“Well, prince, whom are we to suspect, then? Consider!” said Lebedeff with almost servile amiability, smiling at the prince. There was a look of cunning in his eyes, however.

Just before he dozed off, the idea of Hippolyte murdering ten men flitted through his brain, and he smiled at the absurdity of such a thought.

“How, nothing that they have done is Russian?” asked Prince S.

“That same husband of your sister, the usurer--”

“Show it me!”

“Well, what of that? Can’t I buy a new knife if I like?” shouted Rogojin furiously, his irritation growing with every word.
“Yes, I’ve been looking for you. I waited for you at the Epanchins’ house, but of course I could not come in. I dogged you from behind as you walked along with the general. Well, prince, here is Keller, absolutely at your service--command him!--ready to sacrifice himself--even to die in case of need.”
“Shot himself this morning, at seven o’clock. A respected, eminent old man of seventy; and exactly point for point as she described it; a sum of money, a considerable sum of government money, missing!”
“What’s the matter?” asked Aglaya, in a whisper, giving his sleeve a little tug.
“No, it disappeared from under the chair in the night.”
The explanation was finished; Hippolyte paused at last.
The prince actually felt glad that he had been interrupted,--and might return the letters to his pocket. He was glad of the respite.
But alas! at the German lady’s house they did not even appear to understand what he wanted. After a while, by means of certain hints, he was able to gather that Nastasia must have had a quarrel with her friend two or three weeks ago, since which date the latter had neither heard nor seen anything of her. He was given to understand that the subject of Nastasia’s present whereabouts was not of the slightest interest to her; and that Nastasia might marry all the princes in the world for all she cared! So Muishkin took his leave hurriedly. It struck him now that she might have gone away to Moscow just as she had done the last time, and that Rogojin had perhaps gone after her, or even _with_ her. If only he could find some trace!

“I saw him yesterday, and his fingers were all right!”

There was silence for a moment. The prince was taken aback by the suddenness of this last reply, and did not know to what he should attribute it.
Colia did not understand the position. He tried severity with his father, as they stood in the street after the latter had cursed the household, hoping to bring him round that way.
Totski grew white as a sheet. The general was struck dumb. All present started and listened intently. Gania sat rooted to his chair.
“She’s mad surely, isn’t she?” the general appealed to Totski.
“Tell me, how was she when you left her?”
It struck him that the idea of the duel might not have occurred to Keller alone, but that his lesson in the art of pistol-loading might have been not altogether accidental! “Pooh! nonsense!” he said to himself, struck by another thought, of a sudden. “Why, she was immensely surprised to find me there on the verandah, and laughed and talked about _tea!_ And yet she had this little note in her hand, therefore she must have known that I was sitting there. So why was she surprised? Ha, ha, ha!”

“Oh, he was very likely joking; he said it for fun.”

“Yes, it’s a droll situation; I really don’t know what advice to give you,” replied Evgenie, laughing. Hippolyte gazed steadfastly at him, but said nothing. To look at him one might have supposed that he was unconscious at intervals. “Can’t you even load a pistol?” “Stay a little,” said Parfen, not leaving his chair and resting his head on his right hand. “I haven’t seen you for a long time.” “I think you are rather overwhelmed and out of breath. Have a little rest, and try to recover yourself. Take a glass of water, or--but they’ll give you some tea directly.”

“Look here--I’ll write a letter--take a letter for me!”

“You were right, Totski,” said Nastasia, “it is a dull game and a stupid one. I’ll just tell my story, as I promised, and then we’ll play cards.”

So saying, the prince approached Aglaya. The old woman examined the prince from head to foot with great curiosity.
“What about Evgenie’s uncle?”
“Oh, do stop pretending, mamma,” cried Aglaya, in vexation. “Send him up, father; mother allows.”
In response to this challenge all the others chimed in and re-echoed mamma’s sentiments.
“Why are you ashamed of your stories the moment after you have told them?” asked Aglaya, suddenly.
“Because you are a humbug, sir; and thought fit to worry people for half an hour, and tried to frighten them into believing that you would shoot yourself with your little empty pistol, pirouetting about and playing at suicide! I gave you hospitality, you have fattened on it, your cough has left you, and you repay all this--”

When day dawned, two passengers in one of the third-class carriages found themselves opposite each other. Both were young fellows, both were rather poorly dressed, both had remarkable faces, and both were evidently anxious to start a conversation. If they had but known why, at this particular moment, they were both remarkable persons, they would undoubtedly have wondered at the strange chance which had set them down opposite to one another in a third-class carriage of the Warsaw Railway Company.

“Then they were only words on your part? I thought, on the contrary...”
“Where are the cards?”
Arrived at the point where the Gorohovaya crosses the Sadovaya, he was surprised to find how excessively agitated he was. He had no idea that his heart could beat so painfully.

“But--but, why is this? What does it mean?”

“Why on earth not?” asked the latter. “Really, you know, you are making yourself a nuisance, by keeping guard over me like this. I get bored all by myself; I have told you so over and over again, and you get on my nerves more than ever by waving your hands and creeping in and out in the mysterious way you do.”
“How beautiful that is!” cried Mrs. Epanchin, with sincere admiration. “Whose is it?”

“Then within his distant castle, Home returned, he dreamed his days-- Silent, sad,--and when death took him He was mad, the legend says.”

“Well, but--have you taken the purse away now?”

“Do you wish me to beg pardon of this creature because she has come here to insult our mother and disgrace the whole household, you low, base wretch?” cried Varia, looking back at her brother with proud defiance.
“Make allowances? For whom? Him--the old blackguard? No, no, Varia--that won’t do! It won’t do, I tell you! And look at the swagger of the man! He’s all to blame himself, and yet he puts on so much ‘side’ that you’d think--my word!--‘It’s too much trouble to go through the gate, you must break the fence for me!’ That’s the sort of air he puts on; but what’s the matter with you, Varia? What a curious expression you have!”

The scene was growing more and more disgraceful; but Nastasia Philipovna continued to laugh and did not go away. Nina Alexandrovna and Varia had both risen from their places and were waiting, in silent horror, to see what would happen. Varia’s eyes were all ablaze with anger; but the scene had a different effect on Nina Alexandrovna. She paled and trembled, and looked more and more like fainting every moment.

Conversing with the prince, Aglaya did not even seem to notice that Gania was in the room. But while the prince was getting his pen ready, finding a page, and making his preparations to write, Gania came up to the fireplace where Aglaya was standing, to the right of the prince, and in trembling, broken accents said, almost in her ear: