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“If it’s all settled, Gania, then of course Mr. Ptitsin is right,” said Nina
Alexandrovna. “Don’t frown. You need not worry yourself, Gania; I shall ask you
no questions. You need not tell me anything you don’t like. I assure you I have
quite submitted to your will.” She said all this, knitting away the while as
though perfectly calm and composed.

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.
“It is very distressing, because _who_--? That’s the question!”
“Whose fault is it that they are all miserable, that they don’t know how to
live, though they have fifty or sixty years of life before them? Why did that
fool allow himself to die of hunger with sixty years of unlived life before him?
“‘O, puissent voir longtemps votre beauté sacrée Tant d’amis, sourds à mes
adieux! Qu’ils meurent pleins de jours, que leur mort soit pleurée, Qu’un ami
leur ferme les yeux!’

“Twenty-seventh!” said Gania.

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.

Hippolyte himself seemed to be hopeful about his state of health, as is often
the case with consumptives. 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.
Painfully surprised as he was at this sudden apparition of Rogojin, the prince,
for some little while, was unable to collect his thoughts. Rogojin, evidently,
saw and understood the impression he had made; and though he seemed more or less
confused at first, yet he began talking with what looked like assumed ease and
freedom. However, the prince soon changed his mind on this score, and thought
that there was not only no affectation of indifference, but that Rogojin was not
even particularly agitated. If there were a little apparent awkwardness, it was
only in his words and gestures. The man could not change his heart.
“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.”
“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!”

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.

“I hardly dare say,” said Lizabetha, as hurriedly, “but I think it’s as plain as
anything can be.”
“It’s abominable dishonesty, you know!”

“I--I thought it was half-past nine!”

“Why should we be angry?” they cried.

“Well, one night in the Shestilavochnaya, a man passed me with a paper parcel
under his arm. I did not take stock of him very carefully, but he seemed to be
dressed in some shabby summer dust-coat, much too light for the season. When he
was opposite the lamp-post, some ten yards away, I observed something fall out
of his pocket. I hurried forward to pick it up, just in time, for an old wretch
in a long kaftan rushed up too. He did not dispute the matter, but glanced at
what was in my hand and disappeared.

“Tell me about it,” said Aglaya.

“And you wouldn’t run away?”

“Oh, my dear sir, I esteem and understand your kindness in putting the question.
No; at present I have no means whatever, and no employment either, but I hope to
find some. I was living on other people abroad. Schneider, the professor who
treated me and taught me, too, in Switzerland, gave me just enough money for my
journey, so that now I have but a few copecks left. There certainly is one
question upon which I am anxious to have advice, but--”

Mrs. Epanchin flushed up; some accumulation of spleen in her suddenly needed an
outlet. She could not bear this General Ivolgin whom she had once known, long
ago--in society.

“Look here; this is what I called you here for. I wish to make you a--to ask you
to be my friend. What do you stare at me like that for?” she added, almost
angrily.

The lodgers had disappeared very quickly--Ferdishenko soon after the events at
Nastasia Philipovna’s, while the prince went to Moscow, as we know. Gania and
his mother went to live with Varia and Ptitsin immediately after the latter’s
wedding, while the general was housed in a debtor’s prison by reason of certain
IOU’s given to the captain’s widow under the impression that they would never be
formally used against him. This unkind action much surprised poor Ardalion
Alexandrovitch, the victim, as he called himself, of an “unbounded trust in the
nobility of the human heart.”

“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.

“I can just see there’s a bed--”
“I angrily turned round in bed and made up my mind that I would not say a word
unless he did; so I rested silently on my pillow determined to remain dumb, if
it were to last till morning. I felt resolved that he should speak first.
Probably twenty minutes or so passed in this way. Suddenly the idea struck
me--what if this is an apparition and not Rogojin himself?
Nastasia Philipovna was waiting for them in the first room they went into. She
was dressed very simply, in black.

“What do you say, sir?” growled the general, taking a step towards him.

“What extraordinary people they are!” thought Prince S., for perhaps the
hundredth time since he had entered into intimate relations with the family;
but--he liked these “extraordinary people,” all the same. As for Prince Lef
Nicolaievitch himself, Prince S. did not seem quite to like him, somehow. He was
decidedly preoccupied and a little disturbed as they all started off.
“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?”

Hippolyte walked towards the door, but the prince called him back and he
stopped.

“Nastasia Philipovna? Why, you don’t mean to say that she and Lihachof--” cried
Rogojin, turning quite pale.

Lizabetha Prokofievna stood like a stone.

“Lef Nicolaievitch was a ward of Nicolai Andreevitch Pavlicheff, after the death
of his own parents,” he remarked, meeting Ivan Petrovitch’s eye.

The general blushed dreadfully; Colia blushed too; and Ptitsin turned hastily
away. Ferdishenko was the only one who laughed as gaily as before. As to Gania,
I need not say that he was miserable; he stood dumb and wretched and took no
notice of anybody.

“She gave it me just now, when I called in to congratulate her. I asked her for
it long ago. I don’t know whether she meant it for a hint that I had come
empty-handed, without a present for her birthday, or what,” added Gania, with an
unpleasant smile.

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.

Hippolyte rose all at once, looking troubled and almost frightened.

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!

“Out with it then, damn it! Out with it at once!” and Gania stamped his foot
twice on the pavement.
“Thank God, I have got mother away, and put her to bed without another scene!
Gania is worried--and ashamed--not without reason! What a spectacle! I have come
to thank you once more, prince, and to ask you if you knew Nastasia Philipovna
before?”
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.
“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?”
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.

