threw herself into their arms and at once returned home with them. It was said, though the story was not well authenticated, that Gavril Ardalionovitch was particularly unlucky on this occasion, too; that seizing the opportunity while Varvara Ardalionovna was running to Lizaveta Prokofyevna, and he was left alone with Aglaia, he had thought fit to begin talking of his passion; that, listening to him, Aglaia had, in spite of her tears and dejection, suddenly burst out laughing and had all at once put a strange question to him: would he, to prove his love, burn his finger in the candle? Gavril Ardalionovitch was, so the story went, petrified by the question; he was so completely taken aback, and his face betrayed such extreme amazement, that Aglaia had laughed at him as though she were in hysterics, and to get away from him ran upstairs to Nina Alexandrovna where she was found by her parents. This story was repeated to Myshkin next day by Ippolit who, being too ill to get up, sent for the prince on purpose to tell it to him. How Ippolit got hold of the story we don’t know, but when Myshkin heard about the candle and the finger, he laughed so much that Ippolit was surprised. Then he suddenly began to tremble and burst into tears. .. . Altogether, he was during those days in a state of great uneasiness, and extraordinary perturbation, vague but tormenting. Ippolit bluntly declared that he thought he was out of his mind, but it was impossible to affirm this with certainty.
In presenting all these facts and declining to attempt to explain them, we have no desire to justify our hero in the eyes of the reader. What is more, we are quite prepared to share the indignation he excited even in his friends. Even Vera Lebedyev was indignant with him for a time; even Kolya was indignant; even Keller was indignant, till he was chosen as best man, to say nothing of Lebedyev himself, who even began intriguing against Myshkin, also from an indignation which was quite genuine. But of that we will speak later. Altogether, we are in complete sympathy with some forcible and psychologically deep words of Yevgeny Pavlovitch’s, spoken plainly and unceremoniously by the latter in friendly conversation with Myshkin six or seven days after the incident at Nastasya Filippovna’s. We must observe, by the way, that not only the Epanchins, but every one directly or indirectly connected with them had thought proper to break off all relations with Myshkin. Prince S. for instance turned aside when he met Myshkin and did not respond to his greeting. But “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch was not afraid of compromising himself by visiting the prince, though he had begun visiting the Epanchins every day again, and was received by them with an unmistakable increase of cordiality. He came to see Myshkin the very day after the Epanchins had left Pavlovsk. He knew already of all the rumours that were circulating, and had, perhaps indeed, assisted to circulate them himself. Myshkin was delighted to see him and at once began speaking of the Epanchins. Such a simple and direct openinq completely loosened “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch’s tongue too, so that he went straight to the point without beating about the bush.
Myshkin did not know that the Epanchins had left. He was struck by the news, he turned pale; but a minute later he shook his head, confused and meditative, and acknowledged that “so it was bound to be”; then he asked quickly, “where had they gone?”
Meanwhile “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch watched him carefully, and he marvelled not a little at all this — the rapidity of his questions, their simplicity, his perturbation, restlessness and excitement, and at the same time a sort of strange openness. He told Myshkin about everything, however, courteously and in detail. There was a great deal the latter had not heard, and this was the first person to visit him from the Epanchins’ circle. He confirmed the rumour that Aglaia really had been ill. She had lain for three days and nights in a fever without sleeping. Now she was better and out of all danger, but in a nervous and hysterical state. “It was a good thing,” he said, “that now there was perfect harmony in the house. They tried to make no allusion to the past, not only before Aglaia, but also among themselves. The parents had already made up their minds to a trip abroad in the autumn, immediately after Adelaida’s wedding. Aglaia had received in silence the preliminary hints at this plan. He, “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch, might very possibly be going abroad too. Even Prince S. might possibly go with Adelaida for a couple of months if business permitted. The general himself would remain. They had all moved now to Kolmino, their estate fifteen miles out of Petersburg, where they had a spacious manor-house. Princess Byelokonsky had not yet returned to Moscow, and he believed she was staying on at Pavlovsk on purpose. Lizaveta Prokofyevna had insisted emphatically that they could not stay on in Pavlovsk, after what had happened. He, Yevgeny Pavlovitch, had reported to her every day the rumours that were circulating in the town. It did not seem possible for them to move to the villa at Yelagin.”
