| “But how do you, how can you--” began the prince, gazing with dread and horror at Rogojin. |
Prince Muishkin entered the court-yard, and ascended the steps. A cook with her sleeves turned up to the elbows opened the door. The visitor asked if Mr. Lebedeff were at home.
“Ready--keep your distance, all of you!”
“I think you might fairly remember that I was not in any way bound, I had no reason to be silent about that portrait. You never asked me not to mention it.”
“Such advice, and at such a moment, you must allow, prince, was--”
“What a silly idea,” said the actress. “Of course it is not the case. I have never stolen anything, for one.”
| “I have come to you--now--to--” |
“But I ask you, my dear sir, how can there be anything in common between Evgenie Pavlovitch, and--her, and again Rogojin? I tell you he is a man of immense wealth--as I know for a fact; and he has further expectations from his uncle. Simply Nastasia Philipovna--”
It was true that she was lonely in her present life; Totski had judged her thoughts aright. She longed to rise, if not to love, at least to family life and new hopes and objects, but as to Gavrila Ardalionovitch, she could not as yet say much. She thought it must be the case that he loved her; she felt that she too might learn to love him, if she could be sure of the firmness of his attachment to herself; but he was very young, and it was a difficult question to decide. What she specially liked about him was that he worked, and supported his family by his toil.
| “You can stay with him if you like,” said Muishkin. |
| “Oh, she would funk a scandal like anyone else. You are all tarred with one brush!” |
Ferdishenko led the general up to Nastasia Philipovna.
| “The prince is clearly a democrat,” remarked Aglaya. |
“And do you not live in idleness?”
“She postponed the pleasure--I see--I quite understand!” said Hippolyte, hurriedly, as though he wished to banish the subject. “I hear--they tell me--that you read her all that nonsense aloud? Stupid bosh it was--written in delirium. And I can’t understand how anyone can be so--I won’t say _cruel_, because the word would be humiliating to myself, but we’ll say childishly vain and revengeful, as to _reproach_ me with this confession, and use it as a weapon against me. Don’t be afraid, I’m not referring to yourself.”
| Evgenie Pavlovitch flushed up and looked angrily at Nastasia Philipovna, then turned his back on her. |
| Nearly everyone observed the little band advancing, and all pretended not to see or notice them, except a few young fellows who exchanged glances and smiled, saying something to one another in whispers. |
“Ferdishenko,” he said, gazing intently and inquiringly into the prince’s eyes.
“Yes, you are, indeed.”
“Another excellent idea, and worth considering!” replied Lebedeff. “But, again, that is not the question. The question at this moment is whether we have not weakened ‘the springs of life’ by the extension...”
| “Is that all, really?” said Aglaya, candidly, without the slightest show of confusion. “However, it’s not so bad, especially if managed with economy. Do you intend to serve?” |
“I dare say he only took his hat off out of fear, as it were, to the son of his creditor; for he always owed my mother money. I thought of having an explanation with him, but I knew that if I did, he would begin to apologize in a minute or two, so I decided to let him alone.
But the prince’s mental perturbation increased every moment. He wandered about the park, looking absently around him, and paused in astonishment when he suddenly found himself in the empty space with the rows of chairs round it, near the Vauxhall. The look of the place struck him as dreadful now: so he turned round and went by the path which he had followed with the Epanchins on the way to the band, until he reached the green bench which Aglaya had pointed out for their rendezvous. He sat down on it and suddenly burst into a loud fit of laughter, immediately followed by a feeling of irritation. His disturbance of mind continued; he felt that he must go away somewhere, anywhere.
PART IV
“Do you admire that sort of woman, prince?” he asked, looking intently at him. He seemed to have some special object in the question.
“Nonsense,” cried Nastasia Philipovna, seizing the poker and raking a couple of logs together. No sooner did a tongue of flame burst out than she threw the packet of notes upon it.
“Send Feodor or Alexey up by the very first train to buy a copy, then.--Aglaya, come here--kiss me, dear, you recited beautifully! but,” she added in a whisper, “if you were sincere I am sorry for you. If it was a joke, I do not approve of the feelings which prompted you to do it, and in any case you would have done far better not to recite it at all. Do you understand?--Now come along, young woman; we’ve sat here too long. I’ll speak to you about this another time.”
“Yes, I have,” replied the prince, quite unsuspicious of any irony in the remark.
“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.
“I was watching for you, prince,” said the individual.
“Out with it then, damn it! Out with it at once!” and Gania stamped his foot twice on the pavement.
| “He is ashamed of his tears!” whispered Lebedeff to Lizabetha Prokofievna. “It was inevitable. Ah! what a wonderful man the prince is! He read his very soul.” |
The prince only laughed. Aglaya stamped her foot with annoyance.
“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.
| “God knows, Aglaya, that to restore her peace of mind and make her happy I would willingly give up my life. But I cannot love her, and she knows that.” |
| Poor Colia cried himself, and kissed the old man’s hands |
“A--a moral one?” asked the prince, involuntarily.
“It is very painful to me to answer these questions, Lizabetha Prokofievna.”
“H’m! very well, Daria Alexeyevna; you have not stolen anything--agreed. But how about the prince, now--look how he is blushing!”
| “To the twelfth century, and those immediately preceding and following it. We are told by historians that widespread famines occurred in those days every two or three years, and such was the condition of things that men actually had recourse to cannibalism, in secret, of course. One of these cannibals, who had reached a good age, declared of his own free will that during the course of his long and miserable life he had personally killed and eaten, in the most profound secrecy, sixty monks, not to mention several children; the number of the latter he thought was about six, an insignificant total when compared with the enormous mass of ecclesiastics consumed by him. As to adults, laymen that is to say, he had never touched them.” |