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“I beg your pardon, gentlemen; please excuse me,” said the prince. “I thought
absolute frankness on both sides would be best, but have it your own way. I told
Tchebaroff that, as I was not in Petersburg, I would commission a friend to look
into the matter without delay, and that I would let you know, Mr. Burdovsky.
Gentlemen, I have no hesitation in telling you that it was the fact of
Tchebaroff’s intervention that made me suspect a fraud. Oh! do not take offence
at my words, gentlemen, for Heaven’s sake do not be so touchy!” cried the
prince, seeing that Burdovsky was getting excited again, and that the rest were
preparing to protest. “If I say I suspected a fraud, there is nothing personal
in that. I had never seen any of you then; I did not even know your names; I
only judged by Tchebaroff; I am speaking quite generally--if you only knew how I
have been ‘done’ since I came into my fortune!”

“Why, goodness me, don’t you know?” Varia stopped short.

There was evidently, he concluded, something at work here; some storm of the
mind, some paroxysm of romantic anger, goodness knows against whom or what, some
insatiable contempt--in a word, something altogether absurd and impossible, but
at the same time most dangerous to be met with by any respectable person with a
position in society to keep up.

“Are you trying to frighten me? I am not Tania, you know, and I don’t intend to
run away. Look, you are waking Lubotchka, and she will have convulsions again.
Why do you shout like that?”

“I will not deceive you. ‘Reality’ got me so entrapped in its meshes now and
again during the past six months, that I forgot my ‘sentence’ (or perhaps I did
not wish to think of it), and actually busied myself with affairs.

But the old lady, before Parfen had time to touch her, raised her right hand,
and, with three fingers held up, devoutly made the sign of the cross three times
over the prince. She then nodded her head kindly at him once more.

Evidently the quiet, pleasant current of the family life of the Epanchins was
about to undergo a change.

But they all laughed on.

“No, I left it where it was.”

“Yes, I am Rogojin, Parfen Rogojin.”

“Yes.”

“All the while I was in their house I felt sure that somewhere beneath the floor
there was hidden away some dreadful corpse, wrapped in oil-cloth, perhaps buried
there by his father, who knows? Just as in the Moscow case. I could have shown
you the very spot!

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.

Burdovsky next jumped up and explained that he had come in by accident, having
escorted Hippolyte from town. He murmured that he was glad he had “written
nonsense” in his letter, and then pressed the prince’s hand warmly and sat down
again.

His change of dress was evidently a matter of some importance. Adelaida and
Alexandra poured out a stream of questions; Prince S., a relative of the young
man, appeared annoyed; and Ivan Fedorovitch quite excited. Aglaya alone was not
interested. She merely looked closely at Evgenie for a minute, curious perhaps
as to whether civil or military clothes became him best, then turned away and
paid no more attention to him or his costume. Lizabetha Prokofievna asked no
questions, but it was clear that she was uneasy, and the prince fancied that
Evgenie was not in her good graces.

The prince muttered something, blushed, and jumped up; but Aglaya immediately
sat down beside him; so he reseated himself.

Nastasia Philipovna overheard the remark, and burst out laughing.

Suddenly Aglaya entered the verandah. She seemed to be quite calm, though a
little pale.

Keller suddenly left his seat, and approached Lizabetha Prokofievna.

The prince seemed quite distracted for the moment.

“Whom did you tell about it?”

His words seemed tinged with a kind of sarcastic mockery, yet he was extremely
agitated, casting suspicious glances around him, growing confused, and
constantly losing the thread of his ideas. All this, together with his
consumptive appearance, and the frenzied expression of his blazing eyes,
naturally attracted the attention of everyone present.

“‘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:

“Did no one awake me besides yourself? Was there no one else here? I thought
there was another woman.”

“No, he has not.”

Just before he dozed off, the idea of Hippolyte murdering ten men flitted
through his brain, and he smiled at the absurdity of such a thought.