“And indeed,” added Yevgeny Pavlovitch, “you’ll admit yourself they could hardly have faced it out. . .. Especially knowing what’s going on here in your house every hour, prince, and your daily calls there in spite of their refusing to see you….”
“Yes, yes, yes, you’re right. I wanted to see Aglaia Ivanovna,” said Myshkin, shaking his head again.
“Ah, dear prince,” cried Yevgeny Pavlovitch, with warm-hearted regret. “How then could you allow . . . all that’s happened? Of course, of course, it was all so unexpected. I understand that you must have been at your wits’ end and you could not have restrained the mad girl; that was not in your power. But you ought to have understood how intense and how much in earnest the girl was … in herfeeling for you. She did not care to share you with another woman and you . . . you could desert and shatter a treasure like that!”
“Yes, yes, you’re right. I am to blame,” Myshkin began again in terrible distress. “And do you know she alone, Aglaia alone, looked at Nastasya Filippovna like that. … No one else ever looked at her like that.”
“Yes, that’s just what makes it all so dreadful that there was nothing serious in it,” cried Yevgeny Pavlovitch, completely carried away. “Forgive me, prince, but I . . . I’ve been thinking about it, prince. I have thouqht a lot about it; I know all that happened before, I know all that happened six months ago, all — and there was nothing serious in it! It was only your head, not your heart, that was involved, an illusion, a fantasy, a mirage, and only the scared jealousy of an utterly inexperienced girl would have taken it for anything serious! …”
At this point, without mincing matters, Yevgeny Pavlovitch gave full vent to his indignation. Clearly and reasonably, and, we repeat, with great psychological insight, he drew a vivid picture of Myshkin’s past relations with Nastasya Filippovna. He had at all times a gift for language, and at this moment he rose to positive eloquence. “From the very first,” he declared, “it began with falsity. What begins in a lie must end in a lie; that’s a law of nature. I don’t agree, and, in fact, I’m indignant when somebody calls you — well — an idiot. \bu’re too clever to be called that. But you’re so strange that you’re not like other people — you must admit that yourself. I’ve made up my mind that what’s at the bottom of all that’s happened is your innate inexperience (mark that word, ‘innate,’ prince), and your extraordinary simple-heartedness, and then the phenomenal lack of all feeling for proportion in you (which you have several times recognised yourself), and finally the huge mass of intellectual convictions, which you, with your extraordinary honesty, have hitherto taken for real, innate, intuitive convictions! \bu must admit yourself, prince, that from the very beginning, in your relations with Nastasya Filippovna, there was an element of conventional democratic feeling (I use the expression for brevity), the fascination, so to say, of the ‘woman question’ (to express it still more briefly). I know all the details of the strange, scandalous scene that took place at Nastasya Filippovna’s, when Rogozhin brought his money. If you like, I will analyse you to yourself on my fingers, I will show you to yourself as in a looking-glass, I know so exactly how it all was, and why it all turned out as it did. As a youth in Switzerland you yearned for your native country, and longed for Russia as for an unknown land of promise. You had read a great many books about Russia, excellent books perhaps, but pernicious for you. \bu arrived in the first glow of eagerness to be of service, so to say; you rushed, you flew headlong to be of service. And on the very dav of vour arrival, a sad and heartrending story of an injured woman is told you, you a virginal knight — and about a woman! The very same day you saw that woman, you were bewitched by her beauty, her fantastic, demoniacal beauty (I admit she’s a beauty, of course). Add to that your nerves, your epilepsy, add to that our Petersburg thaw which shatters the nerves, add