Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (348 page)

“You are a monster!” exclaimed Nastasya Filippovna, laughing and clapping her hands like a child.

“Bravo, bravo!” cried Ferdyshtchenko.

Ptitsyn too smiled, though he also had been extremely put out by the general’s entrance. Even Kolya laughed and cried “Bravo!” too.

“And I was right, perfectly right,” the triumphant general continued warmly. “For if cigars are forbidden in a railway carriage, dogs are even more so.”

“Bravo, father!” cried Kolya gleefully. “Splendid! I should certainly, certainly have done the same.”

“But what did the lady do?” Nastasya Filippovna asked impatiently.

“She? Ah, that’s where the unpleasantness comes in,” the general went on, frowning. “Without uttering a word and without the slightest warning she slapped me on the cheek. A savage woman, quite a savage type.”

“And you?”

The general dropped his eyes, raised his eyebrows, shrugged his shoulders, pursed up his lips, flung up his hands, paused, then suddenly pronounced:

“I was carried away.”

“And hurt her — hurt her?”

“On my honour, I did not. A scandalous scene followed, butldid not hurt her. I simply waved my arm once, solely to wave her back. But as the devil would have it, the pale blue one turned out to be English, a governess or some sort of family friend of Princess Byelokonsky, and the one in black, as it appeared, was the eldest of the princess’s daughters, an old maid of five-and-thirty. And you know what terms Madame Epanchin is on with the Byelokonsky family. All the six princesses fainted, tears, mourning for the pet lap-dog, screams on the part of the English governess — a perfect Bedlam! Of course I went to apologise, to express my penitence, wrote a letter. They refused to see me or my letter. And Epanchin quarrelled with me, refused me admittance, turned me out.”

“But allow me. How do you explain this?” Nastasya Filippovna asked suddenly. “Five or six days ago I read in the Independence — I always read t h e Independance — exactly the same story. Precisely the same story! It happened on one of the Rhine railways between a Frenchman and an English-woman. The cigar was snatched in the same way; the lap-dog was thrown out of the window too. It ended in the same way. Her dress was pale blue even!”

The general flushed terribly. Kolya blushed too and squeezed his head in his hands. Ptitsyn turned away quickly. Ferdyshtchenko was the only one who went on laughing. There is no need to speak of Ganya: he had stood all the time in mute and insufferable agony.

“I assure you,” muttered the general, “that the very same thing happened to me.”

“Father really had some trouble with Mrs. Schmidt, the governess at the Byelokonsky’s,” cried Kolya. “I remember it.”

“What! Exactly the same? The very same story at the opposite ends of Europe and alike in every detail, even to the pale blue dress,” persisted the merciless lady. “I’ll send you the Independence Beige”

“But note,” the general still persisted, “that the incident occurred to me two years ago.”

“Ah, there is that!” Nastasya Filippovna laughed as though she were in hysterics.

“Father, I beg you, come out and let me have a word with you,” said Ganya in a shaking and harassed voice, mechanically taking his father by the shoulder.

There was a gleam of infinite hatred in his eyes.

At that moment there was a violent ring at the front door — a ring that might well have pulled down the bell. It betokened an exceptional visit. Kolva ran to open the door.

CHAPTER 10

THERE SEEMED a great deal of noise and many people in the entry. From the drawing-room it sounded as though several people had already come in and more were still coming. Several voices were talking and shouting at once. There was shouting and talking on the staircase also; the door opening on it had evidently not been closed. The visit seemed to be a very strange one. They all looked at each other. Ganya rushed into the dining-room, but several visitors had already entered it.

“Ah, here he is, the Judas!” cried a voice that Myshkin knew. “How are you, Ganya, you scoundrel?”

“Here he is, here he is himself,” another voice chimed in.

Myshkin could not be mistaken: the first voice was Rogozhin’s, the second Lebedyev’s.

