“Good-bye, prince. Forgive me for having troubled you. And I hope you will remain convinced of my unchanged respect for you.”
Myshkin at once bowed to right and to left, and silently withdrew. Alexandra and Adelaida laughed and whispered together. Their mother looked sternly at them.
“Maman,” laughed Adelaida, “it was only that the prince made such magnificent bows; sometimes he’s so clumsy, but he was suddenly just like . . . like Yevgeny Pavlovitch.”
“Delicacy and dignity are taught by the heart and not by the dancing-master,” Lizaveta Prokofyevna summed up sententiously. And she went up to her room without even looking at Aglaia.
When Myshkin got home about nine o’clock he found Vera Lukyanovna and the servant on the verandah. They were sweeping up and clearing away after the disorder of the previous evening.
“Thank goodness, we’ve had time to finish before you came!” said Vera joyfully.
“Good-morning; I feel a little giddy, I didn’t sleep well. I should like a nap.”
“Here, in the verandah, as you did yesterday? Good. I’ll tell them all not to wake you. Father’s gone off somewhere.”
The maid went away. Vera was about to follow her, but she turned and went anxiously up to Myshkin.
“Prince, don’t be hard on that… poorfellow; don’t send him away to-day.”
“I won’t on any account. It’s as he chooses.”
“He won’t do anything now, and . . . don’t be severe with him.”
“Certainly not, why should I?”
“And don’t laugh at him, that’s the chief thing.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t think of it.”
“I’m silly to speak of it to a man like you,” said Vera, flushing. “Though you’re tired,” she laughed,
half turning to go away, “your eyes are so nice at this moment… they look happy.”
“Do they, really?” Myshkin asked eagerly, and he laughed, delighted.
But Vera, who was as simple-hearted and blunt as a boy, was suddenly overcome with confusion, she turned redder and redder, and, still laughing, she went hurriedly away.
“What a . . . jolly girl,” thought Myshkin, and immediately forgot her. He went to the corner of the verandah where there stood a sofa with a little table beside it; he sat down, hid his face in his hands and sat so for some ten minutes. All at once, with haste and agitation, he took three letters out of his coat-pocket.
But again the door opened and Kolya came out. Myshkin was, as it were, relieved that he had to replace the letters in his pocket and put off the evil moment.
“Well, what an adventure!” said Kolya, sitting down on the sofa and going straight for the subject, as boys like him always do. “What do you think of Ippolit now? Have you no respect for him?”
“Why not. . . but, Kolya, I’m tired. . . . Besides, it’s too sad to begin about that again. . . . How is he, though?”
“He’s asleep and won’t wake for another two hours. I understand; you haven’t slept at home. “Vbu’ve been in the park … it was the excitement, of course … and no wonder!”
“How do you know that I have been walking in the park and haven’t been asleep?”
“Vera said so just now. She tried to persuade me not to come, but I couldn’t resist coming for a minute. I’ve been watching for the last two hours by his bedside; now Kostya Lebedyev is taking his turn. Burdovsky has gone. Then lie down, prince, goodnight … or rather day! Only, do you know, I’m amazed!”
“Of course … all this….”
“No, prince, no. I’m amazed at his ‘Confession.’ Especially the part in which he spoke of Providence and the future life. There’s a gigantic thought in it!”
Myshkin looked affectionately at Kolya who had no doubt come in to talk at once about the “gigantic thought.”
“But it was not only the thought; it was the whole settinq of it! If it had been written bv Voltaire,
Rousseau, Proudhon, I shouldn’t have been so much struck. But for a man who knows for certain that he has only ten minutes to talk like that — isn’t that pride? Why, it’s the loftiest assertion of personal dignity, it’s regular defiance. . . . Yes, it’s titanic strength of will! And after that to declare he left the cap out on purpose — it’s base, incredible! But you know, he deceived us yesterday; he was sly. I didn’t pack his bag with him, and I never saw the pistol. He packed everything up himself, so he took me quite off my guard. Vera says that you’re going to let him stay here; I swear there’ll be no danger, especially as we shall never leave him.”
“And which of you have been with him in the night?”
