“He knows everything! Lebedyev knows everything! I went about with young Alexandre Lihatchov for two months, your excellency, and it was after his father’s death too, and I know my way about, so to say, so that he couldn’t stir a step without Lebedyev. Now he is in the debtor’s prison; but then I had every opportunity to know Armance and Coralie, and Princess Patsky and Nastasya Filippovna, and much else besides.”
“Nastasya Filippovna? Why, did Lihatchov . . .” Rogozhin looked angrily at him. His lips positively twitched and turned white.
“Not at all! Not at all! Not in the least!” the official assured him with nervous haste. “Lihatchov couldn’t get at her for any money! No, she is not an Armance.
She has nobody but Totsky. And of an evening she sits in her own box at the Grand or the French Theatre. The officers may talk a lot about her, but even they can say nothing against her. ‘That’s the famous Nastasya Filippovna,’ they say, and that’s all. But nothing further, for there is nothing.”
“That’s all true,” Rogozhin confirmed, frowning gloomily. “Zalyozhev said so at the time. I was running across the Nevsky, prince, in my father’s three-year-old coat and she came out of a shop and got into her carriage. I was all aflame in an instant. I met Zalyozhev. He is quite another sort — got up like a hair-dresser’s assistant, with an eyeglass in his eye, while at my father’s house we wear tarred boots and are kept on Lenten soup. ‘She’s no match for you, my boy,’ he said; ‘she is a princess. Her name is Nastasya Filippovna Barashkov, and she is living with Totsky, and Totsky doesn’t know how to get rid of her, for he’s just reached the proper time of life, fifty-five, so that he wants to marry the greatest beauty in Petersburg.’ Then he told me that I could see Nastasya Filippovna that day at the Grand Theatre — at the ballet; she’d be in her box in the baignoire.
As for going to the ballet, if anyone at home had tried that on, father would have settled it — he would have killed one. But I did slip in for an hour though, and saw Nastasya Filippovna again; I didn’t sleep all that night. Next morning my late father gave me two five per cent bonds for five thousand roubles each. ‘Go and sell them,’ he said, ‘and take seven thousand five hundred to Andreyev’s office, and pay the account, and bring back what’s left of the ten thousand straight to me; I shall wait for you.’ I cashed the bonds, took the money, but I didn’t go to Andreyev’s.
I went straight to the English shop, and picked out a pair of earrings with a diamond nearly as big as a nut in each of them. I gave the whole ten thousand for it and left owing four hundred; I gave them my name and they trusted me. I went with the earrings to Zalyozhev; I told him, and said, ‘Let us go to Nastasya Filippovna’s, brother.’ We set off. I don’t know and can’t remember what was under my feet, what was before me or about me. We went straight into her drawing-room, she came in to us herself. I didn’t tell at the time who I was, but Zalyozhev said, ‘This is from Parfyon Rogozhin, in memory of his meeting you yesterday; graciously accept it.’ She opened it, looked and smiled: ‘Thank your friend Mr. Rogozhin for his kind attention.’ She bowed and went out. Well, why didn’t I die on the spot! I went to her because I thought I shouldn’t come back alive.
And what mortified me most of all was that that beast Zalyozhev took it all to himself. I am short and badly dressed, and I stood, without a word, staring at her because I was ashamed, and he’s in the height of fashion, curled and pomaded, rosy and in a check tie — he was all bows and graces, and I am sure she must have taken him for me! ‘Well,’ said I, as he went out, ‘don’t you dare dream now of anything, do you understand?’ He laughed. ‘And how are you going to account for the money to your father now?’ I felt like throwing myself into the water, I must own, instead of going home, but I thought ‘What did anything matter after all?’ and I went home in desperation like a damned soul.”
“Ech! Ugh!” The petty official wriggled. He positively shuddered. “And you know the deceased gentleman was ready to do for a man for ten roubles, let alone ten thousand,” he added, nodding to the prince.
Myshkin scrutinised Rogozhin with interest; the latter seemed paler than ever at that moment.
