Ganya had watched the whole scene with a sinking heart.
“Forty thousand, then — forty, not eighteen!” cried Roqozhin. “Ptitsvn and Biskup promised to qet me forty thousand by seven o’clock. Forty thousand! Cash down!”
The scene had become scandalous in the extreme, but Nastasya Filippovna stayed on and still went on laughing, as though she were intentionally prolonging it. Nina Alexandrovna and Varya had also risen from their places and waited in silent dismay to see how much further it would go. Varya’s eyes glittered but the effect of it all on Nina Alexandrovna was painful; she trembled and seemed on the point of fainting.
“A hundred, then, if that’s it! I’ll give you a hundred thousand to-day. Ptitsyn, lend it me, it’ll be worth your while!”
“You are mad,” Ptitsyn whispered suddenly, going up to him quickly and taking him by the hand. “You are mad! They’ll send for the police! Where are you?”
“He is drunk and boasting,” said Nastasya Filippovna, as though taunting him.
“I am not boasting, I’ll get the money before evening. Ptitsyn, lend it me, you money-grubber! Ask what you like for it. Get me a hundred thousand this evening! I’ll show that I won’t stick at anything.” Rogozhin was in an ecstasy of excitement.
“What is the meaning of this, pray?” Ardalion Alexandrovitch, deeply stirred, suddenly cried in a menacing voice, going up to Rogozhin.
The suddenness of the old man’s outburst, after his complete silence till that moment, made it very comic. There was laughter.
“Whom have we here?” laughed Rogozhin. “Come along, old fellow, we’ll make you drunk.”
“This is too disgusting!” cried Kolya, shedding tears of shame and vexation.
“Is there no one among you who will take this shameless woman away?” exclaimed Varya, quivering all over with anger.
“They call me a shameless woman,” Nastasya Filippovna answered back with contemptuous gaiety. “And I came like a fool to invite them to my party this evening. That’s how your sister treats me, Gavril Ardalionovitch!”
For some time Ganya stood as though thunderstruck at his sister’s outburst, but seeing that Nastasya Filippovna really was going this time, he rushed frantically at Varya and seized her arm in a fury.
“What have you done?” he cried, looking at her, as though he would have withered her on the spot.
He was utterly beside himself and hardly knew what he was doing.
“What have I done? Where are you dragging me? Is it to beg her pardon for having insulted your mother and for having come here to disgrace your family, you base creature?” Varya cried again, looking with triumphant defiance at her brother.
For an instant they stood so, facing one another. Ganya still kept hold of her arm. Twice Varya tried with all her might to pull herself free but suddenly losing all self-control, she spat in her brother’s face.
“What a girl!” cried Nastasya Filippovna. “Bravo! Ptitsyn, I congratulate you!”
Everything danced before Ganya’s eyes, and, completely forgetting himself, he struck at his sister with all his might. He would have hit her on the face, but suddenly another hand caught Ganya’s. Myshkin stood between him and his sister.
“Don’t, that’s enough,” he brought out insistently, though he was shaking all over with violent emotion.
“Are you always going to get in my way?” roared Ganya. He let go Varya’s arm and, mad with rage, gave Myshkin a violent slap in the face with the hand thus freed.
“Ah!” cried Kolya, clasping his hands. “My God!”
Exclamations were heard on all sides. Myshkin turned pale. He looked Ganya straight in the face with strange and reproachful eyes; his lips quivered, trying to articulate something; they were twisted into a sort of strange and utterly incongruous smile.
“Well, you may … but her… I won’t let you,” he said softly at last.
But suddenly he broke down, left Ganya, hid his face in his hands, moved away to a corner, stood with his face to the wall, and in a breaking voice said:
“Oh, how ashamed you will be of what you’ve done!”
Ganya did, indeed, stand looking utterly crushed. Kolya rushed to hug and kiss Myshkin. He was followed by Rogozhin, Varya, Ptitsyn, Nina Alexandrovna — all the party, even the general, who all crowded about Myshkin.
“Never mind, never mind,” muttered Myshkin in all directions, still with the same inconqruous smile.
“And he will regret it,” cried Rogozhin. “You will be ashamed, Ganya, that you have insulted such a . . . sheep” (he could not find another word). “Prince darling, drop them; curse them and come along. I’ll show you what a friend Rogozhin can be.”