“Kostya Lebedyev, Burdovsky, and I. Keller was there a little while, but he went off to Lebedyev’s part to sleep, because there wasn’t room for us all to lie down. Ferdyshtchenko, too, slept in Lebedyev’s part of the house. He went off at seven. The general sleeps always at Lebedyev’s — he’s gone too. . . . Lebedyev will come out to you presently. He’s been looking for you, I don’t know why; he asked for you twice. Shall I let him in or not, as you want to sleep? I’m going to have a sleep, too. Oh, by the way, I should like to tell you one thing. I was surprised at the general this morning. I came out for a minute and suddenly met the general, and still so drunk that he didn’t know me: he stood before me like a post; he fairly flew at me when he came to himself. ‘How’s the invalid?’ said he, ‘I came to ask after the invalid. . . .’ I reported this and that. ‘Well, that’s all right,’ he said, ‘but what I really came out for, what I got up for was to warn you. I have reasons for supposing that one can’t say everything before Mr. Ferdyshtchenko and . . . one must be on one’s guard.’ Do you understand, prince?”
“Really? But… it doesn’t matter to us.”
“Of course it doesn’t. We’re not masons! So I felt surprised at the general’s getting up on purpose in the night to wake me to tell me so.”
“Ferdyshtchenko has gone, you say?”
“At seven o’clock. He came in to see me on the way. I was sitting up with Ippolit. He said he was going to spend the day with Vilkin — there’s a drunken fellow here called Vilkin. Well, I’m off! And here’s Lukyan Timofeyitch. . . . The prince is sleepy,
Lukyan Timofeyitch, right about face!”
“Only for a moment, much honoured prince, on a matter of great consequence to me,” Lebedyev, coming in, pronounced in a forced undertone of great significance, and he bowed with dignity.
He had only just come in, and still held his hat in his hand. His face looked preoccupied and wore a peculiar, unusual expression of personal dignity. Myshkin asked him to sit down.
“You’ve inquired for me twice already? You are still anxious, perhaps, on account of what happened yesterday?”
“You mean on account of that boy, prince? Oh, no; yesterday my ideas were in confusion … but to-day I don’t intend contrecarrying your propositions in anything whatever.”
“Contre — ? What did you say?”
“I said ‘contrecarrying,’ a French word, like many other words that have entered into the composition of the Russian language, but I don’t defend it.”
“What’s the matter with you this morning, Lebedyev? \bu’re so dignified and formal, and you speak with such solemnity and as if you were spelling it out,” said Myshkin, laughing.
“Nikolay Ardalionovitch!” Lebedyev addressed Kolya in a voice almost of emotion— “having to acquaint the prince with a matter affecting myself alone….”
“Of course, of course, it’s not my business! Goodbye, prince!” Kolya retired at once.
“I like the child for his tact,” pronounced Lebedyev, looking after him, “a quick boy, but inquisitive. I’ve encountered a severe calamity, respected prince, last night or this morning at daybreak; I hesitate to determine the precise hour.”
“What is it?”
“I have lost four hundred roubles from my coat-pocket, much honoured prince. We were keeping the day!” added Lebedyevwith a sour smile.
“You’ve lost four hundred roubles? That’s a pity.”
“Particularly for a poor man honourably maintaining his family by his own labour.”
“Of course, of course. How did it happen?”
“The fruits of drinking. I have come to you as my Providence, much honoured prince. I received a sum of four hundred roubles in silver from a debtor yesterday, at five o’clock in the afternoon, and I came back here bv train. I had mv pocket-book in mv pocket. When I changed my uniform for my indoor-coat, I put the money in the coat-pocket, intending that very evening to meet a call with it. … I was expecting an agent.”
“By the way, Lukyan Timofeyitch, is it true you put an advertisement in the papers that you would lend money on gold or silver articles?”
“Through an agent; my own name does not appear, nor my address. The sum at my disposal is paltry, and in view of the increase of my family you will admit that a fair rate of interest….”
“Quite so, quite so. I only ask for information; forgive my interrupting.”
“The agent did not turn up. Meantime the wretched boy was brought here. I was already in an over-elevated condition, after dinner; the visitors came, we drank . . . tea, and . . . and I grew merry to my ruin. When Keller came in late and announced your fete day and the order for champagne, since I have a heart, dear and much-honoured prince (which you have probably remarked already, seeing that I have deserved you should), since I have