absolutely safe; it was based on the readiness with which the prince gives away his money and his gratitude and respect for Pavlishtchev, and what is more, on the prince’s well-known chivalrous views as to the obligations of honour and conscience. As for Mr. Burdovsky, personally, one may even say that, thanks to certain ideas of his, he was so worked upon by Tchebarov and his other friends that he took up the case hardly from self interest, but almost as a service to truth, progress, and humanity. Now after what I have told you, it has become clear to all that Mr. Burdovsky is an innocent man, in spite of all appearances, and the prince, more readily and zealously than before, will offer him his friendly assistance, and that substantial help to which he referred just now when he spoke of schools and of Pavlishtchev.”
“Stay, Gavril Ardalionovitch, stay!” cried Myshkin, in genuine dismay, but it was too late.
“I have said, I have told you three times already,” cried Burdovsky irritably, “that I don’t want the money, I won’t take it. . . why … I don’t want to … I am going!”
And he was almost running out of the verandah. But Lebedyev’s nephew seized him by the arm and whispered something to him. Burdovsky quickly turned back, and pulling a big unsealed envelope out of his pocket, threw it on a table near Myshkin.
“Here is the money! How dared you! How dared you! The money!”
“The two hundred and fifty roubles which you dared to send him as a charity by Tchebarov!”
Doktorenko explained.
“The article said fifty!” cried Kolya.
“It’s my fault,” said Myshkin, going up to Burdovsky. “I’ve done you a wrong, Burdovsky, but I didn’t send it you as a charity, believe me. I am to blame now … I was to blame before.” (Myshkin was much distressed, he looked weak and exhausted, and his words were disconnected.) “I talked of swindling, but I didn’t mean you, I was mistaken. I said that you . . . were afflicted as I am. But you are not like me, you . . . give lessons, you support your mother. I said that you cast shame on your mother’s name, but you love her, she says so herself … I didn’t know, Gavril Ardalionovitch had not told me everything. I am to blame. I ventured to offer you ten thousand, but I am to blame, I ought to have done it differently, and now … it can’t be done because you despise me …”
“This is a madhouse!” cried Lizaveta Prokofyevna.
“Of course it’s a house of madmen!” Aglaia could not refrain from saying, sharply.
But her words were lost in the general uproar; all were talkinq loudly and discussinq, some disputinq,
others laughing. Ivan Fyodorovitch Epanchin was roused to the utmost pitch of indignation, and with an air of wounded dignity he waited for Lizaveta Prokofyevna. Lebedyev’s nephew put in the last word:
“Yes, prince, one must do you justice, you do know how to make use of your . . . well, illness (to express it politely); you’ve managed to offer your friendship and money in such an ingenious way that now it’s impossible for an honourable man to take it under any circumstances. That’s either a bit too innocent or a bit too clever. .. \bu know best which.”
“Excuse me, gentlemen!” cried Gavril Ardalionovitch, who had meantime opened the envelope, “there are not two hundred and fifty roubles here, there’s only a hundred. I say so, prince, that there maybe no misunderstanding.”
“Let it be, let it be!” cried Myshkin, waving his hands at Gavril Ardalionovitch.
“No, don’t let it be.” Lebedyev’s nephew caught it up at once. “Your ‘let it be’ is an insult to us, prince. We don’t hide ourselves, we declare it openly, yes, there are only a hundred roubles in it, instead of two hundred and fifty, but isn’t it just the same….”
“N-no, it’s not just the same,” Gavril Ardalionovitch managed to interpolate, with an air of naive perplexity.
“Don’t interrupt me; we are not such fools as you think, Mr. Lawyer,” cried Lebedyev’s nephew, with spiteful vexation. “Of course a hundred roubles is not two hundred and fifty, and it’s not just the same, but the principle is what matters. The initiative is the great thing, and that a hundred and fifty roubles are missing is only a detail. What matters is, that Burdovsky does not accept your charity, your excellency, that he throws it in your face, and in that sense it makes no difference whether it’s a hundred or two hundred and fifty. Burdovsky hasn’t accepted the ten thousand, as you’ve seen; he wouldn’t have brought back the hundred roubles if he had been dishonest. That hundred and fifty roubles has gone to Tchebarov for his journey to see the prince. “Vbu may laugh at our awkwardness, at our inexperience in business; you’ve tried your very utmost to make us ridiculous, but don’t dare to say we are dishonest. We’ll all club together, sir, to pay back that hundred and fifty roubles to the prince; we’ll pay it back if it has to be a rouble at a time, and we’ll pay it back with interest. Burdovsky is poor, Burdovsky hasn’t millions, and Tchebarov sent in his account after his journey. We hoped to win the case . .. who would not have done the same thing in his place?”