Ganya stood petrified and gazing at them in silence in the doorway from the drawing-room, not hindering ten or twelve persons from following Parfyon Rogozhin into the dining-room. The party was an exceedingly mixed one, and not only incongruous but disorderly. Some of them walked in as they were, in their overcoats and furs. None was quite drunk, however, though they all seemed extremely exhilarated. They seemed to need each other’s moral support to enter; not one would have had the effrontery to enter alone, but they all seemed to push one another in. Even Rogozhin walked diffidently at the head of the party; but he had some intention, and he seemed in a state of gloomy and irritated preoccupation. The others only made a chorus or band of supporters. Besides Lebedyev, there was Zalyozhev, who had flung off his overcoat in the entry and walked in swaggering and jaunty with his hair curled. There were two or three more of the same sort, evidently young merchants; a man in a semi-military great-coat; a very fat little man who kept laughing continually; an immense man over six feet, also very stout, extremely taciturn and morose, who evidently put his faith in his fists. There was a medical student, and a little Pole who had somehow attached himself to the party. Two unknown ladies peeped in at the front door, but did not venture to come in. Kolya slammed the door in their faces and latched it.

“How are you, Ganya, you scoundrel? “Vbu didn’t expect Parfyon Rogozhin, did you?” repeated Rogozhin, going to the drawing-room door and facing Ganya.

But at that moment he caught sight of Nastasya Filippovna, who sat facing him in the drawing-room. Evidently nothing was further from his thoughts than meeting her here, for the sight of her had an extraordinary effect on him. He turned so pale that his lips went blue.

“Then it’s true,” he said quietly, as though to himself, looking absolutely distracted. “It’s the end! .. . Well . . . you shall pay for it!” he snarled, suddenly looking with extreme fury at Ganya. “Well... ach!”

He gasped for breath, he could hardly speak. Mechanically he moved into the drawing-room, but as he went in, he suddenly saw Nina Alexandrovna and Varya, and stopped somewhat embarrassed, in spite of his emotion. After him came Lebedyev, who followed him about like a shadow and was very drunk; then the student, the gentleman with the fists, Zalyozhev, bowing to right and left, and last of all the little fat man squeezed himself in. The presence of the ladies was still a check on them, and it was evidently an unwelcome constraint, which would of course have broken down if they had once been set off, if some pretext for shouting and beginning a row had arisen. Then all the ladies in the world would not have hindered them.

“What, you here too, prince?” Rogozhin said absently, somewhat surprised at meeting Myshkin. “Still in your gaiters, e-ech!” he sighed, forgetting Myshkin’s existence and looking towards Nastasya Filippovna again, moving closer to her as though drawn by a magnet.

Nastasya Filippovna too looked with uneasy curiosity at the visitors.

Ganya recovered himself at last.

“But allow me. What does this mean?” he began in a loud voice, looking severely at the newcomers and addressinq himself principallv to Roqozhin. “This isn’t a stable, gentlemen, my mother and sister are here.”

“We see your mother and sister are here,” muttered Rogozhin through his teeth.

“That can be seen, that your mother and sister are here.” Lebedyev felt called upon to second the statement.

The gentleman with the fists, feeling no doubt that the moment had arrived, began growling something.

“But upon my word!” cried Ganya, suddenly exploding and raising his voice immoderately. “First, I beg you all to go into the dining-room, and secondly, kindly let me know ...”

“Fancy, he doesn’t know!” said Rogozhin, with an angry grin, not budging from where he stood. “Don’t you know Rogozhin?”

“I’ve certainly met you somewhere, but...”

“Met me somewhere! Why, I lost two hundred roubles of my father’s money to you three months ago. The old man died without finding it out. You enticed me into it and Kniff cheated. Don’t you recognise me? Ptitsyn was a witness of it. If I were to show you three roubles out of my pocket, you’d crawl on all fours to Vassilyevsky for it — that’s the sort of chap you are! That’s the sort of soul you’ve got! And I’ve come here now to buy you for money. Never mind my having come with such boots on. I’ve got a lot of money now, brother, I can buy the whole of you and your live-stock too. I can buy you all up, if I like! I’ll buy up everything!” Rogozhin grew more and more excited and seemed more and more drunk. “E-ech!” he cried. “Nastasya Filippovna, don’t turn me away. Tell me one thing: are you going to marry him, or not?”

Rogozhin put this question desperately, as though appealing to a deity, but with the courage of a man condemned to death who has nothing to lose. In deadly anguish he awaited her reply.

With haughty and sarcastic eyes, Nastasya Filippovna looked him up and down. But she glanced at Varya and Nina Alexandrovna, looked at Ganya, and suddenly changed her tone.

“Certainly not! What’s the matter with you? And what has put it into your head to ask such a question?” she answered quietly and gravely and as it seemed with some surprise.

