must have been her condition, when, among all the imaginaryanxieties and calamities which so constantly beset her, she now sawlooming ahead a serious cause for annoyance--something really likely toarouse doubts and suspicions!
“How dared they, how _dared_ they write that hateful anonymous letterinforming me that Aglaya is in communication with Nastasia Philipovna?” she thought, as she dragged the prince along towards her own house,and again when she sat him down at the round table where the family wasalready assembled. “How dared they so much as _think_ of such a thing? Ishould _die_ with shame if I thought there was a particle of truth in it,or if I were to show the letter to Aglaya herself! Who dares play thesejokes upon _us_, the Epanchins? _Why_ didn’t we go to the Yelagin insteadof coming down here? I _told_ you we had better go to the Yelagin thissummer, Ivan Fedorovitch. It’s all your fault. I dare say it was thatVaria who sent the letter. It’s all Ivan Fedorovitch. _That_ woman isdoing it all for him, I know she is, to show she can make a fool of himnow just as she did when he used to give her pearls.
“But after all is said, we are mixed up in it. Your daughters are mixedup in it, Ivan Fedorovitch; young ladies in society, young ladies at anage to be married; they were present, they heard everything there was tohear. They were mixed up with that other scene, too, with those dreadfulyouths. You must be pleased to remember they heard it all. I cannotforgive that wretched prince. I never shall forgive him! And why, if youplease, has Aglaya had an attack of nerves for these last threedays? Why has she all but quarrelled with her sisters, even withAlexandra--whom she respects so much that she always kisses her hands asthough she were her mother? What are all these riddles of hers that wehave to guess? What has Gavrila Ardalionovitch to do with it? Why didshe take upon herself to champion him this morning, and burst into tearsover it? Why is there an allusion to that cursed ‘poor knight’ in theanonymous letter? And why did I rush off to him just now like a lunatic,and drag him back here? I do believe I’ve gone mad at last. What onearth have I done now? To talk to a young man about my daughter’ssecrets--and secrets having to do with himself, too! Thank goodness,he’s an idiot, and a friend of the house! Surely Aglaya hasn’t fallen inlove with such a gaby! What an idea! Pfu! we ought all to be put underglass cases--myself first of all--and be shown off as curiosities, atten copecks a peep!”
“I shall never forgive you for all this, Ivan Fedorovitch--never! Lookat her now. Why doesn’t she make fun of him? She said she would, and shedoesn’t. Look there! She stares at him with all her eyes, and doesn’tmove; and yet she told him not to come. He looks pale enough; and thatabominable chatterbox, Evgenie Pavlovitch, monopolizes the whole of theconversation. Nobody else can get a word in. I could soon find out allabout everything if I could only change the subject.”
The prince certainly was very pale. He sat at the table and seemed to befeeling, by turns, sensations of alarm and rapture.
Oh, how frightened he was of looking to one side--one particularcorner--whence he knew very well that a pair of dark eyes were watchinghim intently, and how happy he was to think that he was once more amongthem, and occasionally hearing that well-known voice, although she hadwritten and forbidden him to come again!
“What on earth will she say to me, I wonder?” he thought to himself.
He had not said a word yet; he sat silent and listened to EvgeniePavlovitch’s eloquence. The latter had never appeared so happy andexcited as on this evening. The prince listened to him, but for a longtime did not take in a word he said.
Excepting Ivan Fedorovitch, who had not as yet returned from town, thewhole family was present. Prince S. was there; and they all intended togo out to hear the band very soon.
Colia arrived presently and joined the circle. “So he is received asusual, after all,” thought the prince.
The Epanchins’ country-house was a charming building, built after themodel of a Swiss chalet, and covered with creepers. It was surrounded onall sides by a flower garden, and the family sat, as a rule, on the openverandah as at the prince’s house.
The subject under discussion did not appear to be very popular with theassembly, and some would have been delighted to change it; but Evgeniewould not stop holding forth, and the prince’s arrival seemed to spurhim on to still further oratorical efforts.
Lizabetha Prokofievna frowned, but had not as yet grasped the subject,which seemed to have arisen out of a heated argument. Aglaya sat apart,almost in the corner, listening in stubborn silence.
