Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (343 page)

“Well, they have put you through your examination,” she cried. “Well, young ladies, you thought you were going to patronise him as a poor relation, but he scarcely deigns to accept you, and only with the proviso that he won’t come often! It makes us look silly, especially Ivan Fyodorovitch, and I am glad of it. Bravo, prince! We were told to put you through an examination. And as for what you said about my face, it’s perfectly true: I am a child, and I know it. I knew that before you told me; you put my own thoughts into words for me. I believe your character’s like mine exactly, like two drops of water,

and I am glad of it. Only you are a man and I am a woman and haven’t been to Switzerland: that’s the only difference.”

“Don’t be in a hurry, maman,” cried Aglaia. “The prince admitted that he had a special motive in all he has confessed and was not speaking simply.”

“Yes, yes,” laughed the others.

“Don’t tease him, my dears, he is shrewder maybe than all the three of you together. You will see. But why do you say nothing about Aglaia, prince? Aglaia is waiting, and so am I.”

“I can’t say anything at once: I’ll speak later.”

“Why? I should have thought she couldn’t be overlooked.”

“Oh, no, she couldn’t. \bu are exceedingly beautiful, Aglaia Ivanovna. \bu are so beautiful that one is afraid to look at you.”

“Is that all? What about her qualities?” Madame Epanchin persisted.

“It’s difficult to judge beauty; I am not ready yet. Beauty is a riddle.”

“That’s as good as setting Aglaia a riddle,” said Adelaida. “Guess it, Aglaia. But she is beautiful, prince?”

“Extremely,” answered the prince with warmth, looking enthusiastically at Aglaia. “Almost as beautiful as Nastasya Filippovna, though her face is quite different.”

All looked at one another in surprise.

“As who-o-o?” gasped Madame Epanchin. “As Nastasya Filippovna? Where have you seen Nastasya Filippovna? What Nastasya Filippovna?”

“Gavril Ardalionovitch was showing her portrait to Ivan Fyodorovitch just now.”

“What! he brought Ivan Fydorovitch her portrait?”

“To show it to him. Nastasya Filippovna had given it to Gavril Ardalionovitch to-day, and he brought it to show.”

“I want to see it!” Madame Epanchin cried eagerly. “Where is the photograph? If it was given him, he must have got it, and he must still be in the study. He always comes to work on Wednesdays and never leaves before four. Call him at once. No, I am not dying to see him. Do me a favor, dear prince. Go to the study, take the photograph from him and bring it here. Tell him we want to look at it, please.”

“He is nice, but too simple,” said Adelaida, when the prince had qone.

“Yes, somewhat too much so,” Alexandra agreed; “so that it makes him a little absurd, in fact.”

Neither of them seemed to be saying all she thought.

“He got out of it very well, though, over our faces,” said Aglaia. “He flattered us all, even mamma.”

“Don’t be witty, please,” cried her mother. “He did not flatter me, though I was flattered.”

“You think he was sly?” asked Adelaida.

“I fancy he is not so simple.”

“Get along with you,” said her mother, getting angry. “To my thinking you are more absurd than he is. He is simple, but he’s got all his wits about him, in the most honourable sense, of course. Exactly like me.”

“It was certainly a mistake to have spoken about the photograph,” Myshkin reflected as he went to the study, feeling a little conscience-stricken. “But perhaps it was a good thing I spoke of it....”

A strange, though still vague idea was beginning to take shape in his mind.

Gavril Ardalionovitch was still sitting in the study absorbed in his papers. It was clear he did not receive his salary from the company for nothing. He was terribly disconcerted when the prince asked him for the portrait and told him how they had come to hear about it.

“E-ech! What need had you to chatter about it?” he cried in angry vexation. “\bu know nothing about it.... Idiot!” he muttered to himself.

“I am sorry. I did it without thinking; it happened to come up. I said that Aglaia was almost as handsome as Nastasya Filippovna.”

Ganya begged him to tell him exactly what had happened. Myshkin did so. Ganya looked at him sarcastically again.

“You’ve got Nastasya Filippovna on the brain . . ,” he muttered, but paused and sank into thought.

He was evidently upset. Myshkin reminded him of the photograph.

“Listen, prince,” Ganya said suddenly, as though an idea had struck him. “I want to ask a great favour of you ... but I really don’t know.”

He broke off, embarrassed. He seemed struggling with himself and trying to make up his mind. Myshkin waited in silence. Ganya scanned him once more with intent and searching eyes.