“No? No!” cried Rogozhin, almost frantic with delight. “Then you are not? But they told me . . . Ach! . . . Nastasya Filippovna, they say that you are engaged to Ganya. To him! As though that were possible! I told them all it was impossible. I can buy him up for a hundred roubles. If I were to give him a thousand, three thousand, to retire, he would run off on his wedding day and leave his bride to me. That’s right, isn’t it, Ganya, you scoundrel? “Vbu’d take the three thousand, wouldn’t you? Here’s the money — here you have it! I came to get you to sign the agreement to do it. I said I’ll buy him off and I will buy him off!”

“Get out of the room, you are drunk!” cried Ganya, who had been flushing and growing pale by turns.

His outburst was followed by a sudden explosion from several persons at once: the whole crew of Rogozhin’s followers were only awaiting the signal for battle. With intense solicitude Lebedyev was whispering something in Rogozhin’s ear.

“That’s true, clerk!” answered Rogozhin. “True, you drunken soul! Ech, here goes! Nastasya Filippovna,” he cried, gazing at her like a maniac, passing from timidity to the extreme of audacity, “here are eighteen thousand roubles!” and he tossed on the table before her a roll of notes wrapped in white paper and tied with string. “There! And . . . and there’s more to come!”

He did not venture to say what he wanted.

“No, no, no!” Lebedyev whispered to him with an air of dismay.

It could be divined that he was horrified at the magnitude of the sum and was urging him to try his luck with a much smaller one.

“No, brother, you are a fool; you don’t know how to behave here . . . and it seems as though I am a fool like you!” Rogozhin started, and checked himself as he met the flashing eyes of Nastasya Filippovna. “E-ech! I’ve made a mess of it, listening to you,” he added with intense regret.

Nastasya Filippovna suddenly laughed as she looked at Rogozhin’s downcast face.

“Eighteen thousand to me? Ah, one can see he is a peasant!” she added with insolent familiarity, and she got up from the sofa, as though to go away.

Ganya had watched the whole scene with a sinking heart.

“Forty thousand, then — forty, not eighteen!” cried Roqozhin. “Ptitsvn and Biskup promised to qet me forty thousand by seven o’clock. Forty thousand! Cash down!”

The scene had become scandalous in the extreme, but Nastasya Filippovna stayed on and still went on laughing, as though she were intentionally prolonging it. Nina Alexandrovna and Varya had also risen from their places and waited in silent dismay to see how much further it would go. Varya’s eyes glittered but the effect of it all on Nina Alexandrovna was painful; she trembled and seemed on the point of fainting.

“A hundred, then, if that’s it! I’ll give you a hundred thousand to-day. Ptitsyn, lend it me, it’ll be worth your while!”

“You are mad,” Ptitsyn whispered suddenly, going up to him quickly and taking him by the hand. “You are mad! They’ll send for the police! Where are you?”

“He is drunk and boasting,” said Nastasya Filippovna, as though taunting him.

“I am not boasting, I’ll get the money before evening. Ptitsyn, lend it me, you money-grubber! Ask what you like for it. Get me a hundred thousand this evening! I’ll show that I won’t stick at anything.” Rogozhin was in an ecstasy of excitement.

“What is the meaning of this, pray?” Ardalion Alexandrovitch, deeply stirred, suddenly cried in a menacing voice, going up to Rogozhin.

The suddenness of the old man’s outburst, after his complete silence till that moment, made it very comic. There was laughter.

“Whom have we here?” laughed Rogozhin. “Come along, old fellow, we’ll make you drunk.”

“This is too disgusting!” cried Kolya, shedding tears of shame and vexation.

“Is there no one among you who will take this shameless woman away?” exclaimed Varya, quivering all over with anger.

“They call me a shameless woman,” Nastasya Filippovna answered back with contemptuous gaiety. “And I came like a fool to invite them to my party this evening. That’s how your sister treats me, Gavril Ardalionovitch!”

For some time Ganya stood as though thunderstruck at his sister’s outburst, but seeing that Nastasya Filippovna really was going this time, he rushed frantically at Varya and seized her arm in a fury.

“What have you done?” he cried, looking at her, as though he would have withered her on the spot.

He was utterly beside himself and hardly knew what he was doing.

“What have I done? Where are you dragging me? Is it to beg her pardon for having insulted your mother and for having come here to disgrace your family, you base creature?” Varya cried again, looking with triumphant defiance at her brother.