‘Show it me!’
The prince took a paper from his pocket-book, and hand-ed it to Lizabetha Prokofievna. It ran as follows:
‘SIR,
‘In the eyes of the world I am sure that I have no cause for pride or self-esteem. I am much too insignificant for that. But what may be so to other men’s eyes is not so to yours. I am convinced that you are better than other people. Dok-torenko disagrees with me, but I am content to differ from him on this point. I will never accept one single copeck from you, but you have helped my mother, and I am bound to be grateful to you for that, however weak it may seem. At any rate, I have changed my opinion about you, and I think right to inform you of the fact; but I also suppose that there can be no further inter course between us ’ ANTIP BUR-DOVSKY.
‘P.S.—The two hundred roubles I owe you shall certainly be repaid in time.’
‘How extremely stupid!’ cried Mrs. Epanchin, giving back the letter abruptly. ‘It was not worth the trouble of reading. Why are you smiling?’
‘Confess that you are pleased to have read it.’
‘What! Pleased with all that nonsense! Why, cannot you see that they are all infatuated with pride and vanity?’
‘He has acknowledged himself to be in the wrong. Don’t you see that the greater his vanity, the more dificult this ad-mission must have been on his part? Oh, what a little child you are, Lizabetha Prokofievna!’
‘Are you tempting me to box your ears for you, or what?’ ‘Not at all. I am only proving that you are glad about the letter. Why conceal your real feelings? You always like to
do it.’
‘Never come near my house again!’ cried Mrs. Epanchin,
pale with rage. ‘Don’t let me see as much as a SHADOW of you about the place! Do you hear?’
‘Oh yes, and in three days you’ll come and invite me yourself. Aren’t you ashamed now? These are your best feel-ings; you are only tormenting yourself.’
‘I’ll die before I invite you! I shall forget your very name! I’ve forgotten it already!’
She marched towards the door.
‘But I’m forbidden your house as it is, without your added threats!’ cried the prince after her.
‘What? Who forbade you?’
She turned round so suddenly that one might have sup-posed a needle had been stuck into her.
The prince hesitated. He perceived that he had said too much now.
‘WHO forbade you?’ cried Mrs. Epanchin once more. ‘Aglaya Ivanovna told me—‘
‘When? Speak—quick!’
‘She sent to say, yesterday morning, that I was never to dare to come near the house again.’
Lizabetha Prokofievna stood like a stone.
‘What did she send? Whom? Was it that boy? Was it a message?quick!’
‘I had a note,’ said the prince. ‘Where is it? Give it here, at once.’
The prince thought a moment. Then he pulled out of his waistcoat pocket an untidy slip of paper, on which was scrawled:
“PRINCE LEF NICOLAIEVITCH,—If you think fit, after all that has passed, to honour our house with a visit, I can assure you you will not find me among the number of those who are in any way delighted to see you.
‘AGLAYA EPANCHIN.’
Mrs. Epanchin reflected a moment. The next minute she flew at the prince, seized his hand, and dragged him after her to the door.
‘Quick—come along!’ she cried, breathless with agitation and impatience. ‘Come along with me this moment!’
‘But you declared I wasn’t—‘
‘Don’t be a simpleton. You behave just as though you weren’t a man at all. Come on! I shall see, now, with my own eyes. I shall see all.’
‘Well, let me get my hat, at least.’
‘Here’s your miserable hat He couldn’t even choose a re-spectable shape for his hat! Come on! She did that because I took your part and said you ought to have come—little vix-en!—else she would never have sent you that silly note. It’s a most improper note, I call it; most improper for such an in-telligent, well-brought-up girl to write. H’m! I dare say she was annoyed that you didn’t come; but she ought to have known that one can’t write like that to an idiot like you, for you’d be sure to take it literally.’ Mrs. Epanchin was drag-ging the prince along with her all the time, and never let go of his hand for an instant. ‘What are you listening for?’ she added, seeing that she had committed herself a little. ‘She
wants a clown like you—she hasn’t seen one for some time— to play with. That’s why she is anxious for you to come to the house. And right glad I am that she’ll make a thorough good fool of you. You deserve it; and she can do it—oh! she can, indeed!—as well as most people.’