“What was I to draw? According to the lines she quoted:

Recollecting himself, however, and seeing at a glance the sort of people he had
to deal with, the officer turned his back on both his opponents, and
courteously, but concealing his face with his handkerchief, approached the
prince, who was now rising from the chair into which he had fallen.

“I will wait here,” he stammered. “I should like to surprise her. ....”

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.

The wearer of this cloak was a young fellow, also of about twenty-six or
twenty-seven years of age, slightly above the middle height, very fair, with a
thin, pointed and very light coloured beard; his eyes were large and blue, and
had an intent look about them, yet that heavy expression which some people
affirm to be a peculiarity as well as evidence, of an epileptic subject. His
face was decidedly a pleasant one for all that; refined, but quite colourless,
except for the circumstance that at this moment it was blue with cold. He held a
bundle made up of an old faded silk handkerchief that apparently contained all
his travelling wardrobe, and wore thick shoes and gaiters, his whole appearance
being very un-Russian.

“Wait a minute, prince,” shouted the latter, as he went. “I shall be back in
five minutes.”

“Oh! do be quiet! You must be drunk! He has taken it into his head to play the
lawyer, prince, and he practices speechifying, and is always repeating his
eloquent pleadings to his children. And who do you think was his last client? An
old woman who had been robbed of five hundred roubles, her all, by some rogue of
a usurer, besought him to take up her case, instead of which he defended the
usurer himself, a Jew named Zeidler, because this Jew promised to give him fifty
roubles....”

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.

“We have evidence. In the first place, his mysterious disappearance at seven
o’clock, or even earlier.”

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.

“Gentlemen--” began the prince.
“Do you know, though,” cried the prince warmly, “you made that remark now, and
everyone says the same thing, and the machine is designed with the purpose of
avoiding pain, this guillotine I mean; but a thought came into my head then:
what if it be a bad plan after all? You may laugh at my idea, perhaps--but I
could not help its occurring to me all the same. Now with the rack and tortures
and so on--you suffer terrible pain of course; but then your torture is bodily
pain only (although no doubt you have plenty of that) until you die. But _here_
I should imagine the most terrible part of the whole punishment is, not the
bodily pain at all--but the certain knowledge that in an hour,--then in ten
minutes, then in half a minute, then now--this very _instant_--your soul must
quit your body and that you will no longer be a man--and that this is certain,
_certain_! That’s the point--the certainty of it. Just that instant when you
place your head on the block and hear the iron grate over your head--then--that
quarter of a second is the most awful of all.
“You will admit yourself, general, that for an honourable man, if the author is
an honourable man, that is an--an insult,” growled the boxer suddenly, with
convulsive jerkings of his shoulders.

There was a moment, during this long, wretched walk back from the Petersburg
Side, when the prince felt an irresistible desire to go straight to Rogojin’s,
wait for him, embrace him with tears of shame and contrition, and tell him of
his distrust, and finish with it--once for all.

“What do you mean?” said the prince.
The prince followed her. Arrived at the dining-room, she stopped.

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.

“Oh! that’s it, is it!” he yelled. “She throws my letters out of the window,
does she! Oh! and she does not condescend to bargain, while I _do_, eh? We shall
see, we shall see! I shall pay her out for this.” “I will tell you all the
story. I am his nephew; he did speak the truth there, although he is generally
telling lies. I am at the University, and have not yet finished my course. I
mean to do so, and I shall, for I have a determined character. I must, however,
find something to do for the present, and therefore I have got employment on the
railway at twenty-four roubles a month. I admit that my uncle has helped me once
or twice before. Well, I had twenty roubles in my pocket, and I gambled them
away. Can you believe that I should be so low, so base, as to lose money in that
way?”

“Well, what do you think of the arrangement, prince?”

To all this her mother replied that Alexandra was a freethinker, and that all
this was due to that “cursed woman’s rights question.”
“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.
The general had not come down from town as yet, nor had Evgenie Pavlovitch
arrived.
“And he won’t go away!” cried Lebedeff. “He has installed himself here, and here
he remains!”
“Married? how--what marriage?” murmured Gania, overwhelmed with confusion.
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.

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.

“Pafnute, yes. And who was he?”

He had left things quiet and peaceful; the invalid was fast asleep, and the
doctor, who had been called in, had stated that there was no special danger.
Lebedeff, Colia, and Burdovsky were lying down in the sick-room, ready to take
it in turns to watch. There was nothing to fear, therefore, at home.

XII.

“How subtle you are, Afanasy Ivanovitch! You astonish me,” cried Ferdishenko.
“You will remark, gentlemen, that in saying that I could not recount the story
of my theft so as to be believed, Afanasy Ivanovitch has very ingeniously
implied that I am not capable of thieving--(it would have been bad taste to say
so openly); and all the time he is probably firmly convinced, in his own mind,
that I am very well capable of it! But now, gentlemen, to business! Put in your
slips, ladies and gentlemen--is yours in, Mr. Totski? So--then we are all ready;
now prince, draw, please.” The prince silently put his hand into the hat, and
drew the names. Ferdishenko was first, then Ptitsin, then the general, Totski
next, his own fifth, then Gania, and so on; the ladies did not draw.

“Yes, but he died at Elizabethgrad, not at Tver,” said the prince, rather
timidly. “So Pavlicheff told me.”
“Forgiving me! why so? What have I done to need his forgiveness?”

The prince said all this with manifest effort--in broken sentences, and with
many drawings of breath. He was evidently much agitated. Nastasia Philipovna
looked at him inquisitively, but did not laugh.

“Very well! Tell me the truth,” he said, dejectedly.

The general now appeared on the verandah, coming from upstairs. He was on his
way out, with an expression of determination on his face, and of preoccupation
and worry also.