“Suppose we all go away?” said Ferdishenko suddenly.

“Where’s your brother?”

“Yesterday morning the prince came to see me. Among other things he asked me to
come down to his villa. I knew he would come and persuade me to this step, and
that he would adduce the argument that it would be easier for me to die ‘among
people and green trees,’--as he expressed it. But today he did not say ‘die,’ he
said ‘live.’ It is pretty much the same to me, in my position, which he says.
When I asked him why he made such a point of his ‘green trees,’ he told me, to
my astonishment, that he had heard that last time I was in Pavlofsk I had said
that I had come ‘to have a last look at the trees.’

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.

“Never come near my house again!” cried Mrs. Epanchin, pale with rage. “Don’t
let me see as much as a _shadow_ of you about the place! Do you hear?”

The prince was away for six months, and even those who were most interested in
his destiny were able to pick up very little news about him all that while.
True, certain rumours did reach his friends, but these were both strange and
rare, and each one contradicted the last.

“Nastasia Philipovna!” said the general, in persuasive but agitated tones.

Gania lit a cigarette and offered one to the prince. The latter accepted the
offer, but did not talk, being unwilling to disturb Gania’s work. He commenced
to examine the study and its contents. But Gania hardly so much as glanced at
the papers lying before him; he was absent and thoughtful, and his smile and
general appearance struck the prince still more disagreeably now that the two
were left alone together.

“Yes, quite so; very remarkable.”

“He said that those five minutes seemed to him to be a most interminable period,
an enormous wealth of time; he seemed to be living, in these minutes, so many
lives that there was no need as yet to think of that last moment, so that he
made several arrangements, dividing up the time into portions--one for saying
farewell to his companions, two minutes for that; then a couple more for
thinking over his own life and career and all about himself; and another minute
for a last look around. He remembered having divided his time like this quite
well. While saying good-bye to his friends he recollected asking one of them
some very usual everyday question, and being much interested in the answer. Then
having bade farewell, he embarked upon those two minutes which he had allotted
to looking into himself; he knew beforehand what he was going to think about. He
wished to put it to himself as quickly and clearly as possible, that here was
he, a living, thinking man, and that in three minutes he would be nobody; or if
somebody or something, then what and where? He thought he would decide this
question once for all in these last three minutes. A little way off there stood
a church, and its gilded spire glittered in the sun. He remembered staring
stubbornly at this spire, and at the rays of light sparkling from it. He could
not tear his eyes from these rays of light; he got the idea that these rays were
his new nature, and that in three minutes he would become one of them,
amalgamated somehow with them.

“For Heaven’s sake, don’t misunderstand me! Do not think that I humiliate myself
by writing thus to you, or that I belong to that class of people who take a
satisfaction in humiliating themselves--from pride. I have my consolation,
though it would be difficult to explain it--but I do not humiliate myself.

“I tell you, sir, he wished it himself!”

He seemed to pause for a reply, for some verdict, as it were, and looked humbly
around him.

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.

“Oh well, very little business. There is one little matter--some advice I am
going to ask him for; but my principal object is simply to introduce myself,
because I am Prince Muishkin, and Madame Epanchin is the last of her branch of
the house, and besides herself and me there are no other Muishkins left.”

“It was Nastasia Philipovna,” said the prince; “didn’t you know that? I cannot
tell you who her companion was.”

No one replied.

“This is your doing, prince,” said Gania, turning on the latter so soon as the
others were all out of the room. “This is your doing, sir! _You_ have been
telling them that I am going to be married!” He said this in a hurried whisper,
his eyes flashing with rage and his face ablaze. “You shameless tattler!”

