“No one ever tormented you on the subject,” murmured Adelaida, aghast.
“Whom else?” said Lebedeff, softly, gazing intently into the prince s face.
“What? Impossible!” exclaimed Mrs. Epanchin.
“There’s the money!... How dare you?... The money!”

“Then I read it,” said Hippolyte, in the tone of one bowing to the fiat of destiny. He could not have grown paler if a verdict of death had suddenly been presented to him.

But all the same Gania was in haste, for his sister was waiting at Lebedeff’s to consult him on an urgent matter of business. If he had anticipated impatient questions, or impulsive confidences, he was soon undeceived. The prince was thoughtful, reserved, even a little absent-minded, and asked none of the questions--one in particular--that Gania had expected. So he imitated the prince’s demeanour, and talked fast and brilliantly upon all subjects but the one on which their thoughts were engaged. Among other things Gania told his host that Nastasia Philipovna had been only four days in Pavlofsk, and that everyone was talking about her already. She was staying with Daria Alexeyevna, in an ugly little house in Mattrossky Street, but drove about in the smartest carriage in the place. A crowd of followers had pursued her from the first, young and old. Some escorted her on horse-back when she took the air in her carriage.

“But it will lead at least to solidarity, and balance of interests,” said Ptitsin.

“And why not? Why, the last time I simply told straight off about how I stole three roubles.”

She could not believe her ears.

“It was engineered by other people, and is, properly speaking, rather a fantasy than an intrigue!”

“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?”
There was a general stir in the room.
“_I_ for one shall never think you a blackguard again,” said the prince. “I confess I had a poor opinion of you at first, but I have been so joyfully surprised about you just now; it’s a good lesson for me. I shall never judge again without a thorough trial. I see now that you are not only not a blackguard, but are not even quite spoiled. I see that you are quite an ordinary man, not original in the least degree, but rather weak.”
“Whom else?” said Lebedeff, softly, gazing intently into the prince s face.

“Suppose we all go away?” said Ferdishenko suddenly.

“Affectation!” remarked someone else.
“Well done, prince, capital!” cried Aglaya, who entered the room at this moment. “Thank you for assuming that I would not demean myself with lies. Come, is that enough, mamma, or do you intend to put any more questions?”
“As the true friend of your father, I wish to say a few words to you,” he began. “I have suffered--there was a catastrophe. I suffered without a trial; I had no trial. Nina Alexandrovna my wife, is an excellent woman, so is my daughter Varvara. We have to let lodgings because we are poor--a dreadful, unheard-of come-down for us--for me, who should have been a governor-general; but we are very glad to have _you_, at all events. Meanwhile there is a tragedy in the house.”
“Just as before, sir, just as before! To a certain person, and from a certain hand. The individual’s name who wrote the letter is to be represented by the letter A.--”

“Can you shoot at all?”

“Certainly, but not always. You would not have been able to keep it up, and would have ended by forgiving me,” said the prince, after a pause for reflection, and with a pleasant smile.

“Five weeks!” said he, wiping his eyes. “Only five weeks! Poor orphans!”

“Asleep?” whispered the prince.
“Listen to me, Aglaya,” said the prince, “I do believe you are nervous lest I shall make a fool of myself tomorrow at your party?”
“It is accursed, certainly accursed!” replied the clerk, vehemently.

“It was a dream, of course,” he said, musingly. “Strange that I should have a dream like that at such a moment. Sit down--”

However, it was something to move on and know where he was going. A minute later he was still moving on, but without knowing anything. He could no longer think out his new idea. He tried to take an interest in all he saw; in the sky, in the Neva. He spoke to some children he met. He felt his epileptic condition becoming more and more developed. The evening was very close; thunder was heard some way off.

“It is accursed, certainly accursed!” replied the clerk, vehemently. “Had you any emeralds?” asked the prince.
Again Nastasia Philipovna did not hear the sentence out. She glanced at Gania, and cried, laughing, “What a face! My goodness, what a face you have on at this moment!”
There was a general stir in the room.

“Aglaya, don’t! This is unfair,” cried the prince, deeply distressed.

