or weeping, or reproaching, than he would
smile at her kindly, and begin stroking her hair and her cheeks, soothing and
consoling her once more, as if she were a child.

IX.

A fortnight had passed since the events recorded in the last chapter, and
the position of the actors in our story had become so changed that it is
almost impossible for us to continue the tale without some few
explanations. Yet we feel that we ought to limit ourselves to the simple
record of facts, without much attempt at explanation, for a very patent
reason: because we ourselves have the greatest possible difficulty in
accounting for the facts to be recorded. Such a statement on our part may
appear strange to the reader. How is anyone to tell a story which he cannot
understand himself? In order to keep clear of a false position, we had
perhaps better give an example of what we mean; and probably the
intelligent reader will soon understand the difficulty. More especially are
we inclined to take this course since the example will constitute a distinct
march forward of our story, and will not hinder the progress of the events
remaining to be recorded.
During the next fortnight—that is, through the early part of July—the
history of our hero was circulated in the form of strange, diverting, most
unlikely-sounding stories, which passed from mouth to mouth, through the
streets and villas adjoining those inhabited by Lebedeff, Ptitsin, Nastasia
Philipovna and the Epanchins; in fact, pretty well through the whole town
and its environs. All society—both the inhabitants of the place and those
who came down of an evening for the music—had got hold of one and the
same story, in a thousand varieties of detail—as to how a certain young
prince had raised a terrible scandal in a most respectable household, had
thrown over a daughter of the family, to whom he was engaged, and had
been captured by a woman of shady reputation whom he was determined to
marry at once—breaking off all old ties for the satisfaction of his insane
idea; and, in spite of the public indignation roused by his action, the
marriage was to take place in Pavlofsk openly and publicly, and the prince
had announced his intention of going through with it with head erect and
looking the whole world in the face. The story was so artfully adorned with
scandalous details, and persons of so great eminence and importance were
apparently mixed up in it, while, at the same time, the evidence was so
circumstantial, that it was no wonder the matter gave food for plenty of
curiosity and gossip.
According to the reports of the most talented gossip-mongers—those
who, in every class of society, are always in haste to explain every event to
their neighbours—the young gentleman concerned was of good family—a

prince—fairly rich—weak of intellect, but a democrat and a dabbler in the
Nihilism of the period, as exposed by Mr. Turgenieff. He could hardly talk
Russian, but had fallen in love with one of the Miss Epanchins, and his suit
met with so much encouragement that he had been received in the house as
the recognized bridegroom-to-be of the young lady. But like the Frenchman
of whom the story is told that he studied for holy orders, took all the oaths,
was ordained priest, and next morning wrote to his bishop informing him
that, as he did not believe in God and considered it wrong to deceive the
people and live upon their pockets, he begged to surrender the orders
conferred upon him the day before, and to inform his lordship that he was
sending this letter to the public press,—like this Frenchman, the prince
played a false game. It was rumoured that he had purposely waited for the
solemn occasion of a large evening party at the house of his future bride, at
which he was introduced to several eminent persons, in order publicly to
make known his ideas and opinions, and thereby insult the “big-wigs,” and
to throw over his bride as offensively as possible; and that, resisting the
servants who were told off to turn him out of the house, he had seized and
thrown down a magnificent china vase. As a characteristic addition to the
above, it was currently reported that the young prince really loved the lady
to whom he was engaged, and had thrown her over out of purely Nihilistic
motives, with the intention of giving himself the satisfaction of marrying a
fallen woman in the face of all the world, thereby publishing his opinion
that there is no distinction between virtuous and disreputable women, but
that all women are alike, free; and a “fallen” woman, indeed, somewhat
superior to a virtuous one.
It was declared that he believed in no classes or anything else, excepting
“the woman question.”
All this looked likely enough, and was accepted as fact by most of the
inhabitants of the place, especially as it was borne out, more or less, by
daily occurrences.
Of course much was said that could not be determined absolutely. For
instance, it was reported that the poor girl had so loved her future husband
that she had followed him to the house of the other woman, the day after
she had been thrown over; others said that he had insisted on her coming,
himself, in order to shame and insult her by his taunts and Nihilistic
confessions when she reached the house. However all these things might be,

the public interest in the matter grew daily, especially as it became clear that
the scandalous wedding was undoubtedly to take place.
So that if our readers were to ask an explanation, not of the wild reports
about the prince’s Nihilistic opinions, but simply as to how such a marriage
could possibly satisfy his real aspirations, or as to the spiritual condition of
our hero at this time, we confess that we should have great difficulty in
giving the required information.
All we know is, that the marriage really was arranged, and that the prince
had commissioned Lebedeff and Keller to look after all the necessary
business connected with it; that he had requested them to spare no expense;
that Nastasia herself was hurrying on the wedding; that Keller was to be the
prince’s best man, at his own earnest request; and that Burdovsky was to
give Nastasia away, to his great delight. The wedding was to take place
before the middle of July.
But, besides the above, we are cognizant of certain other undoubted facts,
which puzzle us a good deal because they seem flatly to contradict the
foregoing.
We suspect, for instance, that having commissioned Lebedeff and the
others, as above, the prince immediately forgot all about masters of
ceremonies and even the ceremony itself; and we feel quite certain that in
making these arrangements he did so in order that he might absolutely
escape all thought of the wedding, and even forget its approach if he could,
by detailing all business concerning it to others.
What did he think of all this time, then? What did he wish for? There is
no doubt that he was a perfectly free agent all through, and that as far as
Nastasia was concerned, there was no force of any kind brought to bear on
him. Nastasia wished for a speedy marriage, true!—but the prince agreed at
once to her proposals; he agreed, in fact, so casually that anyone might
suppose he was but acceding to the most simple and ordinary suggestion.
There are many strange circumstances such as this before us; but in our
opinion they do but deepen the mystery, and do not in the smallest degree
help us to understand the case.
However, let us take one more example. Thus, we know for a fact that
during the whole of this fortnight the prince spent all his days and evenings
with Nastasia; he walked with her, drove with her; he began to be restless
whenever he passed an hour without seeing her—in fact, to all appearances,

he sincerely loved her. He would listen to her for hours at a time with a
quiet smile on his face, scarcely saying a word himself. And yet we know,
equally certainly, that during this period he several times set off, suddenly,
to the Epanchins’, not concealing the fact from Nastasia Philipovna, and
driving the latter to absolute despair. We know also that he was not received
at the Epanchins’ so long as they remained at Pavlofsk, and that he was not
allowed an interview with Aglaya;—but next day he would set off once
more on the same errand, apparently quite oblivious of the fact of
yesterday’s visit having been a failure,—and, of course, meeting with
another refusal. We know, too, that exactly an hour after Aglaya had fled
from Nastasia Philipovna’s house on that fateful evening, the prince was at
the Epanchins’,—and that his appearance there had been the cause of the
greatest consternation and dismay; for Aglaya had not been home, and the
family only discovered then, for the first time, that the two of them had
been to Nastasia’s house together.
It was said that Elizabetha Prokofievna and her daughters had there and
then denounced the prince in the strongest terms, and had refused any
further acquaintance and friendship with him; their rage and denunciations
being redoubled when Varia Ardalionovna suddenly arrived and stated that
Aglaya had been at her house in a terrible state of mind for the last hour,
and that she refused to come home.
This last item of news, which disturbed Lizabetha Prokofievna more than
anything else, was perfectly true. On leaving Nastasia’s, Aglaya had felt
that she would rather die than face her people, and had therefore gone
straight to Nina Alexandrovna’s. On receiving the news, Lizabetha and her
daughters and the general all rushed off to Aglaya, followed by Prince Lef
Nicolaievitch—undeterred by his recent dismissal; but through Varia he was
refused a sight of Aglaya here also. The end of the episode was that when
Aglaya saw her mother and sisters crying over her and not uttering a word
of reproach, she had flung herself into their arms and gone straight home
with them.
It was said that Gania managed to make a fool of himself even on this
occasion; for, finding himself alone with Aglaya for a minute or two when
Varia had gone to the Epanchins’, he had thought it a fitting opportunity to
make a declaration of his love, and on hearing this Aglaya, in spite of her
state of mind at the time, had suddenly burst out laughing, and had put a

strange question to him. She asked him whether he would consent to hold
his finger to a lighted candle in proof of his devotion! Gania—it was said—
looked so comically bewildered that Aglaya had almost laughed herself into
hysterics, and had rushed out of the room and upstairs,—where her parents
had found her.
Hippolyte told the prince this last story, sending for him on purpose.
When Muishkin heard about the candle and Gania’s finger he had laughed
so that he had quite astonished Hippolyte,—and then shuddered and burst
into tears. The prince’s condition during those days was strange and
perturbed. Hippolyte plainly declared that he thought he was out of his
mind;—this, however, was hardly to be relied upon.
Offering all these facts to our readers and refusing to explain them, we do
not for a moment desire to justify our hero’s conduct. On the contrary, we
are quite prepared to feel our share of the indignation which his behaviour
aroused in the hearts of his friends. Even Vera Lebedeff was angry with him
for a while; so was Colia; so was Keller, until he was selected for best man;
so was Lebedeff himself,—who began to intrigue against him out of pure
irritation;—but of this anon. In fact we are in full accord with certain
forcible words spoken to the prince by Evgenie Pavlovitch, quite
unceremoniously, during the course of a friendly conversation, six or seven
days after the events at Nastasia Philipovna’s house.
We may remark here that not only the Epanchins themselves, but all who
had anything to do with them, thought it right to break with the prince in
consequence of his conduct. Prince S. even went so far as to turn away and
cut him dead in the street. But Evgenie Pavlovitch was not afraid to
compromise himself by paying the prince a visit, and did so, in spite of the
fact that he had recommenced to visit at the Epanchins’, where he was
received with redoubled hospitality and kindness after the temporary
estrangement.
Evgenie called upon the prince the day after that on which the Epanchins
left Pavlofsk. He knew of all the current rumours,—in fact, he had probably
contributed to them himself. The prince was delighted to see him, and
immediately began to speak of the Epanchins;—which simple and
straightforward opening quite took Evgenie’s fancy, so that he melted at
once, and plunged in medias res without ceremony.

