| “Hallo, Gania, you blackguard! You didn’t expect Rogojin, eh?” said the latter, entering the drawing-room, and stopping before Gania. |
| “I have been waiting all day for you, because I want to ask you a question; and, for once in your life, please tell me the truth at once. Had you anything to do with that affair of the carriage yesterday?” |
“He may not be home for a week.”
| She was astonished and vexed, and her disappointment pleased Colia immensely. Of course he could have undeceived her before she started, but the mischievous boy had been careful not to do that, foreseeing the probably laughable disgust that she would experience when she found her dear friend, the prince, in good health. Colia was indelicate enough to voice the delight he felt at his success in managing to annoy Lizabetha Prokofievna, with whom, in spite of their really amicable relations, he was constantly sparring. |
“Well--come! there’s nothing to get cross about,” said Gania.
| “I thought someone led me by the hand and showed me, by the light of a candle, a huge, loathsome insect, which he assured me was that very force, that very almighty, dumb, irresistible Power, and laughed at the indignation with which I received this information. In my room they always light the little lamp before my icon for the night; it gives a feeble flicker of light, but it is strong enough to see by dimly, and if you sit just under it you can even read by it. I think it was about twelve or a little past that night. I had not slept a wink, and was lying with my eyes wide open, when suddenly the door opened, and in came Rogojin. |
Colia and the prince went off together. Alas! the latter had no money to pay for a cab, so they were obliged to walk.
Lizabetha Prokofievna’s face brightened up, too; so did that of General Epanchin. “That confounded cough of mine had come on again; I fell into a chair, and with difficulty recovered my breath. ‘It’s all right, it’s only consumption’ I said. ‘I have come to you with a petition!’“Come back, father; the neighbours will hear!” cried Varia.
| “No, A. N. D.,” corrected Colia. |
“No--oh no, fresher--more the correct card. I only became this like after the humiliation I suffered there.”
“Where are the cards?”| “Well, good-bye!” said the prince, holding out his hand. |
“What did you suppose, then? Why did you think I invited you out here? I suppose you think me a ‘little fool,’ as they all call me at home?”
“So I saw.”
| Nastasia must have overheard both question and reply, but her vivacity was not in the least damped. On the contrary, it seemed to increase. She immediately overwhelmed the general once more with questions, and within five minutes that gentleman was as happy as a king, and holding forth at the top of his voice, amid the laughter of almost all who heard him. |
“Yes, indeed, and it is all our own fault. But I have a great friend who is much worse off even than we are. Would you like to know him?”
| “But I tell you she is not in Pavlofsk! She’s in Colmina.” |
| “What do you mean?” said the prince. |
Gavrila Ardalionovitch was in high spirits that evening, and it seemed to the prince that his gaiety was mingled with triumph. Of course he was only joking with Lebedeff, meaning to egg him on, but he grew excited himself at the same time.
“It is very curious, this story of the medical man, and my visit, and the happy termination to which I contributed by accident! Everything fitted in, as in a novel. I told the poor people not to put much hope in me, because I was but a poor schoolboy myself--(I am not really, but I humiliated myself as much as possible in order to make them less hopeful)--but that I would go at once to the Vassili Ostroff and see my friend; and that as I knew for certain that his uncle adored him, and was absolutely devoted to him as the last hope and branch of the family, perhaps the old man might do something to oblige his nephew.
| “I don’t know; I--” |
“Of course! And it would be a disgrace to marry so, eh?”
They stopped before a somewhat low doorway on the fourth floor. Ardalion Alexandrovitch, evidently much out of countenance, pushed Muishkin in front.
He did not dare look at her, but he was conscious, to the very tips of his fingers, that she was gazing at him, perhaps angrily; and that she had probably flushed up with a look of fiery indignation in her black eyes.
“I don’t quite agree with you that your father is out of his mind,” he observed, quietly. “On the contrary, I cannot help thinking he has been less demented of late. Don’t you think so? He has grown so cunning and careful, and weighs his words so deliberately; he spoke to me about that Kapiton fellow with an object, you know! Just fancy--he wanted me to--”
Aglaya then lost her temper, and began to say such awful things to the prince that he laughed no more, but grew dreadfully pale, especially when she said that she should not remain in the house with him, and that he ought to be ashamed of coming to their house at all, especially at night, “_after all that had happened._”
| “Ah! I thought perhaps Ferdishenko had taken it.” |
“Poor Peter Volhofskoi was desperately in love with Anfisa Alexeyevna. I don’t know whether there was anything--I mean I don’t know whether he could possibly have indulged in any hope. The poor fellow was beside himself to get her a bouquet of camellias. Countess Sotski and Sophia Bespalova, as everyone knew, were coming with white camellia bouquets. Anfisa wished for red ones, for effect. Well, her husband Platon was driven desperate to find some. And the day before the ball, Anfisa’s rival snapped up the only red camellias to be had in the place, from under Platon’s nose, and Platon--wretched man--was done for. Now if Peter had only been able to step in at this moment with a red bouquet, his little hopes might have made gigantic strides. A woman’s gratitude under such circumstances would have been boundless--but it was practically an impossibility.
“No, you’re not to drink any more, Hippolyte. I won’t let you.” The prince moved the glass away.
“I asked Nicolai Ardalionovitch...”
| “At my wife’s; in other words, at my own place, my daughter’s house.” |
| “I never thought of doing any such thing. I have not seen him, and he is not a rogue, in my opinion. I have had a letter from him.” |
“Why, how am I to blame?” asked Adelaida, smiling.
| “You’ve lost four hundred roubles? Oh! I’m sorry for that.” |
“Prince,” he said, “tell me the truth; do you know what all this means?”
| “A special case--accidental, of course!” cried Alexandra and Adelaida. |
“Yes,” said the prince, squeezing the word out with difficulty owing to the dreadful beating of his heart.
“I did not know of its existence till this moment,” declared Hippolyte. “I do not approve of it.”
“Why, who else could I possibly suspect? Who else, most outspoken prince?” he replied, with an unctuous smile.