“There, now, that’s exactly what he just said to me,” cried the prince, “and it’s as if you’re both boasting! You even surprise me, only he’s more sincere than you are, with you it’s turned into a decided profession. Well, enough, don’t wince, Lebedev, and don’t put your hands to your heart. Haven’t you got something to tell me? You never come for nothing …”
Lebedev began grimacing and squirming.
“I’ve been waiting for you all day so as to ask you a single question; at least once in your life tell me the truth straight off: did you participate to any extent in that carriage yesterday or not?”
Lebedev again began grimacing, tittering, rubbing his hands, and finally went into a sneezing fit, but still could not bring himself to say anything.
“I see you did.”
“But indirectly, only indirectly! It’s the real truth I’m telling! I participated only by sending a timely message to a certain person, that such-and-such a company had gathered at my place and that certain persons were present.”
“I know you sent your son there, he told me himself earlier, but what sort of intrigue is this!” the prince exclaimed in impatience.
“It’s not my intrigue, not mine,” Lebedev waved his hands, “others, others are in it, and it’s sooner, so to speak, a fantasy than an intrigue.”
“What is it about, explain to me, for Christ’s sake? Don’t you see that it concerns me directly? Evgeny Pavlych was blackened here.”
“Prince! Illustrious Prince!” Lebedev squirmed again. “You don’t let me speak the whole truth; I’ve already tried to tell you the truth; more than once; you wouldn’t let me go on …”
The prince paused and pondered.
“Well, all right, speak the truth,” he said heavily, obviously after a great struggle.
“Aglaya Ivanovna …” Lebedev began at once.
“Shut up, shut up!” the prince shouted furiously, turning all red with indignation and perhaps with shame. “It can’t be, it’s all nonsense! You thought it all up yourself, or some madmen like you. I never want to hear any more of it from you!”
Late at night, past ten o’clock, Kolya arrived with a whole bagful of news. His news was of a double sort: from Petersburg and from Pavlovsk. He quickly told the main Petersburg news (mostly about Ippolit and yesterday’s story), in order to return to it later, and hastened on to the Pavlovsk news. Three hours ago he came back from Petersburg and, without stopping at the prince’s, went straight to the Epanchins’. “Terrible goings-on there!” Naturally, the carriage was in the foreground, but something else had certainly happened there, something unknown to him and the prince. “I naturally didn’t spy and didn’t want to ask questions; however, they received me well, better than I expected, but not a word about you, Prince!” The chiefest and most interesting thing was that Aglaya had quarreled with her family over Ganya. What the details of the matter were, he did not know, only it was over Ganya (imagine that!), and they had quarreled terribly, so it was something important. The general arrived late, arrived scowling, arrived with Evgeny Pavlovich, who was received excellently, and Evgeny Pavlovich himself was surprisingly merry and nice. The most capital news was that Lizaveta Prokofyevna, without any noise, sent for Varvara Ardalionovna, who was sitting with the girls, and threw her out of the house once and for all, in the most courteous way, incidentally—“I heard it from Varya herself.” But when Varya left Lizaveta Prokofyevna and said good-bye to the girls, they did not even know that she had been denied the house once and for all and that she was saying good-bye to them for the last time.
“But Varvara Ardalionovna was here at seven o’clock,” said the astonished prince.
“And she was thrown out before eight or at eight. I’m very sorry for Varya, sorry for Ganya … no doubt it’s their eternal intrigues, they can’t do without them. And I’ve never been able to find out what they’re planning, and don’t want to know. But I assure you, my dear, my kind Prince, that Ganya has a heart. He’s a lost man in many respects, of course, but in many respects there are qualities in him that are worth seeking out, and I’ll never forgive myself for not understanding him before … I don’t know if I should go on now, after the story with Varya. True, I took a completely independent and separate stand from the very beginning, but all the same I must think it over.”
“You needn’t feel too sorry for your brother,” the prince observed to him. “If things have come to that, it means that Gavrila Ardalionovich is dangerous in Lizaveta Prokofyevna’s eyes, and that means that certain of his hopes are being affirmed.”
