Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (380 page)

The most important and interesting fact was that Aglaia had been quarrelling with her people about Ganya. He did not know the details of the quarrel but only that it was over Ganya (fancy that!), and it had been a terrible quarrel, so it must be something important. The general had come in late, had come in frowning; had come in with Yevgeny Pavlovitch, who met with an excellent reception, and had been wonderfully gay and charming. The most striking piece of news was that Lizaveta Prokofyevna had without any fuss sent for Varvara Ardalionovna, who was sitting with the young ladies, and had once for all turned her out of the house, in a very polite manner, however. “I heard it from Varya herself.” But when Varya came out of Madame Epanchin’s room and said good-bye to the young ladies, they did not know she had been forbidden the house for ever, and that she was taking leave of them for the last time.

“But Varvara Ardalionovna was here at seven o’clock,” said Myshkin, astonished.

“She was turned out at eight o’clock or just before. I am very sorry for Varya. I am sorry for Ganya. . . . No doubt they have always got some intrigues in hand; they can’t get on without it. I never could make out what they were hatching, and I don’t want to know. But I assure you, my dear, kind prince, that Ganya has a heart. He’s a lost soul in many respects, no doubt, but he has points on other sides worth finding out, and I shall never forgive myself for not having understood him before. ... I don’t know whether to go on now, after the fuss with Varya. It’s true I introduced myself from the very first quite independently and separately; but all the same I must think it over.”

“You need not be too sorry for your brother,” Myshkin observed. “If it has come to that, Gavril Ardalionovitch must be dangerous in Madame Epanchin’s eyes, and that means that certain hopes of his have been encouraged.”

“How, what hopes?” Kolya said in amazement. “Surely you don’t think that Aglaia . . . That’s impossible!”

Myshkin did not speak.

“You’re an awful sceptic, prince,” Kolya added two minutes later. “I have noticed that for some time past you’ve become a great sceptic; you’re beginning to believe in nothing, and are always imagining things.. .. Did I use the word ‘sceptic’ correctly in this case?”

“I believe you did, though I really don’t know for certain myself.”

“But I give up the word sceptic myself, I’ve found another explanation,” Kolya cried suddenly. “\bu’re not a sceptic, but you’re jealous! \bu’re fiendishly jealous of Ganya over a certain proud young lady!”

Saying this, Kolya jumped up and began laughing, as perhaps he had never laughed before. Seeing that Myshkin blushed all over, Kolya laughed more than ever. He was highly delighted with the idea that Myshkin was jealous over Aglaia, but he ceased at once on observing that the prince was really wounded. After that, they talked earnestly and anxiously for another hour or hour and a half.

Next day Myshkin had to spend the whole morning in Petersburg on urgent business. It was past four o’clock in the afternoon when, on the way back to Pavlovsk, he met General Epanchin at the railway station. The latter seized him hurriedly by the arm, looked about him as though in alarm, and drew Myshkin after him into a first-class compartment that they might travel together. He was burning with impatience to discuss something important.

“To begin with, dear prince, don’t be angry with me, and if there’s been anything on my side — forget it. I should have come to see you myself yesterday, but I didn’t know how Lizaveta Prokofyevna would take it . . . It’s simply hell in my home. ... An inscrutable sphinx is settled there, and I wander about and can’t make head or tail of it. As for you, to my thinking you’re less to blame than any of us; though, of course, a great deal has happened through you. \bu see, prince, it’s nice to be a philanthropist, but not too much so. You’ve tasted the fruits of it already, maybe. I like kind-heartedness, of course, and respect Lizaveta Prokofyevna, but...”

The general continued for a long time in this style, but his words were astonishingly incoherent. It was evident that he was extremely upset and puzzled by something utterly beyond his comprehension.

