could not possibly touch upon with him, and that she did not even comprehend his question.
“But it’s too late, too late to send to town for a copy of Pushkin to-night, it’s too late,” Kolya maintained in exasperation to Lizaveta Prokofyevna. “I’ve told you three thousand times it’s too late.”
“Yes, it really is too late to send to town now,”
“Vfevgeny Pavlovitch intervened here, too, hurriedly leaving Aglaia, “I believe the shops are shut by now in Petersburg, it’s past eight,” he declared, looking at his watch.
“Since you have waited so long without missing it, you can wait till to-morrow,” put in Adelaida.
“And it’s not the thing for people of the best society to be too much interested in literature,” added Kolya. “Ask Yevgeny Pavlovitch. It’s more correct to be keen on a yellow char-a-banc with red wheels.”
“You are talking in quotations again, Kolya,” observed Adelaida.
“But he never speaks except in quotations,”
chimed in Yevgeny Pavlovitch, “he takes whole phrases out of the reviews. I’ve long had the pleasure of knowing Nikolay Ardalionovitch’s conversation, but this time he is not talking in quotations. Nikolay Ardalionovitch is plaintly alluding to my yellow char-a-banc with red wheels. But I have exchanged it, you are behind the times.”
Myshkin listened to what Radomsky was saying. He thought that his manners were excellent, modest and lively, and he was particularly pleased to hear him reply with perfect equality and friendliness to the gibes of Kolya.
“What is it?” asked Lizaveta Prokofyevna, addressing Vera, Lebedyev’s daughter, who was standing before her with some large, almost new and finely bound volumes in her hands.
“Pushkin,” said Vera, “our Pushkin. Father told me to offer it to you.”
“How is this? How can it be?” cried Lizaveta Prokofyevna in surprise.
“Not as a present, not as a present! I wouldn’t take the liberty!” Lebedyev skipped forward from behind his daughter. “At cost price. This is our own Pushkin handed down in the family, Annenkov’s edition, which cannot be bought nowadays — at cost price. I offer it with veneration, wishing to sell it and so to satisfy the honourable impatience of your excellency’s most honourable literary feelings.”
“Well, if you’ll sell it, thank you. \bu won’t be a loser by it, you may be sure. Only don’t play the fool, please, sir. I’ve heard that you are very well read, we’ll have a talk one day. Will you bring them yourself?”
“With veneration and . . . respectfulness!” Lebedyev grimaced with extraordinary satisfaction, taking the books from his daughter.
“Well, mind you don’t lose them! Take them, even without respectfulness, but only on condition,” she added, scanning him carefully, “that I only admit you to the door and don’t intend to receive you to-day. Send your daughter Vera at once, if you will, I like her very much.”
“Why don’t you tell him about those people?” said Vera, addressing herfather impatiently, “they’ll come in of themselves, if you don’t, they’ve begun to be noisy. Lyov Nikolayevitch,” she said, addressing Myshkin, who had already taken his hat, “there are
four men come to see you, they’ve been waiting a long time, scolding, but father won’t let them in to you!”
“Who are they?” asked Myshkin.
“They’ve come on business, they say, only if you don’t let them in now, they’ll be sure to stop you on the way. “Vbu’d better see them, Lyov Nikolayevitch, and then you’ll be rid of them. Gavril Ardalionovitch and Ptitsyn are talking to them — but they won’t listen to them.”
“The son of Pavlishtchev, the son of Pavlishtchev! They are not worth it, they are not worth it!” said Lebedyev, waving his hands, “they are not worth listening to and it would be out of place for you to disturb yourself on their account, most illustrious prince, theyare not worth it…”
“The son of Pavlishtchev! Good heavens!” cried Myshkin, extremely disconcerted. “I know but. . . you see, I … I asked Gavril Ardalionovitch to attend to that. Gavril Ardalionovitch told me just now….”
But Gavril Ardalionovitch had already come out of the house on to the verandah. Ptitsyn followed him. In the next room there were sounds of uproar and the loud voice of General Ivolgin who seemed to be trying to shout down several others. Kolya ran indoors at once.
“This is very interesting!” observed Yevgeny Pavlovitch aloud.
“So he knows about it!” thought Myshkin.