“How, what hopes?” Kolya cried out in amazement. “You don’t think Aglaya … it can’t be!”
The prince said nothing.
“You’re a terrible skeptic, Prince,” Kolya added after a couple of minutes. “I’ve noticed that since a certain time you’ve become an extreme skeptic; you’re beginning not to believe anything and to suppose everything … have I used the word ‘skeptic’ correctly in this case?”
“I think so, though, anyhow, I don’t know for certain myself.”
“But I myself am renouncing the word ‘skeptic,’ and have found a new explanation,” Kolya suddenly cried. “You’re not a skeptic, you’re jealous! You’re infernally jealous of Ganya over a certain proud girl!”
Having said this, Kolya jumped up and burst into such laughter as he may never have laughed before. Seeing the prince turn all red, Kolya laughed even harder: he was terribly pleased with the thought that the prince was jealous over Aglaya, but he fell silent at once when he noticed that the prince was sincerely upset. After that they spent another hour or hour and a half in serious and preoccupied conversation.
The next day the prince spent the whole morning in Petersburg on a certain urgent matter. Returning to Pavlovsk past four in the afternoon, he met Ivan Fyodorovich at the railway station. The latter quickly seized him by the arm, looked around as if in fright, and drew the prince with him to the first-class car, so that they could ride together. He was burning with the desire to discuss something important.
“First of all, my dear Prince, don’t be angry with me, and if there was anything on my part—forget it. I’d have called on you yesterday, but I didn’t know how Lizaveta Prokofyevna would … At home … it’s simply hell, a riddling sphinx has settled in with us, and I go about understanding nothing. As for you, I think you’re the least to blame, though, of course, much of it came about through you. You see, Prince, to be a philanthropist is nice, but not very. You’ve probably tasted the fruits of it by now. I, of course, love kindness, and I respect Lizaveta Prokofyevna, but …”
The general went on for a long time in this vein, but his words were surprisingly incoherent. It was obvious that he had been shaken and greatly confused by something he found incomprehensible in the extreme.
“For me there’s no doubt that you have nothing to do with it,” he finally spoke more clearly, “but don’t visit us for a while, I ask you as a friend, wait till the wind changes. As regards Evgeny Pavlych,” he cried with extraordinary vehemence, “it’s all senseless slander, a slander of slanders! It’s calumny, there’s some intrigue, a wish to destroy everything and make us quarrel. You see, Prince, I’m saying it in your ear: not a word has been said yet between us and Evgeny Pavlych, understand? We’re not bound by anything—but that word may be spoken, and even soon, perhaps even very soon! So this was done to harm that! But why, what for—I don’t understand! An astonishing woman, an eccentric woman, I’m so afraid of her I can hardly sleep. And what a carriage, white horses, that’s chic, that’s precisely what the French call chic! Who from? By God, I sinned, I thought the other day it was Evgeny Pavlych. But it turns out that it can’t be, and if it can’t be, then why does she want to upset things? That’s the puzzle! In order to keep Evgeny Pavlych for herself? But I repeat to you, cross my heart, that he’s not acquainted with her, and those promissory notes are a fiction! And what impudence to shout ‘dear’ to him across the street! Sheer c
onspiracy! It’s clear that we must reject it with contempt and double our respect for Evgeny Pavlych. That is what I told Lizaveta Prokofyevna. Now I’ll tell you my most intimate thought: I’m stubbornly convinced that she’s doing it to take personal revenge on me, remember, for former things, though I was never in any way guilty before her. I blush at the very recollection. Now she has reappeared again, and I thought she had vanished completely. Where’s this Rogozhin sitting, pray tell? I thought she had long been Mrs. Rogozhin …”
In short, the man was greatly bewildered. During the whole nearly hour-long trip he talked alone, asked questions, answered them himself, pressed the prince’s hand, and convinced him of at least this one thing, that he had never thought of suspecting him of anything. For the prince that was important. He ended by telling about Evgeny Pavlych’s uncle, the head of some office in Petersburg—“a prominent fellow, seventy years old, a viveur, a gastronome, and generally a whimsical old codger … Ha, ha! I know he heard about Nastasya Filippovna and even sought after her. I called on him yesterday, he didn’t receive me, was unwell, but he’s rich, rich and important, and … God grant him a long life, but all the same Evgeny Pavlych will get everything … Yes, yes … but even so I’m afraid! I don’t know why, but I’m afraid … As if something’s hovering in the air, trouble flitting about like a bat, and I’m afraid, afraid!…”
And finally, only after three days, as we have already written above, came the formal reconciliation of the Epanchins with Prince Lev Nikolaevich.