“Ready to do for a man!” repeated Rogozhin. “What do you know about it? He found it all out at once,” he went on, addressing Myshkin, “and Zalyozhev went gossiping about it to everybody. My father took me and locked me up upstairs and was at me for a whole hour. ‘This is only a preface,’ he said, ‘but I’ll come in to say good night to you!’ And what do you think? The old man went to Nastasya Filippovna’s, bowed down to the ground before her, wept and besought her; she brought out the box at last and flung it to him. ‘Here are your earrings, you old greybeard,’ she said, ‘and they are ten times more precious to me now since Parfyon faced such a storm to get them for me. Greet Parfyon Semyonovitch and thank him for me,’ she said. And meanwhile I’d obtained twenty roubles from Seryozha Protushin, and with my mother’s blessing set off by train to Pskov, and I arrived in a fever. The old women began reading the Lives of the Saints over me, and I sat there drunk. I spent my last farthing in the taverns and lay senseless all night in the street, and by morning I was delirious, and to make matters better the dogs gnawed me in the night. I had a narrow squeak.”
“Well, well, now Nastasya Filippovna will sing another tune,” the official chuckled, rubbing his hands. “What are earrings now, sir! Now we can make up for it with such earrings . . .”
“But if you say another word about Nastasya Filippovna, as there is a God above, I’ll thrash you, though you used to go about with Lihatchov!” cried Rogozhin, seizing him violently by the arm.
“Well, if you thrash me you won’t turn me away! Thrash me, that’s just how you’ll keep me! By thrashing me you’ll have put your seal on me . . . Why, here we are!”
They had in fact reached the station. Though Rogozhin said he had come away in secret, several men were waiting for him. They shouted and waved their caps to him.
“I say, Zalyozhev here too!” muttered Rogozhin, gazing at them with a triumphant and almost malicious-looking smile, and he turned suddenly to Myshkin. “Prince, I don’t know why I’ve taken to you. Perhaps because I’ve met you at such a moment, though I’ve met him too (he indicated Lebedyev) and I haven’t taken to him. Come and see me, prince. We’ll take off those gaiters of yours, we’ll put you into a first-rate fur coat, I’ll get you a first-class dress-coat, a white waistcoat, or what you like, I’ll fill your pockets with money! . . . we’ll go and see Nastasya Filippovna! Will you come?”
“Listen, Prince Lyov Nikolayevitch!” Lebedyev chimed in solemnly and impressively. “Don’t miss the chance, oh, don’t miss the chance!”
Prince Myshkin stood up, courteously held out his hand to Rogozhin and said cordially:
“I will come with the greatest of pleasure and thank you very much for liking me. I may come to-day even, if I’ve time. For I tell you frankly I’ve taken a great liking to you myself, I liked you particularly when you were telling about the diamond earrings. I liked you before that, too, though you look gloomy. Thank you, too, for the clothes and the fur coat you promise me, for I certainly shall need clothes and a fur coat directly. As for money, I have scarcely a farthing at the moment.”
“There will be money, there will be money by the evening, come!”
“There will, there will!” the official assented, “by evening, before sunset there will be!”
“And women, prince, are you very keen on them? Let me know to start with!”
“I, n-no! Ybu see. . . . Perhaps you don’t know that, owing to my illness, I know nothing of women.”
“Well, if that’s how it is,” cried Rogozhin, “you are a regular blessed innocent, and God loves such as you.”
“And the Lord God loves such as you,” the official repeated.
“And you follow me,” said Rogozhin to Lebedyev.
And they all got out of the carriage. Lebedyev had ended by gaining his point. The noisy group soon disappeared in the direction of Voznesensky Prospect. The prince had to go towards Liteyny. It was damp and rainy; Myshkin asked his way of passers-by — it appeared that he had two miles to go, and he decided to take a cab.
Chapter 2
General EPANCHIN lived in a house of his own not far from Liteyny. Besides this magnificent house — five-sixths of its rooms were let in flats — he had another huge house in Sadovy Street, which was also a large source of revenue to him. He owned also a considerable and profitable estate close to Petersburg, and a factory of some