The prince did not know, up to this, that the Epanchins had left the place.
He grew very pale on hearing the news; but a moment later he nodded his
head, and said thoughtfully:
“I knew it was bound to be so.” Then he added quickly:
“Where have they gone to?”
Evgenie meanwhile observed him attentively, and the rapidity of the
questions, their simplicity, the prince’s candour, and at the same time, his
evident perplexity and mental agitation, surprised him considerably.
However, he told Muishkin all he could, kindly and in detail. The prince
hardly knew anything, for this was the first informant from the household
whom he had met since the estrangement.
Evgenie reported that Aglaya had been really ill, and that for two nights
she had not slept at all, owing to high fever; that now she was better and out
of serious danger, but still in a nervous, hysterical state.
“It’s a good thing that there is peace in the house, at all events,” he
continued. “They never utter a hint about the past, not only in Aglaya’s
presence, but even among themselves. The old people are talking of a trip
abroad in the autumn, immediately after Adelaida’s wedding; Aglaya
received the news in silence.”
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.
“And in point of fact, prince,” added Evgenie Pavlovitch, “you must
allow that they could hardly have stayed here, considering that they knew of
all that went on at your place, and in the face of your daily visits to their
house, visits which you insisted upon making in spite of their refusal to see
you.”
“Yes—yes, quite so; you are quite right. I wished to see Aglaya Ivanovna,
you know!” said the prince, nodding his head.

“Oh, my dear fellow,” cried Evgenie, warmly, with real sorrow in his
voice, “how could you permit all that to come about as it has? Of course, of
course, I know it was all so unexpected. I admit that you, only naturally,
lost your head, and—and could not stop the foolish girl; that was not in
your power. I quite see so much; but you really should have understood
how seriously she cared for you. She could not bear to share you with
another; and you could bring yourself to throw away and shatter such a
treasure! Oh, prince, prince!”
“Yes, yes, you are quite right again,” said the poor prince, in anguish of
mind. “I was wrong, I know. But it was only Aglaya who looked on
Nastasia Philipovna so; no one else did, you know.”
“But that’s just the worst of it all, don’t you see, that there was absolutely
nothing serious about the matter in reality!” cried Evgenie, beside himself:
“Excuse me, prince, but I have thought over all this; I have thought a great
deal over it; I know all that had happened before; I know all that took place
six months since; and I know there was nothing serious about the matter, it
was but fancy, smoke, fantasy, distorted by agitation, and only the alarmed
jealousy of an absolutely inexperienced girl could possibly have mistaken it
for serious reality.”
Here Evgenie Pavlovitch quite let himself go, and gave the reins to his
indignation.
Clearly and reasonably, and with great psychological insight, he drew a
picture of the prince’s past relations with Nastasia Philipovna. Evgenie
Pavlovitch always had a ready tongue, but on this occasion his eloquence,
surprised himself. “From the very beginning,” he said, “you began with a
lie; what began with a lie was bound to end with a lie; such is the law of
nature. I do not agree, in fact I am angry, when I hear you called an idiot;
you are far too intelligent to deserve such an epithet; but you are so far
strange as to be unlike others; that you must allow, yourself. Now, I have
come to the conclusion that the basis of all that has happened, has been first
of all your innate inexperience (remark the expression ‘innate,’ prince).
Then follows your unheard-of simplicity of heart; then comes your absolute
want of sense of proportion (to this want you have several times confessed);
and lastly, a mass, an accumulation, of intellectual convictions which you,
in your unexampled honesty of soul, accept unquestionably as also innate
and natural and true. Admit, prince, that in your relations with Nastasia

Philipovna there has existed, from the very first, something democratic, and
the fascination, so to speak, of the ‘woman question’? I know all about that
scandalous scene at Nastasia Philipovna’s house when Rogojin brought the
money, six months ago. I’ll show you yourself as in a looking-glass, if you
like. I know exactly all that went on, in every detail, and why things have
turned out as they have. You thirsted, while in Switzerland, for your home-
country, for Russia; you read, doubtless, many books about Russia,
excellent books, I dare say, but hurtful to you; and you arrived here; as it
were, on fire with the longing to be of service. Then, on the very day of
your arrival, they tell you a sad story of an ill-used woman; they tell you, a
knight, pure and without reproach, this tale of a poor woman! The same day
you actually see her; you are attracted by her beauty, her fantastic, almost
demoniacal, beauty—(I admit her beauty, of course).
“Add to all this your nervous nature, your epilepsy, and your sudden
arrival in a strange town—the day of meetings and of exciting scenes, the
day of unexpected acquaintanceships, the day of sudden actions, the day of
meeting with the three lovely Epanchin girls, and among them Aglaya—add
your fatigue, your excitement; add Nastasia’ s evening party, and the tone of
that party, and—what were you to expect of yourself at such a moment as
that?”
“Yes, yes, yes!” said the prince, once more, nodding his head, and
blushing slightly. “Yes, it was so, or nearly so—I know it. And besides, you
see, I had not slept the night before, in the train, or the night before that,
either, and I was very tired.”
“Of course, of course, quite so; that’s what I am driving at!” continued
Evgenie, excitedly. “It is as clear as possible, and most comprehensible, that
you, in your enthusiasm, should plunge headlong into the first chance that
came of publicly airing your great idea that you, a prince, and a pure-living
man, did not consider a woman disgraced if the sin were not her own, but
that of a disgusting social libertine! Oh, heavens! it’s comprehensible
enough, my dear prince, but that is not the question, unfortunately! The
question is, was there any reality and truth in your feelings? Was it nature,
or nothing but intellectual enthusiasm? What do you think yourself? We are
told, of course, that a far worse woman was forgiven, but we don’t find that
she was told that she had done well, or that she was worthy of honour and
respect! Did not your common-sense show you what was the real state of

the case, a few months later? The question is now, not whether she is an
innocent woman (I do not insist one way or the other—I do not wish to);
but can her whole career justify such intolerable pride, such insolent,
rapacious egotism as she has shown? Forgive me, I am too violent, perhaps,
but—”
“Yes—I dare say it is all as you say; I dare say you are quite right,”
muttered the prince once more. “She is very sensitive and easily put out, of
course; but still, she...”
“She is worthy of sympathy? Is that what you wished to say, my good
fellow? But then, for the mere sake of vindicating her worthiness of
sympathy, you should not have insulted and offended a noble and generous
girl in her presence! This is a terrible exaggeration of sympathy! How can
you love a girl, and yet so humiliate her as to throw her over for the sake of
another woman, before the very eyes of that other woman, when you have
already made her a formal proposal of marriage? And you did propose to
her, you know; you did so before her parents and sisters. Can you be an
honest man, prince, if you act so? I ask you! And did you not deceive that
beautiful girl when you assured her of your love?”
“Yes, you are quite right. Oh! I feel that I am very guilty!” said Muishkin,
in deepest distress.
“But as if that is enough!” cried Evgenie, indignantly. “As if it is enough
simply to say: ‘I know I am very guilty!’ You are to blame, and yet you
persevere in evil-doing. Where was your heart, I should like to know, your
christian heart, all that time? Did she look as though she were suffering
less, at that moment? You saw her face—was she suffering less than the
other woman? How could you see her suffering and allow it to continue?
How could you?”
“But I did not allow it,” murmured the wretched prince.
“How—what do you mean you didn’t allow?”
“Upon my word, I didn’t! To this moment I don’t know how it all
happened. I—I ran after Aglaya Ivanovna, but Nastasia Philipovna fell
down in a faint; and since that day they won’t let me see Aglaya—that’s all
I know.”
“It’s all the same; you ought to have run after Aglaya though the other
was fainting.”

“Yes, yes, I ought—but I couldn’t! She would have died—she would
have killed herself. You don’t know her; and I should have told Aglaya
everything afterwards—but I see, Evgenie Pavlovitch, you don’t know all.
Tell me now, why am I not allowed to see Aglaya? I should have cleared it
all up, you know. Neither of them kept to the real point, you see. I could
never explain what I mean to you, but I think I could to Aglaya. Oh! my
God, my God! You spoke just now of Aglaya’s face at the moment when
she ran away. Oh, my God! I remember it! Come along, come along—
quick!” He pulled at Evgenie’s coat-sleeve nervously and excitedly, and
rose from his chair.
“Where to?”
“Come to Aglaya—quick, quick!”
“But I told you she is not at Pavlofsk. And what would be the use if she
were?”
“Oh, she’ll understand, she’ll understand!” cried the prince, clasping his
hands. “She would understand that all this is not the point—not a bit the
real point—it is quite foreign to the real question.”
“How can it be foreign? You are going to be married, are you not? Very
well, then you are persisting in your course. Are you going to marry her or
not?”
“Yes, I shall marry her—yes.”
“Then why is it ‘not the point’?”
“Oh, no, it is not the point, not a bit. It makes no difference, my marrying
her—it means nothing.”
“How ‘means nothing’? You are talking nonsense, my friend. You are
marrying the woman you love in order to secure her happiness, and Aglaya
sees and knows it. How can you say that it’s ‘not the point’?”
“Her happiness? Oh, no! I am only marrying her—well, because she
wished it. It means nothing—it’s all the same. She would certainly have
died. I see now that that marriage with Rogojin was an insane idea. I
understand all now that I did not understand before; and, do you know,
when those two stood opposite to one another, I could not bear Nastasia
Philipovna’s face! You must know, Evgenie Pavlovitch, I have never told
anyone before—not even Aglaya—that I cannot bear Nastasia Philipovna’s
face.” (He lowered his voice mysteriously as he said this.) “You described

that evening at Nastasia Philipovna’s (six months since) very accurately just
now; but there is one thing which you did not mention, and of which you
took no account, because you do not know. I mean her face—I looked at her
face, you see. Even in the morning when I saw her portrait, I felt that I
could not bear to look at it. Now, there’s Vera Lebedeff, for instance, her
eyes are quite different, you know. I’m afraid of her face!” he added, with
real alarm.
“You are afraid of it?”
“Yes—she’s mad!” he whispered, growing pale.
“Do you know this for certain?” asked Evgenie, with the greatest
curiosity.
“Yes, for certain—quite for certain, now! I have discovered it absolutely
for certain, these last few days.”
“What are you doing, then?” cried Evgenie, in horror. “You must be
marrying her solely out of fear, then! I can’t make head or tail of it, prince.
Perhaps you don’t even love her?”
“Oh, no; I love her with all my soul. Why, she is a child! She’s a child
now—a real child. Oh! you know nothing about it at all, I see.”
“And are you assured, at the same time, that you love Aglaya too?”
“Yes—yes—oh; yes!”
“How so? Do you want to make out that you love them both?”
“Yes—yes—both! I do!”
“Excuse me, prince, but think what you are saying! Recollect yourself!”
“Without Aglaya—I—I must see Aglaya!—I shall die in my sleep very
soon—I thought I was dying in my sleep last night. Oh! if Aglaya only
knew all—I mean really, really all! Because she must know all—that’s the
first condition towards understanding. Why cannot we ever know all about
another, especially when that other has been guilty? But I don’t know what
I’m talking about—I’m so confused. You pained me so dreadfully. Surely—
surely Aglaya has not the same expression now as she had at the moment
when she ran away? Oh, yes! I am guilty and I know it—I know it!
Probably I am in fault all round—I don’t quite know how—but I am in
fault, no doubt. There is something else, but I cannot explain it to you,