XII
IT WAS SEVEN O’CLOCK in the evening; the prince was about to go to the park. Suddenly Lizaveta Prokofyevna came to him on the terrace alone.
“First, don’t you dare think,” she began, “that I’ve come to ask your forgiveness. Nonsense! You’re to blame all around.”
The prince was silent.
“Are you to blame or not?”
“As much as you are. However, neither I, nor you, neither of us is to blame for anything deliberate. Two days ago I thought I was to blame, but now I’ve decided that it’s not so.”
“So that’s how you are! Well, all right; listen then and sit down, because I have no intention of standing.”
They both sat down.
“Second: not a word about those spiteful brats! I’ll sit and talk with you for ten minutes; I’ve come to you with an inquiry (and you thought for God knows what?), and if you utter so much as a single word about those impudent brats, I’ll get up and leave, and break with you altogether.”
“Very well,” replied the prince.
“Kindly allow me to ask you: about two and a half months ago, around Eastertime, did you send Aglaya a letter?”
“Y-yes.”
“With what purpose? What was in the letter? Show me the letter!”
Lizaveta Prokofyevna’s eyes were burning, she was almost shaking with impatience.
“I don’t have the letter,” the prince was terribly surprised and grew timid. “If it still exists, Aglaya Ivanovna has it.”
“Don’t dodge! What did you write about?”
“I’m not dodging, and I’m not afraid of anything. I see no reason why I shouldn’t write …”
“Quiet! You can talk later. What was in the letter? Why are you blushing?”
The prince reflected.
“I don’t know what you’re thinking, Lizaveta Prokofyevna. I can only see that you dislike this letter very much. You must agree that I could refuse to answer such a question; but in order to show you that I have no fear of this letter, and do not regret having written it, and am by no means blushing at it” (the prince blushed nearly twice as much as before), “I’ll recite the letter for you, because I believe I know it by heart.”
Having said this, the prince recited the letter almost word for word as it was written.
“Sheer galimatias! What might this nonsense mean, in your opinion?” Lizaveta Prokofyevna said sharply, listening to the letter with extraordinary attention.
“I don’t quite know myself; I know that my feeling was sincere. I had moments of full life there and the greatest hopes.”
“What hopes?”
“It’s hard to explain, but they were not the hopes you may be thinking of now … well, they were hopes for the future and joy that there I might not be a stranger, a foreigner. I suddenly liked my native land very much. One sunny morning I took up a pen and wrote a letter to her; why to her—I don’t know. Sometimes one wants to have a friend nearby; I, too, evidently wanted to have a friend …” the prince added after a pause.
“Are you in love, or what?”
“N-no. I … I wrote as to a sister; I signed it as a brother.”
“Hm. On purpose. I understand.”
“I find it very painful to answer these questions for you, Lizaveta Prokofyevna.”
“I know it’s painful, but it’s none of my affair that you find it painful. Listen, tell me the truth as before God: are you lying to me or not?”
“I’m not lying.”
“It’s true what you say, that you’re not in love?”
“Perfectly true, it seems.”
“Ah, you and your ‘it seems’! Did that brat deliver it?”
“I asked Nikolai Ardalionovich …”
“The brat! The brat!” Lizaveta Prokofyevna interrupted with passion. “I don’t know any Nikolai Ardalionovich! The brat!”
“Nikolai Ardalionovich …”
“The brat, I tell you!”
“No, not the brat, but Nikolai Ardalionovich,” the prince finally answered, firmly though rather quietly.
