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But these vulgarities seemed to please Nastasia Philipovna, although too often
they were both rude and offensive. Those who wished to go to her house were
forced to put up with Ferdishenko. Possibly the latter was not mistaken in
imagining that he was received simply in order to annoy Totski, who disliked him
extremely. Gania also was often made the butt of the jester’s sarcasms, who used
this method of keeping in Nastasia Philipovna’s good graces.
“Who said that, Colia?”
He was panting with ecstasy. He walked round and round Nastasia Philipovna and
told everybody to “keep their distance.”
“My goodness, what utter twaddle, and what may all this nonsense have signified,
pray? If it had any meaning at all!” said Mrs. Epanchin, cuttingly, after having
listened with great attention.
Again Nastasia Philipovna did not hear the sentence out. She glanced at Gania,
and cried, laughing, “What a face! My goodness, what a face you have on at this
moment!”
“The article in the newspaper put it at fifty!” cried Colia.
He longed to solve the mystery of something in the face of Nastasia Philipovna,
something which had struck him as he looked at the portrait for the first time;
the impression had not left him. It was partly the fact of her marvellous beauty
that struck him, and partly something else. There was a suggestion of immense
pride and disdain in the face almost of hatred, and at the same time something
confiding and very full of simplicity. The contrast aroused a deep sympathy in
his heart as he looked at the lovely face. The blinding loveliness of it was
almost intolerable, this pale thin face with its flaming eyes; it was a strange
beauty.

“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.

“It’s all nonsense on both sides,” snapped out Varia. “Let them alone, mother.”
“This was still smaller than the other, so cramped that I could scarcely turn
round; a narrow single bed at one side took up nearly all the room. Besides the
bed there were only three common chairs, and a wretched old kitchen-table
standing before a small sofa. One could hardly squeeze through between the table
and the bed.
“Well, it’s lucky she has happened upon an idiot, then, that’s all I can say!”
whispered Lizabetha Prokofievna, who was somewhat comforted, however, by her
daughter’s remark.
Muishkin, who was but a couple of steps away, had time to spring forward and
seize the officer’s arms from behind.

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.

All three of the Miss Epanchins were fine, healthy girls, well-grown, with good
shoulders and busts, and strong--almost masculine--hands; and, of course, with
all the above attributes, they enjoyed capital appetites, of which they were not
in the least ashamed.

“On the contrary, I shall sit as far from it as I can. Thanks for the hint.”

“How can I? How can I?” cried Hippolyte, looking at him in amazement.
“Gentlemen! I was a fool! I won’t break off again. Listen, everyone who wants
to!”

The prince turned at the door to say something, but perceiving in Gania’s
expression that there was but that one drop wanting to make the cup overflow, he
changed his mind and left the room without a word. A few minutes later he was
aware from the noisy voices in the drawing room, that the conversation had
become more quarrelsome than ever after his departure.

“Then they were only words on your part? I thought, on the contrary...”

“I should think not. Go on.”

“Very well, gentlemen--very well,” replied the prince. “At first I received the
news with mistrust, then I said to myself that I might be mistaken, and that
Pavlicheff might possibly have had a son. But I was absolutely amazed at the
readiness with which the son had revealed the secret of his birth at the expense
of his mother’s honour. For Tchebaroff had already menaced me with publicity in
our interview....”
“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.”

“Where did they tell you so,--at his door?”

“Varia does it from pride, and likes showing off, and giving herself airs. As to
my mother, I really do admire her--yes, and honour her. Hippolyte, hardened as
he is, feels it. He laughed at first, and thought it vulgar of her--but now, he
is sometimes quite touched and overcome by her kindness. H’m! You call that
being strong and good? I will remember that! Gania knows nothing about it. He
would say that it was encouraging vice.”
“Listen,” she began again; “I have long waited to tell you all this, ever since
the time when you sent me that letter--even before that. Half of what I have to
say you heard yesterday. I consider you the most honest and upright of men--more
honest and upright than any other man; and if anybody says that your mind is--is
sometimes affected, you know--it is unfair. I always say so and uphold it,
because even if your surface mind be a little affected (of course you will not
feel angry with me for talking so--I am speaking from a higher point of view)
yet your real mind is far better than all theirs put together. Such a mind as
they have never even _dreamed_ of; because really, there are _two_ minds--the
kind that matters, and the kind that doesn’t matter. Isn’t it so?”

“Well, as you like, just as you like,” said Evgenie Pavlovitch, irritably. “Only
you are such a plucky fellow, take care you don’t get included among the ten
victims!”

Nina Alexandrovna was very fond of him, and had grown quite confidential with
him of late. Ptitsin, as was well known, was engaged in the business of lending
out money on good security, and at a good rate of interest. He was a great
friend of Gania’s.
“But it is so difficult, and even impossible to understand, that surely I am not
to be blamed because I could not fathom the incomprehensible?
“Oh, if you put it in that way,” cried the general, excitedly, “I’m ready to
tell the whole story of my life, but I must confess that I prepared a little
story in anticipation of my turn.”

