“But I tell you — judge for yourself — what can there be in common between Yevgeny Pavlovitch and . . . her, and above all with Rogozhin? I repeat he has an immense fortune, and I know it for a fact, and he expects another fortune from his uncle. It’s simply that Nastasya Filippovna …”
Prince S. suddenly paused again, obviously because he did not care to go on speaking of Nastasya Filippovna to Myshkin.
“Then he knows her, anyway?” Myshkin asked suddenly after a minute’s silence.
“That was so, I believe; he’s a giddy fellow! But if it was so, it was long ago in the past — that is, two or three years back. \bu see, he used to know Totsky. Now, there could be nothing of the sort; they could never have been on intimate terms! \bu know yourself that she hasn’t been here either; she hasn’t been anywhere. Many people don’t know yet that she has turned up again. I have noticed the carriage for the last three days, not more.”
“A splendid carriage!” said Adelaida.
“Yes, the carriage was splendid.”
They took leave, however, on the most friendly, one might say the most brotherly, terms with Prince Lyov Nikolayevitch.
But there was something of vital importance to our hero in this visit. He had indeed suspected a good deal himself, ever since the previous evening (possibly even earlier), but till their visit he had not brought himself to justify his apprehensions completely. But now it had become clear. Prince S. of course, put a mistaken interpretation on the incident, but still he was not far from the truth; he realised, anyway, that there was an intrigue in it. (“Perhaps though, he understands it quite correctly,” thought Myshkin, “but only does not want to speak out, and so puts a false interpretation on it on purpose.”) What was clearer than anything was that they had come to see him just now (Prince S. certainly had) in the hope of getting some sort of explanation. If that were so, then they plainly looked on him as being concerned in the intrigue. Besides, if this were so and really were of consequence, then she must have some dreadful object. What object?
Horrible! “And how’s one to stop her? There is no possibility of stopping her when she is determined on her object.” That Myshkin knew by experience. “She is mad! She is mad!”
But that morning was crowded with far too many other unexplained incidents, all coming at once and all requiring to be settled at once; so that Myshkin was very sad. His attention was distracted a little by Vera Lebedyev, who came to see him with Lubotchka, and, laughing, told him a long story. She was followed by her open-mouthed sister. They were followed by the schoolboy, Lebedyev’s son, who informed him that the “star that is called Wormwood” in the Apocalypse, “that fell upon the fountains of waters,” was, by his father’s interpretation, the network of railways spread over Europe. Myshkin did not believe that Lebedyev did interpret it in this way, and resolved to ask him about it at the first convenient opportunity.
From Vera Lebedyev, Myshkin learned that Keller had taken up his quarters with them the previous day and showed every sign of not leaving them for a long time, since he found company in their house and had made friends with General Ivolqin. He declared,
however, he was remaining with them solely to complete his education. On the whole Myshkin began to like Lebedyev’s children more and more every day. Kolya had not been there all day — he had set off to Petersburg early in the morning. Lebedyev, too, had gone away as soon as it was light to see after some little business of his own. But Myshkin impatiently expected a visit from Gavril Ardalionovitch, who was to come to see him without fail that day.
He came just after dinner, about six o’clock in the afternoon. At the first glance at him, the thought struck Myshkin that that gentleman at least must know every detail of the affair thoroughly. How could he fail to, indeed, with people like Varvara Ardalionovna and her husband to help him? But Myshkin’s relations with Ganya were somewhat peculiar. Myshkin had, for instance, entrusted him with the management of Burdovsky’s affair, and particularly asked him to look after it. But in spite of the confidence he put in him over this, and in spite of something that had happened before, certain points always remained between them about which it was,
as it were, mutually agreed not to speak. Myshkin fancied sometimes that Ganya would perhaps for his part have liked the fullest and most friendly candour. Now, for instance, Myshkin felt, as soon as Ganya entered, that he was fully persuaded that that moment was the time to break down the ice between them at all points. Gavril Ardalionovitch was in haste, however. His sister was awaiting him with the Lebedyevs, and they were both in a hurry over something they were doing.
