‘There! that is what I feared!’ cried the prince. ‘It was in-evitable!’
Hippolyte turned upon him, a prey to maniacal rage, which set all the muscles of his face quivering.
‘Ah! that is what you feared! It was inevitable, you say! Well, let me tell you that if I hate anyone here—I hate you all,’ he cried, in a hoarse, strained voice-’ but you, you, with your jesuitical soul, your soul of sickly sweetness, idiot, be-neficent millionaire—I hate you worse than anything or anyone on earth! I saw through you and hated you long ago; from the day I first heard of you. I hated you with my whole heart. You have contrived all this! You have driven me into this state! You have made a dying man disgrace himself. You, you, you are the cause of my abject coward-
ice! I would kill you if I remained alive! I do not want your benefits; I will accept none from anyone; do you hear? Not from any one! I want nothing! I was delirious, do not dare to triumph! I curse every one of you, once for all!’
Breath failed him here, and he was obliged to stop.
‘He is ashamed of his tears!’ whispered Lebedeff to Liza-betha Prokofievna. ‘It was inevitable. Ah! what a wonderful man the prince is! He read his very soul.’
But Mrs. Epanchin would not deign to look at Lebedeff. Drawn up haughtily, with her head held high, she gazed at the ‘riff-raff,’ with scornful curiosity. When Hippolyte had finished, Ivan Fedorovitch shrugged his shoulders, and his wife looked him angrily up and down, as if to demand the meaning of his movement. Then she turned to the prince.
‘Thanks, prince, many thanks, eccentric friend of the family, for the pleasant evening you have provided for us. I am sure you are quite pleased that you have managed to mix us up with your extraordinary affairs. It is quite enough, dear family friend; thank you for giving us an opportunity of getting to know you so well.’
She arranged her cloak with hands that trembled with anger as she waited for the ‘riff-raff ‘to go. The cab which Lebedeff’s son had gone to fetch a quarter of an hour ago, by Doktorenko’s order, arrived at that moment. The general thought fit to put in a word after his wife.
‘Really, prince, I hardly expected after—after all our friendly intercourse— and you see, Lizabetha Prokofiev-na—‘
‘Papa, how can you?’ cried Adelaida, walking quickly up
to the prince and holding out her hand.
He smiled absently at her; then suddenly he felt a burn-ing sensation in his ear as an angry voice whispered:
‘If you do not turn those dreadful people out of the house this very instant, I shall hate you all my life—all my life!’ It was Aglaya. She seemed almost in a frenzy, but she turned away before the prince could look at her. However, there was no one left to turn out of the house, for they had man-aged meanwhile to get Hippolyte into the cab, and it had driven off.
‘Well, how much longer is this going to last, Ivan Fedo-rovitch? What do you think? Shall I soon be delivered from these odious youths?’
‘My dear, I am quite ready; naturally … the prince.’
Ivan Fedorovitch held out his hand to Muishkin, but ran after his wife, who was leaving with every sign of violent indignation, before he had time to shake it. Adelaida, her fiance, and Alexandra, said good-bye to their host with sin-cere friendliness. Evgenie Pavlovitch did the same, and he alone seemed in good spirits.
‘What I expected has happened! But I am sorry, you poor fellow, that you should have had to suffer for it,’ he mur-mured, with a most charming smile.
Aglaya left without saying good-bye. But the evening was not to end without a last adventure. An unexpected meet-ing was yet in store for Lizabetha Prokofievna.
She had scarcely descended the terrace steps leading to the high road that skirts the park at Pavlofsk, when sudden-ly there dashed by a smart open carriage, drawn by a pair of
beautiful white horses. Having passed some ten yards be-yond the house, the carriage suddenly drew up, and one of the two ladies seated in it turned sharp round as though she had just caught sight of some acquaintance whom she par-ticularly wished to see.
‘Evgenie Pavlovitch! Is that you?’ cried a clear, sweet voice, which caused the prince, and perhaps someone else, to tremble. ‘Well, I AM glad I’ve found you at last! I’ve sent to town for you twice today myself! My messengers have been searching for you everywhere!’
Evgenie Pavlovitch stood on the steps like one struck by lightning. Mrs. Epanchin stood still too, but not with the petrified expression of Evgenie. She gazed haughtily at the audacious person who had addressed her companion, and then turned a look of astonishment upon Evgenie himself.
