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“To _read?_” cried Gania, almost at the top of his voice; “to _read_, and you
read it?”

“I am intoxicated, general. I am having a day out, you know--it’s my birthday! I
have long looked forward to this happy occasion. Daria Alexeyevna, you see that
nosegay-man, that Monsieur aux Camelias, sitting there laughing at us?”
“Norma backed slowly and carefully away from the brute, which followed her,
creeping deliberately after her as though it intended to make a sudden dart and
sting her. “The visit to Rogojin exhausted me terribly. Besides, I had felt ill
since the morning; and by evening I was so weak that I took to my bed, and was
in high fever at intervals, and even delirious. Colia sat with me until eleven
o’clock. “I don’t quite like it,” replied the prince.
“What on earth is she afraid of, then? Tell me plainly, without any more beating
about the bush,” said the prince, exasperated by the other’s mysterious
grimaces.
“What a regular old woman I am today,” he had said to himself each time, with
annoyance. “I believe in every foolish presentiment that comes into my head.”
“If that is true,” said he, “I have been deceived, grossly deceived, but not by
Tchebaroff: and for a long time past, a long time. I do not wish for experts,
not I, nor to go to see you. I believe you. I give it up.... But I refuse the
ten thousand roubles. Good-bye.”
“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?”
“‘A man I knew who had been to Siberia and returned, told me that he himself had
been a witness of how the very most hardened criminals remembered the old
general, though, in point of fact, he could never, of course, have distributed
more than a few pence to each member of a party. Their recollection of him was
not sentimental or particularly devoted. Some wretch, for instance, who had been
a murderer--cutting the throat of a dozen fellow-creatures, for instance; or
stabbing six little children for his own amusement (there have been such
men!)--would perhaps, without rhyme or reason, suddenly give a sigh and say, “I
wonder whether that old general is alive still!” Although perhaps he had not
thought of mentioning him for a dozen years before! How can one say what seed of
good may have been dropped into his soul, never to die?’ The prince jumped up in
alarm at Aglaya’s sudden wrath, and a mist seemed to come before his 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.

“Don’t be a simpleton. You behave just as though you weren’t a man at all. Come
on! I shall see, now, with my own eyes. I shall see all.” “Yes,” said Muishkin,
with some surprise. “But you declared I wasn’t--”

“My first impression was a very strong one,” repeated the prince. “When they
took me away from Russia, I remember I passed through many German towns and
looked out of the windows, but did not trouble so much as to ask questions about
them. This was after a long series of fits. I always used to fall into a sort of
torpid condition after such a series, and lost my memory almost entirely; and
though I was not altogether without reason at such times, yet I had no logical
power of thought. This would continue for three or four days, and then I would
recover myself again. I remember my melancholy was intolerable; I felt inclined
to cry; I sat and wondered and wondered uncomfortably; the consciousness that
everything was strange weighed terribly upon me; I could understand that it was
all foreign and strange. I recollect I awoke from this state for the first time
at Basle, one evening; the bray of a donkey aroused me, a donkey in the town
market. I saw the donkey and was extremely pleased with it, and from that moment
my head seemed to clear.”

“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!”

V.

Rogojin raised his eyes and gazed intently at the prince.

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.

“Better not read it now,” said the prince, putting his hand on the packet.

“‘Never!’ I cried, indignantly.”
Gavrila Ardalionovitch nodded to the prince and entered the room hastily.
“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?”

Lebedeff said this so seriously that the prince quite lost his temper with him.

“Deceitful and violent?”

“‘Surely not to throw yourself into the river?’ cried Bachmatoff in alarm.
Perhaps he read my thought in my face.

“Gentlemen, I did not know you were there; I have only just been informed, I
assure you,” repeated Muishkin.

“And I was right, truly right,” cried the general, with warmth and solemnity,
“for if cigars are forbidden in railway carriages, poodles are much more so.”

