meanwhile, on the way, he began talking to Myshkin, quickly, excitedly, and somewhat incoherently, frequently mentioning Lizaveta Prokofyevna. If Myshkin could have been more observant at that moment, he might perhaps have guessed that the general wanted to find out something from him, or rather, wanted to ask him a plain question, but could not bring himself to the real point. Myshkin was so absent-minded that at first he heard nothing at all, and when the general stopped before him with some excited question, to his shame he was forced to confess that he had not understood a word.
The general shrugged his shoulders.
“You’re all such queer people all about one,” he began again. “I tell you that I am at a loss to understand the notions and alarms of Lizaveta Prokofyevna. She’s in hysterics, crying and declaring that we’ve been disgraced, shamed. Who? How? By whom? When and why? I confess I am to blame (I recognise it), I’m very much to blame, but the persecutions of . . . this troublesome woman (who’s misconducting herself into the bargain) can be restrained, by the police at the worst, and I intend to see some one to-day and take steps. Everything can be done quietly, gently, kindly even, in a friendly way and without a breath of scandal. I admit that many things may happen in the future, and that there’s a great deal that’s unexplained; there’s an intrigue in it; but if they know nothing about it here, they can make no explanation there. If I’ve heard nothing and you’ve heard nothing, he’s heard nothing, and she’s heard nothing, who has heard, I should like to ask you? How is it to be explained, do you suppose, except that half of it is mirage, unreal, something like moonshine or some hallucination.”
“She is mad,” muttered Myshkin, recalling with pain the recent scene.
“That’s just what I say, if you’re talking of her. That idea has occurred to me too, and I slept peacefully. But now I see that their opinion is more correct, and I don’t believe in madness. She’s a nonsensical woman, I grant, but she’s artful as well, and far from mad. Her freak to-day about Kapiton Alexeyitch shows that too clearly. It’s a fraudulent business, or at least a Jesuitical business for objects of her own.”
“What Kapiton Alexeyitch?”
“Ah, mercy on us, Lyov Nikolayevitch, you don’t listen. I began by telling you about Kapiton Alexeyitch; I was so upset that I’m all of a tremble still. That’s what kept me so long in town to-day. Kapiton Alexeyitch Radomsky, Yevgeny Pavlovitch’s uncle….”
“Ah!” cried Myshkin.
“Shot himself at daybreak this morning, at seven o’clock. A highly respected old man, seventy, a free-liver. And it’s just exactly as she said — a large sum of government money missing.”
“Where could she have …”
“Heard of it? Ha-ha! Why, she had a whole regiment around her, as soon as she arrived here. \bu know what sort of people visit her now and seek ‘the honour of her acquaintance.’ She might naturally have heard it this morning from some one coming from town; for all Petersburg knows it by now, and half Pavlovsk, or perhaps the whole of it. But what a sly remark it was she made about the uniform, as it was repeated to me, about “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch’s having sent in his papers in the nick of time! What a fiendish hint! No, that doesn’t smack of madness. I refuse to believe, of course, that Yevgeny Pavlovitch could have known of the catastrophe beforehand, that is, that at seven o’clock on a certain day, and so on. But he may have had a presentiment of it all. And I, and all of us, and Prince S. reckoned that he would leave him a fortune. It’s awful! But understand me, I don’t charge “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch with anything, and I hasten to make that clear, but still, it’s suspicious, I
must say. Prince S. is tremendously struck by it. It’s all fallen out so strangely.”
“But what is there suspicious about Yevgeny Pavlovitch’s conduct?”
“Nothing. He’s behaved most honourably. I haven’t suggested anything of the sort. His own property, I believe, is untouched. Lizaveta Prokofyevna, of course, won’t listen to anything. But, what’s worse, all this family upset, or rather, all this tittle-tattle, really one doesn’t know what to call it…. You’re a friend of the family in a real sense, Lyov Nikolayevitch, and would you believe it, it appears now, though it’s not known for certain, that “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch made Aglaia an offer a month ago, and that she refused him point-blank.”
