of their affection for one another.
“Wait a bit, my young friend, don’t be in a hurry! Don’t spoil your triumph,” answered Lizaveta Prokofyevna, sitting down in the armchair that Myshkin set for her.
Lebedyev, Ptitsyn and General Ivolgin flew to put chairs for the young ladies. General Ivolgin gave Aglaia a chair. Lebedyev set a chair for Prince S. too, expressing profound respectfulness by the very curve of his back as he did so. Varya greeted the young ladies as usual in an ecstatic whisper.
“It’s the truth, prince, that I expected to find you almost in bed. I exaggerated things so in my fright, and I am not going to tell a lie about it. I felt dreadfully vexed just now at the sight of your happy face, but I swear it was only for a minute, before I had time to think. I always act and speak more sensibly when I have time to think. I think it’s the same with you. And yet really I should be less pleased perhaps at the recovery of my own son than I am at yours; and if you don’t believe me, the shame is yours and not mine. And this spiteful boy dares to play worse jokes than this at my expense. I believe he is a protege of yours; so I warn you that one fine morning I shall deny myself the pleasure of enjoying the honour of his further acquaintance.”
“But what have I done?” cried Kolya. “However much I had assured you that the prince was almost well again, you would not have been willing to believe me, because it was much more interesting to imagine him lying on his death-bed.”
“Have you come to us for long?” Lizaveta Prokofyevna asked Myshkin.
“The whole summer, and perhaps longer.”
“You are alone, aren’t you? Not married?”
“No, not married,” Myshkin smiled at the simplicity of the taunt.
“There’s nothing to smile at; it does happen. I was thinking of this villa. Why haven’t you come to us? We have a whole wing empty. But do as you like. Have you hired it from him? That person?” she added in an undertone, nodding at Lebedyev. “Why does he wriggle about like that?”
At that moment Vera came out of the house on to the verandah as usual with the baby in her arms. Lebedyev, who was wriggling around the chairs at a complete loss what to do with himself and desperately anxious not to go, immediately flew at Vera. He gesticulated at her and chased her off the verandah and, forgetting himself, even stamped with his feet.
“He is mad?” observed Madame Epanchin suddenly.
“No, he is …”
“Drunk, perhaps? Your party is not attractive,” she snapped, after glancing at the other guests also. “But what a nice girl, though! Who is she?”
“That’s Vera Lukyanovna, the daughter of Lebedyev here.”
“Ah! . . . She is very sweet. I should like to make her acquaintance.”
But Lebedyev, hearing Madame Epanchin’s words of approval, was already dragging his daughter forward to present her.
“My motherless children!” he wailed as he came up. “And this baby in her arms is motherless, her sister, my daughter Lubov — born in most lawful wedlock from my departed wife Elena, who died six weeks ago in childbirth, by the will of God. . . . “Vfes .. . she takes her mother’s place to the baby, though she is a sister and no more … no more, no more. ..
“And you, sir, are no more than a fool, if you’ll excuse me! That’s enough, you know it yourself, I suppose,” Lizaveta Prokofyevna rapped out in extreme indignation.
“Perfectly true,” Lebedyev assented with a low and respectful bow.
“Listen, Mr. Lebedyev, is it true what they say, that you interpret the Apocalypse?” asked Aglaia.
“Perfectly true … for fifteen years.”
“I’ve heard about you. I think there was something in the newspapers about you?”
“No, that was about another interpreter, another one; but he is dead. I’ve succeeded him,” said Lebedyev, beside himself with delight.
“Be so good as to interpret it to me some day soon, as we are neighbours. I don’t understand anything in the Apocalypse.”
“I must warn you, Aglaia Ivanovna, that all this is mere charlatanism on his part, believe me,” General Ivolgin put in quickly. He was sitting beside Aglaia, and tingling all over with eagerness to enter into conversation. “Of course there are certain privileges on a holiday,” he went on, “and certain pleasures, and to take up such an extraordinary intrus for the interpretation of the Apocalypse is a diversion like any other, and even a remarkably clever diversion, but I … I think you are looking at me with surprise? General Ivolgin. I have the honour to introduce myself. I used to carry you in my arms, Aglaia Ivanovna.”