Nastasya Filippovna too was very much impressed by Ganya’s action and Myshkin’s answer. Her usually pale and melancholy face, which had seemed all along so out of keeping with her affected laughter, was evidently stirred by a new feeling. “Vfet she still seemed unwilling to betray it and to be trying to maintain a sarcastic expression.
“I certainly have seen his face somewhere,” she said, speaking quite earnestly now, suddenly recalling her former question.
“Aren’t you ashamed? Surely you are not what you are pretending to be now? It isn’t possible!” cried Myshkin suddenly with deep and heartfelt reproach.
Nastasya Filippovna was surprised, and smiled, seeming to hide something under her smile. She looked at Ganya, rather confused, and walked out of the drawing-room. But before reaching the entry, she turned sharply, went quickly up to Nina Alexandrovna, took her hand and raised it to her lips.
“I really am not like this, he is right,” she said in a rapid eager whisper, flushing hotly; and turning around, she walked out so quickly that no one had time to realise what she had come back for. All that was seen was that she whispered something to Nina Alexandrovna and seemed to have kissed her hand. But Varya saw and heard it all, and watched her go out, wondering.
Ganya recovered himself and rushed to see Nastasya Filippovna out. But she had already gone. He overtook her on the stairs.
“Don’t come with me,” she cried to him. “Goodbye till this evening. You must come, do you hear?”
He returned, confused and dejected; a painful uncertainty weighed on his heart, more bitter than ever now. The figure of Myshkin too haunted him. . . . He was so absorbed that he scarcely noticed Rogozhin’s crew passing him and shoving against him in the doorway, as they hurried by on their way out of the flat. They were all loudly discussing something. Rogozhin walked with Ptitsyn, talking of something important and apparently urgent.
“You’ve lost the game, Ganya!” he cried, as he passed him.
Ganya looked after him uneasily.
Chapter 11
Myshkin went out of the drawing-room and shut himself up in his room. Kolya ran in at once to try and soothe him. The poor boy seemed unable to keep away from him now.
“You’ve done well to come away,” he said. “There will be a worse upset there now than ever. And it’s like that every day with us; it’s all on account of that Nastasya Filippovna.”
“There are so many sources of distress in your family, Kolya,” Myshkin observed.
“Yes, there are. There’s no denying it. It’s all our own fault. But I have a great friend who is even more unfortunate. Would you like to meet him?”
“Very much. Is he a comrade of yours?”
“Yes, almost like a comrade. I’ll tell you all about it afterwards. . . . But Nastasya Filippovna is handsome, don’t you think? I’ve never seen her before, though I’ve tried hard to. I was simply dazzled. I’d forgive Ganya everything, if he were in love with her. But why is he taking money? That’s what’s horrid.”
“Yes, I don’t much like your brother.”
“Well, I should think not! As if you could, after. . . But you know I can’t endure those ideas. Some madman, or fool, or scoundrel in a fit of madness, gives you a slap in the face and a man is disgraced for life, and cannot wipe out the insult except in blood, unless the other man goes down on his knees and asks his pardon. In my opinion it’s absurd and it’s tyranny. Lermontov’s drama, The Masquerade, is based on that, and I think it’s stupid. Or rather, I mean, not natural. But he wrote it almost in his childhood.”
“I liked your sister very much.”
“The way she spat in Ganya’s mug! She is a plucky one. But you didn’t spit at him, and lam sure it was not for want of pluck. But here she is — speak of the devil … I knew she’d come. She is generous, though she has faults.”
“You’ve no business here,” said Varya, pouncing on him first of all. “Go to father. Is he bothering you, prince?”
“Not at all, quite the contrary.”
“Now then, elder sister, you are off! That’s the worst of her. And, by the way, I thought that father’d be sure to go off with Rogozhin. He is penitent now, I expect. I must see what he is about, I suppose,” added Kolya, going out.
“Thank God, I got mother away and put her to bed, and there was no fresh trouble! Ganya is ashamed and very depressed. And he may well be. What a lesson! . . . I’ve come to thank you again and to ask you, did you know Nastasya Filippovna before?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Then what made you tell her to her face that she was ‘not like this’? And you seem to have guessed right. I believe she really isn’t. I can’t make her out, though. Of course her object was to insult us, that’s