But if Ganya really was expecting a whole series of impatient questions, impulsive confidences, friendly outpourings, he was certainly much mistaken. During the twenty minutes his visit lasted, Myshkin was positively dreamy, almost absent-minded. There was no possibility of the expected questions — or rather of the one principal question Ganya was expecting. Then Ganya too decided to speak with great reserve. He talked away for the whole twenty minutes without stopping, laughed, kept up a very light, charming and rapid chatter, but did not touch on the chief point.
Ganya told him among other things that Nastasya Filippovna had only been four days here in Pavlovsk and was already attracting general attention. She was staying at Darya Alexeyevna’s, in a clumsy-looking little house in Matrossky Street; but her carriage was almost the finest in Pavlovsk. A perfect crowd of followers, old and young, had gathered about her already. Her carriage was sometimes escorted by gentlemen on horseback. Nastasya Filippovna was, as she always had been, very capricious in her choice of friends and only received those she fancied. And yet a perfect regiment was forming round her; she had plenty of champions, if she needed them. One gentleman, staying in a summer villa, had already on her account quarrelled with the young lady to whom he was formally betrothed; and one old general had all but cursed his son because of her. She often took out driving with her a charming little girl, a distant relative of Darya Alexeyevna’s, who was only just sixteen. This girl sang very well, so their little house attracted general attention in the evenings. Nastasya Filippovna, however, behaved with extreme propriety, dressed quietly but with extraordinarily good taste, and all the ladies were “envying her taste, her beauty and her carriage.”
“The eccentric incident yesterday,” Ganya ventured, “was, of course, premeditated, and, of course, must not be counted. To find any fault with her, people will have to seek it out on purpose, or to invent it; which they would not be slow to do, however,” Ganya concluded, expecting Myshkin would be sure to ask him at that point why he called yesterday’s incident “premeditated,” and why they would not be slow to do so.
But Myshkin did not ask it.
Ganya talked freely about Yevgeny Pavlovitch without being questioned, which was very strange, for he brought him into the conversation without any pretext for doing so. In Gavril Ardalionovitch’s opinion, Yevgeny Pavlovitch had not known Nastasya Filippovna; he scarcely knew her even now, for he had only been introduced to herfour days ago when out walking, and had probably not been once at her house. As for the lOUs, it might be so too: Ganya knew that for a positive fact. Yevgeny Pavlovitch’s fortune was, of course, a large one, but some business connected with his estate really was rather in a muddle. At this interesting point Ganya suddenly broke off. He said nothinq about Nastasya Filippovna’s prank of the previous evening, except the passing reference above.
At last Varvara Ardalionovna came in to look for Ganya. She stayed a minute, announced (also without being asked) that Yevgeny Pavlovitch was in Petersburg to-day and would perhaps be there tomorrow too; that her husband, Ivan Petrovitch Ptitsyn, was also in Petersburg and also probably on “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch’s business; that something had really happened there. As she was going, she added that Lizaveta Prokofyevna was in a fiendish temper to-day; but, what was most odd, Aglaia had quarrelled with her whole family, not only her father and mother, but even with her two sisters, and “that was anything but a good sign.” After giving him, as it were in passing, this last piece of news (which was of extreme importance to Myshkin), the brother and sister departed. Ganya had, possibly from false modesty, possibly to “spare the prince’s feelings,” not uttered one word about the case of “Pavlishtchev’s son.” Myshkin thanked him, however, once more for the careful way he had managed the affair.
Myshkin was very glad to be left alone at last. He walked off the verandah, crossed the road and went into the park. He longed to think over and decide upon one step. Yet that “step” was not one of those that can be thought over, but one of those which are simply decided upon without deliberation. A terrible longing came upon him to leave everything here and to go back to the place from which he had come, to go away into the distance to some remote region, to go away at once without