“What a pity! What a pity! It’s just my luck!” repeated Ardalion Alexandrovitch
over and over again, in regretful tones. “When your master and mistress return,
my man, tell them that General Ivolgin and Prince Muishkin desired to present
themselves, and that they were extremely sorry, excessively grieved...”

“Poodle? What was that? And in a railway carriage? Dear me,” said Nastasia,
thoughtfully, as though trying to recall something to mind.

“Do you like the position of it? Sometimes of a morning early, at seven o’clock,
when all the rest are still asleep, I come out and sit there alone.”

The prince seemed quite distracted for the moment.

“That gentleman--Ivan Petrovitch--is a relation of your late friend, Mr.
Pavlicheff. You wanted to find some of his relations, did you not?”

“I told you the fellow was nothing but a scandal-monger,” said Gania.
“But what on earth did she mean? I assure you it is a real riddle to me--to me,
and to others, too!” Prince S. seemed to be under the influence of sincere
astonishment.

“Restrain your tongue!” she said. “I did not come here to fight you with your
own weapons.

Gania was surprised, but cautiously kept silence and looked at his mother,
hoping that she would express herself more clearly. Nina Alexandrovna observed
his cautiousness and added, with a bitter smile: Rogojin’s eyes flashed, and a
smile of insanity distorted his countenance. His right hand was raised, and
something glittered in it. The prince did not think of trying to stop it. All he
could remember afterwards was that he seemed to have called out:

“What? Pavlicheff’s son!” cried the prince, much perturbed. “I know... I
know--but I entrusted this matter to Gavrila Ardalionovitch. He told me...”

Prince S---- made the acquaintance of the general’s family, and Adelaida, the
second girl, made a great impression upon him. Towards the spring he proposed to
her, and she accepted him. The general and his wife were delighted. The journey
abroad was put off, and the wedding was fixed for a day not very distant.

“Oh, dear me, I assure you there is no need to stand on ceremony with him,” the
general explained hastily. “He is quite a child, not to say a pathetic-looking
creature. He has fits of some sort, and has just arrived from Switzerland,
straight from the station, dressed like a German and without a farthing in his
pocket. I gave him twenty-five roubles to go on with, and am going to find him
some easy place in one of the government offices. I should like you to ply him
well with the victuals, my dears, for I should think he must be very hungry.”

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:

“Yes, she promised. We both worried her so that she gave in; but she wished us
to tell you nothing about it until the day.”
“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?”
“Aglaya Ivanovna...”
The prince looked inquiringly at the other.
“What? Gavrila Ardalionovitch? Oh no; he belongs to one of the companies. Look
here, at all events put your bundle down, here.” “Yes, violent. I can give you a
proof of it. A few days ago she tried to pull my hair because I said something
that annoyed her. I tried to soothe her by reading the Apocalypse aloud.”
In the first place there were present Totski, and General Epanchin. They were
both highly amiable, but both appeared to be labouring under a half-hidden
feeling of anxiety as to the result of Nastasia’s deliberations with regard to
Gania, which result was to be made public this evening.

He could not believe that this was the same haughty young girl who had once so
proudly shown him Gania’s letter. He could not understand how that proud and
austere beauty could show herself to be such an utter child--a child who
probably did not even now understand some words.

“Why? what’s there strange about it? He has a tongue. Why shouldn’t he tell us
something? I want to judge whether he is a good story-teller; anything you like,
prince--how you liked Switzerland, what was your first impression, anything.
You’ll see, he’ll begin directly and tell us all about it beautifully.”

“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?”

“If I wish! That’s good, I must say! Do you think I am deceived as to the
flagrant impropriety of my conduct? I am quite aware that his money is his own,
and that my action--is much like an attempt at extortion. But you-you don’t know
what life is! If people don’t learn by experience, they never understand. They
must be taught. My intentions are perfectly honest; on my conscience he will
lose nothing, and I will pay back the money with interest. Added to which he has
had the moral satisfaction of seeing me disgraced. What does he want more? and
what is he good for if he never helps anyone? Look what he does himself! just
ask him about his dealings with others, how he deceives people! How did he
manage to buy this house? You may cut off my head if he has not let you in for
something--and if he is not trying to cheat you again. You are smiling. You
don’t believe me?”