One of them was a young fellow of about twenty-seven, not tall, with black
curling hair, and small, grey, fiery eyes. His nose was broad and flat, and he
had high cheek bones; his thin lips were constantly compressed into an impudent,
ironical--it might almost be called a malicious--smile; but his forehead was
high and well formed, and atoned for a good deal of the ugliness of the lower
part of his face. A special feature of this physiognomy was its death-like
pallor, which gave to the whole man an indescribably emaciated appearance in
spite of his hard look, and at the same time a sort of passionate and suffering
expression which did not harmonize with his impudent, sarcastic smile and keen,
self-satisfied bearing. He wore a large fur--or rather astrachan--overcoat,
which had kept him warm all night, while his neighbour had been obliged to bear
the full severity of a Russian November night entirely unprepared. His wide
sleeveless mantle with a large cape to it--the sort of cloak one sees upon
travellers during the winter months in Switzerland or North Italy--was by no
means adapted to the long cold journey through Russia, from Eydkuhnen to St.
Petersburg.

“It was Gogol, in Dead Souls, father,” cried Colia, glancing at him in some
alarm.

“Show it me!”

“I am, of course, quite ready to add my efforts to yours in such a case,” said
the prince, rising; “but I confess, Lebedeff, that I am terribly perplexed. Tell
me, do you still think... plainly, you say yourself that you suspect Mr.
Ferdishenko?”

“Why--is he here?”

Besides this, it was clear that the Epanchins’ position gained each year, with
geometrical accuracy, both as to financial solidity and social weight; and,
therefore, the longer the girls waited, the better was their chance of making a
brilliant match.

We may as well remark that the general had guessed perfectly accurately.

The fire, choked between a couple of smouldering pieces of wood, had died down
for the first few moments after the packet was thrown upon it. But a little
tongue of fire now began to lick the paper from below, and soon, gathering
courage, mounted the sides of the parcel, and crept around it. In another
moment, the whole of it burst into flames, and the exclamations of woe and
horror were redoubled.

“Why, it was yourself who advised me to bring him over!”

“Yes.”

“I beg your pardon, gentlemen; please excuse me,” said the prince. “I thought
absolute frankness on both sides would be best, but have it your own way. I told
Tchebaroff that, as I was not in Petersburg, I would commission a friend to look
into the matter without delay, and that I would let you know, Mr. Burdovsky.
Gentlemen, I have no hesitation in telling you that it was the fact of
Tchebaroff’s intervention that made me suspect a fraud. Oh! do not take offence
at my words, gentlemen, for Heaven’s sake do not be so touchy!” cried the
prince, seeing that Burdovsky was getting excited again, and that the rest were
preparing to protest. “If I say I suspected a fraud, there is nothing personal
in that. I had never seen any of you then; I did not even know your names; I
only judged by Tchebaroff; I am speaking quite generally--if you only knew how I
have been ‘done’ since I came into my fortune!”

“I knew you’d be wandering about somewhere here. I didn’t have to look for you
very long,” muttered the latter between his teeth.

“Well?”

“Oh, I won’t read it,” said the prince, quite simply.

XII.

“Whoever _can_ suffer is worthy to suffer, I should think. Aglaya Ivanovna
wished to see you, after she had read your confession, but--”

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?

“I beg your pardon, I--”

The sufferer was immediately taken to his room, and though he partially regained
consciousness, he lay long in a semi-dazed condition.

“Well done, prince, capital!” cried Aglaya, who entered the room at this moment.
“Thank you for assuming that I would not demean myself with lies. Come, is that
enough, mamma, or do you intend to put any more questions?”

“Why not?”

“_What_ poor knight?” asked Mrs. Epanchin, looking round at the face of each of
the speakers in turn. Seeing, however, that Aglaya was blushing, she added,
angrily:

“Twenty-five roubles.”

“Oh yes, I do; but it is so unnecessary. I mean, I did not think you need make
such a proposition,” said the prince, looking confused.

