“H’m!--no, I’m not afraid of that, you see; I have to announce you, that’s all. The secretary will be out directly--that is, unless you--yes, that’s the rub--unless you--come, you must allow me to ask you--you’ve not come to beg, have you?”
“I am going away tomorrow, as you bade me--I won’t write--so that this is the last time I shall see you, the last time! This is really the _last time!_”
“I told you I had not had much of an education,” replied the prince.
“If I am admitted and tolerated here,” he had said one day, “it is simply because I talk in this way. How can anyone possibly receive such a man as I am? I quite understand. Now, could I, a Ferdishenko, be allowed to sit shoulder to shoulder with a clever man like Afanasy Ivanovitch? There is one explanation, only one. I am given the position because it is so entirely inconceivable!”
“What do you think about it?” said the general in a low voice to Totski. “Is she mad? I mean mad in the medical sense of the word .... eh?” “Indeed? She looks very sweet. I should like to make her acquaintance.”
“You should search your room and all the cupboards again,” said the prince, after a moment or two of silent reflection.
“What a silly idea,” said the actress. “Of course it is not the case. I have never stolen anything, for one.”
She fell back into a chair, and burst into tears. But suddenly some new expression blazed in her eyes. She stared fixedly at Aglaya, and rose from her seat.
She did not rise from her knees; she would not listen to him; she put her questions hurriedly, as though she were pursued. “Most undoubtedly, excellent prince, you have hit it--that is the very question. How wonderfully you express the exact situation in a few words!”
She marched towards the door.
He glanced at Aglaya, who was listening with a look of hatred on her face.
Lizabetha Prokofievna, when she saw poor Muishkin, in his enfeebled and humiliated condition, had wept bitterly. Apparently all was forgiven him.

“Of course,” added the prince, “he wished us all to applaud his conduct--besides yourself.”

“I will not fail to deliver your message,” she replied, and bowed them out.

“I have waited for you on purpose, and am very glad to see you arrive so happy,” said Hippolyte, when the prince came forward to press his hand, immediately after greeting Vera.

“This is most interesting!” observed Evgenie Pavlovitch.

“I knew nothing about your home before,” said the prince absently, as if he were thinking of something else.

This time everyone laughed at her, her sisters, Prince S., Prince Muishkin (though he himself had flushed for some reason), and Colia. Aglaya was dreadfully indignant, and looked twice as pretty in her wrath.
“‘Perhaps you are exaggerating--if you were to take proper measures perhaps--”
“Come, speak out! Don’t lie, for once in your life--speak out!” continued Hippolyte, quivering with agitation.
The prince would never so much as suspect such a thing in the delight of his first impression.
“I know Charasse’s book! Oh! I was so angry with his work! I wrote to him and said--I forget what, at this moment. You ask whether I was very busy under the Emperor? Oh no! I was called ‘page,’ but hardly took my duty seriously. Besides, Napoleon very soon lost hope of conciliating the Russians, and he would have forgotten all about me had he not loved me--for personal reasons--I don’t mind saying so now. My heart was greatly drawn to him, too. My duties were light. I merely had to be at the palace occasionally to escort the Emperor out riding, and that was about all. I rode very fairly well. He used to have a ride before dinner, and his suite on those occasions were generally Davoust, myself, and Roustan.”
“What did she guess?”

“But what a pretty girl! Who is she?”

In the manner of one with long hours before him, he began his history; but after a few incoherent words he jumped to the conclusion, which was that “having ceased to believe in God Almighty, he had lost every vestige of morality, and had gone so far as to commit a theft.” “Could you imagine such a thing?” said he.

This, then, was the society that the prince accepted at once as true coin, as pure gold without alloy.

