"But, excuse me, how it it possible?" Nastasya Filippovna suddenly asked. "Five or six days ago in the Independence—I always read the Independence—I read exactly the same story! But decidedly exactly the same! It happened on one of the Rhine railways, in a
passenger car, between a Frenchman and an Englishwoman: the cigar was snatched in exactly the same way, the lapdog was tossed out the window in exactly the same way, and, finally, it ended in exactly the same way as with you. The dress was even light blue!"
The general blushed terribly; Kolya also blushed and clutched his head with his hands; Ptitsyn quickly turned away. Ferdyshchenko was the only one who went on laughing. There is no need to mention Ganya: he stood all the while enduring mute and unbearable torment.
"I assure you," the general mumbled, "that exactly the same thing happened to me . . ."
"Papa did actually have some unpleasantness with Mrs. Schmidt, the Belokonskys' governess," cried Kolya, "I remember."
"So! The very same? One and the same story at two ends of Europe and the very same in all details, including the light blue dress!" the merciless Nastasya Filippovna insisted. "I'll send you the Independence Belge!"
"But notice," the general still insisted, "that to me it happened two years earlier . . ."
"Ah, maybe that's it!"
Nastasya Filippovna laughed as if in hysterics.
"Papa, I beg you to step out for a word or two," Ganya said in a trembling, tormented voice, mechanically seizing his father by the shoulder. Boundless hatred seethed in his eyes.
At that very moment an extremely loud ringing came from the doorbell in the front hall. Such ringing might have torn the bell off. It heralded an extraordinary visit. Kolya ran to open the door.
X
The front hall suddenly became noisy and crowded; the impression from the drawing room was as if several people had come in from outside and others were still coming in. Several voices talked and exclaimed at the same time; there was also talking and exclaiming on the stairs, the door to which, from the sound of it, had not been closed. The visit turned out to be extremely strange. Everyone exchanged glances; Ganya rushed to the large room, but several people had already entered it.
"Ah, here he is, the Judas!" cried a voice the prince knew. "Greetings, Ganka, you scoundrel!"
"Yes, it's him himself!" another voice confirmed.
The prince could have no doubt: one voice was Rogozhin's, the other Lebedev's.
Ganya stood as if stupefied on the threshold of the drawing room and gazed silently, allowing some ten or twelve people to enter the room one after another unhindered, following Parfyon Rogozhin. The company was extremely motley, and was distinguished not only by its motleyness but also by its unsightliness. Some came in just as they were, in overcoats and fur coats. None of them, incidentally, was very drunk; but they all seemed quite tipsy. They all seemed to need each other in order to come in; not one of them had courage enough by himself, but they all urged each other on, as it were. Even Rogozhin stepped warily at the head of the crowd, but he had some sort of intention, and he looked gloomily and irritably preoccupied. The rest only made up a chorus, or, better, a claque of supporters. Besides Lebedev, there was also the freshly curled Zalyozhev, who flung his coat off in the front hall and walked in casually and foppishly with two or three similar gentlemen, obviously of the shopkeeper sort. Someone in a half military coat; some small and extremely fat man, ceaselessly laughing; some enormous gentleman, well over six feet tall, also remarkably fat, extremely gloomy and taciturn, who obviously put great trust in his fists. There was a medical student; there was an obsequious little Pole. Some two ladies peeped into the front hall from the stairs, hesitating to come in. Kolya slammed the door in their noses and hooked the latch.
"Greetings, Ganka, you scoundrel! What, you weren't expecting Parfyon Rogozhin?" Rogozhin repeated, having reached the drawing room and stopped in the doorway facing Ganya. But at that moment, in the drawing room, directly facing him, he suddenly caught sight of Nastasya Filippovna. Obviously he had never thought to meet her here, because the sight of her made an extraordinary impression on him; he turned so pale that his lips even became blue. "So it's true!" he said quietly and as if to himself, with a completely lost look. "The end! . . . Well . . . You'll answer to me now!" he suddenly rasped, looking at Ganya with furious spite. "Well . . . ah! . . ."
He even gasped for air, he even had difficulty speaking. He was advancing mechanically into the drawing room, but, having crossed the threshold, he suddenly saw Nina Alexandrovna and Varya and stopped, slightly embarrassed, despite all his agitation. After him
came Lebedev, who followed him like a shadow and was already quite drunk, then the student, the gentleman with the fists, Zalyozhev, who was bowing to right and left, and, finally, the short, fat one squeezed in. The presence of the ladies still restrained them all somewhat, and obviously hindered them greatly, only until it began, of course, until the first pretext to give a shout and begin . . . Then no ladies would hinder them.
"What? You're here, too, Prince?" Rogozhin asked distractedly, somewhat surprised to meet the prince. "Still in your gaiters, ehh!" he sighed, now forgetting the prince and turning his eyes to Nastasya Filippovna, moving as if drawn to her by a magnet.
Nastasya Filippovna also looked at the visitors with uneasy curiosity.
Ganya finally came to his senses.
"Excuse me, but what, finally, is the meaning of this?" he began loudly, looking around sternly at the people coming in and mainly addressing Rogozhin. "It seems you haven't come to a cow-barn, gentlemen, my mother and sister are here . . ."
"We see it's your mother and sister," Rogozhin said through his teeth.
"It's clear they're your mother and sister," Lebedev picked up to lend it countenance.
The gentleman with the fists, probably thinking the moment had come, also began grumbling something.
"But anyhow!" Ganya raised his voice suddenly and explosively, somehow beyond measure. "First, I ask you all to go to the other room, and then I'd like to know . . ."
"See, he doesn't know," Rogozhin grinned spitefully, not budging from where he stood. "You don't know Rogozhin?"
"I suppose I met you somewhere, but . . ."
"See, he met me somewhere! Only three months ago I lost two hundred roubles of my father's money to you. The old man died and had no time to find out. You got me into it, and Kniff cheated. You don't know me? Ptitsyn is my witness! If I was to show you three roubles, to take them out of my pocket right now, you'd crawl after them on all fours to Vassilievsky Island—that's how you are! That's how your soul is! I've come now to buy you out for money, never mind that I'm wearing these boots, I've got a lot of money, brother, I'll buy you out with all you've got here ... if I want, I'll buy you all! Everything!" Rogozhin grew excited and as if more and more drunk. "Ehh!" he cried, "Nastasya Filippovna!
Don't throw me out, tell me one thing: are you going to marry him or not?"
Rogozhin asked his question like a lost man, as if addressing some sort of divinity, but with the boldness of a man condemned to death, who has nothing more to lose. In deathly anguish he waited for the answer.