and trembled with hatred.
“How dare you address me like that?” she said, with indescribable haughtiness, in reply to Nastasya Filippovna’s question.
“You must have heard me wrong,” said Nastasya Filippovna in surprise. “How have I addressed you?”
“If you wanted to be a respectable woman, why didn’t you give up your seducer, Totsky, simply . . . without theatrical scenes?” Aglaia said suddenly, apropos of nothing.
“What do you know of my position that you dare to judge me?” said Nastasya Filippovna, trembling, and turning terribly white.
“I know that you didn’t go to work, but off with a rich man, Rogozhin, to go on posing as a fallen angel. I don’t wonder that Totsky tried to shoot himself to escape from such a fallen angel!”
“Don’t!” said Nastasya Filippovna with repulsion, and as though in anguish, “you understand me about as well as . . . Darya Alexeyevna’s housemaid, who was tried in court the other day with her betrothed. She’d have understood better than you …”
“Very likely, a respectable girl who works for her living. Why do you speak with such contempt of a housemaid?”
“I don’t feel contempt for work, but for you when you speak of work.”
“If you’d wanted to be respectable, you’d have become a washer-woman.”
They both got up and gazed with pale faces at each other.
“Aglaia, leave off! It’s unjust,” cried Myshkin, like one distraught.
Rogozhin was not smiling now, but was listening with compressed lips and folded arms.
“There, look at her,” said Nastasya Filippovna, trembling with anger, “look at this young lady! And I took her for an angel! Have you come to me without a governess, Aglaia Ivanovna? .. .And if you like . .. if you like I’ll tell you at once, directly and plainly, why vou came to see me. You were afraid, that’s whv vou came.”
“Afraid of you?” asked Aglaia, beside herself with naive and insulting amazement that this woman dared to speak to her like this.
“Me, of course! You were afraid of me since you decided to come and see me. \bu don’t despise anyone you’re afraid of. And to think that I’ve respected you up to this very moment! But do you know why you are afraid of me and what is your chief object now? You wanted to find out for yourself whether he loves you more than me, or not, for you’re fearfully jealous …”
“He has told me that he hates you . . .” Aglaia faltered.
“Perhaps; perhaps lam not worthy of him, only .. . only I think you’re lying! He cannot hate me and he could not have said so. But I am ready to forgive you .. . seeing the position you’re in .. . though I did think better of you. I thought that you were cleverer and better looking even, I did indeed! . . . Well, take your treasure . . . here he is, he’s looking at you, he is quite dazed. Take him, but on condition that you leave this house at once! This very minute! …”
She dropped into an easy chair and burst into tears. But suddenly there was a light of some new feeling in her face. She looked intently and fixedly at Aglaia, and rose from her seat.
“But if you like I’ll tell him . . . I’ll order him, do you hear? I’ve only to tell him, and he’ll throw you up at once and stay with me for ever, and marry me, and you’ll have to run home alone. Shall I? Shall I?” she cried, like a mad creature, scarcely able to believe that she could be saying such things.
Aglaia ran in terror to the door, but stopped at the door and listened.
“Shall I send Rogozhin away? “Vbu thought that I was going to marry Rogozhin to please you? Here in your presence I shall cry to Rogozhin ‘Go away!’ and say to the prince, ‘do you remember what you promised?’ Heavens! Why have I humiliated myself so before them? Didn’t you tell me yourself, prince, that you would follow me whatever happened to me, and would never abandon me, that you love me and forgive me everything and — re . . . resp. . . . Yes, you said that too! And it was only to set you free that I ran away from you then, but now I don’t want to! Why has she treated me like a loose woman? Ask Rogozhin whether I’m a loose woman, he’ll tell you! Now when she has covered me with shame and before your eyes too, will you turn away from me also, and walk away arm in arm with her? Well, curse you then, for you were the only one I trusted. Go away, Rogozhin, you’re not wanted!” she went on, hardly knowing what she was doing, bringing the words out with an effort, with a distorted face and parched lips, evidently not believing a syllable of her tirade, and at the same time wishing to prolong the position if only for a second and to deceive herself. The outbreak was so violent that it might almost have killed her, so at least it seemed to Myshkin.
