himself. Your uncle shot himself this very morning. I was toldat two this afternoon. Half the town must know it by now. They say thereare three hundred and fifty thousand roubles, government money, missing;some say five hundred thousand. And I was under the impression that hewould leave you a fortune! He’s whistled it all away. A most depravedold gentleman, really! Well, ta, ta!--bonne chance! Surely you intendto be off there, don’t you? Ha, ha! You’ve retired from the army in goodtime, I see! Plain clothes! Well done, sly rogue! Nonsense! I see--youknew it all before--I dare say you knew all about it yesterday-”
Although the impudence of this attack, this public proclamation ofintimacy, as it were, was doubtless premeditated, and had its specialobject, yet Evgenie Pavlovitch at first seemed to intend to make noshow of observing either his tormentor or her words. But Nastasia’scommunication struck him with the force of a thunderclap. On hearingof his uncle’s death he suddenly grew as white as a sheet, and turnedtowards his informant.
At this moment, Lizabetha Prokofievna rose swiftly from her seat,beckoned her companions, and left the place almost at a run.
Only the prince stopped behind for a moment, as though in indecision;and Evgenie Pavlovitch lingered too, for he had not collected hisscattered wits. But the Epanchins had not had time to get more thantwenty paces away when a scandalous episode occurred. The young officer,Evgenie Pavlovitch’s friend who had been conversing with Aglaya, saidaloud in a great state of indignation:
“She ought to be whipped--that’s the only way to deal with creatureslike that--she ought to be whipped!”
This gentleman was a confidant of Evgenie’s, and had doubtless heard ofthe carriage episode.
Nastasia turned to him. Her eyes flashed; she rushed up to a young manstanding near, whom she did not know in the least, but who happened tohave in his hand a thin cane. Seizing this from him, she brought it withall her force across the face of her insulter.
All this occurred, of course, in one instant of time.
The young officer, forgetting himself, sprang towards her. Nastasia’sfollowers were not by her at the moment (the elderly gentleman havingdisappeared altogether, and the younger man simply standing aside androaring with laughter).
In another moment, of course, the police would have been on the spot,and it would have gone hard with Nastasia Philipovna had not unexpectedaid appeared.
Muishkin, who was but a couple of steps away, had time to spring forwardand seize the officer’s arms from behind.
The officer, tearing himself from the prince’s grasp, pushed him soviolently backwards that he staggered a few steps and then subsided intoa chair.
But there were other defenders for Nastasia on the spot by this time.The gentleman known as the “boxer” now confronted the enraged officer.
“Keller is my name, sir; ex-lieutenant,” he said, very loud. “If youwill accept me as champion of the fair sex, I am at your disposal.English boxing has no secrets from me. I sympathize with you for theinsult you have received, but I can’t permit you to raise your handagainst a woman in public. If you prefer to meet me--as would be morefitting to your rank--in some other manner, of course you understand me,captain.”
But the young officer had recovered himself, and was no longerlistening. At this moment Rogojin appeared, elbowing through the crowd;he took Nastasia’s hand, drew it through his arm, and quickly led heraway. He appeared to be terribly excited; he was trembling all over,and was as pale as a corpse. As he carried Nastasia off, he turned andgrinned horribly in the officer’s face, and with low malice observed:
“Tfu! look what the fellow got! Look at the blood on his cheek! Ha, ha!”
Recollecting himself, however, and seeing at a glance the sort of peoplehe had to deal with, the officer turned his back on both his opponents,and courteously, but concealing his face with his handkerchief,approached the prince, who was now rising from the chair into which hehad fallen.
“Prince Muishkin, I believe? The gentleman to whom I had the honour ofbeing introduced?”
“She is mad, insane--I assure you, she is mad,” replied the prince intrembling tones, holding out both his hands mechanically towards theofficer.
“I cannot boast of any such knowledge, of course, but I wished to knowyour name.”
He bowed and retired without waiting for an answer.