“I have no doubt that you had nothing to do with it,”

he spoke out at last more clearly, “but I beg you as a friend not to visit us for some time, till the wind’s changed. As for “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch,” he cried with extraordinary warmth, “it’s all senseless slander — the most slanderous of slanders! It’s a plot, it’s an intrigue, an attempt to destroy everything and to make us quarrel. \bu see, prince, I’ll whisper in your ear, there hasn’t been a single word said between “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch and us yet. You understand? We’re not bound in any way. But that word may be said, and very shortly, perhaps, in fact! So this is an attempt to spoil it all! But with what object, what for I can’t make out! She’s a marvellous woman, an eccentric woman. I’m so afraid of her I can hardly sleep at night. And what a carriage! — white horses, real chic. “Vfes, it’s just what is called in French ‘chic’! Who’s provided it? I did wrong, by Jove — the day before yesterday my thoughts fell on Yevgeny Pavlovitch. But it turns out that it can’t be so. And if it can’t, what’s her object in interfering? That’s the riddle, that’s the mystery! To keep Yevgeny Pavlovitch for herself? But I tell you again, and I’m ready to swear it, that he doesn’t know her, and that those lOUs were an invention! And with what insolence she shouted ‘Dear’ to him across the street! It’s a regular plot! It’s clear that we must dismiss it with contempt and treat Yevgeny Pavlovitch with redoubled respect. That’s what I’ve said to Lizaveta Prokofyevna. Now I’ll tell you my private opinion. I’m positively convinced that she’s doing this to revenge herself on me personally for the past, d’you remember, though I’ve never done anything to her. I blush at the very thought of it. Now she’s turned up again, you see; I thought she’d disappeared for good. Where’s this Rogozhin hiding? Tell me that, if you please. I thought she’d been Madame Rogozhin long ago.”

The man was completely bewildered in fact. He talked alone for the whole journey, which lasted almost an hour, asked questions, answered them himself, pressed Myshkin’s hand, and did at any rate convince the prince that he did not dream of suspecting him.

This was what mattered to Myshkin. He finished up by telling him about “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch’s uncle, who was chief of some department in Petersburg. “In a conspicuous position, seventy years old, a viveur,

a gourmand — altogether an old gentleman with habits. ... Ha ha! I know he’d heard of Nastasya Filippovna, and in fact was after her. I went to see him not long ago; he didn’t see me. He was unwell; but he is a wealthy man, very wealthy, a man of consequence and . . . please God, he will go on flourishing for years, but Yevgeny Pavlovitch will come in for his money in the end. “Vfes, yes. . . . But yet I’m afraid, I don’t know why, but I’m afraid. It’s as though there were something in the air, some trouble hovering like a bat, and I’m afraid, I’m afraid! ...”

And it was only on the third day, as we have said already, that the formal reconciliation of the Epanchins with Myshkin took place at last.

CHAPTER 12

It WAS seven o’clock in the evening. Myshkin was getting ready to go into the park. All of a sudden Lizaveta Prokofyevna walked alone on to his verandah.

“To begin with, don’t you dare to imagine,” she began, “that I’ve come to beg your pardon. Nonsense! It was entirely your fault.”

Myshkin did not speak.

“Was it your fault or not?”

“As much mine as yours, though neither I nor you was intentionally to blame. I did think myself to blame the day before yesterday, but now I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not so.”

“So that’s what you say! Very well; listen and sit down, for I don’t intend to stand.”

They both sat down. “Secondly, not one word about mischievous urchins! I’ll sit and talk to you for ten minutes; I’ve come to make an inquiry (and you are fancying all sorts of things, I expect?). And if you drop a single word about insolent urchins, I shall get up and go away and break with you completely.”

“Very well,” answered Myshkin.

“Allow me to ask you: did you two months or two and a half ago, about Easter, send Aglaia a letter?”

“I did write to her.”

“With what object? What was in the letter? Show me the letter!”

Lizaveta Prokofyevna’s eyes glowed, she was almost quivering with impatience.

“I haven’t got the letter.” Myshkin was surprised and horribly dismayed. “If it still exists, Aglaia Ivanovna has it.”

“Don’t wriggle out of it. What did you write about?”

“I’m not, and I’m not afraid of anything. I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t write....”

“Hold your tongue! “Vbu shall speak afterwards. What was in the letter? Why are you blushing?”

Myshkin thought a little.

“I don’t know what’s in your mind, Lizaveta Prokofyevna. I only see that you don’t like the letter. “Vbu must admit that I might refuse to answer such a question; but to show you that I’m not uneasy about the letter and don’t regret having written it, and am not blushing in the least on account of it” — Myshkin blushed at least twice as red— “I’ll repeat that letter to you, for I believe I know it by heart.”

Saying this, Myshkin repeated the letter almost word for word as he had written it.

“What a string of nonsense! What can be the meaning of such twaddle, according to you?” Lizaveta Prokofyevna asked sharply, after listening to the letter with extraordinary attention.