“Here he is! Look at him!” she cried to Aglaia, pointing to Myshkin. “If he doesn’t come to me at once, if he does not take me, and doesn’t give you up, take him for yourself, I give him up, I don’t want him.”
Both she and Aglaia stood, as it were, in suspense, and both gazed like mad creatures at Myshkin. But he, perhaps, did not understand all the force of this challenge; in fact, it’s certain that he didn’t. He only saw before him the frenzied, despairing face, which, as he had once said to Aglaia, had “stabbed his heart for ever.” He could bear no more and he turned, appealing and reproachful to Aglaia, pointing to Nastasya Filippovna.
“How can you! “Vbu see what an . . . unhappy creature she is!”
But he could utter nothing more, petrified by the awful look in Aglaia’s eyes. That look betrayed such suffering and at the same time such boundless hatred that, with a gesture of despair, he cried out and ran to her, but it was already too late. She could not endure even the instant of his hesitation. She hid her face in her hands, cried, “Oh, my God!” and ran out of the room. Rogozhin followed to unbolt the street-door for her.
Myshkin ran too, but he felt himself clutched by two arms in the doorway. The desperate, contorted face of Nastasya Filippovna was gazing fixedly at him, and her blue lips moved, asking:
“You follow her? Her?”
She dropped senseless in his arms. He lifted her up, carried her into the room, laid her in a low chair, and stood over her in blank suspense. There was a qlass of water on a little table. Roqozhin, cominq back, took it up and sprinkled it in her face. She opened her eyes, and for a minute remembered nothing, but suddenly looked round her, started, cried out and threw herself in Myshkin’s arms.
“Mine, mine!” she cried. “Has the proud young lady gone? Ha-ha-ha!” she cried in hysterics. “Ha-ha-ha! I gave him up to that young lady. And why? What for? I was mad! Mad! . . . Getaway, Rogozhin. Ha-ha-ha!”
Rogozhin looked at them intently, and did not utter a word, but took his hat and went away. Ten minutes later Myshkin was sitting by Nastasya Filippovna, with his eyes fastened upon her, stroking her head and cheeks with both hands, as though she were a little child. He sighed in response to her laughter and was ready to cry at her tears. He said nothing, but listened intently to her broken, excited, incoherent babble. He scarcely took it in, but smiled gently to her, and as soon as he fancied she was beginning to grieve again, or to weep, to reproach him or complain, he began at once stroking her head again, and tenderly passing his hands over her cheeks, soothing and comforting her like a child.

Chapter 9

A FORTNIGHT had passed since the events narrated in the last Chapter, and the positions of the persons concerned were so completely changed that it is extremely difficult for us to continue our story without certain explanations. And yet we must, as far as possible, confine ourselves to the bare statement of facts and for a very simple reason: because we find it difficult in many instances to explain what occurred. Such a preliminary statement on our part must seem very strange and obscure to the reader, who may ask how we can describe that of which we have no clear idea, no personal opinion. To avoid putting ourselves in a still more false position, we had better try to give an instance — and perhaps the kindly disposed reader will understand — of our difficulty. And we do this the more readily as this instance will not make a break in our narrative, but will be the direct continuation of it.

A fortnight later, that is at the beginning of July, and in the course of that fortnight the history of our hero, and particularly the last incident in that history, was transformed into a strange, very diverting, almost incredible, and at the same time conspicuously actual scandal which gradually spread through all the streets adjoining Lebedyev’s, Ptitsyn’s, Darya Alexeyevna’s and the Epanchins’ villas, in short almost all over the town and even the districts adjoining it. Almost all the society of the place, the inhabitants, the summer visitors and the people who came to hear the band