rejoicing at.
“Extraordinarily queer people!” thought Prince S. perhaps for the hundredth time since he had known them, but . . . he liked these queer people. As for Myshkin, he was perhaps not greatly attracted by him. Prince S. looked rather gloomy and, as it were, preoccupied, as they set off.
“Vfevgeny Pavlovitch seemed in the liveliest humour. All the way to the railway station — he was amusing Adelaida and Alexandra, who laughed at his jokes with such extreme readiness that he began to be a trifle suspicious that perhaps they were not listening to him at all. At this thought he suddenly broke into violent and perfectly genuine laughter without explaining the reason. His amusement was characteristic of the man. Though the sisters were in the most hilarious mood, they kept looking at Aglaia and Myshkin in front of them. It was evident that their younger sister’s conduct was a complete enigma to them. Prince S. kept trying to talk about other subjects to Lizaveta Prokofyevna, perhaps to distract her mind, and bored her horribly. She seemed completely dazed, answered at random, and sometimes did not answer at all. But that was not the end of Aglaia’s enigmas that evening. The last of them fell to the lot of Myshkin alone. When they had got about a hundred paces from the house, Aglaia said in a rapid half-whisper to her obstinately silent cavalier:
“Look there, to the right.”
Myshkin looked.
“Look more carefully. Do you see that seat in the park, over there where those three big trees are . . . a green seat?”
Myshkin answered that he did.
“Do you like the place? I sometimes come and sit here alone at seven o’clock in the morning, when everyone else is asleep.”
Myshkin murmured that it was a charming spot.
“And now you can leave me. I don’t want to walk arm-in-arm with you any further. Or, better, walk arm-in-arm with me, but don’t speak to me — not a word. I want to think by myself.”
This warning was unnecessary, however. Myshkin would not have uttered a word in any case. His heart began throbbing violently when she spoke of the seat in the park. After a minute’s deliberation he dismissed the foolish idea with shame.
It is a well-known fact remarked by every one that the public about the Pavlovsk band-stand is more “select” on weekdays than on Sundays and holidays, when “all sorts of people” flock there from town. The ladies, though not in holiday attire, are more elegant. It is the correct thing to gather about the band-stand. The orchestra is about the best of our park bands, and often plays new pieces. There is great decorum and propriety of behaviour in the gardens, though there is a general air of homeliness, and even intimacy. Summer visitors go there to look at their acquaintances. Many do this with genuine pleasure and frequent the gardens for that purpose alone. But there are some who only go for the music. Unpleasant scenes are rare, though of course they occasionally occur even on weekdays. But that, to be sure, is inevitable.
It was an exquisite evening, and there were a good many people in the gardens. All the places round the orchestra were taken. Our party sat down on chairs rather apart, close to the left-hand exit from the station. The crowd and the music revived Lizaveta Prokofyevna a little and diverted the young ladies. They had already exchanged glances with some of the visitors and had already nodded affably to several of their acquaintances; they had scrutinised the dresses, detected some eccentricities, and discussed them with sarcastic smiles, “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch too bowed frequently to acquaintances. Aglaia and Myshkin, who were still together, had already attracted some attention. Soon several young men went up to the young ladies and their mother; two or three remained to talk to them. Thev were all friends of “Vfevqenv Pavlovitch’s.
Among them was a very handsome, good-humoured and talkative young officer. He hastened to address Aglaia and did his utmost to engage her attention. She was particularly gracious and sprightly with him. “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch asked Myshkin to let him introduce this friend. Myshkin hardly took in what was wanted of him, but the introduction took place, both bowed and shook hands. Yevgeny Pavlovitch’s friend asked a question, but Myshkin either did not answer or mumbled something so strangely to himself that the officer stared at him, then glanced at Yevgeny Pavlovitch, at once saw why the introduction had been made, smiled slightly and turned to Aglaia again. Only “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch noticed that Aglaia suddenly flushed at this.
Myshkin did not even observe that other people were talking and paying attention to Aglaia. He was perhaps at moments even unconscious that he was sitting beside her. Sometimes he longed to get away, to vanish from here altogether. He would have been positively glad to be in some gloomy, deserted place, only that he might be alone with his thoughts and no one might know where he was. Or at least to be at home in the verandah, with no one else there, not Lebedyev nor the children; to throw himself on the sofa and bury his head in the pillow, and to lie like that for a day and a night and another day. At moments he dreamed of the mountains, and especially one familiar spot which he always liked to think of, a spot to which he had been fond of going and from which he used to look down on the village, on the waterfall gleaming like a white thread below, on the white clouds and the old ruined castle. Oh, how he longed to be there now, and to think of one thing! — oh, of nothing else for his whole life, and a thousand years would not be too long! And let him be utterly forgotten here. Oh, that must be! It would have been better indeed if they had never known him, and if it had all been only a dream. And wasn’t it just the same, dream and reality? Sometimes he began looking at Aglaia, and for five minutes at a time did not take his eyes off herface. But the look in his eyes was too strange. He seemed to be looking at her as at an object a mile away, or as at her portrait, not herself.
“Why are you looking at me like that, prince?” she asked him suddenly, interrupting her lively talk and laughter with the group around her. “I am afraid of you; I feel as though you meant to put out your hand and touch my face and feel it with your fingers. He does look like that, doesn’t he, “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch?”
Myshkin seemed surprised to hear that he was being spoken to, pondered, though perhaps he did not quite understand, and did not answer. But seeing that she and all the rest were laughing, he opened his mouth and began to laugh too. The laughter grew louder; the officer, who must have been of a mirthful disposition, simply shook with laughter. Aglaia suddenly whispered to herself wrathfully:
“Idiot!”
“Good heavens! Surely she can’t be … a man like that… is she utterly mad?” her mother muttered to herself.
“It’s a joke. The same as that about the ‘poor knight,’ nothing more,” Alexandra whispered firmly in her ear. “She’s making fun of him again, as she always does. But the joke has gone too far. We must put a stop to it, maman! She went on like an actress and scared us out of pure mischief….”
“It’s a good thing she’s pitched on an idiot like that,” her mother whispered back.
But her daughter’s remark had relieved her.
Myshkin heard them call him an idiot, however, and started, but not at being called an idiot. He forgot the word immediately. But in the crowd not far from where he was sitting — he could not have pointed out the exact spot — he caught a glimpse of a face — a pale face, with curly black hair, with a familiar, a very familiar smile and expression; he caught a glimpse of it and it vanished. Very likely it was only his fancy; all that remained with him was an impression of a wry smile, the eyes and the jaunty pale green necktie of the apparition. Whether the figure had disappeared in the crowd, or whether it had slipped into the station Myshkin could not decide.
But a minute later he began quickly and uneasily looking about him; this first apparition might be the forerunner of a second. That must certainly be so. Could he have forgotten the possibility of a meeting when he went into the gardens? It is true that when he went to the gardens he had no idea that he was coming there — he was in such a troubled state of mind.
If he had been more capable of observing, he might have noticed for the last quarter of an hour that Aglaia too was looking round uneasily from time to time; she too seemed to be on the lookout for some one. Now, when his uneasiness had become very marked, Aglaia’s excitement and uneasiness also increased, and as soon as he looked round him, she at once looked about too. The explanation of their uneasiness followed quickly.
Quite a number of persons, at least a dozen, suddenly appeared from the side entrance, near which Myshkin and the Epanchins and their friends were sitting. The foremost of the group were three women, two of them remarkably good-looking; and it was not strange that they were followed by so many