“Formerly, when I was seven years old or so. I believe I wore one; but now I usually hold my napkin on my knee when I eat.”
“What for? What was your object? Show me the letter.” Mrs. Epanchin’s eyes flashed; she was almost trembling with impatience.
“Well, what do you think of the arrangement, prince?”
“Then it was _you_ who came--_you_--_you?_”
“And, meanwhile both his legs are still on his body,” said the prince, laughing. “I assure you, it is only an innocent joke, and you need not be angry about it.”
Prince S. ran up to her and persuaded her, at last, to come home with them.
“Of course.”
“Now and then I was able to persuade her almost to see light around her again; but she would soon fall, once more, into her old tormenting delusions, and would go so far as to reproach me for placing myself on a pedestal above her (I never had an idea of such a thing!), and informed me, in reply to my proposal of marriage, that she ‘did not want condescending sympathy or help from anybody.’ You saw her last night. You don’t suppose she can be happy among such people as those--you cannot suppose that such society is fit for her? You have no idea how well-educated she is, and what an intellect she has! She astonished me sometimes.”
“Then how Schneider told me about my childish nature, and--”

“Yes, it is serious for a poor man who lives by his toil.”

“I want to explain all to you--everything--everything! I know you think me Utopian, don’t you--an idealist? Oh, no! I’m not, indeed--my ideas are all so simple. You don’t believe me? You are smiling. Do you know, I am sometimes very wicked--for I lose my faith? This evening as I came here, I thought to myself, ‘What shall I talk about? How am I to begin, so that they may be able to understand partially, at all events?’ How afraid I was--dreadfully afraid! And yet, how _could_ I be afraid--was it not shameful of me? Was I afraid of finding a bottomless abyss of empty selfishness? Ah! that’s why I am so happy at this moment, because I find there is no bottomless abyss at all--but good, healthy material, full of life.

On the morning following the bacchanalian songs and quarrels recorded above, as the prince stepped out of the house at about eleven o’clock, the general suddenly appeared before him, much agitated.

He had risen, and was speaking standing up. The old gentleman was looking at him now in unconcealed alarm. Lizabetha Prokofievna wrung her hands. “Oh, my God!” she cried. She had guessed the state of the case before anyone else.
“Who may that be? a clerk?”
“You are very unfair to me, and to that unfortunate woman of whom you spoke just now in such dreadful terms, Aglaya.”
“Oh, sit down, sit down, why are you standing?”
“You may smile,--but there’s a career in this,” said the general. “You don’t know what a great personage I shall show this to, prince. Why, you can command a situation at thirty-five roubles per month to start with. However, it’s half-past twelve,” he concluded, looking at his watch; “so to business, prince, for I must be setting to work and shall not see you again today. Sit down a minute. I have told you that I cannot receive you myself very often, but I should like to be of some assistance to you, some small assistance, of a kind that would give you satisfaction. I shall find you a place in one of the State departments, an easy place--but you will require to be accurate. Now, as to your plans--in the house, or rather in the family of Gania here--my young friend, whom I hope you will know better--his mother and sister have prepared two or three rooms for lodgers, and let them to highly recommended young fellows, with board and attendance. I am sure Nina Alexandrovna will take you in on my recommendation. There you will be comfortable and well taken care of; for I do not think, prince, that you are the sort of man to be left to the mercy of Fate in a town like Petersburg. Nina Alexandrovna, Gania’s mother, and Varvara Alexandrovna, are ladies for whom I have the highest possible esteem and respect. Nina Alexandrovna is the wife of General Ardalion Alexandrovitch, my old brother in arms, with whom, I regret to say, on account of certain circumstances, I am no longer acquainted. I give you all this information, prince, in order to make it clear to you that I am personally recommending you to this family, and that in so doing, I am more or less taking upon myself to answer for you. The terms are most reasonable, and I trust that your salary will very shortly prove amply sufficient for your expenditure. Of course pocket-money is a necessity, if only a little; do not be angry, prince, if I strongly recommend you to avoid carrying money in your pocket. But as your purse is quite empty at the present moment, you must allow me to press these twenty-five roubles upon your acceptance, as something to begin with. Of course we will settle this little matter another time, and if you are the upright, honest man you look, I anticipate very little trouble between us on that score. Taking so much interest in you as you may perceive I do, I am not without my object, and you shall know it in good time. You see, I am perfectly candid with you. I hope, Gania, you have nothing to say against the prince’s taking up his abode in your house?”

At last Rogojin took the prince’s hand, and stood so for some moments, as though he could not make up his mind. Then he drew him along, murmuring almost inaudibly,

“It seems to me that all this has nothing to do with your affairs,” remarked the prince.