“Prince,” he began again, “they are angry with me now ... in there . . . owing to a strange . . . and absurd incident, for which I am not to blame. In fact, there’s no need to go into it. I think they are rather vexed with me in there, so that for a time I don’t want to go in without being invited. But there is something I absolutely must say to Aglaia Ivanovna. I have written a few words, on the chance” — he held a tiny folded note in his hand— “and I don’t know how to give it to her. Won’t you take it for me and give it to her at once, but to Aglaia Ivanovna alone, so that no one sees it? \bu understand? It’s no very terrible secret, nothing of that sort... but... Will you do it?”

“I don’t quite like doing it,” answered Myshkin.

“Oh, prince, it’s horribly important for me!” Ganya began entreating him. “She will perhaps answer. . . . Believe me, it’s only at the last extremity, at the last extremity that I could have recourse to ... By whom else could I send it? It’s very important. . . dreadfully important....”

Ganya was terribly afraid that Myshkin would not consent, and looked in his eyes with cringing entreaty.

“Very well, I’ll give it her.”

“Only so that no one sees it,” Ganya besought him, delighted. “And another thing, I can rely on your word of honour, of course, prince?”

“I won’t show it to anyone,” said Myshkin.

“The note is not sealed, but . . .” Ganya was beginning in his anxiety, but he broke off in confusion.

“Oh, I won’t read it,” answered Myshkin quite simply. He took the photograph and went out of the study.

As soon as Ganya was left alone, he clutched at his head.

“One word from her and I. . . and I will break it off, perhaps.”

He could not settle down to his papers again for excitement and suspense, and began pacing from one corner of the room to the other.

Myshkin pondered as he went. The task laid upon him impressed him unpleasantly. The thought of a letter from Ganya to Aglaia was unpleasant too. But when he was the length of two rooms from the drawing-room, he stopped short, as though recollecting something. He looked round, went to the window nearer to the liqht, and beqan lookinq at the portrait of Nastasya Filippovna.

He seemed trying to decipher something that had struck him before, hidden in that face. The impression it had made had scarcely left him, and now he was in a hurry to verify it again. He was now even more struck by the face, which was extraordinary from its beauty and from something else in it. There was a look of unbounded pride and contempt, almost hatred, in that face, and at the same time something confiding, something wonderfully simple-hearted. The contrast of these two elements roused a feeling almost of compassion. Her dazzling beauty was positively unbearable — the beauty of a pale face, almost sunken cheeks and glowing eyes — a strange beauty! Myshkin gazed at it for a minute, then started suddenly, looked round him, hurriedly raised the portrait to his lips and kissed it. When he walked into the drawing-room a minute later, his face was perfectly calm.

But he had hardly entered the dining-room (which was separated by one room from the drawing-room) when he almost ran against Aglaia, who was coming out. She was alone.

“Gavril Ardalionovitch asked me to give you this,” said Myshkin, handing her the note.

Aglaia stood still, took the note, and looked strangely at Myshkin. There was not the slightest embarrassment in her expression. There was only a shade of wonder in her eyes, and that seemed only in reference to Myshkin. Aglaia’s eyes seemed to ask him to account for having got mixed up in this affair with Ganya, and to ask him calmly and haughtily. They looked atone anotherfortwo or three seconds. Then something ironical seemed to come into her face; with a slight smile she walked away.

Madame Epanchin gazed for some moments in silence, with a shade of nonchalance, at the photograph of Nastasya Filippovna, which she held affectedly at arm’s length.

“Yes, good-looking,” she pronounced at last, “very good-looking indeed. I’ve seen her twice, only at a distance. That’s the sort of beauty you appreciate, then?” she suddenly said to Myshkin.

“Yes, it is .. ,” answered Myshkin with some effort.

“You mean, just that sort of beauty?”

“Just that sort.”

“Why?”

“In that face . . . there is so much suffering,” answered Myshkin, as it were involuntarily speaking to himself, not in answer to her question.

“But perhaps you are talking nonsense,” Madame Epanchin concluded, and with a haughty gesture she flung the photograph down on the table.

Alexandra took it. Adelaida went up to her and they looked at it together. At that moment Aglaia came back into the drawing-room.

“What power!” Adelaida cried suddenly, looking eagerly over her sister’s shoulder at the portrait.

“Where? What power?” her mother asked sharply.