‘There’s news!’ continued the clear voice. ‘You need not be anxious about Kupferof’s IOU’s—Rogojin has bought them up. I persuaded him to!—I dare say we shall settle Bis-cup too, so it’s all right, you see! Au revoir, tomorrow! And don’t worry!’ The carriage moved on, and disappeared.
‘The woman’s mad!’ cried Evgenie, at last, crimson with anger, and looking confusedly around. ‘I don’t know what she’s talking about! What IOU’s? Who is she?’ Mrs. Ep-anchin continued to watch his face for a couple of seconds; then she marched briskly and haughtily away towards her own house, the rest following her.
A minute afterwards, Evgenie Pavlovitch reappeared on the terrace, in great agitation.
‘Prince,’ he said, ‘tell me the truth; do you know what all
this means?’
‘I know nothing whatever about it!’ replied the latter, who was, himself, in a state of nervous excitement.
‘No?’ ‘No?
‘Well, nor do I!’ said Evgenie Pavlovitch, laughing sud-denly. ‘I haven’t the slightest knowledge of any such IOU’s as she mentioned, I swear I haven’t—What’s the matter, are you fainting?’
‘Oh, no-no-I’m all right, I assure you!’
XI
THE anger of the Epanchin family was unappeased for three days. As usual the prince reproached himself, and had expected punishment, but he was inwardly convinced that Lizabetha Prokofievna could not be seriously angry
with him, and that she probably was more angry with her-self. He was painfully surprised, therefore, when three days passed with no word from her. Other things also troubled and perplexed him, and one of these grew more impor-tant in his eyes as the days went by. He had begun to blame himself for two opposite tendencies—on the one hand to extreme, almost ‘senseless,’ confidence in his fellows, on the other to a ‘vile, gloomy suspiciousness.’
By the end of the third day the incident of the eccentric lady and Evgenie Pavlovitch had attained enormous and mysterious proportions in his mind. He sorrowfully asked himself whether he had been the cause of this new ‘mon-strosity,’ or was it … but he refrained from saying who else might be in fault. As for the letters N.P.B., he looked on that as a harmless joke, a mere childish piece of mischief—so childish that he felt it would be shameful, almost dishon-ourable, to attach any importance to it.
The day after these scandalous events, however, the prince had the honour of receiving a visit from Adelaida and her fiance, Prince S. They came, ostensibly, to inquire after his
health. They had wandered out for a walk, and called in ‘by accident,’ and talked for almost the whole of the time they were with him about a certain most lovely tree in the park, which Adelaida had set her heart upon for a picture. This, and a little amiable conversation on Prince S.’s part, occu-pied the time, and not a word was said about last evening’s episodes. At length Adelaida burst out laughing, apolo-gized, and explained that they had come incognito; from which, and from the circumstance that they said nothing about the prince’s either walking back with them or coming to see them later on, the latter inferred that he was in Mrs. Epanchin’s black books. Adelaida mentioned a watercolour that she would much like to show him, and explained that she would either send it by Colia, or bring it herself the next day— which to the prince seemed very suggestive.
At length, however, just as the visitors were on the point of departing, Prince S. seemed suddenly to recollect him-self. ‘Oh yes, by-the-by,’ he said, ‘do you happen to know, my dear Lef Nicolaievitch, who that lady was who called out to Evgenie Pavlovitch last night, from the carriage?’
‘It was Nastasia Philipovna,’ said the prince; ‘didn’t you know that? I cannot tell you who her companion was.’
‘But what on earth did she mean? I assure you it is a real riddle to me—to me, and to others, too!’ Prince S. seemed to be under the influence of sincere astonishment.
‘She spoke of some bills of Evgenie Pavlovitch’s,’ said the prince, simply, ‘which Rogojin had bought up from some-one; and implied that Rogojin would not press him.’
‘Oh, I heard that much, my dear fellow! But the thing is so
impossibly absurd! A man of property like Evgenie to give IOU’s to a money-lender, and to be worried about them! It is ridiculous. Besides, he cannot possibly be on such in-timate terms with Nastasia Philipovna as she gave us to understand; that’s the principal part of the mystery! He has given me his word that he knows nothing whatever about
