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“There are the letters.” (Aglaya took three letters out of her pocket and threw
them down before the prince.) “For a whole week she has been entreating and
worrying and persuading me to marry you. She--well, she is clever, though she
may be mad--much cleverer than I am, as you say. Well, she writes that she is in
love with me herself, and tries to see me every day, if only from a distance.
She writes that you love me, and that she has long known it and seen it, and
that you and she talked about me--there. She wishes to see you happy, and she
says that she is certain only I can ensure you the happiness you deserve. She
writes such strange, wild letters--I haven’t shown them to anyone. Now, do you
know what all this means? Can you guess anything?”
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:
“The article in the newspaper put it at fifty!” cried Colia.

She gazed attentively at him.

“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.

“I was only surprised that Mr. Burdovsky should have--however, this is what I
have to say. Since you had already given the matter publicity, why did you
object just now, when I began to speak of it to my friends?”

“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!”

He immediately judged from the faces of his daughters and Prince S. that there
was a thunderstorm brewing, and he himself already bore evidences of unusual
perturbation of mind.

“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.

“They do say one can dance with those!”
“You are afraid of the million, I suppose,” said Gania, grinning and showing his
teeth.
“Why not? Certainly he would, I should think. He would marry her
tomorrow!--marry her tomorrow and murder her in a week!”

An old woman opened to them and bowed low to Parfen, who asked her some
questions hurriedly, but did not wait to hear her answer. He led the prince on
through several dark, cold-looking rooms, spotlessly clean, with white covers
over all the furniture.

“All the summer, and perhaps longer.”
“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.”

“Tell us about the execution,” put in Adelaida.

Many of them expected to be thrown downstairs at once, without further ceremony,
the elegant and irresistible Zaleshoff among them. But the party led by the
athlete, without openly showing their hostile intentions, silently nursed
contempt and even hatred for Nastasia Philipovna, and marched into her house as
they would have marched into an enemy’s fortress. Arrived there, the luxury of
the rooms seemed to inspire them with a kind of respect, not unmixed with alarm.
So many things were entirely new to their experience--the choice furniture, the
pictures, the great statue of Venus. They followed their chief into the salon,
however, with a kind of impudent curiosity. There, the sight of General Epanchin
among the guests, caused many of them to beat a hasty retreat into the adjoining
room, the “boxer” and “beggar” being among the first to go. A few only, of whom
Lebedeff made one, stood their ground; he had contrived to walk side by side
with Rogojin, for he quite understood the importance of a man who had a fortune
of a million odd roubles, and who at this moment carried a hundred thousand in
his hand. It may be added that the whole company, not excepting Lebedeff, had
the vaguest idea of the extent of their powers, and of how far they could safely
go. At some moments Lebedeff was sure that right was on their side; at others he
tried uneasily to remember various cheering and reassuring articles of the Civil
Code.
“How--what do you mean you didn’t allow?”

“Gentlemen, this--you’ll soon see what this is,” began Hippolyte, and suddenly
commenced his reading.

“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?”

“I daren’t say, one way or the other; all this is very strange--but--”

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.

“When we left her, Marie used to relapse at once into her old condition, and sit
with closed eyes and motionless limbs. One day she could not go out at all, and
remained at home all alone in the empty hut; but the children very soon became
aware of the fact, and nearly all of them visited her that day as she lay alone
and helpless in her miserable bed.

“Of course, I have!” said the other, laughing. “You see, my dear fellow,
tomorrow, very early in the morning, I must be off to town about this
unfortunate business (my uncle, you know!). Just imagine, my dear sir, it is all
true--word for word--and, of course, everybody knew it excepting myself. All
this has been such a blow to me that I have not managed to call in at the
Epanchins’. Tomorrow I shall not see them either, because I shall be in town. I
may not be here for three days or more; in a word, my affairs are a little out
of gear. But though my town business is, of course, most pressing, still I
determined not to go away until I had seen you, and had a clear understanding
with you upon certain points; and that without loss of time. I will wait now, if
you will allow me, until the company departs; I may just as well, for I have
nowhere else to go to, and I shall certainly not do any sleeping tonight; I’m
far too excited. And finally, I must confess that, though I know it is bad form
to pursue a man in this way, I have come to beg your friendship, my dear prince.
You are an unusual sort of a person; you don’t lie at every step, as some men
do; in fact, you don’t lie at all, and there is a matter in which I need a true
and sincere friend, for I really may claim to be among the number of bona fide
unfortunates just now.”