“Impossible!” cried Myshkin warmly.
“Why, do you know anything about it? \bu see, my dear fellow,” cried the general, startled and surprised, stopping short as though petrified, “I may have chattered on to you more than I should. That’s because you . . . because you . . . are such an exceptional fellow, one may say. Perhaps you know something?”
“I know nothinq . . . about “Vfevqenv Pavlovitch,”
muttered Myshkin.
“I don’t either. As for me, my boy, they certainly want to see me dead and buried, and they won’t consider how hard it is for a man, and that I can’t stand it. I’ve just been through an awful scene! I speak to you as though you were my son. The worst of it is that Aglaia seems to be laughing at her mother. Her sisters told their mother, as a guess, and a pretty certain one, that she’d refused Yevgeny Pavlovitch and had a rather formal explanation with him a month ago. But she’s such a willful and whimsical creature, it’s beyond words. Generosity and every brilliant quality of mind and heart she has, but capricious, mocking — in fact, a little devil, and full of fancies, too. She laughed at her mother to her face just now, at her sisters too, and at Prince S. I don’t count, of course, for she never does anything but laugh at me. But yet, you know, I love her; I love her laughing even — and I believe she, little devil, loves me specially for it, that is, more than anyone else, I believe. I’ll bet anything she’s made fun of you too. I found her talking to you just now after the storm upstairs; she was sitting with you, as though nothing had happened.”
Myshkin flushed crimson, and squeezed his right hand, but said nothing.
“My dear, good Lyov Nikolayevitch,” the general began with warmth and feeling again, “I . . . and Lizaveta Prokofyevna too (though she’s begun to abuse you again, and me too, on your account, though I don’t understand why), we love you, we love you truly and respect you, in spite of everything, I mean of all appearances. But you’ll admit yourself, my dear boy, that it is mystifying and irritating to hear that cold-blooded little devil suddenly (for she stood before her mother with a look of profound contempt for all our questions, mine especially, for, confound it all, I was fool enough to take it into my head to make a show of sternness, seeing I’m the head of the family — well, I made a fool of myself), that the coldblooded little devil suddenly declared with a laugh that that ‘mad woman’ (that was her expression, and it strikes me as queer that she agrees with you: ‘How can you have failed to see it till now,’ she says) ‘has taken it into her head at all costs to marry me to Prince Lyov Nikolayevitch, and for that purpose to get “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch turned out of our house.’ . . .
She simply said that; she gave no further explanation, she went on laughing and we simply gaped at her; she slammed the door and went out. Then they told me of what passed between her and you this afternoon. And . . . and listen, dear prince, you’re a sensible man and not given to taking offence. I’ve observed that about you, but . . . don’t be angry: I’ll be bound she’s making fun of you. She laughs like a child, so don’t be angry with her, but that’s certainly it. Don’t think anything of it — she’s simply making a fool of you and all of us, out for mischief. Well, good-bye. “Vbu know our feelings, our genuine feelings for you, don’t you? They’ll never change in any respect… but now I must go this way. Good-bye! I’ve not often been in such a tight hole (what’s the expression?) as I am now. … A pretty summer holiday!”
Left alone at the cross-roads, Myshkin looked round him, rapidly crossed the road, went close up to the lighted window of a villa, unfolded the little piece of paper which he had held tight in his right hand all the time he had been talking to Ivan Fyodorovitch, and by a faint beam of light, read:
“To-morrowmorning at seven o’clock I will be on the green seat in the park waiting for you. I have made up my mind to talk to you about an exceedingly important matter which concerns you directly.
“P.S. I hope you will show no one this letter. Though I’m ashamed to give you such a caution, I think that you deserve it, and I write it, blushing with shame at your absurd character.
“P.P.S. I mean the green seat I pointed out to you this morning. You ought to be ashamed that I should have to write this, too.”
The letter had been scribbled in haste and folded anyhow, most likely just before Aglaia came out on to the verandah. In indescribable agitation, that