“What son of Pavlishtchev? . . . and what son of Pavlishtchev can there be?” General Epanchin asked, in amazement, looking at every one with curiosity, and observing with surprise from their faces that he was the only one who knew nothing about this new development.
The excitement and expectation was general indeed. Myshkin was profoundly astonished that such an entirely personal affair could already have roused so much interest in everyone here.
“It will be a very good thing if you put a stop to this at once and yourself!’ said Aglaia, going up to Myshkin with particular earnestness, “and allow us all to be your witnesses. They are trying to throw mud at you, prince, you must defend yourself triumphantly, and I am awfully glad for you.”
“I want this disgusting claim to be stopped at last, too,” cried Madame Epanchin. “Give it to them well,
prince, don’t spare them! My ears have been tingling with this business, and it’s been spoiling my temper on your account. Besides, it will be interesting to look at them. Call them in and we’ll sit down. It’s a good idea of Aglaia’s. “Vbu’ve heard something about it, prince?” she added addressing Prince S.
“Of course I have; in your house. But I am particularly anxious to have a look at these young people,” answered Prince S.
“These are what are meant by nihilists, aren’t they?”
“No! they are not to say nihilists,” said Lebedyev, stepping forward, and almost shaking with excitement. “They are different, a special sort. My nephew tells me they have gone far beyond the nihilists. “Vbu are wrong if you think you’ll abash them by your presence, your excellency, they won’t be abashed. Nihilists are sometimes well-informed people, anyway, even learned, but these have gone further because they are first of all men of business. This is a sort of sequel to nihilism, not in a direct line, but obliquely, by hearsay, and they don’t express themselves in newspaper articles, but directly in action. It’s not a question of the irrationality of Pushkin, or some one, for instance, nor the necessity of the breaking up of Russia into parts, no, now they claim as a right that if one wants anything very much, one is not to be checked by any obstacles, even though one might have to do for half a dozen people to gain one’s ends. But all the same, prince, I should not advise you …”
But Myshkin had already gone to open the door to the visitors.
“You are slandering them, Lebedyev,” he said, smiling, “your nephew has hurt your feelings very much. Don’t believe him, Lizaveta Prokofyevna. I assure you that Gorskys and Danilovs are only exceptions, and these are only . . . mistaken. But I should have preferred not to see them here, before everyone. Excuse me, Lizaveta Prokofyevna, they’ll come in, I’ll show them to you and then take them away. Come in, gentlemen!”
He was more worried by another painful thought. He wondered: had not some one arranged this business beforehand for that time, for that hour, in the presence of those witnesses and perhaps in anticipation of his shame rather than his triumph? But he felt too sad at the thought of his “monstrous and wicked suspiciousness.” He felt that he would have died if anyone had known he had such an idea in his head, and at the moment when his guests walked in, he was genuinely ready to believe that he was lower in a moral sense than the lowest around him.
Five persons entered, four new arrivals followed by General Ivolgin in a state of heated agitation and violent loquacity. “He is on my side, no doubt,” thought Myshkin, with a smile. Kolya slipped in among them; he was talking hotly to Ippolit, who was one of the visitors. Ippolit listened grinning.
Myshkin made his visitors sit down. They all looked so young, hardly grown up indeed, that their visit and the attention paid them seemed strange. Ivan Fyodorovitch, for instance, who knew nothing about this “new development,” and could not make it out, was quite indignant at the sight of their youthfulness, and would certainly have made some sort of protest, had he not been checked by his wife’s unaccountable eagerness on behalf of Myshkin’s private affairs. He remained, however, partly out of curiosity, and partly from kind-heartedness, hoping to help, or at least to be of use by the exercise of his authority. But General Ivolgin’s bow to him, from the distance, roused his indignation again; he frowned and made up his mind to be consistently silent.
Of the four young men who came in, one, however, was a man of thirty, the retired lieutenant, who had been one of Rogozhin’s crew, the boxer, “who had in his time given as much as fifteen roubles each to beggars.” It could be guessed that he had come to stand by the others as a faithful friend, and if necessity arose, to support them. The foremost and most prominent of the others was the young man to whom the designation “the son of Pavlishtchev” had been given, though he introduced himself as Antip Burdovsky. He was a young man poorly and untidily dressed. The sleeves of his coat shone like a mirror; his greasy waistcoat was buttoned up to the neck; his linen