| At seven in the evening, the prince sent to request Lebedeff to pay him a visit. Lebedeff came at once, and “esteemed it an honour,” as he observed, the instant he entered the room. He acted as though there had never been the slightest suspicion of the fact that he had systematically avoided the prince for the last three days. |
“I know nothing about it.”
“But what a pretty girl! Who is she?”
“Listen, prince,” said Gania, as though an idea had just struck him, “I wish to ask you a great favour, and yet I really don’t know--”
“Well then, have you come here for _her?_ Are you in love with _her?_ With _that_ creature?”
| She did not rise from her knees; she would not listen to him; she put her questions hurriedly, as though she were pursued. |
“You did a good action,” said the prince, “for in the midst of his angry feelings you insinuated a kind thought into his heart.”
“Do you mean to say,” cried Gania, from the other corner, “do you mean to say that railways are accursed inventions, that they are a source of ruin to humanity, a poison poured upon the earth to corrupt the springs of life?”
“I don’t know that either.”
The prince gave no answer, and sat deep in thought. Evidently he was struggling to decide. “Ha, ha! it’s Eroshka now,” laughed Hippolyte.| The prince took down the chain and opened the door. He started back in amazement--for there stood Nastasia Philipovna. He knew her at once from her photograph. Her eyes blazed with anger as she looked at him. She quickly pushed by him into the hall, shouldering him out of her way, and said, furiously, as she threw off her fur cloak: |
| “I don’t love you a bit!” she said suddenly, just as though the words had exploded from her mouth. |
| “Why, no, it is hardly the same,” remarked Gavrila Ardalionovitch, with an air of ingenuous surprise. |
The prince shuddered, and gazed fixedly at Parfen. Suddenly he burst out laughing.
Up to this moment jealousy had not been one of his torments; now it suddenly gnawed at his heart.
There was silence for a moment. Then Ptitsin spoke.“Your son, indeed! A nice papa you are! _You_ might have come to see me anyhow, without compromising anyone. Do you hide yourself, or does your son hide you?”
The prince took down the chain and opened the door. He started back in amazement--for there stood Nastasia Philipovna. He knew her at once from her photograph. Her eyes blazed with anger as she looked at him. She quickly pushed by him into the hall, shouldering him out of her way, and said, furiously, as she threw off her fur cloak: “You don’t care to oblige us?” asked Nastasia.| “Prince, prince!” he cried, seizing hold of his arm, “recollect yourself! Drop her, prince! You see what sort of a woman she is. I am speaking to you like a father.” |
| “Lvovitch,” repeated the general without the slightest haste, and with perfect confidence, just as though he had not committed himself the least in the world, but merely made a little slip of the tongue. He sat down, and taking the prince’s hand, drew him to a seat next to himself. |
| “But there is nothing to understand! Sympathy and tenderness, that is all--that is all our poor invalid requires! You will permit me to consider him an invalid?” |
| “Where are the cards?” |
| “Is that all? What about her character?” persisted Mrs. Epanchin. |
“How strange that criminals seldom swoon at such a moment! On the contrary, the brain is especially active, and works incessantly--probably hard, hard, hard--like an engine at full pressure. I imagine that various thoughts must beat loud and fast through his head--all unfinished ones, and strange, funny thoughts, very likely!--like this, for instance: ‘That man is looking at me, and he has a wart on his forehead! and the executioner has burst one of his buttons, and the lowest one is all rusty!’ And meanwhile he notices and remembers everything. There is one point that cannot be forgotten, round which everything else dances and turns about; and because of this point he cannot faint, and this lasts until the very final quarter of a second, when the wretched neck is on the block and the victim listens and waits and _knows_--that’s the point, he _knows_ that he is just _now_ about to die, and listens for the rasp of the iron over his head. If I lay there, I should certainly listen for that grating sound, and hear it, too! There would probably be but the tenth part of an instant left to hear it in, but one would certainly hear it. And imagine, some people declare that when the head flies off it is _conscious_ of having flown off! Just imagine what a thing to realize! Fancy if consciousness were to last for even five seconds!
“But it’s not I alone,” cried Colia. “They all talked about it, and they do still. Why, just now Prince S. and Adelaida Ivanovna declared that they upheld ‘the poor knight’; so evidently there does exist a ‘poor knight’; and if it were not for Adelaida Ivanovna, we should have known long ago who the ‘poor knight’ was.” It was clear that she had been merely passing through the room from door to door, and had not had the remotest notion that she would meet anyone.(Lizabetha Prokofievna felt that this might be the case, and she didn’t like it; though very probably she could not have put the idea into words.)
| “I have said already that the moment she comes in I go out, and I shall keep my word,” remarked Varia. |
| At this moment in marched Aglaya, as calm and collected as could be. She gave the prince a ceremonious bow and solemnly took up a prominent position near the big round table. She looked at the prince questioningly. |
The prince and the general were the only two persons left in the room.