“Listen, Mr. Terentieff,” said Ptitsin, who had bidden the prince good-night,
and was now holding out his hand to Hippolyte; “I think you remark in that
manuscript of yours, that you bequeath your skeleton to the Academy. Are you
referring to your own skeleton--I mean, your very bones?”

When the prince ceased speaking all were gazing merrily at him--even Aglaya; but
Lizabetha Prokofievna looked the jolliest of all.

No one replied.

“Very well, then there’s an experiment, and the thing is proved; one cannot live
and count each moment; say what you like, but one _cannot_.”

“Well, they do heat them a little; but the houses and stoves are so different to
ours.”

“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.”

“Oh! it was the Kolpakoff business, and of course he would have been acquitted.”

“Rogojin and his hundred thousand roubles, no doubt of it,” muttered Ptitsin to
himself.

He hesitated no longer; but opened the glazed door at the bottom of the outer
stairs and made his way up to the second storey. The place was dark and
gloomy-looking; the walls of the stone staircase were painted a dull red.
Rogojin and his mother and brother occupied the whole of the second floor. The
servant who opened the door to Muishkin led him, without taking his name,
through several rooms and up and down many steps until they arrived at a door,
where he knocked.

“What is it all about?” asked the prince, frowning. His head ached, and he felt
sure that Lebedeff was trying to cheat him in some way, and only talking to put
off the explanation that he had come for. “Oh, indeed, it is true then! _You
could actually talk about me with her_; and--and how could you have been fond of
me when you had only seen me once?” “That could only have been on your
invitation. I confess, however, that I should not have stayed here even if you
had invited me, not for any particular reason, but because it is--well, contrary
to my practice and nature, somehow.”
“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.”

“Oh, trust _him_ for that!” said Adelaida. “Evgenie Pavlovitch turns everything
and everybody he can lay hold of to ridicule. You should hear the things he says
sometimes, apparently in perfect seriousness.”

He rushed like a whirlwind from the room, and Muishkin looked inquiringly at the
others. “What are you doing there?” she asked. “His only reply to this was a
sour grimace. He rose and looked for my cap, and placed it in my hand, and led
me out of the house--that dreadful gloomy house of his--to all appearances, of
course, as though I were leaving of my own accord, and he were simply seeing me
to the door out of politeness. His house impressed me much; it is like a
burial-ground, he seems to like it, which is, however, quite natural. Such a
full life as he leads is so overflowing with absorbing interests that he has
little need of assistance from his surroundings.

“I thought I caught sight of his eyes!” muttered the prince, in confusion. “But
what of it!--Why is he here? Was he asked?”

“It is very painful to me to answer these questions, Lizabetha Prokofievna.”

“Her own position?” prompted Gania. “She does understand. Don’t be annoyed with
her. I have warned her not to meddle in other people’s affairs. However,
although there’s comparative peace at home at present, the storm will break if
anything is finally settled tonight.”

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.

“And who told you this about Ferdishenko?”

“I thought Evgenie Pavlovitch was talking seriously,” said the prince, blushing
and dropping his eyes.

“An old peasant woman opened the door; she was busy lighting the ‘samovar’ in a
tiny kitchen. She listened silently to my questions, did not understand a word,
of course, and opened another door leading into a little bit of a room, low and
scarcely furnished at all, but with a large, wide bed in it, hung with curtains.
On this bed lay one Terentich, as the woman called him, drunk, it appeared to
me. On the table was an end of candle in an iron candlestick, and a half-bottle
of vodka, nearly finished. Terentich muttered something to me, and signed
towards the next room. The old woman had disappeared, so there was nothing for
me to do but to open the door indicated. I did so, and entered the next room.
“Dear me! How you have gone into all the refinements and details of the
question! Why, my dear fellow, you are not a caligraphist, you are an artist!
Eh, Gania?” “How beautiful that is!” cried Mrs. Epanchin, with sincere
admiration. “Whose is it?”

“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--”

It was quite dark now, and Muishkin could not see her face clearly, but a minute
or two later, when he and the general had left the villa, he suddenly flushed
up, and squeezed his right hand tightly. 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: “Bah! you wish to hear a man tell of his worst actions, and you
expect the story to come out goody-goody! One’s worst actions always are mean.
We shall see what the general has to say for himself now. All is not gold that
glitters, you know; and because a man keeps his carriage he need not be
specially virtuous, I assure you, all sorts of people keep carriages. And by
what means?”
“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’?”
“And was it you looked out of the window under the blind this morning?”
Exclamations of horror arose on all sides. The prince grew pale as death; he
gazed into Gania’s eyes with a strange, wild, reproachful look; his lips
trembled and vainly endeavoured to form some words; then his mouth twisted into
an incongruous smile.

“Well?” cried the prince.

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.