Five seconds after the disappearance of the last actor in this scene,the police arrived. The whole episode had not lasted more than a coupleof minutes. Some of the spectators had risen from their places, anddeparted altogether; some merely exchanged their seats for others alittle further off; some were delighted with the occurrence, and talkedand laughed over it for a long time.
In a word, the incident closed as such incidents do, and the band beganto play again. The prince walked away after the Epanchin party. Hadhe thought of looking round to the left after he had been pushed sounceremoniously into the chair, he would have observed Aglaya standingsome twenty yards away. She had stayed to watch the scandalous scene inspite of her mother’s and sisters’ anxious cries to her to come away.
Prince S. ran up to her and persuaded her, at last, to come home withthem.
Lizabetha Prokofievna saw that she returned in such a state of agitationthat it was doubtful whether she had even heard their calls. But only acouple of minutes later, when they had reached the park, Aglaya suddenlyremarked, in her usual calm, indifferent voice:
“I wanted to see how the farce would end.”
III.
The occurrence at the Vauxhall had filled both mother and daughters withsomething like horror. In their excitement Lizabetha Prokofievna and thegirls were nearly running all the way home.
In her opinion there was so much disclosed and laid bare by the episode,that, in spite of the chaotic condition of her mind, she was able tofeel more or less decided on certain points which, up to now, had beenin a cloudy condition.
However, one and all of the party realized that something importanthad happened, and that, perhaps fortunately enough, something which hadhitherto been enveloped in the obscurity of guess-work had now begun tocome forth a little from the mists. In spite of Prince S.’s assurancesand explanations, Evgenie Pavlovitch’s real character and position wereat last coming to light. He was publicly convicted of intimacy with“that creature.” So thought Lizabetha Prokofievna and her two elderdaughters.
But the real upshot of the business was that the number of riddles tobe solved was augmented. The two girls, though rather irritated at theirmother’s exaggerated alarm and haste to depart from the scene, had beenunwilling to worry her at first with questions.
Besides, they could not help thinking that their sister Aglaya probablyknew more about the whole matter than both they and their mother puttogether.
Prince S. looked as black as night, and was silent and moody. Mrs.Epanchin did not say a word to him all the way home, and he did not seemto observe the fact. Adelaida tried to pump him a little by asking, “whowas the uncle they were talking about, and what was it that had happenedin Petersburg?” But he had merely muttered something disconnected about“making inquiries,” and that “of course it was all nonsense.” “Oh, ofcourse,” replied Adelaida, and asked no more questions. Aglaya, too, wasvery quiet; and the only remark she made on the way home was that theywere “walking much too fast to be pleasant.”
Once she turned and observed the prince hurrying after them. Noticinghis anxiety to catch them up, she smiled ironically, and then lookedback no more. At length, just as they neared the house, General Epanchincame out and met them; he had only just arrived from town.
His first word was to inquire after Evgenie Pavlovitch. But Lizabethastalked past him, and neither looked at him nor answered his question.
He immediately judged from the faces of his daughters and Prince S. thatthere was a thunderstorm brewing, and he himself already bore evidencesof unusual perturbation of mind.
He immediately button-holed Prince S., and standing at the front door,engaged in a whispered conver
sation with him. By the troubled aspect ofboth of them, when they entered the house, and approached Mrs. Epanchin,it was evident that they had been discussing very disturbing news.
Little by little the family gathered together upstairs in LizabethaProkofievna’s apartments, and Prince Muishkin found himself alone onthe verandah when he arrived. He settled himself in a corner and satwaiting, though he knew not what he expected. It never struck him thathe had better go away, with all this disturbance in the house. He seemedto have forgotten all the world, and to be ready to sit on where he wasfor years on end. From upstairs he caught sounds of excited conversationevery now and then.
He could not say how long he sat there. It grew late and became quitedark.
Suddenly Aglaya entered the verandah. She seemed to be quite calm,though a little pale.
Observing the prince, whom she evidently did not expect to see there,alone in the corner, she smiled, and approached him:
“What are you doing there?” she asked.
The prince muttered something, blushed, and jumped up; but Aglayaimmediately sat down beside him; so he reseated
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