Part III
I
THE Epanchin family, or at least the more serious mem-bers of it, were sometimes grieved because they seemed
so unlike the rest of the world. They were not quite cer-tain, but had at times a strong suspicion that things did not happen to them as they did to other people. Others led a quiet, uneventful life, while they were subject to continual upheavals. Others kept on the rails without dificulty; they ran off at the slightest obstacle. Other houses were governed by a timid routine; theirs was somehow different. Perhaps Lizabetha Prokofievna was alone in making these fretful observations; the girls, though not wanting in intelligence, were still young; the general was intelligent, too, but narrow, and in any dificulty he was content to say, ‘H’m!’ and leave the matter to his wife. Consequently, on her fell the respon-sibility. It was not that they distinguished themselves as a family by any particular originality, or that their excursions off the track led to any breach of the proprieties. Oh no.
There was nothing premeditated, there was not even any conscious purpose in it all, and yet, in spite of everything, the family, although highly respected, was not quite what every highly respected family ought to be. For a long time now Lizabetha Prokofievna had had it in her mind that all the trouble was owing to her ‘unfortunate character, ‘and this added to her distress. She blamed her own stupid un-
conventional ‘eccentricity.’ Always restless, always on the go, she constantly seemed to lose her way, and to get into trouble over the simplest and more ordinary affairs of life.
We said at the beginning of our story, that the Epanchins were liked and esteemed by their neighbours. In spite of his humble origin, Ivan Fedorovitch himself was received ev-erywhere with respect. He deserved this, partly on account of his wealth and position, partly because, though limited, he was really a very good fellow. But a certain limitation of mind seems to be an indispensable asset, if not to all public personages, at least to all serious financiers. Added to this, his manner was modest and unassuming; he knew when to be silent, yet never allowed himself to be trampled upon. Also—and this was more important than all— he had the advantage of being under exalted patronage.
As to Lizabetha Prokofievna, she, as the reader knows, belonged to an aristocratic family. True, Russians think more of influential friends than of birth, but she had both. She was esteemed and even loved by people of consequence in society, whose example in receiving her was therefore followed by others. It seems hardly necessary to remark that her family worries and anxieties had little or no foundation, or that her imagination increased them to an absurd degree; but if you have a wart on your forehead or nose, you imag-ine that all the world is looking at it, and that people would make fun of you because of it, even if you had discovered America! Doubtless Lizabetha Prokofievna was considered
‘eccentric’ in society, but she was none the less esteemed: the pity was that she was ceasing to believe in that esteem.
When she thought of her daughters, she said to herself sor-rowfully that she was a hindrance rather than a help to their future, that her character and temper were absurd, ridic-ulous, insupportable. Naturally, she put the blame on her surroundings, and from morning to night was quarrelling with her husband and children, whom she really loved to the point of self-sacrifice, even, one might say, of passion.
She was, above all distressed by the idea that her daugh-ters might grow up ‘eccentric,’ like herself; she believed that no other society girls were like them. ‘They are growing into Nihilists!’ she repeated over and over again. For years she had tormented herself with this idea, and with the ques-tion: ‘Why don’t they get married?’
‘It is to annoy their mother; that is their one aim in life; it can be nothing else. The fact is it is all of a piece with these modern ideas, that wretched woman’s question! Six months ago Aglaya took a fancy to cut off her magnificent hair. Why, even I, when I was young, had nothing like it! The scissors were in her hand, and I had to go down on my knees and implore her… She did it, I know, from sheer mis-chief, to spite her mother, for she is a naughty, capricious girl, a real spoiled child spiteful and mischievous to a de-gree! And then Alexandra wanted to shave her head, not from caprice or mischief, but, like a little fool, simply be-cause Aglaya persuaded her she would sleep better without her hair, and not suffer from headache! And how many suit-ors have they not had during the
