Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (411 page)

And Myshkin, for his part, came in timidly, as it were feeling his way, looking into everyone’s eyes, and seeming to question them all because Aglaia was not in the room again, which made him uneasy at once. There were no other guests present that evening; the family was alone. Prince S. was still in Petersburg, busy over the affairs of Yevgeny Pavlovitch’s uncle. “If only he could have been here and said something, anyway,” said Lizaveta Prokofyevna to herself, deploring his absence. Ivan Fyodorovitch sat with a very puzzled air; the sisters were serious, and, as though intentionally, silent. Lizaveta Prokofyevna did not know how to begin the conversation. At last she vigorously abused the railway, and looked with resolute challenge at Myshkin.

Alas! Aqlaia did not come down, and Mvshkin was lost. Losing his head and hardly able to articulate, he began to express the opinion that to improve the line would be exceedingly useful, but Adelaida suddenly laughed, and he was crushed again. At that very instant Aglaia came in. Calmly and with dignity she made Myshkin a ceremonious bow, and solemnly seated herself in the most conspicuous place at the round table. She looked inquiringly at Myshkin. Every one realised that the moment had come when all doubts would be removed.

“Did you get my hedgehog?” Aglaia asked firmly and almost angrily.

“I did,” answered Myshkin, with a sinking heart, and he flushed red.

“Explain at once what you think about it. That’s essential for the peace of mind of mamma and all the family.”

“Come, come, Aglaia . . ,” began the general, suddenly uneasy.

“This is beyond everything!” said Lizaveta Prokofyevna, for some reason suddenly alarmed.

“It’s not beyond anything, maman,” her daughter answered sternly at once. “I sent the prince a hedgehog to-day, and I want to know his opinion. Well, prince?”

“What sort of opinion, Aglaia Ivanovna?”

“Of the hedgehog.”

“That is, I suppose, Aglaia Ivanovna, you want to know how I took ... the hedgehog ... or, rather, how I regarded the . . . sending . . . of the hedgehog, that is ... I imagine in such a case, that is, in fact....”

He gasped and was silent.

“Well, you’ve not said much,” said Aglaia, after waiting five seconds. “Very well, I agree to drop the hedgehog; but I am very glad that I can put an end to all this accumulation of misunderstanding. Let me know from you personally: are you making me an offeror not?”

“Good heavens!” broke from Lizaveta Prokofyevna. Myshkin started and drew back; Ivan Fyodorovitch was petrified; the sisters frowned.

“Don’t lie, prince, tell the truth. I am persecuted with strange questionings on your account. Is there any foundation for these questions? ... Well?”

“I have not made you an offer, Aglaia Ivanovna,” said Myshkin, suddenly reviving. “But you know how I

love you and believe in you ... even now....”

“What I am inquiring is — do you ask for my hand, or not?”

“I do,” Myshkin answered with a sinking heart.

A general stir of agitation followed.

“All this is not the thing, my dear fellow,” said Ivan Fyodorovitch, violently agitated. “This . . . this is almost impossible if it’s like this, Aglaia. . . . Forgive it, prince, forgive it, my dear fellow! . . . Lizaveta Prokofyevna!” he turned to his wife for assistance, “you must... go into it!”

“I refuse, I refuse!” cried Lizaveta Prokofyevna, waving her hands.

“Allow me to speak, maman: I count for something in this business; the extreme moment of my fate is being decided” (this was the expression Aglaia used) “and I want to find out for myself, and I’m glad besides that it’s before everyone. . . .Allow me to ask you, prince, if you ‘cherish such intentions,’ how do you propose to secure my happiness?”

“I really don’t know, Aglaia Ivanovna, how to answer you, in this question . . . What is there to answer? And besides ... is it necessary?”

“You seem to be embarrassed and out of breath; take a rest and pull yourself together; drink a glass of water, though they’ll soon give you some tea.”

“I love you, Aglaia Ivanovna. I love you very much, I love no one but you and .. . don’t jest, I implore you.. .. I love you very much.”

“This is an important matter, though, we are not children; we must look at it practically. . . . Have the goodness now to explain what your fortune is?”

“Come, come, Aglaia! What are you doing! This is not the thing, not the thing,” Ivan Fyodorovitch muttered in dismay.

“Disgraceful!” said Lizaveta Prokofyevna in a loud whisper.

“She’s out of her mind!” Alexandra whispered as loudly.