Evgenie Pavlovitch. I have no words; but Aglaya will understand. I have
always believed Aglaya will understand—I am assured she will.”
“No, prince, she will not. Aglaya loved like a woman, like a human
being, not like an abstract spirit. Do you know what, my poor prince? The
most probable explanation of the matter is that you never loved either the
one or the other in reality.”
“I don’t know—perhaps you are right in much that you have said,
Evgenie Pavlovitch. You are very wise, Evgenie Pavlovitch—oh! how my
head is beginning to ache again! Come to her, quick—for God’s sake,
come!”
“But I tell you she is not in Pavlofsk! She’s in Colmina.”
“Oh, come to Colmina, then! Come—let us go at once!”
“No—no, impossible!” said Evgenie, rising.
“Look here—I’ll write a letter—take a letter for me!”
“No—no, prince; you must forgive me, but I can’t undertake any such
commissions! I really can’t.”
And so they parted.
Evgenie Pavlovitch left the house with strange convictions. He, too, felt
that the prince must be out of his mind.
“And what did he mean by that face—a face which he so fears, and yet
so loves? And meanwhile he really may die, as he says, without seeing
Aglaya, and she will never know how devotedly he loves her! Ha, ha, ha!
How does the fellow manage to love two of them? Two different kinds of
love, I suppose! This is very interesting—poor idiot! What on earth will
become of him now?”

X.
The prince did not die before his wedding—either by day or night, as he
had foretold that he might. Very probably he passed disturbed nights, and
was afflicted with bad dreams; but, during the daytime, among his fellow-
men, he seemed as kind as ever, and even contented; only a little thoughtful
when alone.

The wedding was hurried on. The day was fixed for exactly a week after
Evgenie’s visit to the prince. In the face of such haste as this, even the
prince’s best friends (if he had had any) would have felt the hopelessness of
any attempt to save “the poor madman.” Rumour said that in the visit of
Evgenie Pavlovitch was to be discerned the influence of Lizabetha
Prokofievna and her husband... But if those good souls, in the boundless
kindness of their hearts, were desirous of saving the eccentric young fellow
from ruin, they were unable to take any stronger measures to attain that end.
Neither their position, nor their private inclination, perhaps (and only
naturally), would allow them to use any more pronounced means.
We have observed before that even some of the prince’s nearest
neighbours had begun to oppose him. Vera Lebedeff’s passive disagreement
was limited to the shedding of a few solitary tears; to more frequent sitting
alone at home, and to a diminished frequency in her visits to the prince’s
apartments.
Colia was occupied with his father at this time. The old man died during
a second stroke, which took place just eight days after the first. The prince
showed great sympathy in the grief of the family, and during the first days
of their mourning he was at the house a great deal with Nina Alexandrovna.
He went to the funeral, and it was observable that the public assembled in
church greeted his arrival and departure with whisperings, and watched him
closely.
The same thing happened in the park and in the street, wherever he went.
He was pointed out when he drove by, and he often overheard the name of
Nastasia Philipovna coupled with his own as he passed. People looked out
for her at the funeral, too, but she was not there; and another conspicuous
absentee was the captain’s widow, whom Lebedeff had prevented from
coming.
The funeral service produced a great effect on the prince. He whispered
to Lebedeff that this was the first time he had ever heard a Russian funeral
service since he was a little boy. Observing that he was looking about him
uneasily, Lebedeff asked him whom he was seeking.
“Nothing. I only thought I—”
“Is it Rogojin?”
“Why—is he here?”

“Yes, he’s in church.”
“I thought I caught sight of his eyes!” muttered the prince, in confusion.
“But what of it!—Why is he here? Was he asked?”
“Oh, dear, no! Why, they don’t even know him! Anyone can come in,
you know. Why do you look so amazed? I often meet him; I’ve seen him at
least four times, here at Pavlofsk, within the last week.”
“I haven’t seen him once—since that day!” the prince murmured.
As Nastasia Philipovna had not said a word about having met Rogojin
since “that day,” the prince concluded that the latter had his own reasons for
wishing to keep out of sight. All the day of the funeral our hero was in a
deeply thoughtful state, while Nastasia Philipovna was particularly merry,
both in the daytime and in the evening.
Colia had made it up with the prince before his father’s death, and it was
he who urged him to make use of Keller and Burdovsky, promising to
answer himself for the former’s behaviour. Nina Alexandrovna and
Lebedeff tried to persuade him to have the wedding in St. Petersburg,
instead of in the public fashion contemplated, down here at Pavlofsk in the
height of the season. But the prince only said that Nastasia Philipovna
desired to have it so, though he saw well enough what prompted their
arguments.
The next day Keller came to visit the prince. He was in a high state of
delight with the post of honour assigned to him at the wedding.
Before entering he stopped on the threshold, raised his hand as if making
a solemn vow, and cried:
“I won’t drink!”
Then he went up to the prince, seized both his hands, shook them
warmly, and declared that he had at first felt hostile towards the project of
this marriage, and had openly said so in the billiard-rooms, but that the
reason simply was that, with the impatience of a friend, he had hoped to see
the prince marry at least a Princess de Rohan or de Chabot; but that now he
saw that the prince’s way of thinking was ten times more noble than that of
“all the rest put together.” For he desired neither pomp nor wealth nor
honour, but only the truth! The sympathies of exalted personages were well
known, and the prince was too highly placed by his education, and so on,
not to be in some sense an exalted personage!

“But all the common herd judge differently; in the town, at the meetings,
in the villas, at the band, in the inns and the billiard-rooms, the coming
event has only to be mentioned and there are shouts and cries from
everybody. I have even heard talk of getting up a ‘charivari’ under the
windows on the wedding-night. So if ‘you have need of the pistol’ of an
honest man, prince, I am ready to fire half a dozen shots even before you
rise from your nuptial couch!”
Keller also advised, in anticipation of the crowd making a rush after the
ceremony, that a fire-hose should be placed at the entrance to the house; but
Lebedeff was opposed to this measure, which he said might result in the
place being pulled down.
“I assure you, prince, that Lebedeff is intriguing against you. He wants to
put you under control. Imagine that! To take ‘from you the use of your free-
will and your money’—that is to say, the two things that distinguish us from
the animals! I have heard it said positively. It is the sober truth.”
The prince recollected that somebody had told him something of the kind
before, and he had, of course, scoffed at it. He only laughed now, and forgot
the hint at once.
Lebedeff really had been busy for some little while; but, as usual, his
plans had become too complex to succeed, through sheer excess of ardour.
When he came to the prince—the very day before the wedding—to confess
(for he always confessed to the persons against whom he intrigued,
especially when the plan failed), he informed our hero that he himself was a
born Talleyrand, but for some unknown reason had become simple
Lebedeff. He then proceeded to explain his whole game to the prince,
interesting the latter exceedingly.
According to Lebedeff’s account, he had first tried what he could do with
General Epanchin. The latter informed him that he wished well to the
unfortunate young man, and would gladly do what he could to “save him,”
but that he did not think it would be seemly for him to interfere in this
matter. Lizabetha Prokofievna would neither hear nor see him. Prince S.
and Evgenie Pavlovitch only shrugged their shoulders, and implied that it
was no business of theirs. However, Lebedeff had not lost heart, and went
off to a clever lawyer,—a worthy and respectable man, whom he knew well.
This old gentleman informed him that the thing was perfectly feasible if he
could get hold of competent witnesses as to Muishkin’s mental incapacity.

Then, with the assistance of a few influential persons, he would soon see
the matter arranged.
Lebedeff immediately procured the services of an old doctor, and carried
the latter away to Pavlofsk to see the prince, by way of viewing the ground,
as it were, and to give him (Lebedeff) counsel as to whether the thing was
to be done or not. The visit was not to be official, but merely friendly.
Muishkin remembered the doctor’s visit quite well. He remembered that
Lebedeff had said that he looked ill, and had better see a doctor; and
although the prince scouted the idea, Lebedeff had turned up almost
immediately with his old friend, explaining that they had just met at the
bedside of Hippolyte, who was very ill, and that the doctor had something
to tell the prince about the sick man.
The prince had, of course, at once received him, and had plunged into a
conversation about Hippolyte. He had given the doctor an account of
Hippolyte’s attempted suicide; and had proceeded thereafter to talk of his
own malady,—of Switzerland, of Schneider, and so on; and so deeply was
the old man interested by the prince’s conversation and his description of
Schneider’s system, that he sat on for two hours.
Muishkin gave him excellent cigars to smoke, and Lebedeff, for his part,
regaled him with liqueurs, brought in by Vera, to whom the doctor—a
married man and the father of a family—addressed such compliments that
she was filled with indignation. They parted friends, and, after leaving the
prince, the doctor said to Lebedeff: “If all such people were put under
restraint, there would be no one left for keepers.” Lebedeff then, in tragic
tones, told of the approaching marriage, whereupon the other nodded his
head and replied that, after all, marriages like that were not so rare; that he
had heard that the lady was very fascinating and of extraordinary beauty,
which was enough to explain the infatuation of a wealthy man; that, further,
thanks to the liberality of Totski and of Rogojin, she possessed—so he had
heard—not only money, but pearls, diamonds, shawls, and furniture, and
consequently she could not be considered a bad match. In brief, it seemed to
the doctor that the prince’s choice, far from being a sign of foolishness,
denoted, on the contrary, a shrewd, calculating, and practical mind.
Lebedeff had been much struck by this point of view, and he terminated his
confession by assuring the prince that he was ready, if need be, to shed his
very life’s blood for him.

