"There's nobody in the whole house now except the four of us," he observed aloud and gave the prince a strange look.
In the very first room, Nastasya Filippovna, too, was waiting for them, also dressed very simply and all in black; she rose to meet them, but did not smile and did not even offer the prince her hand.
Her intent and anxious gaze impatiently turned to Aglaya. The two women sat down at some distance from each other, Aglaya on the sofa in the corner of the room, Nastasya Filippovna by the window. The prince and Rogozhin did not sit down, and were not invited to sit down. With perplexity and as if with pain, the prince again looked at Rogozhin, but the man went on smiling his former smile. The silence continued for another few moments.
A sort of sinister feeling finally passed over Nastasya Filippovna's face; her gaze was becoming stubborn, firm, and almost hateful, not tearing itself from her guest for a single moment. Aglaya was obviously abashed, but not intimidated. Coming in, she had barely glanced at her rival and so far had been sitting all the time with downcast eyes, as if lost in thought. Once or twice, as if by chance, she looked around the room; an obvious repugnance showed itself in her face, as if she feared soiling herself there. She mechanically straightened her clothes and once even changed her place anxiously, moving towards the corner of the sofa. She herself was hardly aware of all her movements; but the unawareness increased the offense still more. At last she looked firmly and directly into Nastasya Filippovna's eyes, and at once clearly read everything that flashed in the incensed gaze of her rival. Woman understood woman. Aglaya shuddered.
"You know, of course, why I asked for this meeting," she spoke
finally, but very quietly, and even pausing a couple of times in this short phrase.
"No, I have no idea," Nastasya Filippovna answered drily and curtly.
Aglaya blushed. Perhaps it suddenly seemed terribly strange and incredible to her that she was now sitting with "that woman," in "that woman's" house, and was in need of her reply. At the first sounds of Nastasya Filippovna's voice, it was as if a shudder passed over her body. All this, of course, was very well noted by "that woman."
"You understand everything . . . but you deliberately make it look as if you don't," Aglaya said almost in a whisper, looking sullenly at the ground.
"Why would I do that?" Nastasya Filippovna smiled slightly.
"You want to take advantage of my position . . . that I am in your house," Aglaya went on absurdly and awkwardly.
"You are to blame for that position, not I!" Nastasya Filippovna suddenly flared up. "I didn't invite you, but you me, and so far I don't know why."
Aglaya raised her head arrogantly.
"Hold your tongue; it is not with this weapon of yours that I have come to fight with you . . ."
"Ah! So you've come to 'fight' after all? Imagine, I thought that, anyhow, you were . . . more clever ..."
They both looked at each other, no longer concealing their spite. One of these women was the same one who had so recently written such letters to the other. And now everything scattered at their first meeting and with their first words. What then? At that moment it seemed that none of the four people in the room found it strange. The prince, who the day before would not have believed it possible even to dream of it, now stood, looked, and listened as if he had long anticipated it all. The most fantastic dream had suddenly turned into the most glaring and sharply outlined reality. One of these women despised the other so much at that moment, and wished so much to say it to her (perhaps she had come only for that, as Rogozhin put it the next day), that, however fantastic the other woman was, with her disordered mind and sick soul, it seemed no preconceived idea could withstand the venomous, purely female despite of her rival. The prince was certain that Nastasya Filippovna would not start talking about the letters on her own; by her flashing glances, he could tell what those letters might cost
her now; but he would have given half his life if Aglaya, too, would not start talking about them now.
But Aglaya suddenly seemed to make an effort and at once gained control of herself.
"You misunderstand me," she said. "I haven't come ... to quarrel with you, though I don't like you. I . . . I've come to you . . . for a human talk. When I summoned you, I had already decided what I was going to speak about, and I will not go back on my decision, though you may misunderstand me completely. That will be the worse for you, not for me. I wanted to reply to what you wrote to me, and to reply in person, because it seemed more convenient to me. Listen, then, to my reply to all your letters: I felt sorry for Prince Lev Nikolaevich for the first time the very day I made his acquaintance and later when I learned about all that had happened at your party. I felt sorry for him because he is such a simple-hearted man and in his simplicity believed that he could be happy . . . with a woman ... of such character. What I feared for him was just what happened: you could not love him, you tormented him and abandoned him. You could not love him because you are too proud . . . no, not proud, I'm mistaken, but because you are vain . . . and not even that: you are selfish to the point of madness, of which your letters to me also serve as proof. You could not love him, simple as he is, and may even have despised him and laughed at him to yourself; you could love only your own disgrace and the incessant thought that you had been disgraced and offended. If you had had less disgrace or none at all, you would have been unhappier . . ." (It was a pleasure for Aglaya to articulate these words, so hurriedly leaping out, yet long prepared and pondered, already pondered when today's meeting could not even have been pictured in a dream; with a venomous gaze she followed their effect in Nastasya Filippovna's face, distorted with emotion.) "You remember," she went on, "he wrote me a letter then; he says you know about the letter and have even read it? I understood everything from that letter and understood it correctly; he recently confirmed it to me himself, that is, everything I'm telling you now, even word for word. After the letter I began to wait. I guessed that you'd have to come here, because you really can't do without Petersburg: you're still too young and good-looking for the provinces . . . However, those are also not my words," she added, blushing terribly, and from that moment on the color never left her face to the very end of her speech. "When I saw the prince
again, I felt terribly pained and offended for him. Don't laugh; if you laugh, you're not worthy of understanding it . . ."
"You can see that I'm not laughing," Nastasya Filippovna said sadly and sternly.
"However, it's all the same to me, laugh as much as you like. When I asked him myself, he told me that he had stopped loving you long ago, that even the memory of you was painful for him, but that he pitied you, and that when he remembered you, his heart felt 'pierced forever.' I must tell you, too, that I have never met a single person in my life who is equal to him in noble simple-heartedness and infinite trustfulness. I guessed after what he said that anyone who wanted to could deceive him, and whoever deceived him he would forgive afterwards, and it was for that that I loved him . . ."
Aglaya stopped for a moment, as if struck, as if not believing herself that she could utter such a word; but at the same moment an almost boundless pride flashed in her eyes; it seemed that it was now all the same for her, even if "that woman" should laugh now at the confession that had escaped her.