“Very glad to meet you. I know Varvara Ardalionovna and Nina Alexandrovna,” Aglaia muttered, making desperate efforts not to burst out laughing.
Lizaveta Prokofyevna flushed. The irritation that had been accumulating for a long time in her heart suddenly craved for an outlet. She could not endure General Ivolgin, with whom she had been acquainted, but very long ago.
“You are lying, sir, as usual. \bu have never carried her in your arms,” she snapped out indignantly.
“You’ve forgotten, maman, he really did, at Tver,” Aglaia suddenly asserted. “We were living at Tver then. I was six years old then, I remember. He made me a bow and arrow and taught me to shoot, and I killed a pigeon. Do you remember we killed a pigeon together?”
“And you brought me a helmet made of cardboard, and a wooden sword, I remember, too!” cried Adelaida.
“I remember it too,” Alexandra chimed in. “\bu quarrelled over the wounded pigeon. You were put in separate corners. Adelaida stood in the corner wearing the helmet and the sword.”
When General Ivolgin told Aglaia that he had carried her in his arms, he said it without meaning it, merely to begin the conversation, and because he always began a conversation in that way with young people, if he wanted to make their acquaintance. But this time, as it happened, he was speaking the truth, though, as it happened, he had forgotten it. So when Aglaia declared that they had shot a pigeon together, it revived his memory of the past, and he recalled every detail himself, as elderly people often do remember something in the remote past. It is hard to say what there was in that reminiscence to produce so strong an effect on the poor general, who was, as usual, a little drunk, but he was all at once greatly moved.
“I remember, I remember it all!” he cried. “I was a captain then. “Vbu were such a pretty little mite. . . . Nina Alexandrovna. . . . Ganya … I used to be … a guest in your house, Ivan Fyodorovitch …”
“And see what you’ve come to now!” put in Madame Epanchin. “So you haven’t drunk away all your better feeling, it affects you so much? But you’ve worried your wife to death! Instead of looking after your children, you sit in a debtors’ prison. Go awav, mv friend; stand in some corner behind the door and have a cry. Remember your innocence in the past, and maybe God will forgive you. Go along, go along, I mean it. Nothing helps a man to reform like thinking of the past with regret.”
But to repeat that she was speaking seriously was unnecessary. General Ivolgin, like all drunkards, was very emotional, and, like all drunkards who have sunk very low, he was much upset by memories of the happy past. He got up and walked humbly to the door, so that Lizaveta Prokofyevna was at once sorry for him.
“Ardalion Alexandrovitch, my dear man!” she called after him. “Stop a minute; we are all sinners. When you feel your conscience more at ease, come and see me; we’ll sit and chat over the past. I daresay I am fifty times as great a sinner myself. But now, good-bye; go along, it’s no use your staying here,” she added suddenly, afraid he was coming back.
“You’d better not go after him for a while,” said Myshkin, checking Kolya, who was about to run after his father, “or he will be vexed directly and all this minute will be spoiled for him.”
“That’s true; don’t disturb him; go in half an hour,” Lizaveta Prokofyevna decided.
“See what comes of speaking the truth for once in his life; it reduced him to tears,” Lebedyev ventured to comment.
“You are another pretty one, my man, if what I’ve heard is true,” said Lizaveta Prokofyevna, suppressing him at once.
The mutual relations of the guests about Myshkin gradually became evident. Myshkin was, of course, able to appreciate and did appreciate to the full the sympathy shown to him by Madame Epanchin and her daughters, and he told them with truth that before they came he had intended to have paid them a visit that day in spite of his invalid state and the late hour. Lizaveta Prokofyevna, looking at his visitors, observed that it was still possible to carry out his intention. Ptitsyn, who was a very polite and tactful person, promptly retreated to Lebedyev’s quarters, and was very anxious to get Lebedyev away with him. The latter promised to follow him quickly. Varya, meanwhile, had got into talk with the girls, and remained, and she and Ganya were greatly relieved by the departure of the general. Ganya himself withdrew soon after Ptitsyn. For the few minutes that he was in the verandah with the Epanchins, he had behaved modestly and with dignity, and was not in the least disconcerted by