“I can’t quite tell myself; I know that my feeling was sincere. At that time I had moments of intense life and extraordinary hopes.”

“What hopes?”

“It’s hard to explain, but not what you’re thinking of now, perhaps. Hopes ... well, in one word, hopes for the future and joy that perhaps I was not a stranger, not a foreigner, there. I took suddenly a great liking to my own country. One sunny morning I took up a pen and wrote a letter to her; why to her — I don’t know. Sometimes one lonqs for a friend at one’s side, you know; and I suppose I was longing for a friend....” Myshkin added after a pause.

“Are you in love?”

“N-no. I ... I wrote to her as to a sister; I signed myself her brother, indeed.”

“Hm! On purpose; I understand.”

“It’s very unpleasant for me to answer these questions, Lizaveta Prokofyevna.”

“I know it’s unpleasant, but it doesn’t matter to me in the least whether it is unpleasant. Listen, tell me the truth as you would before God. Are you telling me lies or not?”

“I’m not.”

“Are you speaking the truth saying that you are not in love?”

“I believe quite the truth.”

“Upon my word, ‘you believe’! Did the urchin give it her?”

“I asked Nikolay Ardalionovitch ...”

“The urchin! the urchin!” Lizaveta Prokofyevna interrupted vehemently. “I know nothing about any Nikolay Ardalionovitch! The urchin!”

“Nikolay Ardalionovitch ...”

“The urchin, I tell you!”

“No, not the urchin, but Nikolay Ardalionovitch,” Myshkin answered at last, firmly though rather softly.

“Oh, very well, my dear, very well! I shall keep that against you.” For a minute she overcame her emotion and was calm.

“And what’s the meaning of the ‘poor knight’?”

“I don’t know at all; I had nothing to do with it. Some joke.”

“Pleasant to hear it all at once! Only, could she have been interested in you? Why, she has called you a freak and an idiot.”

“You need not have told me that,” Myshkin observed reproachfully, though almost in a whisper.

“Don’t be angry. She’s a wilful, mad, spoilt girl — if she cares for any one she’ll be sure to rail at him aloud and abuse him to his face; I was just such another. Only please don’t be triumphant, my dear fellow, she’s not yours. I won’t believe that, and it never will be! I speak that you may take steps now. Listen, swear you’re not married to that woman.”

“Lizaveta Prokofyevna, what are you saying? Upon my word!” Myshkin almost jumped up in amazement.

“But you were almost marrying her, weren’t you?”

“I was almost marrying her,” Myshkin whispered, and he bowed his head.

“Well, are you in love with her, then? Have you come here on her account — for her sake?”

“I have not come to get married,” answered Myshkin.

“Is there anything in the world you hold sacred?”

“Yes.”

“Swear that it was not to get married to her.”

“I’ll swear by anything you like!”

“I believe you. Kiss me. At last I can breathe freely; but let me tell you: Aglaia doesn’t love you, you must be warned of that, and she won’t marry you while I’m alive; do you hear?”

“I hear.” Myshkin blushed so much that he could not look at Lizaveta Prokofyevna.

“Make a note of it. I’ve been looking for you back as my Providence (you’re not worth it!). I’ve been watering my pillow with my tears at night. Not on your account, my dear — don’t be uneasy. I have my own grief — a very different one, everlasting and always the same. But this is why I’ve been looking for you back with such impatience. I still believe that God Himself has sent you to me as a friend and brother. I have no one else, except old Princess Byelokonsky, and she’s gone away; and besides, she’s as stupid as a sheep in her old age. Now answer me simply: yes or no. Do you know why she shouted from her carriage the day before yesterday?”

“On my word of honour, I had nothing to do with it and know nothing about it!”

“That’s enough; I believe you. Now I have other ideas about that, but only yesterday morning I put the whole blame of it on “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch — all the day before yesterday and yesterday morning. Now, of course, I can’t help agreeing with them. It’s perfectly obvious that he was being turned into ridicule like a fool on some account, for some reason, with some object. Anyway, it’s suspicious! And it doesn’t look well! But Aglaia won’t marry him, I can tell you that! He may be a nice man, but that’s how it’s to be. I was hesitating before, but now I’ve made up my mind for certain: ‘You can lay me in my coffin and bury me in the earth and then you can marry your daughter’; that’s what I said straight out to Ivan Fyodorovitch to-day. \bu see that I trust you. D’you see?”