In order to pass from the Vauxhall to the band-stand, the visitor has to descend
two or three steps. Just at these steps the group paused, as though it feared to
proceed further; but very quickly one of the three ladies, who formed its apex,
stepped forward into the charmed circle, followed by two members of her suite.

This must be thought out; it was clear that there had been no hallucination at
the station then, either; something had actually happened to him, on both
occasions; there was no doubt of it. But again a loathing for all mental
exertion overmastered him; he would not think it out now, he would put it off
and think of something else. He remembered that during his epileptic fits, or
rather immediately preceding them, he had always experienced a moment or two
when his whole heart, and mind, and body seemed to wake up to vigour and light;
when he became filled with joy and hope, and all his anxieties seemed to be
swept away for ever; these moments were but presentiments, as it were, of the
one final second (it was never more than a second) in which the fit came upon
him. That second, of course, was inexpressible. When his attack was over, and
the prince reflected on his symptoms, he used to say to himself: “These moments,
short as they are, when I feel such extreme consciousness of myself, and
consequently more of life than at other times, are due only to the disease--to
the sudden rupture of normal conditions. Therefore they are not really a higher
kind of life, but a lower.” This reasoning, however, seemed to end in a paradox,
and lead to the further consideration:--“What matter though it be only disease,
an abnormal tension of the brain, if when I recall and analyze the moment, it
seems to have been one of harmony and beauty in the highest degree--an instant
of deepest sensation, overflowing with unbounded joy and rapture, ecstatic
devotion, and completest life?” Vague though this sounds, it was perfectly
comprehensible to Muishkin, though he knew that it was but a feeble expression
of his sensations.

“Hold your tongue, dragon-fly!” he scolded. “What a plague you are!” He stamped
his foot irritably, but she only laughed, and answered:

“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.

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.

“What’s true? What’s all this? What’s true?” said an alarmed voice just beside
them.
“Well, go on! never mind me!” mocked the other. “Don’t be afraid!”
“I’ll tell you what, my friend,” cried Mrs. Epanchin, of a sudden, “here are we
all sitting here and imagining we are very clever, and perhaps laughing at the
prince, some of us, and meanwhile he has received a letter this very day in
which that same claimant renounces his claim, and begs the prince’s pardon.
There! _we_ don’t often get that sort of letter; and yet we are not ashamed to
walk with our noses in the air before him.”

He fell asleep on the bench; but his mental disquiet continued through his
slumbers.

“Gentlemen, I did not know you were there; I have only just been informed, I
assure you,” repeated Muishkin.
He remembered that at such times he had been particularly absentminded, and
could not discriminate between objects and persons unless he concentrated
special attention upon them.

The occurrence at the Vauxhall had filled both mother and daughters with
something like horror. In their excitement Lizabetha Prokofievna and the girls
were nearly running all the way home.

“Oh, I supposed you were coming,” the other replied, smiling sarcastically, “and
I was right in my supposition, you see; but how was I to know that you would
come _today?_”
The general dropped his eyes, and elevated his brows; shrugged his shoulders,
tightened his lips, spread his hands, and remained silent. At last he blurted
out:

“They are quarrelling,” said the prince, and entered the drawing-room, just as
matters in there had almost reached a crisis. Nina Alexandrovna had forgotten
that she had “submitted to everything!” She was defending Varia. Ptitsin was
taking her part, too. Not that Varia was afraid of standing up for herself. She
was by no means that sort of a girl; but her brother was becoming ruder and more
intolerable every moment. Her usual practice in such cases as the present was to
say nothing, but stare at him, without taking her eyes off his face for an
instant. This manoeuvre, as she well knew, could drive Gania distracted.