“You are slandering them, Lebedeff,” said he, smiling. “No, A. N. D.,” corrected
Colia.

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.

“Oh! if you will sell it, very good--and thank you. You shall not be a loser!
But for goodness’ sake, don’t twist about like that, sir! I have heard of you;
they tell me you are a very learned person. We must have a talk one of these
days. You will bring me the books yourself?”

“And everyone of them shows his rags, his toil-worn hands, and yells in his
wrath: ‘Here are we, working like cattle all our lives, and always as hungry as
dogs, and there are others who do not work, and are fat and rich!’ The eternal
refrain! And side by side with them trots along some wretched fellow who has
known better days, doing light porter’s work from morn to night for a living,
always blubbering and saying that ‘his wife died because he had no money to buy
medicine with,’ and his children dying of cold and hunger, and his eldest
daughter gone to the bad, and so on. Oh! I have no pity and no patience for
these fools of people. Why can’t they be Rothschilds? Whose fault is it that a
man has not got millions of money like Rothschild? If he has life, all this must
be in his power! Whose fault is it that he does not know how to live his life?

“Lizabetha Prokofievna is in a really fiendish temper today,” she added, as she
went out, “but the most curious thing is that Aglaya has quarrelled with her
whole family; not only with her father and mother, but with her sisters also. It
is not a good sign.” She said all this quite casually, though it was extremely
important in the eyes of the prince, and went off with her brother. Regarding
the episode of “Pavlicheff’s son,” Gania had been absolutely silent, partly from
a kind of false modesty, partly, perhaps, to “spare the prince’s feelings.” The
latter, however, thanked him again for the trouble he had taken in the affair.

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?

“A little while ago a very amusing idea struck me. What if I were now to commit
some terrible crime--murder ten fellow-creatures, for instance, or anything else
that is thought most shocking and dreadful in this world--what a dilemma my
judges would be in, with a criminal who only has a fortnight to live in any
case, now that the rack and other forms of torture are abolished! Why, I should
die comfortably in their own hospital--in a warm, clean room, with an attentive
doctor--probably much more comfortably than I should at home.

“N-no--not exactly.”
The general had not come down from town as yet, nor had Evgenie Pavlovitch
arrived.

“The sun is rising,” he cried, seeing the gilded tops of the trees, and pointing
to them as to a miracle. “See, it is rising now!”

“Sir--”

“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--”

“Yes, or even if they had! But who did sleep with you?”

“Yes, I see your mother and sister,” muttered Rogojin, through his teeth; and
Lebedeff seemed to feel himself called upon to second the statement.

“I told them how unhappy Marie was, and after a while they stopped their abuse
of her, and let her go by silently. Little by little we got into the way of
conversing together, the children and I. I concealed nothing from them, I told
them all. They listened very attentively and soon began to be sorry for Marie.
At last some of them took to saying ‘Good-morning’ to her, kindly, when they met
her. It is the custom there to salute anyone you meet with ‘Good-morning’
whether acquainted or not. I can imagine how astonished Marie was at these first
greetings from the children.
“Yes, it’s off our hands--off _yours_, I should say.” “Mamma!” cried Alexandra,
significantly.

“No, I have never known her.”

“Oh, I heard that much, my dear fellow! But the thing is so impossibly absurd! A
man of property like Evgenie to give IOU’s to a money-lender, and to be worried
about them! It is ridiculous. Besides, he cannot possibly be on such intimate
terms with Nastasia Philipovna as she gave us to understand; that’s the
principal part of the mystery! He has given me his word that he knows nothing
whatever about the matter, and of course I believe him. Well, the question is,
my dear prince, do you know anything about it? Has any sort of suspicion of the
meaning of it come across you?”

“Executions?”

“Are you aware that she writes to me almost every day?”