“My fortune . . . that is, money?” said Myshkin, surprised.

“Just so.”

“I have. ... I have now one hundred and thirty-five thousand,” Myshkin muttered, reddening.

“Is that all?” said Aglaia aloud, in open wonder, without the faintest blush. “It doesn’t matter though,

especially with economy. Do you intend to enter the service?”

“I was thinking of preparing for an examination to become a private tutor....”

“Very appropriate; no doubt that will increase our income. Are you proposing to be a kammer-junker?”

“A kammer-junker? I never imagined such a thing, but....”

But at this point the two sisters could not contain themselves and burst into laughter. Adelaida had long noticed in the twitching features of Aglaia’s face symptoms of imminent and irrepressible laughter, which she was, for the time, controlling with all her might. Aglaia looked menacingly at her laughing sisters, but a second later she, too, broke down, and went off into a frantic, almost hysterical, fit of laughter. At last she leapt up and ran out of the room.

“I knew it was all a joke and nothing more!” cried Adelaida, “from the very beginning, from the hedgehog.”

“No, this I will not allow; I will not,” cried Lizaveta Prokofyevna, suddenly boiling over with anger, and she hastened out after Aglaia. The sisters ran out immediately after her. Myshkin was left alone in the room with the head of the family.

“This is . . . could you have imagined anything like it, Lyov Nikolayevitch?” General Epanchin cried abruptly, hardly knowing what he wanted to say. “Yes, seriously, speak?”

“I see that Aglaia Ivanovna was laughing at me,” said Myshkin sadly.

“Wait a bit, my boy. I’ll go and you wait a bit, because . . . you at least, you at least, Lyov Nikolayevitch, explain to me how all this happened, and what does it all mean, looked at as a whole, so to say? You must admit, my boy — I’m her father; anyway I’m her father and so I don’t understand anything about it; you at least let me know.”

“I love Aglaia Ivanovna; she knows that . . . and I think she has known it a long time.”

The general shrugged his shoulders.

“Strange, strange! . . . And are you very fond of her?”

“Very.”

“This all seems so strange to me. That is, such a surprise and blow that. .. . You see, my dear boy, it’s not the fortune (though I did expect you had rather more), but. . . my daughter’s happiness . . . in fact. .

. are you in a position to secure . . . her happiness? And ... and ... what does it mean: is it a joke or real on her side? Not on your side, but on hers, I mean?”

Alexandra’s voice was heard at the door, calling her father.

“Wait a bit, my boy, wait a bit! Wait a bit and think it over. I’ll be back directly,” he said hurriedly, and almost in alarm he rushed out in response to the call.

He found his wife and daughter in each other’s arms, mingling their tears. They were tears of bliss, tenderness, and reconciliation. Aglaia was kissing her mother’s hands, cheeks and lips; they were hugging each other closely.

“Here, look at her, Ivan Fyodorovitch! There you have the whole of her,” said Lizaveta Prokofyevna.

Aglaia lifted her happy, tear-stained little face from her mother’s bosom, and looked at her father; she laughed aloud, jumped up to him, embraced him warmly, and kissed him several times. Then she flung herself on her mother again and hid her face completely in her bosom so that no one could see it, and began crying again at once. Lizaveta Prokofyevna covered her with the end of her shawl.

“What are vou doinq with us, vou cruel qirl — that’s what I want to know,” she said, but joyfully, as though she could breathe more easily now.

“Cruel! Yes, cruel!” Aglaia assented suddenly. “Spoilt! Good-for-nothing! Tell papa that. Oh, yes, he’s here! Papa, you’re here? Do you hear?” she laughed through her tears.

“My dear, my idol!” The general kissed her hand, beaming all over with happiness. (Aglaia did not take her hand away.) “So you love this young man then?”

“No-no-no! I can’t bear. . . your young man, I can’t endure him!” cried Aglaia, boiling over suddenly and raising her head. “And if you ever dare again. ... I mean it, papa, I mean it; do you hear? I mean it.”

And she certainly did mean it; she flushed all over and her eyes gleamed. Her father was nonplussed and alarmed. But Lizaveta Prokofyevna made a signal to him behind her daughter, and he took it to mean: “Don’t ask questions.”

“If it is so, my angel, it’s as you like, it’s for you to decide, he’s waiting there alone. Shouldn’t we give him a delicate hint to go away?”

Ivan Fyodorovitch, in his turn, winked at his wife.