Hippolyte, too, was a source of some distraction to the prince at this time;
he would send for him at any and every hour of the day. They lived,—
Hippolyte and his mother and the children,—in a small house not far off,
and the little ones were happy, if only because they were able to escape
from the invalid into the garden. The prince had enough to do in keeping
the peace between the irritable Hippolyte and his mother, and eventually the
former became so malicious and sarcastic on the subject of the approaching
wedding, that Muishkin took offence at last, and refused to continue his
visits.
A couple of days later, however, Hippolyte’s mother came with tears in
her eyes, and begged the prince to come back, “or he would eat her up
bodily.” She added that Hippolyte had a great secret to disclose. Of course
the prince went. There was no secret, however, unless we reckon certain
pantings and agitated glances around (probably all put on) as the invalid
begged his visitor to “beware of Rogojin.”
“He is the sort of man,” he continued, “who won’t give up his object, you
know; he is not like you and me, prince—he belongs to quite a different
order of beings. If he sets his heart on a thing he won’t be afraid of anything
—” and so on.
Hippolyte was very ill, and looked as though he could not long survive.
He was tearful at first, but grew more and more sarcastic and malicious as
the interview proceeded.
The prince questioned him in detail as to his hints about Rogojin. He was
anxious to seize upon some facts which might confirm Hippolyte’s vague
warnings; but there were none; only Hippolyte’s own private impressions
and feelings.
However, the invalid—to his immense satisfaction—ended by seriously
alarming the prince.
At first Muishkin had not cared to make any reply to his sundry
questions, and only smiled in response to Hippolyte’s advice to “run for his
life—abroad, if necessary. There are Russian priests everywhere, and one
can get married all over the world.”
But it was Hippolyte’s last idea which upset him.
“What I am really alarmed about, though,” he said, “is Aglaya Ivanovna.
Rogojin knows how you love her. Love for love. You took Nastasia

Philipovna from him. He will murder Aglaya Ivanovna; for though she is
not yours, of course, now, still such an act would pain you,—wouldn’t it?”
He had attained his end. The prince left the house beside himself with
terror.
These warnings about Rogojin were expressed on the day before the
wedding. That evening the prince saw Nastasia Philipovna for the last time
before they were to meet at the altar; but Nastasia was not in a position to
give him any comfort or consolation. On the contrary, she only added to his
mental perturbation as the evening went on. Up to this time she had
invariably done her best to cheer him—she was afraid of his looking
melancholy; she would try singing to him, and telling him every sort of
funny story or reminiscence that she could recall. The prince nearly always
pretended to be amused, whether he were so actually or no; but often
enough he laughed sincerely, delighted by the brilliancy of her wit when she
was carried away by her narrative, as she very often was. Nastasia would be
wild with joy to see the impression she had made, and to hear his laugh of
real amusement; and she would remain the whole evening in a state of pride
and happiness. But this evening her melancholy and thoughtfulness grew
with every hour.
The prince had told Evgenie Pavlovitch with perfect sincerity that he
loved Nastasia Philipovna with all his soul. In his love for her there was the
sort of tenderness one feels for a sick, unhappy child which cannot be left
alone. He never spoke of his feelings for Nastasia to anyone, not even to
herself. When they were together they never discussed their “feelings,” and
there was nothing in their cheerful, animated conversation which an
outsider could not have heard. Daria Alexeyevna, with whom Nastasia was
staying, told afterwards how she had been filled with joy and delight only to
look at them, all this time.
Thanks to the manner in which he regarded Nastasia’s mental and moral
condition, the prince was to some extent freed from other perplexities. She
was now quite different from the woman he had known three months
before. He was not astonished, for instance, to see her now so impatient to
marry him—she who formerly had wept with rage and hurled curses and
reproaches at him if he mentioned marriage! “It shows that she no longer
fears, as she did then, that she would make me unhappy by marrying me,”
he thought. And he felt sure that so sudden a change could not be a natural

one. This rapid growth of self-confidence could not be due only to her
hatred for Aglaya. To suppose that would be to suspect the depth of her
feelings. Nor could it arise from dread of the fate that awaited her if she
married Rogojin. These causes, indeed, as well as others, might have played
a part in it, but the true reason, Muishkin decided, was the one he had long
suspected—that the poor sick soul had come to the end of its forces. Yet this
was an explanation that did not procure him any peace of mind. At times he
seemed to be making violent efforts to think of nothing, and one would
have said that he looked on his marriage as an unimportant formality, and
on his future happiness as a thing not worth considering. As to
conversations such as the one held with Evgenie Pavlovitch, he avoided
them as far as possible, feeling that there were certain objections to which
he could make no answer.
The prince had observed that Nastasia knew well enough what Aglaya
was to him. He never spoke of it, but he had seen her face when she had
caught him starting off for the Epanchins’ house on several occasions.
When the Epanchins left Pavlofsk, she had beamed with radiance and
happiness. Unsuspicious and unobservant as he was, he had feared at that
time that Nastasia might have some scheme in her mind for a scene or
scandal which would drive Aglaya out of Pavlofsk. She had encouraged the
rumours and excitement among the inhabitants of the place as to her
marriage with the prince, in order to annoy her rival; and, finding it difficult
to meet the Epanchins anywhere, she had, on one occasion, taken him for a
drive past their house. He did not observe what was happening until they
were almost passing the windows, when it was too late to do anything. He
said nothing, but for two days afterwards he was ill.
Nastasia did not try that particular experiment again. A few days before
that fixed for the wedding, she grew grave and thoughtful. She always
ended by getting the better of her melancholy, and becoming merry and
cheerful again, but not quite so unaffectedly happy as she had been some
days earlier.
The prince redoubled his attentive study of her symptoms. It was a most
curious circumstance, in his opinion, that she never spoke of Rogojin. But
once, about five days before the wedding, when the prince was at home, a
messenger arrived begging him to come at once, as Nastasia Philipovna was
very ill.

He had found her in a condition approaching to absolute madness. She
screamed, and trembled, and cried out that Rogojin was hiding out there in
the garden—that she had seen him herself—and that he would murder her
in the night—that he would cut her throat. She was terribly agitated all day.
But it so happened that the prince called at Hippolyte’s house later on, and
heard from his mother that she had been in town all day, and had there
received a visit from Rogojin, who had made inquiries about Pavlofsk. On
inquiry, it turned out that Rogojin visited the old lady in town at almost the
same moment when Nastasia declared that she had seen him in the garden;
so that the whole thing turned out to be an illusion on her part. Nastasia
immediately went across to Hippolyte’s to inquire more accurately, and
returned immensely relieved and comforted.
On the day before the wedding, the prince left Nastasia in a state of great
animation. Her wedding-dress and all sorts of finery had just arrived from
town. Muishkin had not imagined that she would be so excited over it, but
he praised everything, and his praise rendered her doubly happy.
But Nastasia could not hide the cause of her intense interest in her
wedding splendour. She had heard of the indignation in the town, and knew
that some of the populace was getting up a sort of charivari with music, that
verses had been composed for the occasion, and that the rest of Pavlofsk
society more or less encouraged these preparations. So, since attempts were
being made to humiliate her, she wanted to hold her head even higher than
usual, and to overwhelm them all with the beauty and taste of her toilette.
“Let them shout and whistle, if they dare!” Her eyes flashed at the thought.
But, underneath this, she had another motive, of which she did not speak.
She thought that possibly Aglaya, or at any rate someone sent by her, would
be present incognito at the ceremony, or in the crowd, and she wished to be
prepared for this eventuality.
The prince left her at eleven, full of these thoughts, and went home. But
it was not twelve o’clock when a messenger came to say that Nastasia was
very bad, and he must come at once.
On hurrying back he found his bride locked up in her own room and
could hear her hysterical cries and sobs. It was some time before she could
be made to hear that the prince had come, and then she opened the door
only just sufficiently to let him in, and immediately locked it behind him.

She then fell on her knees at his feet. (So at least Dana Alexeyevna
reported.)
“What am I doing? What am I doing to you?” she sobbed convulsively,
embracing his knees.
The prince was a whole hour soothing and comforting her, and left her, at
length, pacified and composed. He sent another messenger during the night
to inquire after her, and two more next morning. The last brought back a
message that Nastasia was surrounded by a whole army of dressmakers and
maids, and was as happy and as busy as such a beauty should be on her
wedding morning, and that there was not a vestige of yesterday’s agitation
remaining. The message concluded with the news that at the moment of the
bearer’s departure there was a great confabulation in progress as to which
diamonds were to be worn, and how.
This message entirely calmed the prince’s mind.
The following report of the proceedings on the wedding day may be
depended upon, as coming from eye-witnesses.
The wedding was fixed for eight o’clock in the evening. Nastasia
Philipovna was ready at seven. From six o’clock groups of people began to
gather at Nastasia’s house, at the prince’s, and at the church door, but more
especially at the former place. The church began to fill at seven.
Colia and Vera Lebedeff were very anxious on the prince’s account, but
they were so busy over the arrangements for receiving the guests after the
wedding, that they had not much time for the indulgence of personal
feelings.
There were to be very few guests besides the best men and so on; only
Dana Alexeyevna, the Ptitsins, Gania, and the doctor. When the prince
asked Lebedeff why he had invited the doctor, who was almost a stranger,
Lebedeff replied:
“Why, he wears an ‘order,’ and it looks so well!”
This idea amused the prince.
Keller and Burdovsky looked wonderfully correct in their dress-coats and
white kid gloves, although Keller caused the bridegroom some alarm by his
undisguisedly hostile glances at the gathering crowd of sight-seers outside.
At about half-past seven the prince started for the church in his carriage.