“Well, all right, my dear, all right! I shall add that to your account.”
For a moment she mastered her excitement and rested.
“And what is this ‘poor knight’?”
“I have no idea; I wasn’t there; it must be some kind of joke.”
“Nice to find out all of a sudden! Only is it possible that she could become interested in you? She herself called you a ‘little freak’ and an ‘idiot.’ ”
“You might have not told me that,” the prince observed reproachfully, almost in a whisper.
“Don’t be angry. She’s a despotic, crazy, spoiled girl—if she falls in love, she’ll certainly abuse the man out loud and scoff in his face; I was just the same. Only please don’t be triumphant, dear boy, she’s not yours; I won’t believe it, and it will never be! I tell you so that you can take measures now. Listen, swear to me you’re not married to that one.”
“Lizaveta Prokofyevna, how can you, for pity’s sake?” the prince almost jumped up in amazement.
“But you almost married her?”
“I almost did,” the prince whispered and hung his head.
“So you’re in love with her, is that it? You’ve come for her now? For that one?”
“I haven’t come to get married,” replied the prince.
“Is there anything you hold sacred in this world?”
“There is.”
“Swear to me that you haven’t come to marry that one.”
“I swear by whatever you like!”
“I believe you. Kiss me. At last I can breathe freely; but know this: Aglaya doesn’t love you, take measures, and she won’t be your wife as long as I live! Do you hear?”
“I hear.”
The prince was blushing so much that he could not even look directly at Lizaveta Prokofyevna.
“Tie a string round your finger, then. I’ve been waiting for you as for Providence (you weren’t worth it!), I drenched my pillow with tears at night—not over you, dear boy, don’t worry, I have another grief of my own, eternal and ever the same. But here is why I waited for you so impatiently: I still believe that God himself sent you to me as a friend and a true brother. I have no one around me, except old Princess Belokonsky, and she, too, has flown away, and besides she’s grown stupid as a sheep in her old age. Now answer me simply yes or no: do you know why she shouted from her carriage two days ago?”
“On my word o
f honor, I had no part in it and know nothing!”
“Enough, I believe you. Now I also have different thoughts about it, but still yesterday, in the morning, I blamed Evgeny Pavlych for everything. Yesterday morning and the whole day before. Now, of course, I can’t help agreeing with them: it’s obvious that he was being laughed at like a fool for some reason, with some purpose, to some end (that in itself is suspicious! and also unseemly!)—but Aglaya won’t be his wife, I can tell you that! Maybe he’s a good man, but that’s how it will be. I hesitated before, but now I’ve decided for certain: ‘First put me in a coffin and bury me in the earth, then marry off my daughter,’ that’s what I spelled out to Ivan Fyodorovich today. You see that I trust you, don’t you?”
“I see and I understand.”
Lizaveta Prokofyevna gazed piercingly at the prince; it may be that she wanted very much to know what impression the news about Evgeny Pavlych had made on him.
“Do you know anything about Gavrila Ivolgin?”
“That is … I know a lot.”
“Do you or do you not know that he is in touch with Aglaya?”
“I had no idea,” the prince was surprised and even gave a start. “So you say Gavrila Ardalionovich is in touch with Aglaya Ivanovna? It can’t be!”
“Very recently. His sister spent all winter gnawing a path for him, working like a rat.”
“I don’t believe it,” the prince repeated firmly after some reflection and agitation. “If it was so, I would certainly have known.”
“No fear he’d come himself and confess it in tears on your breast! Ah, you simpleton, simpleton! Everybody deceives you like … like … Aren’t you ashamed to trust him? Do you really not see that he’s duped you all around?”
“I know very well that he occasionally deceives me,” the prince said reluctantly in a low voice, “and he knows that I know it …” he added and did not finish.
“To know and to trust him! Just what you need! However, with you that’s as it should be. And what am I surprised at? Lord! Has there ever been another man like this? Pah! And do you know that this Ganka or this Varka has put her in touch with Nastasya Filippovna?”
The Idiot (Vintage Classics) Page 41