“My dear, I am quite ready; naturally... the prince.”
“Show it me!”
“You know,” Adelaida continued, “you owe us a description of the Basle picture; but first I wish to hear how you fell in love. Don’t deny the fact, for you did, of course. Besides, you stop philosophizing when you are telling about anything.”
“Yes, I have a little more,” said Evgenie Pavlovitch, with a smile. “It seems to me that all you and your friends have said, Mr. Terentieff, and all you have just put forward with such undeniable talent, may be summed up in the triumph of right above all, independent of everything else, to the exclusion of everything else; perhaps even before having discovered what constitutes the right. I may be mistaken?”
“A certain person is very friendly with her, and intends to visit her pretty often.”
“Accept, accept, Prince Lef Nicolaievitch” said Lebedef solemnly; “don’t let it slip! Accept, quick!”
“Forgiving me! why so? What have I done to need his forgiveness?”
“No! Allow me, that is not what we are discussing!” he cried, waving his hand to impose silence. “Allow me! With these gentlemen... all these gentlemen,” he added, suddenly addressing the prince, “on certain points... that is...” He thumped the table repeatedly, and the laughter increased. Lebedeff was in his usual evening condition, and had just ended a long and scientific argument, which had left him excited and irritable. On such occasions he was apt to evince a supreme contempt for his opponents.
“What of that? People will say anything,” said Rogojin drily.
“Is he mad?” asked Madame Epanchin suddenly.
“The sun is rising,” he cried, seeing the gilded tops of the trees, and pointing to them as to a miracle. “See, it is rising now!”
“Impossible?” cried Keller, almost pityingly. “Oh prince, how little you really seem to understand human nature!”

“Friends as many as you please, but allow me,” interrupted the harsh voice of Lebedeff’s nephew--“allow me to tell you that you might have treated us rather more politely, and not have kept us waiting at least two hours...

“Was he one of the Old Believers?”

“Don’t go after him just now, Colia, or he’ll be vexed, and the benefit of this moment will be lost!” said the prince, as the boy was hurrying out of the room.

“If you don’t understand, then--but of course, you do understand. He wished--he wished to bless you all round and to have your blessing--before he died--that’s all.”

However, the invalid--to his immense satisfaction--ended by seriously alarming the prince.

“Very likely. So he wrote that you were to bring me a copy of his confession, did he? Why didn’t you bring it?”

“Ti-Ti-Timofey.”
“Well, you’d better stay here, all of you, for a little, and I’ll go down to him alone to begin with. I’ll just go in and then you can follow me almost at once. That’s the best way.”
“Not a bit of it; that’s just the strange part of it.”
“Not quite, esteemed prince,” replied Lebedeff, with some acerbity. “I confess I thought of doing you the service of handing the letter over to yourself, but I decided that it would pay me better to deliver it up to the noble lady aforesaid, as I had informed her of everything hitherto by anonymous letters; so when I sent her up a note from myself, with the letter, you know, in order to fix a meeting for eight o’clock this morning, I signed it ‘your secret correspondent.’ They let me in at once--very quickly--by the back door, and the noble lady received me.”
Ivan Fedorovitch turned from the boxer with a gesture of despair.

He gave full, satisfactory, and direct evidence on every point; and the prince’s name was, thanks to this, not brought into the proceedings. Rogojin was very quiet during the progress of the trial. He did not contradict his clever and eloquent counsel, who argued that the brain fever, or inflammation of the brain, was the cause of the crime; clearly proving that this malady had existed long before the murder was perpetrated, and had been brought on by the sufferings of the accused.

“The devil knows what it means,” growled Ivan Fedorovitch, under his breath; “it must have taken the united wits of fifty footmen to write it.”

“That is exactly the word I wanted,” said the general with satisfaction--“a curiosity. However, the most astonishing and, if I may so express myself, the most painful, thing in this matter, is that you cannot even understand, young man, that Lizabetha Prokofievna, only stayed with you because you are ill,--if you really are dying--moved by the pity awakened by your plaintive appeal, and that her name, character, and social position place her above all risk of contamination. Lizabetha Prokofievna!” he continued, now crimson with rage, “if you are coming, we will say goodnight to the prince, and--”
“Come, you know nothing about _her_,” said Rogojin, impatiently.
“No, you’re not to drink any more, Hippolyte. I won’t let you.” The prince moved the glass away.
“What would I show them?
“Is he raving?” said the general. “Are we really in a mad-house?”
“But not now! It is too late to send to town for a Pushkin now. It is much too late, I say!” Colia was exclaiming in a loud voice. “I have told you so at least a hundred times.”
She could not hold out long enough even to witness his movement in her direction. She had hidden her face in her hands, cried once “Oh, my God!” and rushed out of the room. Rogojin followed her to undo the bolts of the door and let her out into the street. “And enough of this. By the time I have got so far in the reading of my document the sun will be up and the huge force of his rays will be acting upon the living world. So be it. I shall die gazing straight at the great Fountain of life and power; I do not want this life!
But Vera, simple-minded little girl that she was (just like a boy, in fact), here became dreadfully confused, of a sudden, and ran hastily out of the room, laughing and blushing.