“You’ll hate her afterwards for all your present love, and for all the torment
you are suffering on her account now. What seems to me the most extraordinary
thing is, that she can again consent to marry you, after all that has passed
between you. When I heard the news yesterday, I could hardly bring myself to
believe it. Why, she has run twice from you, from the very altar rails, as it
were. She must have some presentiment of evil. What can she want with you now?
Your money? Nonsense! Besides, I should think you must have made a fairly large
hole in your fortune already. Surely it is not because she is so very anxious to
find a husband? She could find many a one besides yourself. Anyone would be
better than you, because you will murder her, and I feel sure she must know that
but too well by now. Is it because you love her so passionately? Indeed, that
may be it. I have heard that there are women who want just that kind of love...
but still...” The prince paused, reflectively.

“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.

“Don’t, Colia,--what is the use of saying all that?” cried the prince, rising
and taking his hat.

Mrs. Epanchin gazed keenly into the prince’s eyes. She was anxious to see what
impression the news as to Evgenie Pavlovitch had made upon him.

“Good-morning! My head whirls so; I didn’t sleep all night. I should like to
have a nap now.”

It was clear that he came out with these words quite spontaneously, on the spur
of the moment. But his speech was productive of much--for it appeared that all
Gania’s rage now overflowed upon the prince. He seized him by the shoulder and
gazed with an intensity of loathing and revenge at him, but said nothing--as
though his feelings were too strong to permit of words.

“I arrived at the old woman’s house beside myself. She was sitting in a corner
all alone, leaning her face on her hand. I fell on her like a clap of thunder.
‘You old wretch!’ I yelled and all that sort of thing, in real Russian style.
Well, when I began cursing at her, a strange thing happened. I looked at her,
and she stared back with her eyes starting out of her head, but she did not say
a word. She seemed to sway about as she sat, and looked and looked at me in the
strangest way. Well, I soon stopped swearing and looked closer at her, asked her
questions, but not a word could I get out of her. The flies were buzzing about
the room and only this sound broke the silence; the sun was setting outside; I
didn’t know what to make of it, so I went away.

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.

“Yes, unless she has gone to Pavlofsk: the fine weather may have tempted her,
perhaps, into the country, with Daria Alexeyevna. ‘I am quite free,’ she says.
Only yesterday she boasted of her freedom to Nicolai Ardalionovitch--a bad
sign,” added Lebedeff, smiling.

“Practised hand--eh?”

If, loving a woman above everything in the world, or at least having a foretaste
of the possibility of such love for her, one were suddenly to behold her on a
chain, behind bars and under the lash of a keeper, one would feel something like
what the poor prince now felt.

“Four of us, including myself, in two rooms. The general, myself, Keller, and
Ferdishenko. One of us four it must have been. I don’t suspect myself, though
such cases have been known.”

We said at the beginning of our story, that the Epanchins were liked and
esteemed by their neighbours. In spite of his humble origin, Ivan Fedorovitch
himself was received everywhere with respect. He deserved this, partly on
account of his wealth and position, partly because, though limited, he was
really a very good fellow. But a certain limitation of mind seems to be an
indispensable asset, if not to all public personages, at least to all serious
financiers. Added to this, his manner was modest and unassuming; he knew when to
be silent, yet never allowed himself to be trampled upon. Also--and this was
more important than all--he had the advantage of being under exalted patronage.

“Oh no! Never.”

“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.”

The prince reflected a little, but very soon he replied, with absolute
conviction in his tone, though he still spoke somewhat shyly and timidly:

“Hide-and-seek? What do you mean?” inquired Mrs. Epanchin.