We may remark here that he seemed anxious not to omit a single one of
the recognized customs and traditions observed at weddings. He wished all
to be done as openly as possible, and “in due order.”
Arrived at the church, Muishkin, under Keller’s guidance, passed through
the crowd of spectators, amid continuous whispering and excited
exclamations. The prince stayed near the altar, while Keller made off once
more to fetch the bride.
On reaching the gate of Daria Alexeyevna’s house, Keller found a far
denser crowd than he had encountered at the prince’s. The remarks and
exclamations of the spectators here were of so irritating a nature that Keller
was very near making them a speech on the impropriety of their conduct,
but was luckily caught by Burdovsky, in the act of turning to address them,
and hurried indoors.
Nastasia Philipovna was ready. She rose from her seat, looked into the
glass and remarked, as Keller told the tale afterwards, that she was “as pale
as a corpse.” She then bent her head reverently, before the ikon in the
corner, and left the room.
A torrent of voices greeted her appearance at the front door. The crowd
whistled, clapped its hands, and laughed and shouted; but in a moment or
two isolated voices were distinguishable.
“What a beauty!” cried one.
“Well, she isn’t the first in the world, nor the last,” said another.
“Marriage covers everything,” observed a third.
“I defy you to find another beauty like that,” said a fourth.
“She’s a real princess! I’d sell my soul for such a princess as that!”
Nastasia came out of the house looking as white as any handkerchief; but
her large dark eyes shone upon the vulgar crowd like blazing coals. The
spectators’ cries were redoubled, and became more exultant and triumphant
every moment. The door of the carriage was open, and Keller had given his
hand to the bride to help her in, when suddenly with a loud cry she rushed
from him, straight into the surging crowd. Her friends about her were
stupefied with amazement; the crowd parted as she rushed through it, and
suddenly, at a distance of five or six yards from the carriage, appeared
Rogojin. It was his look that had caught her eyes.
Nastasia rushed to him like a madwoman, and seized both his hands.

“Save me!” she cried. “Take me away, anywhere you like, quick!”
Rogojin seized her in his arms and almost carried her to the carriage.
Then, in a flash, he tore a hundred-rouble note out of his pocket and held it
to the coachman.
“To the station, quick! If you catch the train you shall have another.
Quick!”
He leaped into the carriage after Nastasia and banged the door. The
coachman did not hesitate a moment; he whipped up the horses, and they
were off.
“One more second and I should have stopped him,” said Keller,
afterwards. In fact, he and Burdovsky jumped into another carriage and set
off in pursuit; but it struck them as they drove along that it was not much
use trying to bring Nastasia back by force.
“Besides,” said Burdovsky, “the prince would not like it, would he?” So
they gave up the pursuit.
Rogojin and Nastasia Philipovna reached the station just in time for the
train. As he jumped out of the carriage and was almost on the point of
entering the train, Rogojin accosted a young girl standing on the platform
and wearing an old-fashioned, but respectable-looking, black cloak and a
silk handkerchief over her head.
“Take fifty roubles for your cloak?” he shouted, holding the money out to
the girl. Before the astonished young woman could collect her scattered
senses, he pushed the money into her hand, seized the mantle, and threw it
and the handkerchief over Nastasia’s head and shoulders. The latter’s
wedding-array would have attracted too much attention, and it was not until
some time later that the girl understood why her old cloak and kerchief had
been bought at such a price.
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.
“I was afraid,” he muttered, scarcely audibly, “but I hardly thought it
would come to this.” Then after a short silence, he added: “However, in her

state, it is quite consistent with the natural order of things.”
Even Keller admitted afterwards that this was “extraordinarily
philosophical” on the prince’s part. He left the church quite calm, to all
appearances, as many witnesses were found to declare afterwards. He
seemed anxious to reach home and be left alone as quickly as possible; but
this was not to be. He was accompanied by nearly all the invited guests, and
besides this, the house was almost besieged by excited bands of people,
who insisted upon being allowed to enter the verandah. The prince heard
Keller and Lebedeff remonstrating and quarrelling with these unknown
individuals, and soon went out himself. He approached the disturbers of his
peace, requested courteously to be told what was desired; then politely
putting Lebedeff and Keller aside, he addressed an old gentleman who was
standing on the verandah steps at the head of the band of would-be guests,
and courteously requested him to honour him with a visit. The old fellow
was quite taken aback by this, but entered, followed by a few more, who
tried to appear at their ease. The rest remained outside, and presently the
whole crowd was censuring those who had accepted the invitation. The
prince offered seats to his strange visitors, tea was served, and a general
conversation sprang up. Everything was done most decorously, to the
considerable surprise of the intruders. A few tentative attempts were made
to turn the conversation to the events of the day, and a few indiscreet
questions were asked; but Muishkin replied to everybody with such
simplicity and good-humour, and at the same time with so much dignity,
and showed such confidence in the good breeding of his guests, that the
indiscreet talkers were quickly silenced. By degrees the conversation
became almost serious. One gentleman suddenly exclaimed, with great
vehemence: “Whatever happens, I shall not sell my property; I shall wait.
Enterprise is better than money, and there, sir, you have my whole system
of economy, if you wish!” He addressed the prince, who warmly
commended his sentiments, though Lebedeff whispered in his ear that this
gentleman, who talked so much of his “property,” had never had either
house or home.
Nearly an hour passed thus, and when tea was over the visitors seemed to
think that it was time to go. As they went out, the doctor and the old
gentleman bade Muishkin a warm farewell, and all the rest took their leave
with hearty protestations of good-will, dropping remarks to the effect that
“it was no use worrying,” and that “perhaps all would turn out for the best,”

and so on. Some of the younger intruders would have asked for champagne,
but they were checked by the older ones. When all had departed, Keller
leaned over to Lebedeff, and said:
“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!”
Lebedeff, who was slightly intoxicated, answered with a sigh:
“Things are hidden from the wise and prudent, and revealed unto babes. I
have applied those words to him before, but now I add that God has
preserved the babe himself from the abyss, He and all His saints.”
At last, about half-past ten, the prince was left alone. His head ached.
Colia was the last to go, after having helped him to change his wedding
clothes. They parted on affectionate terms, and, without speaking of what
had happened, Colia promised to come very early the next day. He said later
that the prince had given no hint of his intentions when they said good-bye,
but had hidden them even from him. Soon there was hardly anyone left in
the house. Burdovsky had gone to see Hippolyte; Keller and Lebedeff had
wandered off together somewhere.
Only Vera Lebedeff remained hurriedly rearranging the furniture in the
rooms. As she left the verandah, she glanced at the prince. He was seated at
the table, with both elbows upon it, and his head resting on his hands. She
approached him, and touched his shoulder gently. The prince started and
looked at her in perplexity; he seemed to be collecting his senses for a
minute or so, before he could remember where he was. As recollection
dawned upon him, he became violently agitated. All he did, however, was
to ask Vera very earnestly to knock at his door and awake him in time for
the first train to Petersburg next morning. Vera promised, and the prince
entreated her not to tell anyone of his intention. She promised this, too; and
at last, when she had half-closed the door, he called her back a third time,
took her hands in his, kissed them, then kissed her forehead, and in a rather
peculiar manner said to her, “Until tomorrow!”
Such was Vera’s story afterwards.
She went away in great anxiety about him, but when she saw him in the
morning, he seemed to be quite himself again, greeted her with a smile, and
told her that he would very likely be back by the evening. It appears that he

did not consider it necessary to inform anyone excepting Vera of his
departure for town.

XI.
An hour later he was in St. Petersburg, and by ten o’clock he had rung
the bell at Rogojin’s.
He had gone to the front door, and was kept waiting a long while before
anyone came. At last the door of old Mrs. Rogojin’s flat was opened, and an
aged servant appeared.
“Parfen Semionovitch is not at home,” she announced from the doorway.
“Whom do you want?”
“Parfen Semionovitch.”
“He is not in.”
The old woman examined the prince from head to foot with great
curiosity.
“At all events tell me whether he slept at home last night, and whether he
came alone?”
The old woman continued to stare at him, but said nothing.
“Was not Nastasia Philipovna here with him, yesterday evening?”
“And, pray, who are you yourself?”
“Prince Lef Nicolaievitch Muishkin; he knows me well.”
“He is not at home.”
The woman lowered her eyes.
“And Nastasia Philipovna?”
“I know nothing about it.”
“Stop a minute! When will he come back?”
“I don’t know that either.”
The door was shut with these words, and the old woman disappeared.
The prince decided to come back within an hour. Passing out of the house,
he met the porter.
“Is Parfen Semionovitch at home?” he asked.

“Yes.”
“Why did they tell me he was not at home, then?”
“Where did they tell you so,—at his door?”
“No, at his mother’s flat; I rang at Parfen Semionovitch’s door and
nobody came.”
“Well, he may have gone out. I can’t tell. Sometimes he takes the keys
with him, and leaves the rooms empty for two or three days.”
“Do you know for certain that he was at home last night?”
“Yes, he was.”
“Was Nastasia Philipovna with him?”
“I don’t know; she doesn’t come often. I think I should have known if
she had come.”
The prince went out deep in thought, and walked up and down the
pavement for some time. The windows of all the rooms occupied by
Rogojin were closed, those of his mother’s apartments were open. It was a
hot, bright day. The prince crossed the road in order to have a good look at
the windows again; not only were Rogojin’s closed, but the white blinds
were all down as well.
He stood there for a minute and then, suddenly and strangely enough, it
seemed to him that a little corner of one of the blinds was lifted, and
Rogojin’s face appeared for an instant and then vanished. He waited another
minute, and decided to go and ring the bell once more; however, he thought
better of it again and put it off for an hour.
The chief object in his mind at this moment was to get as quickly as he
could to Nastasia Philipovna’s lodging. He remembered that, not long since,
when she had left Pavlofsk at his request, he had begged her to put up in
town at the house of a respectable widow, who had well-furnished rooms to
let, near the Ismailofsky barracks. Probably Nastasia had kept the rooms
when she came down to Pavlofsk this last time; and most likely she would
have spent the night in them, Rogojin having taken her straight there from
the station.
The prince took a droshky. It struck him as he drove on that he ought to
have begun by coming here, since it was most improbable that Rogojin
should have taken Nastasia to his own house last night. He remembered that

the porter said she very rarely came at all, so that it was still less likely that
she would have gone there so late at night.
Vainly trying to comfort himself with these reflections, the prince
reached the Ismailofsky barracks more dead than alive.
To his consternation the good people at the lodgings had not only heard
nothing of Nastasia, but all came out to look at him as if he were a marvel
of some sort. The whole family, of all ages, surrounded him, and he was
begged to enter. He guessed at once that they knew perfectly well who he
was, and that yesterday ought to have been his wedding-day; and further
that they were dying to ask about the wedding, and especially about why he
should be here now, inquiring for the woman who in all reasonable human
probability might have been expected to be with him in Pavlofsk.
He satisfied their curiosity, in as few words as possible, with regard to the
wedding, but their exclamations and sighs were so numerous and sincere
that he was obliged to tell the whole story—in a short form, of course. The
advice of all these agitated ladies was that the prince should go at once and
knock at Rogojin’s until he was let in: and when let in insist upon a
substantial explanation of everything. If Rogojin was really not at home, the
prince was advised to go to a certain house, the address of which was given,
where lived a German lady, a friend of Nastasia Philipovna’s. It was
possible that she might have spent the night there in her anxiety to conceal
herself.
The prince rose from his seat in a condition of mental collapse. The good
ladies reported afterwards that “his pallor was terrible to see, and his legs
seemed to give way underneath him.” With difficulty he was made to
understand that his new friends would be glad of his address, in order to act
with him if possible. After a moment’s thought he gave the address of the
small hotel, on the stairs of which he had had a fit some five weeks since.
He then set off once more for Rogojin’s.
This time they neither opened the door at Rogojin’s flat nor at the one
opposite. The prince found the porter with difficulty, but when found, the
man would hardly look at him or answer his questions, pretending to be
busy. Eventually, however, he was persuaded to reply so far as to state that
Rogojin had left the house early in the morning and gone to Pavlofsk, and
that he would not return today at all.
“I shall wait; he may come back this evening.”

“He may not be home for a week.”
“Then, at all events, he did sleep here, did he?”
“Well—he did sleep here, yes.”
All this was suspicious and unsatisfactory. Very likely the porter had
received new instructions during the interval of the prince’s absence; his
manner was so different now. He had been obliging—now he was as
obstinate and silent as a mule. However, the prince decided to call again in
a couple of hours, and after that to watch the house, in case of need. His
hope was that he might yet find Nastasia at the address which he had just
received. To that address he now set off at full speed.
But alas! at the German lady’s house they did not even appear to
understand what he wanted. After a while, by means of certain hints, he was
able to gather that Nastasia must have had a quarrel with her friend two or
three weeks ago, since which date the latter had neither heard nor seen
anything of her. He was given to understand that the subject of Nastasia’s
present whereabouts was not of the slightest interest to her; and that
Nastasia might marry all the princes in the world for all she cared! So
Muishkin took his leave hurriedly. It struck him now that she might have
gone away to Moscow just as she had done the last time, and that Rogojin
had perhaps gone after her, or even with her. If only he could find some
trace!
However, he must take his room at the hotel; and he started off in that
direction. Having engaged his room, he was asked by the waiter whether he
would take dinner; replying mechanically in the affirmative, he sat down
and waited; but it was not long before it struck him that dining would delay
him. Enraged at this idea, he started up, crossed the dark passage (which
filled him with horrible impressions and gloomy forebodings), and set out
once more for Rogojin’s. Rogojin had not returned, and no one came to the
door. He rang at the old lady’s door opposite, and was informed that Parfen
Semionovitch would not return for three days. The curiosity with which the
old servant stared at him again impressed the prince disagreeably. He could
not find the porter this time at all.
As before, he crossed the street and watched the windows from the other
side, walking up and down in anguish of soul for half an hour or so in the
stifling heat. Nothing stirred; the blinds were motionless; indeed, the prince
began to think that the apparition of Rogojin’s face could have been nothing

but fancy. Soothed by this thought, he drove off once more to his friends at
the Ismailofsky barracks. He was expected there. The mother had already
been to three or four places to look for Nastasia, but had not found a trace
of any kind.
The prince said nothing, but entered the room, sat down silently, and
stared at them, one after the other, with the air of a man who cannot
understand what is being said to him. It was strange—one moment he
seemed to be so observant, the next so absent; his behaviour struck all the
family as most remarkable. At length he rose from his seat, and begged to
be shown Nastasia’s rooms. The ladies reported afterwards how he had
examined everything in the apartments. He observed an open book on the
table, Madam Bovary, and requested the leave of the lady of the house to
take it with him. He had turned down the leaf at the open page, and
pocketed it before they could explain that it was a library book. He had then
seated himself by the open window, and seeing a card-table, he asked who
played cards.
He was informed that Nastasia used to play with Rogojin every evening,
either at “preference” or “little fool,” or “whist”; that this had been their
practice since her last return from Pavlofsk; that she had taken to this
amusement because she did not like to see Rogojin sitting silent and dull for
whole evenings at a time; that the day after Nastasia had made a remark to
this effect, Rogojin had whipped a pack of cards out of his pocket. Nastasia
had laughed, but soon they began playing. The prince asked where were the
cards, but was told that Rogojin used to bring a new pack every day, and
always carried it away in his pocket.
The good ladies recommended the prince to try knocking at Rogojin’s
once more—not at once, but in the evening. Meanwhile, the mother would
go to Pavlofsk to inquire at Dana Alexeyevna’s whether anything had been
heard of Nastasia there. The prince was to come back at ten o’clock and
meet her, to hear her news and arrange plans for the morrow.
In spite of the kindly-meant consolations of his new friends, the prince
walked to his hotel in inexpressible anguish of spirit, through the hot, dusty
streets, aimlessly staring at the faces of those who passed him. Arrived at
his destination, he determined to rest awhile in his room before he started
for Rogojin’s once more. He sat down, rested his elbows on the table and
his head on his hands, and fell to thinking.

Heaven knows how long and upon what subjects he thought. He thought
of many things—of Vera Lebedeff, and of her father; of Hippolyte; of
Rogojin himself, first at the funeral, then as he had met him in the park,
then, suddenly, as they had met in this very passage, outside, when Rogojin
had watched in the darkness and awaited him with uplifted knife. The
prince remembered his enemy’s eyes as they had glared at him in the
darkness. He shuddered, as a sudden idea struck him.
This idea was, that if Rogojin were in Petersburg, though he might hide
for a time, yet he was quite sure to come to him—the prince—before long,
with either good or evil intentions, but probably with the same intention as
on that other occasion. At all events, if Rogojin were to come at all he
would be sure to seek the prince here—he had no other town address—
perhaps in this same corridor; he might well seek him here if he needed
him. And perhaps he did need him. This idea seemed quite natural to the
prince, though he could not have explained why he should so suddenly have
become necessary to Rogojin. Rogojin would not come if all were well with
him, that was part of the thought; he would come if all were not well; and
certainly, undoubtedly, all would not be well with him. The prince could not
bear this new idea; he took his hat and rushed out towards the street. It was
almost dark in the passage.
“What if he were to come out of that corner as I go by and—and stop
me?” thought the prince, as he approached the familiar spot. But no one
came out.
He passed under the gateway and into the street. The crowds of people
walking about—as is always the case at sunset in Petersburg, during the
summer—surprised him, but he walked on in the direction of Rogojin’s
house.
About fifty yards from the hotel, at the first cross-road, as he passed
through the crowd of foot-passengers sauntering along, someone touched
his shoulder, and said in a whisper into his ear:
“Lef Nicolaievitch, my friend, come along with me.” It was Rogojin.
The prince immediately began to tell him, eagerly and joyfully, how he
had but the moment before expected to see him in the dark passage of the
hotel.
“I was there,” said Rogojin, unexpectedly. “Come along.” The prince was
surprised at this answer; but his astonishment increased a couple of minutes

afterwards, when he began to consider it. Having thought it over, he glanced
at Rogojin in alarm. The latter was striding along a yard or so ahead,
looking straight in front of him, and mechanically making way for anyone
he met.
“Why did you not ask for me at my room if you were in the hotel?” asked
the prince, suddenly.
Rogojin stopped and looked at him; then reflected, and replied as though
he had not heard the question:
“Look here, Lef Nicolaievitch, you go straight on to the house; I shall
walk on the other side. See that we keep together.”
So saying, Rogojin crossed the road.
Arrived on the opposite pavement, he looked back to see whether the
prince were moving, waved his hand in the direction of the Gorohovaya,
and strode on, looking across every moment to see whether Muishkin
understood his instructions. The prince supposed that Rogojin desired to
look out for someone whom he was afraid to miss; but if so, why had he not
told him whom to look out for? So the two proceeded for half a mile or so.
Suddenly the prince began to tremble from some unknown cause. He could
not bear it, and signalled to Rogojin across the road.
The latter came at once.
“Is Nastasia Philipovna at your house?”
“Yes.”
“And was it you looked out of the window under the blind this
morning?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did—”
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.
“Well, I’m going,” he said, at last, preparing to recross the road. “You go
along here as before; we will keep to different sides of the road; it’s better
so, you’ll see.”

When they reached the Gorohovaya, and came near the house, the
prince’s legs were trembling so that he could hardly walk. It was about ten
o’clock. The old lady’s windows were open, as before; Rogojin’s were all
shut, and in the darkness the white blinds showed whiter than ever. Rogojin
and the prince each approached the house on his respective side of the road;
Rogojin, who was on the near side, beckoned the prince across. He went
over to the doorway.
“Even the porter does not know that I have come home now. I told him,
and told them at my mother’s too, that I was off to Pavlofsk,” said Rogojin,
with a cunning and almost satisfied smile. “We’ll go in quietly and nobody
will hear us.”
He had the key in his hand. Mounting the staircase he turned and
signalled to the prince to go more softly; he opened the door very quietly,
let the prince in, followed him, locked the door behind him, and put the key
in his pocket.
“Come along,” he whispered.
He had spoken in a whisper all the way. In spite of his apparent outward
composure, he was evidently in a state of great mental agitation. Arrived in
a large salon, next to the study, he went to the window and cautiously
beckoned the prince up to him.
“When you rang the bell this morning I thought it must be you. I went to
the door on tip-toe and heard you talking to the servant opposite. I had told
her before that if anyone came and rang—especially you, and I gave her
your name—she was not to tell about me. Then I thought, what if he goes
and stands opposite and looks up, or waits about to watch the house? So I
came to this very window, looked out, and there you were staring straight at
me. That’s how it came about.”
“Where is Nastasia Philipovna?” asked the prince, breathlessly.
“She’s here,” replied Rogojin, slowly, after a slight pause.
“Where?”
Rogojin raised his eyes and gazed intently at the prince.
“Come,” he said.
He continued to speak in a whisper, very deliberately as before, and
looked strangely thoughtful and dreamy. Even while he told the story of
how he had peeped through the blind, he gave the impression of wishing to

say something else. They entered the study. In this room some changes had
taken place since the prince last saw it. It was now divided into two equal
parts by a heavy green silk curtain stretched across it, separating the alcove
beyond, where stood Rogojin’s bed, from the rest of the room.
The heavy curtain was drawn now, and it was very dark. The bright
Petersburg summer nights were already beginning to close in, and but for
the full moon, it would have been difficult to distinguish anything in
Rogojin’s dismal room, with the drawn blinds. They could just see one
anothers faces, however, though not in detail. Rogojin’s face was white, as
usual. His glittering eyes watched the prince with an intent stare.
“Had you not better light a candle?” said Muishkin.
“No, I needn’t,” replied Rogojin, and taking the other by the hand he
drew him down to a chair. He himself took a chair opposite and drew it up
so close that he almost pressed against the prince’s knees. At their side was
a little round table.
“Sit down,” said Rogojin; “let’s rest a bit.” There was silence for a
moment.
“I knew you would be at that hotel,” he continued, just as men sometimes
commence a serious conversation by discussing any outside subject before
leading up to the main point. “As I entered the passage it struck me that
perhaps you were sitting and waiting for me, just as I was waiting for you.
Have you been to the old lady at Ismailofsky barracks?”
“Yes,” said the prince, squeezing the word out with difficulty owing to
the dreadful beating of his heart.
“I thought you would. ‘They’ll talk about it,’ I thought; so I determined
to go and fetch you to spend the night here—‘We will be together,’ I
thought, ‘for this one night—’”
“Rogojin, where is Nastasia Philipovna?” said the prince, suddenly rising
from his seat. He was quaking in all his limbs, and his words came in a
scarcely audible whisper. Rogojin rose also.
“There,” he whispered, nodding his head towards the curtain.
“Asleep?” whispered the prince.
Rogojin looked intently at him again, as before.
“Let’s go in—but you mustn’t—well—let’s go in.”

He lifted the curtain, paused—and turned to the prince. “Go in,” he said,
motioning him to pass behind the curtain. Muishkin went in.
“It’s so dark,” he said.
“You can see quite enough,” muttered Rogojin.
“I can just see there’s a bed—”
“Go nearer,” suggested Rogojin, softly.
The prince took a step forward—then another—and paused. He stood and
stared for a minute or two.
Neither of the men spoke a word while at the bedside. The prince’s heart
beat so loud that its knocking seemed to be distinctly audible in the deathly
silence.
But now his eyes had become so far accustomed to the darkness that he
could distinguish the whole of the bed. Someone was asleep upon it—in an
absolutely motionless sleep. Not the slightest movement was perceptible,
not the faintest breathing could be heard. The sleeper was covered with a
white sheet; the outline of the limbs was hardly distinguishable. He could
only just make out that a human being lay outstretched there.
All around, on the bed, on a chair beside it, on the floor, were scattered
the different portions of a magnificent white silk dress, bits of lace, ribbons
and flowers. On a small table at the bedside glittered a mass of diamonds,
torn off and thrown down anyhow. From under a heap of lace at the end of
the bed peeped a small white foot, which looked as though it had been
chiselled out of marble; it was terribly still.
The prince gazed and gazed, and felt that the more he gazed the more
death-like became the silence. Suddenly a fly awoke somewhere, buzzed
across the room, and settled on the pillow. The prince shuddered.
“Let’s go,” said Rogojin, touching his shoulder. They left the alcove and
sat down in the two chairs they had occupied before, opposite to one
another. The prince trembled more and more violently, and never took his
questioning eyes off Rogojin’s face.
“I see you are shuddering, Lef Nicolaievitch,” said the latter, at length,
“almost as you did once in Moscow, before your fit; don’t you remember? I
don’t know what I shall do with you—”

The prince bent forward to listen, putting all the strain he could muster
upon his understanding in order to take in what Rogojin said, and
continuing to gaze at the latter’s face.
“Was it you?” he muttered, at last, motioning with his head towards the
curtain.
“Yes, it was I,” whispered Rogojin, looking down.
Neither spoke for five minutes.
“Because, you know,” Rogojin recommenced, as though continuing a
former sentence, “if you were ill now, or had a fit, or screamed, or anything,
they might hear it in the yard, or even in the street, and guess that someone
was passing the night in the house. They would all come and knock and
want to come in, because they know I am not at home. I didn’t light a
candle for the same reason. When I am not here—for two or three days at a
time, now and then—no one comes in to tidy the house or anything; those
are my orders. So that I want them to not know we are spending the night
here—”
“Wait,” interrupted the prince. “I asked both the porter and the woman
whether Nastasia Philipovna had spent last night in the house; so they knew
—”
“I know you asked. I told them that she had called in for ten minutes, and
then gone straight back to Pavlofsk. No one knows she slept here. Last
night we came in just as carefully as you and I did today. I thought as I
came along with her that she would not like to creep in so secretly, but I
was quite wrong. She whispered, and walked on tip-toe; she carried her
skirt over her arm, so that it shouldn’t rustle, and she held up her finger at
me on the stairs, so that I shouldn’t make a noise—it was you she was
afraid of. She was mad with terror in the train, and she begged me to bring
her to this house. I thought of taking her to her rooms at the Ismailofsky
barracks first; but she wouldn’t hear of it. She said, ‘No—not there; he’ll
find me out at once there. Take me to your own house, where you can hide
me, and tomorrow we’ll set off for Moscow.’ Thence she would go to Orel,
she said. When she went to bed, she was still talking about going to Orel.”
“Wait! What do you intend to do now, Parfen?”
“Well, I’m afraid of you. You shudder and tremble so. We’ll pass the
night here together. There are no other beds besides that one; but I’ve

thought how we’ll manage. I’ll take the cushions off all the sofas, and lay
them down on the floor, up against the curtain here—for you and me—so
that we shall be together. For if they come in and look about now, you
know, they’ll find her, and carry her away, and they’ll be asking me
questions, and I shall say I did it, and then they’ll take me away, too, don’t
you see? So let her lie close to us—close to you and me.”
“Yes, yes,” agreed the prince, warmly.
“So we will not say anything about it, or let them take her away?”
“Not for anything!” cried the other; “no, no, no!”
“So I had decided, my friend; not to give her up to anyone,” continued
Rogojin. “We’ll be very quiet. I have only been out of the house one hour
all day, all the rest of the time I have been with her. I dare say the air is very
bad here. It is so hot. Do you find it bad?”
“I don’t know—perhaps—by morning it will be.”
“I’ve covered her with oilcloth—best American oilcloth, and put the
sheet over that, and four jars of disinfectant, on account of the smell—as
they did at Moscow—you remember? And she’s lying so still; you shall see,
in the morning, when it’s light. What! can’t you get up?” asked Rogojin,
seeing the other was trembling so that he could not rise from his seat.
“My legs won’t move,” said the prince; “it’s fear, I know. When my fear
is over, I’ll get up—”
“Wait a bit—I’ll make the bed, and you can lie down. I’ll lie down, too,
and we’ll listen and watch, for I don’t know yet what I shall do... I tell you
beforehand, so that you may be ready in case I—”
Muttering these disconnected words, Rogojin began to make up the beds.
It was clear that he had devised these beds long before; last night he slept
on the sofa. But there was no room for two on the sofa, and he seemed
anxious that he and the prince should be close to one another; therefore, he
now dragged cushions of all sizes and shapes from the sofas, and made a
sort of bed of them close by the curtain. He then approached the prince, and
gently helped him to rise, and led him towards the bed. But the prince could
now walk by himself, so that his fear must have passed; for all that,
however, he continued to shudder.
“It’s hot weather, you see,” continued Rogojin, as he lay down on the
cushions beside Muishkin, “and, naturally, there will be a smell. I daren’t

open the window. My mother has some beautiful flowers in pots; they have
a delicious scent; I thought of fetching them in, but that old servant will find
out, she’s very inquisitive.”
“Yes, she is inquisitive,” assented the prince.
“I thought of buying flowers, and putting them all round her; but I was
afraid it would make us sad to see her with flowers round her.”
“Look here,” said the prince; he was bewildered, and his brain wandered.
He seemed to be continually groping for the questions he wished to ask, and
then losing them. “Listen—tell me—how did you—with a knife?—That
same one?”
“Yes, that same one.”
“Wait a minute, I want to ask you something else, Parfen; all sorts of
things; but tell me first, did you intend to kill her before my wedding, at the
church door, with your knife?”
“I don’t know whether I did or not,” said Rogojin, drily, seeming to be a
little astonished at the question, and not quite taking it in.
“Did you never take your knife to Pavlofsk with you?”
“No. As to the knife,” he added, “this is all I can tell you about it.” He
was silent for a moment, and then said, “I took it out of the locked drawer
this morning about three, for it was in the early morning all this—happened.
It has been inside the book ever since—and—and—this is what is such a
marvel to me, the knife only went in a couple of inches at most, just under
her left breast, and there wasn’t more than half a tablespoonful of blood
altogether, not more.”
“Yes—yes—yes—” The prince jumped up in extraordinary agitation. “I
know, I know, I’ve read of that sort of thing—it’s internal haemorrhage, you
know. Sometimes there isn’t a drop—if the blow goes straight to the heart
—”
“Wait—listen!” cried Rogojin, suddenly, starting up. “Somebody’s
walking about, do you hear? In the hall.” Both sat up to listen.
“I hear,” said the prince in a whisper, his eyes fixed on Rogojin.
“Footsteps?”
“Yes.”
“Shall we shut the door, and lock it, or not?”