“No, no, that’s not necessary; especially a ‘delicate’ one. You go to him yourself; I’ll come in afterwards, directly. I want to beg that . . . young man’s pardon, because I hurt his feelings.”

“Yes, you did dreadfully,” Ivan Fyodorovitch assented seriously.

“Well, then . . . you all had better stay here, and I’ll go in first alone, you shall come directly after; come the very second after, that’s better.”

She had already reached the door but suddenly turned back.

“I shall laugh! I shall die of laughing!” she declared sorrowfully.

But at the same second she turned and ran in to Myshkin.

“Come, what’s the meaning of it? What do you think?” Ivan Fyodorovitch began quickly.

“I am afraid to say,” Lizaveta Prokofyevna answered as quickly. “But to my mind it’s clear.”

“To mine, too. As clear as day. She loves him.”

“Not only loves; she’s in love with him,” put in Alexandra. “But what a man, when you think of it!”

“God bless her if such is her fate!” said Lizaveta Prokofyevna, crossing herself devoutly.

“It must be her fate,” the general agreed, “and there’s no escaping fate.”

And they all went into the dining-room where a surprise awaited them again.

Aglaia, far from laughing as she had feared on going up to Myshkin, said to him almost shyly:

“Forgive a stupid, nasty, spoilt girl” (she took his hand), “and believe me we all respect you immensely. And if I dared to turn into ridicule your splendid . . . kind simplicity, forgive me as you’d forgive a child for being naughty. Forgive me for persisting in an absurdity, which could not, of course, have the slightest consequence.”

The last words Aglaia uttered with particular emphasis.

The father, mother, and sisters were all in the drawing-room in time to see and hear all this, and all were struck by the words, “absurdity which cannot have the slightest consequence.” And still more so by the earnestness with which Aglaia spoke of that absurdity. They all looked at one another questioningly. But Myshkin did not seem to understand those words and was at the very summit of happiness.

“Why do you talk like that?” he muttered. “Why do you ... ask ... forgiveness?”

He would have said that he wasn’t worthy of her asking his forgiveness. Who knows, perhaps he did notice the meaning of the words, “absurdity which cannot have the slightest consequence,” but, being such a strange man, perhaps he was relieved at those words. There is no doubt that the mere fact that he could come and see Aglaia again without hindrance, that he was allowed to talk to her, sit with her, walk with her was the utmost bliss to him; and who knows, perhaps he would have been satisfied with that for the rest of his life. (It was just this contentment that Lizaveta Prokofyevna secretly dreaded; she understood him; she dreaded many things in secret, which she could not have put into words herself.)

It’s difficult to describe how completely Myshkin regained his spirits and courage that evening. He was so light-hearted that they grew light-hearted watching him — as Aglaia’s sisters expressed it afterwards. He was talkative, and that had not happened to him again since the morning, six months aqo, when he had first made the acquaintance of the Epanchins. On his return to Petersburg he was noticeably and intentionally silent, and had quite lately said to Prince S. in the presence of all, that he must restrain himself and be silent, that he might not degrade an idea by his expressing it. He was almost the only one who talked that evening, he described many things. He answered questions clearly, minutely, and with pleasure. But there was not a glimpse of a word approaching love-making in his conversation. He expressed earnest, sometimes profound ideas. Myshkin even expounded some of his own views, his own private observations, so that it would have been funny, if it had not been so well expressed; as all who heard him that evening agreed later on. Though General Epanchin liked serious subjects of conversation, yet both he and Lizaveta Prokofyevna secretly thought it was too intellectual, so that they felt actually sad at the end of the evening. But Myshkin went so far at last to tell some very amusing stories, which he was the first to laugh at, so that the others laughed more at his joyful laugh than at the story itself. As for Aglaia, she hardly spoke all the evening; but she listened all the while to Lyov Nikolayevitch, and gazed at him even more than she listened.

“She looks at him and can’t take her eyes off him; she hangs on every word he utters, she catches everything,” Lizaveta Prokofyevna said afterwards to her husband. “But tell her that she loves him and you’ll have the walls about your ears.”

“There’s no help for it, it’s fate!” said the general, shrugging his shoulders.

And long afterwards he kept repeating the phrase which pleased him. We will add that, as a business man, he too disliked a great deal in the present position, above all its indefiniteness. But he, too, resolved for the time to keep quiet, and to take his cue ... from Lizaveta Prokofyevna.