Keller insisted afterwards that he had held his right hand in his pocket all the
while, when he was speaking to the prince, and that he had held the latter’s
shoulder with his left hand only. This circumstance, Keller affirmed, had led
him to feel some suspicion from the first. However this may be, Keller ran after
Hippolyte, but he was too late. “Go on! Go on! Nobody is going to interrupt
you!” cried several voices.
Gania recollected himself in time to rush after her in order to show her out,
but she had gone. He followed her to the stairs.

The prince sat down, and at length prevailed upon Burdovsky’s company to do
likewise. During the last ten or twenty minutes, exasperated by continual
interruptions, he had raised his voice, and spoken with great vehemence. Now, no
doubt, he bitterly regretted several words and expressions which had escaped him
in his excitement. If he had not been driven beyond the limits of endurance, he
would not have ventured to express certain conjectures so openly. He had no
sooner sat down than his heart was torn by sharp remorse. Besides insulting
Burdovsky with the supposition, made in the presence of witnesses, that he was
suffering from the complaint for which he had himself been treated in
Switzerland, he reproached himself with the grossest indelicacy in having
offered him the ten thousand roubles before everyone. “I ought to have waited
till to-morrow and offered him the money when we were alone,” thought Muishkin.
“Now it is too late, the mischief is done! Yes, I am an idiot, an absolute
idiot!” he said to himself, overcome with shame and regret.

“Are you tempting me to box your ears for you, or what?” He had served, at
first, in one of the civil departments, had then attended to matters connected
with the local government of provincial towns, and had of late been a
corresponding member of several important scientific societies. He was a man of
excellent family and solid means, about thirty-five years of age. 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.

The prince rang the bell, and asked for Nastasia Philipovna. The lady of the
house came out, and stated that Nastasia had gone to stay with Daria Alexeyevna
at Pavlofsk, and might be there some days.

“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?”

“That’s what comes of telling the truth for once in one’s life!” said Lebedeff.
“It reduced him to tears.”

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.

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.
At last Varvara Ardalionovna came in search of her brother, and remained for a
few minutes. Without Muishkin’s asking her, she informed him that Evgenie
Pavlovitch was spending the day in Petersburg, and perhaps would remain there
over tomorrow; and that her husband had also gone to town, probably in
connection with Evgenie Pavlovitch’s affairs.

“Probably there’s some new silliness about it,” said Mrs. Epanchin,
sarcastically.

“What! has he arrived?” said the prince, starting up.

“You have!” cried Aglaya. “I might have guessed it. That’s a fitting crown to
the rest of the story. If you have seen an execution, how can you say you lived
happily all the while?”

“On the table, as in the other room, burned a tallow candle-end in an iron
candlestick; and on the bed there whined a baby of scarcely three weeks old. A
pale-looking woman was dressing the child, probably the mother; she looked as
though she had not as yet got over the trouble of childbirth, she seemed so weak
and was so carelessly dressed. Another child, a little girl of about three years
old, lay on the sofa, covered over with what looked like a man’s old dress-coat.

The servant, though of course he could not have expressed all this as the prince
did, still clearly entered into it and was greatly conciliated, as was evident
from the increased amiability of his expression. “If you are really very anxious
for a smoke,” he remarked, “I think it might possibly be managed, if you are
very quick about it. You see they might come out and inquire for you, and you
wouldn’t be on the spot. You see that door there? Go in there and you’ll find a
little room on the right; you can smoke there, only open the window, because I
ought not to allow it really, and--.” But there was no time, after all.

“And how do _you_ know that he left two million and a half of roubles?” asked
Rogojin, disdainfully, and not deigning so much as to look at the other.
“However, it’s true enough that my father died a month ago, and that here am I
returning from Pskoff, a month after, with hardly a boot to my foot. They’ve
treated me like a dog! I’ve been ill of fever at Pskoff the whole time, and not
a line, nor farthing of money, have I received from my mother or my confounded
brother!”