“Excuse me,” continued Evgenie Pavlovitch hotly, “I don’t say a wordagainst liberalism. Liberalism is not a sin, it is a necessary part ofa great whole, which whole would collapse and fall to pieces withoutit. Liberalism has just as much right to exist as has the most moralconservatism; but I am attacking _Russian_ liberalism; and I attack it forthe simple reason that a Russian liberal is not a Russian liberal, he isa non-Russian liberal. Show me a real Russian liberal, and I’ll kiss himbefore you all, with pleasure.”
“If he cared to kiss you, that is,” said Alexandra, whose cheeks werered with irritation and excitement.
“Look at that, now,” thought the mother to herself, “she does nothingbut sleep and eat for a year at a time, and then suddenly flies out inthe most incomprehensible way!”
The prince observed that Alexandra appeared to be angry with Evgenie,because he spoke on a serious subject in a frivolous manner, pretendingto be in earnest, but with an under-current of irony.
“I was saying just now, before you came in, prince, that there hasbeen nothing national up to now, about our liberalism, and nothing theliberals do, or have done, is in the least degree national. They aredrawn from two classes only, the old landowning class, and clericalfamilies--”
“How, nothing that they have done is Russian?” asked Prince S.
“It may be Russian, but it is not national. Our liberals are notRussian, nor are our conservatives, and you may be sure that the nationdoes not recognize anything that has been done by the landed gentry, orby the seminarists, or what is to be done either.”
“Come, that’s good! How can you maintain such a paradox? If you areserious, that is. I cannot allow such a statement about the landedproprietors to pass unchallenged. Why, you are a landed proprietoryourself!” cried Prince S. hotly.
“I suppose you’ll say there is nothing national about our literatureeither?” said Alexandra.
“Well, I am not a great authority on literary questions, but Icertainly do hold that Russian literature is not Russian, except perhapsLomonosoff, Pouschkin and Gogol.”
“In the first place, that is a considerable admission, and in the secondplace, one of the above was a peasant, and the other two were bothlanded proprietors!”
“Quite so, but don’t be in such a hurry! For since it has been the partof these three men, and only these three, to say something absolutelytheir own, not borrowed, so by this very fact these three men becomereally national. If any Russian shall have done or said anything reallyand absolutely original, he is to be called national from that moment,though he may not be able to talk the Russian language; still he is anational Russian. I consider that an axiom. But we were not speakingof literature; we began by discussing the socialists. Very well then,I insist that there does not exist one single Russian socialist. Theredoes not, and there has never existed such a one, because all socialistsare derived from the two classes--the landed proprietors, and theseminarists. All our eminent socialists are merely old liberals ofthe class of landed proprietors, men who were liberals in the days ofserfdom. Why do you laugh? Give me their books, give me their studies,their memoirs, and though I am not a literary critic, yet I will proveas clear as day that every chapter and every word of their writings hasbeen the work of a former landed proprietor of the old school. You’llfind that all their raptures, all their generous transports areproprietary, all their woes and their tears, proprietary; allproprietary or seminarist! You are laughing again, and you, prince, aresmiling too. Don’t you agree with me?”
It was
true enough that everybody was laughing, the prince among them.
“I cannot tell you on the instant whether I agree with you or not,” said the latter, suddenly stopping his laughter, and starting like aschoolboy caught at mischief. “But, I assure you, I am listening to youwith extreme gratification.”
So saying, he almost panted with agitation, and a cold sweat stood uponhis forehead. These were his first words since he had entered the house;he tried to lift his eyes, and look around, but dared not; EvgeniePavlovitch noticed his confusion, and smiled.
“I’ll just tell you one fact, ladies and gentlemen,” continued thelatter, with apparent seriousness and even exaltation of manner, butwith a suggestion of “chaff” behind every word, as though he werelaughing in his sleeve at his own nonsense--“a fact, the discoveryof which, I believe, I may claim to have made by myself alone. At allevents, no other has ever said or written a word about it; and in thisfact is expressed the whole essence of Russian liberalism of the sortwhich I am now considering.
“In the first
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