“Yes, lock it.”
They locked the door, and both lay down again. There was a long silence.
“Yes, by-the-by,” whispered the prince, hurriedly and excitedly as before,
as though he had just seized hold of an idea and was afraid of losing it
again. “I—I wanted those cards! They say you played cards with her?”
“Yes, I played with her,” said Rogojin, after a short silence.
“Where are the cards?”
“Here they are,” said Rogojin, after a still longer pause.
He pulled out a pack of cards, wrapped in a bit of paper, from his pocket,
and handed them to the prince. The latter took them, with a sort of
perplexity. A new, sad, helpless feeling weighed on his heart; he had
suddenly realized that not only at this moment, but for a long while, he had
not been saying what he wanted to say, had not been acting as he wanted to
act; and that these cards which he held in his hand, and which he had been
so delighted to have at first, were now of no use—no use... He rose, and
wrung his hands. Rogojin lay motionless, and seemed neither to hear nor
see his movements; but his eyes blazed in the darkness, and were fixed in a
wild stare.
The prince sat down on a chair, and watched him in alarm. Half an hour
went by.
Suddenly Rogojin burst into a loud abrupt laugh, as though he had quite
forgotten that they must speak in whispers.
“That officer, eh!—that young officer—don’t you remember that fellow
at the band? Eh? Ha, ha, ha! Didn’t she whip him smartly, eh?”
The prince jumped up from his seat in renewed terror. When Rogojin
quieted down (which he did at once) the prince bent over him, sat down
beside him, and with painfully beating heart and still more painful breath,
watched his face intently. Rogojin never turned his head, and seemed to
have forgotten all about him. The prince watched and waited. Time went on
—it began to grow light.
Rogojin began to wander—muttering disconnectedly; then he took to
shouting and laughing. The prince stretched out a trembling hand and gently
stroked his hair and his cheeks—he could do nothing more. His legs
trembled again and he seemed to have lost the use of them. A new sensation
came over him, filling his heart and soul with infinite anguish.

Meanwhile the daylight grew full and strong; and at last the prince lay
down, as though overcome by despair, and laid his face against the white,
motionless face of Rogojin. His tears flowed on to Rogojin’s cheek, though
he was perhaps not aware of them himself.
At all events when, after many hours, the door was opened and people
thronged in, they found the murderer unconscious and in a raging fever. The
prince was sitting by him, motionless, and each time that the sick man gave
a laugh, or a shout, he hastened to pass his own trembling hand over his
companion’s hair and cheeks, as though trying to soothe and quiet him. But
alas! he understood nothing of what was said to him, and recognized none
of those who surrounded him.
If Schneider himself had arrived then and seen his former pupil and
patient, remembering the prince’s condition during the first year in
Switzerland, he would have flung up his hands, despairingly, and cried, as
he did then:
“An idiot!”

XII.
When the widow hurried away to Pavlofsk, she went straight to Daria
Alexeyevna’s house, and telling all she knew, threw her into a state of great
alarm. Both ladies decided to communicate at once with Lebedeff, who, as
the friend and landlord of the prince, was also much agitated. Vera Lebedeff
told all she knew, and by Lebedeff’s advice it was decided that all three
should go to Petersburg as quickly as possible, in order to avert “what might
so easily happen.”
This is how it came about that at eleven o’clock next morning Rogojin’s
flat was opened by the police in the presence of Lebedeff, the two ladies,
and Rogojin’s own brother, who lived in the wing.
The evidence of the porter went further than anything else towards the
success of Lebedeff in gaining the assistance of the police. He declared that
he had seen Rogojin return to the house last night, accompanied by a friend,
and that both had gone upstairs very secretly and cautiously. After this there
was no hesitation about breaking open the door, since it could not be got
open in any other way.

Rogojin suffered from brain fever for two months. When he recovered
from the attack he was at once brought up on trial for murder.
He gave full, satisfactory, and direct evidence on every point; and the
prince’s name was, thanks to this, not brought into the proceedings. Rogojin
was very quiet during the progress of the trial. He did not contradict his
clever and eloquent counsel, who argued that the brain fever, or
inflammation of the brain, was the cause of the crime; clearly proving that
this malady had existed long before the murder was perpetrated, and had
been brought on by the sufferings of the accused.
But Rogojin added no words of his own in confirmation of this view, and
as before, he recounted with marvellous exactness the details of his crime.
He was convicted, but with extenuating circumstances, and condemned to
hard labour in Siberia for fifteen years. He heard his sentence grimly,
silently, and thoughtfully. His colossal fortune, with the exception of the
comparatively small portion wasted in the first wanton period of his
inheritance, went to his brother, to the great satisfaction of the latter.
The old lady, Rogojin’s mother, is still alive, and remembers her
favourite son Parfen sometimes, but not clearly. God spared her the
knowledge of this dreadful calamity which had overtaken her house.
Lebedeff, Keller, Gania, Ptitsin, and many other friends of ours continue
to live as before. There is scarcely any change in them, so that there is no
need to tell of their subsequent doings.
Hippolyte died in great agitation, and rather sooner than he expected,
about a fortnight after Nastasia Philipovna’s death. Colia was much affected
by these events, and drew nearer to his mother in heart and sympathy. Nina
Alexandrovna is anxious, because he is “thoughtful beyond his years,” but
he will, we think, make a useful and active man.
The prince’s further fate was more or less decided by Colia, who
selected, out of all the persons he had met during the last six or seven
months, Evgenie Pavlovitch, as friend and confidant. To him he made over
all that he knew as to the events above recorded, and as to the present
condition of the prince. He was not far wrong in his choice. Evgenie
Pavlovitch took the deepest interest in the fate of the unfortunate “idiot,”
and, thanks to his influence, the prince found himself once more with Dr.
Schneider, in Switzerland.

Evgenie Pavlovitch, who went abroad at this time, intending to live a
long while on the continent, being, as he often said, quite superfluous in
Russia, visits his sick friend at Schneider’s every few months.
But Dr. Schneider frowns ever more and more and shakes his head; he
hints that the brain is fatally injured; he does not as yet declare that his
patient is incurable, but he allows himself to express the gravest fears.
Evgenie takes this much to heart, and he has a heart, as is proved by the
fact that he receives and even answers letters from Colia. But besides this,
another trait in his character has become apparent, and as it is a good trait
we will make haste to reveal it. After each visit to Schneider’s
establishment, Evgenie Pavlovitch writes another letter, besides that to
Colia, giving the most minute particulars concerning the invalid’s condition.
In these letters is to be detected, and in each one more than the last, a
growing feeling of friendship and sympathy.
The individual who corresponds thus with Evgenie Pavlovitch, and who
engages so much of his attention and respect, is Vera Lebedeff. We have
never been able to discover clearly how such relations sprang up. Of course
the root of them was in the events which we have already recorded, and
which so filled Vera with grief on the prince’s account that she fell seriously
ill. But exactly how the acquaintance and friendship came about, we cannot
say.
We have spoken of these letters chiefly because in them is often to be
found some news of the Epanchin family, and of Aglaya in particular.
Evgenie Pavlovitch wrote of her from Paris, that after a short and sudden
attachment to a certain Polish count, an exile, she had suddenly married
him, quite against the wishes of her parents, though they had eventually
given their consent through fear of a terrible scandal. Then, after a six
months’ silence, Evgenie Pavlovitch informed his correspondent, in a long
letter, full of detail, that while paying his last visit to Dr. Schneider’s
establishment, he had there come across the whole Epanchin family
(excepting the general, who had remained in St. Petersburg) and Prince S.
The meeting was a strange one. They all received Evgenie Pavlovitch with
effusive delight; Adelaida and Alexandra were deeply grateful to him for his
“angelic kindness to the unhappy prince.”
Lizabetha Prokofievna, when she saw poor Muishkin, in his enfeebled
and humiliated condition, had wept bitterly. Apparently all was forgiven

him.
Prince S. had made a few just and sensible remarks. It seemed to Evgenie
Pavlovitch that there was not yet perfect harmony between Adelaida and her
fiance, but he thought that in time the impulsive young girl would let
herself be guided by his reason and experience. Besides, the recent events
that had befallen her family had given Adelaida much to think about,
especially the sad experiences of her younger sister. Within six months,
everything that the family had dreaded from the marriage with the Polish
count had come to pass. He turned out to be neither count nor exile—at
least, in the political sense of the word—but had had to leave his native land
owing to some rather dubious affair of the past. It was his noble patriotism,
of which he made a great display, that had rendered him so interesting in
Aglaya’s eyes. She was so fascinated that, even before marrying him, she
joined a committee that had been organized abroad to work for the
restoration of Poland; and further, she visited the confessional of a
celebrated Jesuit priest, who made an absolute fanatic of her. The supposed
fortune of the count had dwindled to a mere nothing, although he had given
almost irrefutable evidence of its existence to Lizabetha Prokofievna and
Prince S.
Besides this, before they had been married half a year, the count and his
friend the priest managed to bring about a quarrel between Aglaya and her
family, so that it was now several months since they had seen her. In a
word, there was a great deal to say; but Mrs. Epanchin, and her daughters,
and even Prince S., were still so much distressed by Aglaya’s latest
infatuations and adventures, that they did not care to talk of them, though
they must have known that Evgenie knew much of the story already.
Poor Lizabetha Prokofievna was most anxious to get home, and,
according to Evgenie’s account, she criticized everything foreign with much
hostility.
“They can’t bake bread anywhere, decently; and they all freeze in their
houses, during winter, like a lot of mice in a cellar. At all events, I’ve had a
good Russian cry over this poor fellow,” she added, pointing to the prince,
who had not recognized her in the slightest degree. “So enough of this
nonsense; it’s time we faced the truth. All this continental life, all this
Europe of yours, and all the trash about ‘going abroad’ is simply foolery,

and it is mere foolery on our part to come. Remember what I say, my friend;
you’ll live to agree with me yourself.”
So spoke the good lady, almost angrily, as she took leave of Evgenie
Pavlovitch.

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