There is much more to be told of all the gossip and complications arising from the proposed match and the negotiations for it; but we have been anticipating things already, and some of these complications were no more than vague rumours. It was said, for instance, that Totsky had found out that Nastasya Filippovna had some undefined and secret understanding with the general’s daughters — a wildly improbable story. But another story he could not help believing, and it haunted him like a nightmare. He heard for a fact that Nastasya Filippovna was fully aware that Ganya was marrying her only for money; that Ganya had a bad, mercenary, impatient, envious heart, and that his vanity was grotesque and beyond all bounds; that though Ganya had really been passionately striving to conquer Nastasya Filippovna, yet after the two elder men had determined to exploit the incipient passion on both sides for their own purposes, and to buy Ganya by selling to him Nastasya Filippovna in lawful wedlock, he began to hate her like a nightmare. Passion and hatred were strangely mingled in his soul, and although he did after painful hesitation give his consent to marry the “disreputable hussy,” he swore in his heart to make her pay bitterly for it and “to take it out of her” afterwards, as he was said to have expressed it himself. It was rumoured Nastasya Filippovna knew all this and had some secret plan up her sleeve. Totsky was in such a panic that he even gave up confiding his uneasiness to Epanchin; but there were moments when, like a weak man, he readily regained his spirits and took quite a cheerful view. He was greatly relieved, for instance, when Nastasya Filippovna promised the two friends that she would give them her final decision on the evening of her birthday.
On the other hand, the strangest and most incredible rumour concerning no less honoured a person than Ivan Fyodorovitch appeared, alas! more and more well founded as time went on.
At the first blush it sounded perfectly wild. It was difficult to believe that Ivan Fyodorovitch at his venerable time of life, with his excellent understanding and his practical knowledge of the world, and all the rest of it, could have fallen under Nastasya Filippovna’s spell himself, and that it had come to such a pitch that this caprice had almost become a passion. What he was hoping for it was difficult to imagine; possibly for assistance from Ganya himself. Totsky suspected something of the kind, at any rate; he suspected the existence of some tacit agreement between the general and Ganya, resting on their comprehension of each other. But it is well known that a man carried away by passion, especially a man getting on in years, is quite blind, and prone to find grounds for hope where there are none; what’s more, he loses his judgment and acts like a foolish child, however great an intellect he may have. It was known that the general had procured for Nastasya Filippovna’s birthday some magnificent pearls, costing an immense sum, as a present from himself, and had thought a great deal about this present, though he knew that Nastasya Filippovna was not mercenary. On the day before the birthday he was in a perfect fever, though he successfully concealed his emotion. It was of those pearls that Madame Epanchin had heard. Lizaveta Prokofyevna had, it is true, many years’
experience of her husband’s flightiness, and had in fact got almost accustomed to it, but it was impossible to let such an incident pass; the rumour about the pearls made a great impression upon her. The general detected this beforehand; some words had been uttered on the previous day; he foresaw a momentous explanation coming, and dreaded it. That was why he was particularly unwilling to lunch in the bosom of his family on the morning on which our story begins. Before Myshkin’s appearance he had decided to escape on the pretext of urgent business. Making his escape often meant in the general’s case simply running away. He wanted to gain that day at least, and above all that evening, undisturbed by unpleasantness. And suddenly the prince had turned up so appropriately. “A perfect god-send!” thought the general to himself, as he went in to meet his wife.
Chapter 5
Madame epanchin was jealous of the dignity of her family. What must it have been for her to hear without the slightest preparation that this Prince Myshkin, the last of the family, of whom she had heard something already, was no better than a poor idiot, was almost a beggar, and was ready to accept charity! The general reckoned on making an effect, impressing her at once, turning her attention in another direction and avoiding the question of the pearls under cover of this sensation.
When anything extraordinary happened, Madame Epanchin used to open her eyes very wide, and, throwing back her whole person, she would stare vaguely before her without uttering a word. She was a woman of large build and of the same age as her husband, with dark hair, still thick, though getting very grey. She was rather thin, with a somewhat aquiline nose, sunken yellow cheeks, and thin drawn-in lips. Her forehead was high but narrow; her large grey eyes had sometimes a most unexpected expression. She had once had the weakness to fancy that her eyes were particularly effective, and nothing had been able to efface the conviction.
“Receive him? \bu receive him now, at once?” And the lady opened her eyes to their very widest, gazing at Ivan Fyodorovitch, as he fidgeted before her.
“Oh, as far as that goes, there’s no need of ceremony, if only you don’t mind seeing him, my dear,” the general hastened to explain. “He is quite a child and such a pathetic figure; he has some sort of fits. He has just arrived from Switzerland — came straight from the station. He is queerly dressed, like a German, and not a penny, literally; he is almost crying. I gave him twenty-five roubles, and want to find him some little post as a clerk in our office. And I beg you, mesdames, to offer him lunch, for I think he is hungry too….”
“You amaze me!” Madame Epanchin went on as before. “Hungry and fits! What sort of fits?”
“Oh, they don’t occur so frequently; and, besides, he is like a child, but well educated. I should like to ask you, mesdames” — he addressed his daughters again— “to put him through an examination; it would be as well to know what he is fit for.”
“An ex-am-in-a-tion?” drawled his wife, and in the utmost astonishment she rolled her eyes from her husband to her daughters and back again.
“Oh, my dear, don’t take it in that sense … but of course it’s just as you please. I was meaning to be friendly to him and introduce him to the family, because it’s almost an act of charity.”
“Introduce him to the family? From Switzerland?”
“That’s no drawback; but, I repeat again, it’s as you like. I thought of it because, in the first place, he is of the same name, and perhaps a relation; and besides, he’s nowhere to lay his head. I supposed it would be rather interesting to you to see him, in fact, because after all he belongs to the same family.”
“Of course, maman, if one needn’t stand on ceremony with him. Besides he must be hungry after the journey; why not give him something to eat, if he has nowhere to go?” said the eldest girl, Alexandra.
“And if he is a perfect child, too. We could have a game of blind man’s buff with him.”
“Blind man’s buff! What do you mean?”
“Oh, maman, please leave off pretending!” Aglaia interrupted in vexation.
The second daughter, Adelaida, who was of mirthful disposition, could not restrain herself and burst out laughing.
“Send for him, papa, maman gives you leave,” Aglaia decided.
The general rang, and told the servant to call the prince.
“But on condition he has a napkin tied round his neck when he sits at the table,” his wife insisted. “Call Fyodor or Mavra … to stand behind his chair and look after him while he eats. I only trust he is quiet when he has a fit. Does he wave his arms?”
“Oh, quite the opposite, he is very well bred and has charming manners; he is just a little simple sometimes. But here he is. Come, let me introduce Prince Myshkin, the last of the name, your namesake and perhaps your kinsman; make him welcome and be kind to him. Lunch will be served directly, prince,
so do us the honour. . . . But excuse me, I must hurry off, I am late.”
“We know where you are hurrying off to,” observed his wife majestically.
“I am in a hurry — I am in a hurry, my dear; I am late. Give him your albums, mesdames; let him write something there for you, his handwriting is