“Such beauty is power,” said Adelaida warmly. “With beauty like that one might turn the world upside down.”

She walked thoughtfully away to her easel. Aglaia only glanced cursorily at the portrait, screwed up her eyes, pouted, walked away and sat down clasping her hands.

Madame Epanchin rang the bell.

“Call Gavril Ardalionovitch here; he is in the study,” she told the servant who answered it.

“Maman!’ cried Alexandra siqnificantlv.

“I want to say a few words to him — that’s enough!” her mother snapped out, cutting short her protest. She was evidently irritated. “We have nothing but secrets here, prince, you see — nothing but secrets. It has to be so, it’s a sort of etiquette; it’s stupid. And in a matter which above everything needs frankness, openness and straightforwardness. There are marriages being arranged. I don’t like these marriages....”

“Maman, what are you saying?” Alexandra again made haste to check her.

“What is it, dear daughter? Do you like it yourself? As for the prince’s hearing it, we are friends. He and I are, anyway. God seeks men, good ones of course, but He does not want the wicked and capricious. Capricious especially, who say one thing one day and something else another. Do you understand, Alexandra Ivanovna? They say I am queer, prince, but I can tell what people are like. For the heart is the great thing, and the rest is all nonsense. One must have sense too, of course . . . perhaps sense is the great thing really. Don’t smile, Aglaia, I am not contradicting myself: a fool with a heart and no sense is just as unhappy as a fool with sense and no heart. It’s an old truth. I am a fool with a heart and no sense, and you are a fool with sense and no heart, and so we are both unhappy and miserable.”

“What are you so unhappy about, maman?” Adelaida could not resist asking. She seemed the only one of the company who had not lost her good-humour.

“Learned daughters, in the first place,” retorted her mother curtly, “and as that’s enough of itself, there’s no need to go into other causes. Words enough have been wasted. We shall see how you two (I don’t count Aglaia) will manage with your sense and your talk, and whether you will be happy with your fine gentleman, most admirable Alexandra Ivanovna. Ah!” she exclaimed, seeing Ganya enter, “here comes another matrimonial alliance. Good-day!” she said in response to Ganya’s bow, without asking him to sit down. “\bu are contemplating marriage?”

“Marriage? How? What marriage?” muttered Gavril Ardalionovitch, dumbfounded. He was terribly disconcerted.

“Are you getting married, I ask you, if you prefer that expression?”

“N-no . . . I. . . n-no . . .” Gavril Ardalionovitch lied, and a flush of shame overspread his face.

He stole a glance at Aglaia who was sitting a little apart, and hurriedly looked away again. Aglaia looked coldly, intently and calmly at him, steadily watching his confusion.

“No? You said no?” the ruthless lady persisted. “Enough. I shall remember that to-day, Wednesday morning, you have said ‘No’ in answer to my question. What is to-day — Wednesday?”

“I think so, maman,” answered Adelaida.

“They never know the days. What day of the month is it?”

“The twenty-seventh,” answered Ganya.

“The twenty-seventh. Just as well for some reasons. Good-bye. I think you’ve a great deal to do, and it’s time for me to dress and go out. Take your photograph. Give my kind regards to your unhappy mother. Good-bye for the present, dear prince. Come and see us often. I am going to see old Princess Byelokonsky on purpose to tell her about you. And listen, my dear, I believe it’s simply for my sake God has brought you to Petersburg from Switzerland. Perhaps you may have other work to do, but it was chiefly for my sake. That was just God’s design. Good-bye, dears. Alexandra, come to my room, my dear.”

Madame Epanchin went out. Ganya, crestfallen, confused, angry, picked up the photograph from the table and turned with a wry smile to Myshkin.

“Prince, I am just going home. If you’ve not changed your mind about boarding with us, I will take you, for you don’t even know the address.”

“Staya little, prince,” said Aglaia, suddenly getting up from her chair. “\bu must write in my album. Papa said you had a fine handwriting. I’ll bring it you directly.”

And she went out.

“Good-bye for the present, prince, I am going too,” said Adelaida.

She pressed Myshkin’s hand warmly, smiling kindly and cordially to him, and went away. She did not look at Ganya.

“That was your doing,” snarled Ganya, falling upon Myshkin as soon as every one had gone. “You’ve been babbling to them of my getting married!” he muttered in a rapid whisper, with a furious face and an angry gleam in his eyes. “\bu are a shameless chatterbox!”