Ptitsin was able to afford some particulars as to Rogojin’s conduct since the
afternoon. He declared that he had been busy finding money for the latter ever
since, and up to nine o’clock, Rogojin having declared that he must absolutely
have a hundred thousand roubles by the evening. He added that Rogojin was drunk,
of course; but that he thought the money would be forthcoming, for the excited
and intoxicated rapture of the fellow impelled him to give any interest or
premium that was asked of him, and there were several others engaged in beating
up the money, also. “At all events tell me whether he slept at home last night,
and whether he came alone?”

“Why, I’ve not only heard of it; I see it for myself,” he said. “When have you
ever spoken like that before? It wasn’t like yourself, prince. Why, if I hadn’t
heard this report about you, I should never have come all this way into the
park--at midnight, too!”

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

“Immediately, immediately! As for my story, gentlemen, it is too stupid and
absurd to tell you.

“Leave off, Colia,” begged the prince. Exclamations arose on all sides.

“How, how?”

“The prince has this to do with it--that I see in him for the first time in all
my life, a man endowed with real truthfulness of spirit, and I trust him. He
trusted me at first sight, and I trust him!”

Here Colia handed him a chair, and he subsided into it, breathless with rage.

“When? Speak--quick!”

“No, oh no!--there was a great flare-up, but I didn’t hit her! I had to struggle
a little, purely to defend myself; but the very devil was in the business. It
turned out that ‘light blue’ was an Englishwoman, governess or something, at
Princess Bielokonski’s, and the other woman was one of the old-maid princesses
Bielokonski. Well, everybody knows what great friends the princess and Mrs.
Epanchin are, so there was a pretty kettle of fish. All the Bielokonskis went
into mourning for the poodle. Six princesses in tears, and the Englishwoman
shrieking! And I, your excellency, am the ass.”

Gania was silent and merely looked contemptuously at him.

“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 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.
“Dear me, there’s nothing so very curious about the prince dropping in, after
all,” remarked Ferdishenko.

The general watched Gania’s confusion intently, and clearly did not like it.

‘A mighty lion, terror of the woods, Was shorn of his great prowess by old age.’

“I don’t understand your thoughts, Lizabetha Prokofievna; but I can see that the
fact of my having written is for some reason repugnant to you. You must admit
that I have a perfect right to refuse to answer your questions; but, in order to
show you that I am neither ashamed of the letter, nor sorry that I wrote it, and
that I am not in the least inclined to blush about it” (here the prince’s
blushes redoubled), “I will repeat the substance of my letter, for I think I
know it almost by heart.”

“Hush! hush! Gavrila Ardalionovitch!” cried Muishkin in dismay, but it was too
late.

The general rose.

“It’s quite a clear case,” said the hitherto silent Gania. “I have watched the
prince almost all day, ever since the moment when he first saw Nastasia
Philipovna’s portrait, at General Epanchin’s. I remember thinking at the time
what I am now pretty sure of; and what, I may say in passing, the prince
confessed to myself.”

“Yes, indeed, and it is all our own fault. But I have a great friend who is much
worse off even than we are. Would you like to know him?”

“Why? Do you know anything about it? Look here,” continued the general, more
agitated than ever, and trembling with excitement, “maybe I have been letting
the cat out of the bag too freely with you, if so, it is because you are--that
sort of man, you know! Perhaps you have some special information?”

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.

“On the table, as in the other room, burned a tallow candle-end in an iron
candlestick; and on the bed there whined a baby of scarcely three weeks old. A
pale-looking woman was dressing the child, probably the mother; she looked as
though she had not as yet got over the trouble of childbirth, she seemed so weak
and was so carelessly dressed. Another child, a little girl of about three years
old, lay on the sofa, covered over with what looked like a man’s old dress-coat.

This gentleman was a confidant of Evgenie’s, and had doubtless heard of the
carriage episode.
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.

As the prince spoke these last words a titter was heard from Ferdishenko;
Lebedeff laughed too. The general grunted with irritation; Ptitsin and Totski
barely restrained their smiles. The rest all sat listening, open-mouthed with
wonder.

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.