“When you are not with me I hate you, Lef Nicolaievitch. I have loathed you
every day of these three months since I last saw you. By heaven I have!” said
Rogojin. “I could have poisoned you at any minute. Now, you have been with me
but a quarter of an hour, and all my malice seems to have melted away, and you
are as dear to me as ever. Stay here a little longer.”

“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.”

“Oh, wouldn’t he just!”

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.

“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.”

“Prince,” asked Nina Alexandrovna, “I wanted to inquire whether you have known
my son long? I think he said that you had only arrived today from somewhere.”

“Well, look here, Gania. I wish to look into your heart once more, for the last
time. You’ve worried me for the last three months--now it’s my turn. Do you see
this packet? It contains a hundred thousand roubles. Now, I’m going to throw it
into the fire, here--before all these witnesses. As soon as the fire catches
hold of it, you put your hands into the fire and pick it out--without gloves,
you know. You must have bare hands, and you must turn your sleeves up. Pull it
out, I say, and it’s all yours. You may burn your fingers a little, of course;
but then it’s a hundred thousand roubles, remember--it won’t take you long to
lay hold of it and snatch it out. I shall so much admire you if you put your
hands into the fire for my money. All here present may be witnesses that the
whole packet of money is yours if you get it out. If you don’t get it out, it
shall burn. I will let no one else come; away--get away, all of you--it’s my
money! Rogojin has bought me with it. Is it my money, Rogojin?”

The prince noticed the sweet, welcoming look on Vera Lebedeff’s face, as she
made her way towards him through the crowd. He held out his hand to her. She
took it, blushing with delight, and wished him “a happy life from that day
forward.” Then she ran off to the kitchen, where her presence was necessary to
help in the preparations for supper. Before the prince’s arrival she had spent
some time on the terrace, listening eagerly to the conversation, though the
visitors, mostly under the influence of wine, were discussing abstract subjects
far beyond her comprehension. In the next room her younger sister lay on a
wooden chest, sound asleep, with her mouth wide open; but the boy, Lebedeff’s
son, had taken up his position close beside Colia and Hippolyte, his face lit up
with interest in the conversation of his father and the rest, to which he would
willingly have listened for ten hours at a stretch.

“Certainly not; what are you thinking of? What could have induced you to ask
such a question?” she replied, quietly and seriously, and even, apparently, with
some astonishment.
“No--in anger, perhaps. Oh yes! she reproached me dreadfully in anger; and
suffered herself, too! But afterwards--oh! don’t remind me--don’t remind me of
that!”

“The three or four hours went by, of course, in necessary preparations--the
priest, breakfast, (coffee, meat, and some wine they gave him; doesn’t it seem
ridiculous?) And yet I believe these people give them a good breakfast out of
pure kindness of heart, and believe that they are doing a good action. Then he
is dressed, and then begins the procession through the town to the scaffold. I
think he, too, must feel that he has an age to live still while they cart him
along. Probably he thought, on the way, ‘Oh, I have a long, long time yet. Three
streets of life yet! When we’ve passed this street there’ll be that other one;
and then that one where the baker’s shop is on the right; and when shall we get
there? It’s ages, ages!’ Around him are crowds shouting, yelling--ten thousand
faces, twenty thousand eyes. All this has to be endured, and especially the
thought: ‘Here are ten thousand men, and not one of them is going to be
executed, and yet I am to die.’ Well, all that is preparatory.

“You are unjust; I found him sincerely repentant,” observed the prince, after
listening for a time.

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.

The general left the room, and the prince never succeeded in broaching the
business which he had on hand, though he had endeavoured to do so four times.

“Surely not you?” cried the prince.
“No; a bundle--your brother has just gone to the hall for it.”
“A brilliant idea, and most true!” cried Lebedeff, “for he never even touched
the laity. Sixty monks, and not a single layman! It is a terrible idea, but it
is historic, it is statistic; it is indeed one of those facts which enables an
intelligent historian to reconstruct the physiognomy of a special epoch, for it
brings out this further point with mathematical accuracy, that the clergy were
in those days sixty times richer and more flourishing than the rest of humanity
and perhaps sixty times fatter also...”