“In the first place, what is liberalism, speaking generally, but an attack
(whether mistaken or reasonable, is quite another question) upon the existing
order of things? Is this so? Yes. Very well. Then my ‘fact’ consists in this,
that _Russian_ liberalism is not an attack upon the existing order of things,
but an attack upon the very essence of things themselves--indeed, on the things
themselves; not an attack on the Russian order of things, but on Russia itself.
My Russian liberal goes so far as to reject Russia; that is, he hates and
strikes his own mother. Every misfortune and mishap of the mother-country fills
him with mirth, and even with ecstasy. He hates the national customs, Russian
history, and everything. If he has a justification, it is that he does not know
what he is doing, and believes that his hatred of Russia is the grandest and
most profitable kind of liberalism. (You will often find a liberal who is
applauded and esteemed by his fellows, but who is in reality the dreariest,
blindest, dullest of conservatives, and is not aware of the fact.) This hatred
for Russia has been mistaken by some of our ‘Russian liberals’ for sincere love
of their country, and they boast that they see better than their neighbours what
real love of one’s country should consist in. But of late they have grown, more
candid and are ashamed of the expression ‘love of country,’ and have annihilated
the very spirit of the words as something injurious and petty and undignified.
This is the truth, and I hold by it; but at the same time it is a phenomenon
which has not been repeated at any other time or place; and therefore, though I
hold to it as a fact, yet I recognize that it is an accidental phenomenon, and
may likely enough pass away. There can be no such thing anywhere else as a
liberal who really hates his country; and how is this fact to be explained among
_us?_ By my original statement that a Russian liberal is _not_ a _Russian_
liberal--that’s the only explanation that I can see.”

“It is not true,” he repeated, decidedly; “you have just invented it!”

“Yes, it is,” replied Rogojin with an unpleasant smile, as if he had expected
his guest to ask the question, and then to make some disagreeable remark.

“That she did not disgrace me at Moscow with that officer, Zemtuznikoff? I know
for certain she did, after having fixed our marriage-day herself!”

“That’s the beauty of it, general!”

“Why so?”

“How did he strike you, prince?” asked Gania, suddenly. “Did he seem to be a
serious sort of a man, or just a common rowdy fellow? What was your own opinion
about the matter?”

“I suppose that was it; I cannot explain it otherwise.”

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.

“‘Camellias!’ I said, ‘father, save me, save me, let me have some camellias!’ He
was a tall, grey old man--a terrible-looking old gentleman. ‘Not a bit of it,’
he says. ‘I won’t.’ Down I went on my knees. ‘Don’t say so, don’t--think what
you’re doing!’ I cried; ‘it’s a matter of life and death!’ ‘If that’s the case,
take them,’ says he. So up I get, and cut such a bouquet of red camellias! He
had a whole greenhouse full of them--lovely ones. The old fellow sighs. I pull
out a hundred roubles. ‘No, no!’ says he, ‘don’t insult me that way.’ ‘Oh, if
that’s the case, give it to the village hospital,’ I say. ‘Ah,’ he says, ‘that’s
quite a different matter; that’s good of you and generous. I’ll pay it in there
for you with pleasure.’ I liked that old fellow, Russian to the core, _de la
vraie souche_. I went home in raptures, but took another road in order to avoid
Peter. Immediately on arriving I sent up the bouquet for Anfisa to see when she
awoke.

“It was engineered by other people, and is, properly speaking, rather a fantasy
than an intrigue!”

But Gania first conducted the prince to the family apartments. These consisted
of a “salon,” which became the dining-room when required; a drawing-room, which
was only a drawing-room in the morning, and became Gania’s study in the evening,
and his bedroom at night; and lastly Nina Alexandrovna’s and Varvara’s bedroom,
a small, close chamber which they shared together.

“Oh, very well, let’s sit down, at all events, for I don’t intend to stand up
all day. And remember, if you say, one word about ‘mischievous urchins,’ I shall
go away and break with you altogether. Now then, did you, or did you not, send a
letter to Aglaya, a couple of months or so ago, about Easter-tide?”

His black-haired neighbour inspected these peculiarities, having nothing better
to do, and at length remarked, with that rude enjoyment of the discomforts of
others which the common classes so often show:

An impetuous woman, Lizabetha Prokofievna sometimes weighed her anchors and put
out to sea quite regardless of the possible storms she might encounter. Ivan
Fedorovitch felt a sudden pang of alarm, but the others were merely curious, and
somewhat surprised. Colia unfolded the paper, and began to read, in his clear,
high-pitched voice, the following article: