Both she and Aglaya stopped as if in expectation, and they both gave him mad looks. But he may not have understood all the force of this challenge, even certainly did not, one may say. He only saw before him the desperate, insane face, because of which, as he had once let slip to Aglaya, "his heart was forever pierced." He could no longer bear it and with entreaty and reproach turned to Aglaya, pointing to Nastasya Filippovna:
"It's not possible! She's ... so unhappy!"
But that was all he managed to say, going dumb under Aglaya's terrible look. That look expressed so much suffering, and at the same time such boundless hatred, that he clasped his hands, cried out, and rushed to her, but it was already too late! She could not bear even a moment of hesitation in him, covered her face with her hands, cried: "Oh, my God!"—and rushed out of the room, Rogozhin going after her to unlock the street door.
The prince also ran, but arms seized him on the threshold. Nastasya Filippovna's stricken, distorted face looked at him point-blank, and her blue lips moved, saying:
"After her? After her? . . ."
She fell unconscious in his arms. He picked her up, brought her into the room, laid her in an armchair, and stood over her in dull expectation. There was a glass of water on the table; Rogozhin, who had returned, snatched it up and sprinkled her face with water; she opened her eyes and for a moment understood nothing; but suddenly she looked around, gave a start, cried out, and rushed to the prince.
"Mine! Mine!" she cried. "Is the proud young lady gone? Ha, ha, ha!" she laughed hysterically, "ha, ha, ha! I wanted to give him to that young lady! But why? What for? Madwoman! Madwoman! . . . Get out, Rogozhin, ha, ha, ha!"
Rogozhin looked at them intently, did not say a word, took his hat, and left. Ten minutes later the prince was sitting beside Nastasya Filippovna, gazing at her without tearing his eyes away, and stroking her dear head and face with both hands, like a little child. He laughed when she laughed and was ready to weep at her tears. He did not say anything, but listened intently to her fitful, rapturous, and incoherent babbling, hardly understood anything, but smiled quietly, and as soon as it seemed to him that she had begun to be anguished again, or to weep, or reproach, or complain, he would at once begin again to stroke her dear head and tenderly pass his hands over her cheeks, comforting and reassuring her like a child.
IX
Two weeks went by after the events recounted in the last chapter, and the position of the characters in our story changed so much that it is extremely difficult for us to set out on the
continuation without special explanations. And yet we feel that we must limit ourselves to the simple statement of facts, as far as possible without special explanations, and for a very simple reason: because we ourselves, in many cases, have difficulty explaining what happened. Such a warning on our part must appear quite strange and unclear to the reader: how recount that of which we have neither a clear understanding nor a personal opinion? Not to put ourselves in a still more false position, we had better try to explain things with an example, and perhaps the benevolent reader will understand precisely what our difficulty is, the more so as this example will not be a digression, but, on the contrary, a direct and immediate continuation of the story.
Two weeks later, that is, at the beginning of July, and over the course of those two weeks, the story of our hero, and especially the last adventure of that story, turned into a strange, rather amusing, almost unbelievable, and at the same time almost graphic anecdote, which gradually spread through all the streets neighboring the dachas of Lebedev, Ptitsyn, Darya Alexeevna, the Epanchins, in short, over almost the whole town and even its environs. Almost all of society—the locals, the summer people, those who came for the music—everyone began telling one and the same story, in a thousand different versions, about a certain prince who, having caused a scandal in an honorable and well-known house, and having rejected the daughter of that house, already his fiancée, had been enticed away by a well-known tart, had broken all his former connections, and, regardless of everything, regardless of threats, regardless of general public indignation, intended to marry the disgraced woman one of those days, right there in Pavlovsk, openly, publicly, with head held high and looking everyone straight in the eye. The anecdote was becoming so embroidered with scandals, so many well-known and important persons were mixed up in it, it was endowed with such a variety of fantastic and mysterious nuances, and, on the other hand, it was presented in such irrefutable and graphic facts, that the general curiosity and gossip were, of course, quite excusable. The most subtle, clever, and at the same time plausible interpretation belonged to several serious gossips, from that stratum of sensible people who, in every society, always hasten first of all to explain an event to others, finding in it a vocation, and often also a consolation. According to their interpretation, a young man, of good family, a prince, almost wealthy, a fool, but a democrat, and gone crazy over modern nihilism, which
was discovered by Mr. Turgenev, 44barely able to speak Russian, had fallen in love with a daughter of General Epanchin, and had succeeded in being received in the house as a fiancé. But, like that French seminarian about whom an anecdote had just been published, who had purposely allowed himself to be ordained a priest, had purposely sought this ordination, had performed all the rites, all the bowing, kissing, vows, etc., in order to proclaim publicly, the next day, in a letter to his bishop, that, not believing in God, he considered it dishonest to deceive folk and be fed by them gratis, and therefore he was laying aside his yesterday's dignity, and would publish his letter in the liberal newspapers—like this atheist, the prince was supposed to have dissembled in his own way. The story went that he had supposedly waited on purpose for a solemn, formal party given by his fiancee's parents, at which he had been introduced to a great many important persons, in order to proclaim his way of thinking aloud and in front of everyone, to denounce the venerable dignitaries, to reject his fiancée publicly and offensively, and, while resisting the servants who were taking him out, to smash a beautiful Chinese vase. To this was added, with a view to characterizing modern morals, that the muddle-headed young man actually loved his fiancée, the general's daughter, but had rejected her solely out of nihilism and for the sake of the imminent scandal, so as not to deny himself the pleasure of marrying a fallen woman before the whole world and thereby proving that in his conviction there were neither fallen nor virtuous women, but only free women; that he did not believe in the social and old distinction, but believed only in the "woman question." That, finally, a fallen woman, in his eyes, was even somewhat higher than an unfallen one. This explanation seemed quite plausible and was accepted by the majority of the summer people, the more so as it was confirmed by everyday facts. True, many things remained unexplained: the story went that the poor girl loved her fiancé—her "seducer" according to some—so much that she came running to him the very next day after he abandoned her and sat there with his mistress; others insisted, on the contrary, that he purposely lured her to his mistress, solely out of nihilism, that is, for the sake of the disgrace and offense. Be that as it may, interest in the event grew daily, the more so as there remained not the slightest doubt that the scandalous wedding would actually take place.
And so, if we were asked to explain—not about the nihilistic nuances of the event, but simply to what extent the appointed