“Who would not?” exclaimed Prince S.
“I shall go out of my mind here!” cried Madame Epanchin.
“It reminds me,” laughed “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch, who had long been standing there watching, “of the celebrated defence made recently by a lawyer who, bringing forward in justification the poverty of his client as an excuse for his having murdered and robbed six people at once, suddenly finished up with something like this: ‘It was natural,’ said he, ‘that in my client’s poverty the idea of murdering six people should have occurred to him; and to whom indeed would it not have occurred in his position?’ Something of that sort, very amusing.”
“Enough!” Lizaveta Prokofyevna announced suddenly, almost shaking with anger. “It’s time to cut short this nonsense.”
She was in terrible excitement; she flung back her head menacingly, and with flashing eyes and an air of haughty, fierce, and impatient defiance, she scanned the whole party, scarcely able at the moment to distinguish between friends and foes. She had reached that pitch of long-suppressed but at last irrepressible wrath when the craving for immediate conflict, for immediate attack on some one becomes the leading impulse. Those who knew Madame Epanchin felt at once that something unusual had happened to her. Ivan Fyodorovitch told Prince S. next day that “she has these attacks sometimes, but such a pitch as yesterday is unusual, even with her; it happens to her once in three years or so, but not oftener. Not oftener!” he added emphatically.
“Enough, Ivan Fyodorovitch! Let me alone,” cried Lizaveta Prokofyevna, “why are you offering me your arm now? You hadn’t the sense to take me away before! You are the husband, you are the head of the family, you ought to have taken me by the ear and led me out if I were so silly as not to obey you and go. \bu might think of your daughters, anyhow! Now, we can find the way without you! I’ve had shame enough to last me a year. Wait a bit, I must still thank the prince! Thank vou for vour entertainment, prince.
I’ve been staying on to listen to the young people. … It’s disgraceful, disgraceful! It’s chaos, infamy! It’s worse than a dream. Are there many like them? . . . Be quiet, Aglaia! Be quiet, Alexandra, it’s not your business! Don’t fuss round me. “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch, you bother me! … So you are asking their forgiveness, my dear?” she went on, addressing Myshkin again. ‘“It’s my fault,’ says he, ‘for daring to offer you a fortune.’ . . . And what are you pleased to be laughing at, you braggart?” she pounced suddenly on Lebedyev’s nephew. ‘“We refuse the fortune,’ says he, ‘we demand, we don’t ask!’ As though he didn’t know that this idiot will trail off tomorrow to them to offer his friendship and his money to them again. You will, won’t you? \bu will? Will you or not?”
“I shall,” said Myshkin, in a soft and humble voice.
“You hear! So that’s what you are reckoning on,” she turned again to Doktorenko. “The money is as good as in your pocket, that’s why you boast and try to impress us. . . . No, my good man, you can find other fools, I see through you. … I see all your game!”
“Lizaveta Prokofyevna!” cried Myshkin.
“Come away, Lizaveta Prokofyevna, it’s time we went, and let us take the prince with us,” Prince S. said, smiling as calmly as he could.
The girls stood on one side, almost scared, General Epanchin was genuinely alarmed, everyone present was amazed. Some of those standing furthest away whispered together and smiled on the sly; Lebedyev’s face wore an expression of perfect rapture.
“There’s chaos and infamy to be found everywhere, madam,” said Lebedyev’s nephew, though he was a good deal disconcerted.
“But not so bad! Not so bad as yours, my man,” Lizaveta Prokofyevna retorted with almost hysterical vindictiveness. “Let me alone!” she cried to those who tried to persuade her. “Well, since you yourself, “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch, have just told us that even a lawyer in court declared that nothing is more natural if one is poor than to butcher six people, it simply means the end of all things; I never heard of