And all this society Myshkin took for true coin, for pure gold without alloy. All these people were too, as though of set purpose, in the happiest frame of mind that evening, and very well pleased with themselves. They all without exception knew that they were doing the Epanchins a great honour by their visit. But, alas! Myshkin had no suspicion of such subtleties. He did not suspect, for instance, that, while the Epanchins were contemplating so important a step as the decision of their daughter’s future, they would not have dared to omit exhibiting him, Prince Lyov Nikolayevitch, to the old dignitary who was the acknowledged patron of the family. Though the old dignitary for his part would have borne with perfect equanimity the news of the most awful calamity having befallen the Epanchins, he would certainly have been offended if the Epanchins had betrothed their daughter without his advice and, so to speak, without his leave. Prince N. that charming, unquestionably witty and open-hearted man, was firmly persuaded that he was something like a sun that had risen that night to shine upon the Epanchins’ drawing-room. He regarded them as infinitely beneath him, and it was just this open-hearted and generous notion which prompted his wonderfully charming ease and friendliness with the Epanchins. He knew very well that he would have to tell some story to delight the company, and led up to it with positive inspiration. When Myshkin heard the story afterwards, he felt that he had never heard anything like such brilliant humour and such marvellous gaiety and naivete almost touching, on the lips of such a Don Juan as Prince N. If he had only known how old and hackneyed that story was, how it was known by heart, worn threadbare, stale, and a weariness in every drawing-room, and only at the innocent Epanchins’ passed for a novelty, for an impromptu, genuine and brilliant reminiscence of a splendid and brilliant man! Even the little German poet, although he behaved with great modesty and politeness, was ready to believe that he was conferring an honour on the family by his presence. But Myshkin saw nothing of the other side, noticed no undercurrent. This was a mischance that Aglaia had not foreseen. She was looking particularly handsome that evening. The three young ladies were dressed for the evening, but not over smartly, and wore their hair in a particular style. Aglaia was sitting with Yevgeny Pavlovitch, and was talking to him and making jokes with exceptional friendliness, “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch was behaving more sedately than usual, also perhaps from respect to the dignitaries. He was already well known in society, however; he was quite at home there, though he was so young. He arrived at the Epanchins’ that evening with crape on his hat, and Princess Byelokonsky remarked with approbation on it. Some fashionable young men would not under such circumstances have put on mourning for such an uncle. Lizaveta Prokofyevna too was pleased at it, though she seemed on the whole preoccupied. Myshkin noticed that Aglaia looked at him intently once or twice, and he fancied she was satisfied with him. By degrees he began to feel very happy. His recent “fantastical” ideas and apprehensions after his conversation with Lebedyev seemed to him now, when he suddenly, at frequent intervals, recalled them, an inconceivable, incredible, even ridiculous dream! (His chief, though unconscious, impulse and desire had been all day to do something to make him disbelieve that dream!) He spoke little and only in answer to questions, and finally was silent altogether; he sat still and listened, but was evidently enjoying himself extremely. By degrees something like an inspiration was beginning to work within him too, ready to break out at the first opportunity…. He began talking, indeed, by chance in answer to questions, and apparently quite without any special design.
Chapter 7
WHILE HE was enjoying himself, watching Aglaia as she talked to Prince N. and “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch, suddenly the elderly anglomaniac, who was entertaining the “dignitary” in another corner and with animation telling him some story, uttered the name of Nikolay Andreyevitch Pavlishtchev. Myshkin turned quickly in their direction and began to listen.
They were discussing public affairs and some disturbances on estates in the province. There must have been something amusing about the anglomaniac’s account for the old man began laughing at last at the little sallies of the speaker.
He was telling smoothly, and, as it were, peevishly drawling his words, with soft emphasis on the vowel sounds, how he had been obliged as a direct result of recent legislation to sell a splendid estate of his in the province and for half its value, too, though he was in no need of money, and at the same time to keep an estate that had gone to ruin, was encumbered, and a subject of litigation, and had even to spend money to do so. “To avoid another lawsuit about the Pavlishtchev estate, I ran away from them. Another inheritance or two of that kind and I shall be ruined. I should have come in for nine thousand acres of excellent land, however.”
“Why, of course . . . Ivan Petrovitch is a relation of the late Nikolay Andreyevitch . . . you made a search for relations, I believe,” General Epanchin, who happened to be near and noticed Myshkin’s marked attention to the conversation, said to him in an undertone.
He had till then been entertaining the general who was the head of his department, but he had for some time been noticing Myshkin’s conspicuous isolation, and was becoming uneasy. He wanted to bring him to a certain extent into the conversation and in that way show him off and introduce him a second time to the “great personages.”
“Lyov Nikolayevitch was left on the death of his parents a ward of Nikolay Andreyevitch Pavlishtchev,” he put in, meeting Ivan Petrovitch’s eye.
“De-lighted to hear it,” observed the latter. “And I remember it well, indeed. When Ivan Fyodorovitch introduced us just now, I knew you at once, and from your face, too. You’ve changed very little, indeed, though you were only ten or eleven when I saw you. There is something one remembers about your features …”
“Did you see me when I was a child?” Myshkin asked, with great surprise.
“Yes, very long ago,” Ivan Petrovitch went on. “At Zlatoverhovo, where you used to live at my cousin’s. In old days I used to go pretty often to Zlatoverhovo. Don’t you remember me? You might very likely not remember. . . . “Vbu were then . . . you had some sort of illness then, so much so that I was very much struck on one occasion.”
“I don’t remember at all,” Myshkin asserted with warmth.
A few more words of explanation, perfectly calm on the part of Ivan Petrovitch, and betraying great agitation on the part of Myshkin, followed, and it appeared that the two elderly maiden ladies, kinswomen of Pavlishtchev, who had lived on his estate, Zlatoverhovo, and by whom Myshkin had been brought up, were also cousins of Ivan Petrovitch’s. The latter was as unable as every one else to explain what induced Pavlishtchev to take so much trouble over his protege, the little prince. “It hadn’t, in fact, occurred to me to be curious about that,” but yet, it appeared that he had an excellent memory, for he remembered how severe his elder cousin, Marfa Nikitishna had been with her little pupil, “so that on one occasion I stood up for you and attacked her system of education. For the rod, and nothing but the rod with an invalid child . . . you’ll admit . . ,” and how tender the younger sister, Natalya Nikitishna, was to the poor child. . . . “They are both,” he went on, “in X Province now (though I’m not sure whether they’re both living) where Pavlishtchev left them an extremely nice little property. I believe Marfa Nikitishna wanted to go into a convent, but I won’t be sure, I may be thinking of some one else. . . . “Vfes, I heard that the other day, about a doctor’s wife.”
Myshkin listened to this with eyes shining with delight and emotion. With great warmth he declared that he should never forgive himself for not having seized an opportunity to seek out and visit the ladies who had brought him up, though he had been for six months in the central provinces. He had been meaning to set off every day, but had been continually occupied with