“What are you doing there?” she asked.
“What is the good of repentance like that? It is the same exactly as mine
yesterday, when I said, ‘I am base, I am base,’--words, and nothing more!”
“Afraid! Then you had some grounds for supposing he might be the culprit?” said
Lebedeff, frowning.

Colia was right; the Epanchin ladies were only a few steps behind him. As they
approached the terrace other visitors appeared from Lebedeff’s side of the
house--the Ptitsins, Gania, and Ardalion Alexandrovitch.

“Oh, I happened to recall it, that’s all! It fitted into the conversation--”

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.
“Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet, be quiet!” Aglaya struck in, suddenly, seizing
his hand in hers, and gazing at him almost in terror.

“Colia spent the night here, and this morning went after his father, whom you
let out of prison by paying his debts--Heaven only knows why! Yesterday the
general promised to come and lodge here, but he did not appear. Most probably he
slept at the hotel close by. No doubt Colia is there, unless he has gone to
Pavlofsk to see the Epanchins. He had a little money, and was intending to go
there yesterday. He must be either at the hotel or at Pavlofsk.”

No sooner had his sister left him alone, than Gania took the note out of his
pocket, kissed it, and pirouetted around.
“Oh, she is mad!” cried the prince, wringing his hands.
Even Barashkoff, inured to the storms of evil fortune as he was, could not stand
this last stroke. He went mad and died shortly after in the town hospital. His
estate was sold for the creditors; and the little girls--two of them, of seven
and eight years of age respectively,--were adopted by Totski, who undertook
their maintenance and education in the kindness of his heart. They were brought
up together with the children of his German bailiff. Very soon, however, there
was only one of them left--Nastasia Philipovna--for the other little one died of
whooping-cough. Totski, who was living abroad at this time, very soon forgot all
about the child; but five years after, returning to Russia, it struck him that
he would like to look over his estate and see how matters were going there, and,
arrived at his bailiff’s house, he was not long in discovering that among the
children of the latter there now dwelt a most lovely little girl of twelve,
sweet and intelligent, and bright, and promising to develop beauty of most
unusual quality--as to which last Totski was an undoubted authority.
“Ardalion Alexandrovitch Ivolgin,” said the smiling general, with a low bow of
great dignity, “an old soldier, unfortunate, and the father of this family; but
happy in the hope of including in that family so exquisite--”

“She has promised to tell me tonight at her own house whether she consents or
not,” replied Gania.

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.
“I have heard of you, and I think read of you in the newspapers.”
“What nonsense!” Lebedeff’s nephew interrupted violently.

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!”

“It was only out of generosity, madame,” he said in a resonant voice, “and
because I would not betray a friend in an awkward position, that I did not
mention this revision before; though you heard him yourself threatening to kick
us down the steps. To clear the matter up, I declare now that I did have
recourse to his assistance, and that I paid him six roubles for it. But I did
not ask him to correct my style; I simply went to him for information concerning
the facts, of which I was ignorant to a great extent, and which he was competent
to give. The story of the gaiters, the appetite in the Swiss professor’s house,
the substitution of fifty roubles for two hundred and fifty--all such details,
in fact, were got from him. I paid him six roubles for them; but he did not
correct the style.”

“Why so? why so? Because I envy you, eh? You always think that, I know. But do
you know why I am saying all this? Look here! I must have some more
champagne--pour me out some, Keller, will you?”

“Why--is he here?”

Lebedeff and Colia came rushing up at this moment.

The flat was divided by a passage which led straight out of the entrance-hall.
Along one side of this corridor lay the three rooms which were designed for the
accommodation of the “highly recommended” lodgers. Besides these three rooms
there was another small one at the end of the passage, close to the kitchen,
which was allotted to General Ivolgin, the nominal master of the house, who
slept on a wide sofa, and was obliged to pass into and out of his room through
the kitchen, and up or down the back stairs. Colia, Gania’s young brother, a
school-boy of thirteen, shared this room with his father. He, too, had to sleep
on an old sofa, a narrow, uncomfortable thing with a torn rug over it; his chief
duty being to look after his father, who needed to be watched more and more
every day.

But Mrs. Epanchin would not deign to look at Lebedeff. Drawn up haughtily, with
her head held high, she gazed at the “riff-raff,” with scornful curiosity. When
Hippolyte had finished, Ivan Fedorovitch shrugged his shoulders, and his wife
looked him angrily up and down, as if to demand the meaning of his movement.
Then she turned to the prince.

Vainly trying to comfort himself with these reflections, the prince reached the
Ismailofsky barracks more dead than alive.

“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.”

“But how was it?” he asked, “how was it that you (idiot that you are),” he added
to himself, “were so very confidential a couple of hours after your first
meeting with these people? How was that, eh?”
A violent fit of coughing, which lasted a full minute, prevented him from
finishing his sentence.
“Oh, he’s simply a fool,” said Gania.
“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.”

“Why, how could she--”

“Yes--I don’t like that Ferdishenko. I can’t understand why Nastasia Philipovna
encourages him so. Is he really her cousin, as he says?”