He seized a glass from the table, broke away from the prince, and in a moment had reached the terrace steps. “Where they played last night. Then I found this bench and sat down, and thought and thought--and at last I fell fast asleep.” He was sure of it, and his heart beat excitedly at the thought, he knew not why. “But that’s just the worst of it all, don’t you see, that there was absolutely nothing serious about the matter in reality!” cried Evgenie, beside himself: “Excuse me, prince, but I have thought over all this; I have thought a great deal over it; I know all that had happened before; I know all that took place six months since; and I know there was _nothing_ serious about the matter, it was but fancy, smoke, fantasy, distorted by agitation, and only the alarmed jealousy of an absolutely inexperienced girl could possibly have mistaken it for serious reality.”
“A-ah! if he is to be under special patronage, I withdraw my claws.”

“Because,” replied Aglaya gravely, “in the poem the knight is described as a man capable of living up to an ideal all his life. That sort of thing is not to be found every day among the men of our times. In the poem it is not stated exactly what the ideal was, but it was evidently some vision, some revelation of pure Beauty, and the knight wore round his neck, instead of a scarf, a rosary. A device--A. N. B.--the meaning of which is not explained, was inscribed on his shield--”

“Just look, Lizabetha Prokofievna,” he began, with a kind of feverish haste; “these china cups are supposed to be extremely valuable. Lebedeff always keeps them locked up in his china-cupboard; they were part of his wife’s dowry. Yet he has brought them out tonight--in your honour, of course! He is so pleased--” He was about to add something else, but could not find the words.
Aglaya had simply frightened him; yet he did not give up all thoughts of her--though he never seriously hoped that she would condescend to him. At the time of his “adventure” with Nastasia Philipovna he had come to the conclusion that money was his only hope--money should do all for him.
“Constant?” said the prince, suddenly, and quite involuntarily.
“You’ll take me as I am, with nothing?”

“Oh, you needn’t laugh! These things do happen, you know! Now then--why didn’t you come to us? We have a wing quite empty. But just as you like, of course. Do you lease it from _him?_--this fellow, I mean,” she added, nodding towards Lebedeff. “And why does he always wriggle so?”

“Then, general, it’s your turn,” continued Nastasia Philipovna, “and if you refuse, the whole game will fall through, which will disappoint me very much, for I was looking forward to relating a certain ‘page of my own life.’ I am only waiting for you and Afanasy Ivanovitch to have your turns, for I require the support of your example,” she added, smiling.

“Look here--I’ll write a letter--take a letter for me!”

“I’ve put her in the carriage,” he said; “it has been waiting round the corner there since ten o’clock. She expected that you would be with _them_ all the evening. I told her exactly what you wrote me. She won’t write to the girl any more, she promises; and tomorrow she will be off, as you wish. She desired to see you for the last time, although you refused, so we’ve been sitting and waiting on that bench till you should pass on your way home.”

Madame Filisoff was a little woman of forty, with a cunning face, and crafty, piercing eyes. When, with an air of mystery, she asked her visitor’s name, he refused at first to answer, but in a moment he changed his mind, and left strict instructions that it should be given to Nastasia Philipovna. The urgency of his request seemed to impress Madame Filisoff, and she put on a knowing expression, as if to say, “You need not be afraid, I quite understand.” The prince’s name evidently was a great surprise to her. He stood and looked absently at her for a moment, then turned, and took the road back to his hotel. But he went away not as he came. A great change had suddenly come over him. He went blindly forward; his knees shook under him; he was tormented by “ideas”; his lips were blue, and trembled with a feeble, meaningless smile. His demon was upon him once more.
“Why did you add that?--There! Now you are cross again,” said the prince, wondering.
It so happened that Prince S---- introduced a distant relation of his own into the Epanchin family--one Evgenie Pavlovitch, a young officer of about twenty-eight years of age, whose conquests among the ladies in Moscow had been proverbial. This young gentleman no sooner set eyes on Aglaya than he became a frequent visitor at the house. He was witty, well-educated, and extremely wealthy, as the general very soon discovered. His past reputation was the only thing against him.
“Why did you add that?--There! Now you are cross again,” said the prince, wondering.
“Nastasia Philipovna? Why, you don’t mean to say that she and Lihachof--” cried Rogojin, turning quite pale.