"On the contrary, he's very well brought up and has wonderful manners. A bit too simple at times . . . But here he is! Allow me to introduce Prince Myshkin, the last of the line, a namesake and maybe even a relation, receive him, be nice to him. They'll have lunch now, Prince, do them the honor . . . And I, forgive me, I'm late, I must hurry ..."
"We know where you're hurrying to," Mrs. Epanchin said imposingly.
"I must hurry, I must hurry, my friend, I'm late! Give him your albums, 19 mesdames,let him write something for you, he's a rare calligrapher! A talent! He did such a piece of old handwriting for me: 'The hegumen Pafnuty here sets his hand to it . . .' Well, good-bye."
"Pafnuty? Hegumen? Wait, wait, where are you going? What Pafnuty?" Mrs. Epanchin cried with insistent vexation and almost anxiously to her fleeing husband.
"Yes, yes, my friend, there was such a hegumen in the old days . . . and I'm off to the count's, he's been waiting, waiting a long time, and, above all, it was he who made the appointment . . . Good-bye, Prince!"
The general withdrew with quick steps.
"I know which count that is!" Elizaveta Prokofyevna said sharply and turned her gaze irritably on the prince. "What was it!" she began, trying squeamishly and vexedly to recall. "What was it! Ah, yes. Well, what about this hegumen?"
"Maman,"Alexandra began, and Aglaya even stamped her little foot.
"Don't interrupt me, Alexandra Ivanovna," Mrs. Epanchin rapped out to her, "I also want to know. Sit down here, Prince, in this chair, facing me—no, here, move closer to the sun, to the light, so that I can see. Well, what about this hegumen?"
"Hegumen Pafnuty," the prince replied attentively and seriously.
"Pafnuty? That's interesting. Well, who was he?"
Mrs. Epanchin asked impatiently, quickly, sharply, not taking her eyes off the prince, and when he answered, she nodded her head after each word he said.
"The hegumen Pafnuty, of the fourteenth century," the prince began. "He was the head of a hermitage on the Volga, in what is now Kostroma province. He was known for his holy life. He went
to the Horde, 20helped to arrange some affairs of that time, and signed his name to a certain document, and I saw a copy of that signature. I liked the handwriting and learned it. Today, when the general wanted to see how I can write, in order to find a post for me, I wrote several phrases in various scripts, and among them 'The hegumen Pafnuty here sets his hand to it' in the hegumen Pafnuty's own handwriting. The general liked it very much, and he remembered it just now."
"Aglaya," said Mrs. Epanchin, "remember: Pafnuty, or better write it down, because I always forget. However, I thought it would be more interesting. Where is this signature?"
"I think it's still in the general's office, on the desk."
"Send at once and fetch it."
"I could just as well write it again for you, if you like."
"Of course, maman,"said Alexandra, "and now we'd better have lunch; we're hungry."
"Well, so," Mrs. Epanchin decided. "Come, Prince, are you very hungry?"
"Yes, at the moment I'm very hungry and I thank you very much."
"It's very good that you're polite, and I note that you're not at all such an . . . odd man as we were told. Come. Sit down here, across from me," she bustled about, getting the prince seated, when they came to the dining room, "I want to look at you. Alexandra, Adelaida, offer the prince something. Isn't it true that he's not all that . . . sick? Maybe the napkin isn't necessary . . . Do they tie a napkin around your neck when you eat, Prince?"
"Before, when I was about seven, I think they did, but now I usually put my napkin on my knees when I eat."
"So you should. And your fits?"
"Fits?" the prince was slightly surprised. "I have fits rather rarely now. Though, I don't know, they say the climate here will be bad for me."
"He speaks well," Mrs. Epanchin observed, turning to her daughters and continuing to nod her head after each word the prince said. "I didn't even expect it. So it was all nonsense and lies, as usual. Eat, Prince, and go on with your story: where were you born and brought up? I want to know everything; you interest me exceedingly."
The prince thanked her and, eating with great appetite, again began to tell everything he had already told more than once that morning. Mrs. Epanchin was becoming more and more pleased.
The girls also listened rather attentively. They discussed families; the prince turned out to know his genealogy rather well, but hard as they searched, they could find almost no connection between him and Mrs. Epanchin. There might have been some distant relation between their grandmothers and grandfathers. Mrs. Epanchin especially liked this dry subject, since she hardly ever had the chance to talk about her genealogy, despite all her wishes, so that she even got up from the table in an excited state of mind.
"Let's all go to our gathering room," she said, "and have coffee served there. We have this common room here," she said to the prince, leading him out. "It's simply my small drawing room, where we gather when we're by ourselves, and each of us does her own thing: Alexandra, this one, my eldest daughter, plays the piano, or reads, or sews; Adelaida paints landscapes and portraits (and never can finish anything); and Aglaya sits and does nothing. I'm also hopeless at handwork: nothing comes out right. Well, here we are; sit down there, Prince, by the fireplace, and tell us something. I want to know how you tell a story. I want to make completely sure, so that when I see old Princess Belokonsky, I can tell her all about you. I want them all to become interested in you, too. Well, speak then."
"But, maman,it's very strange to tell anything that way," observed Adelaida, who meanwhile had straightened her easel, taken her brushes and palette, and started working on a landscape begun long ago, copied from a print. Alexandra and Aglaya sat down together on a small sofa, folded their arms, and prepared to listen to the conversation. The prince noticed that special attention was turned on him from all sides.
"I wouldn't tell anything, if I were ordered to like that," observed Aglaya.
"Why? What's so strange about it? Why shouldn't he tell a story? He has a tongue. I want to see if he knows how to speak. Well, about anything. Tell me how you liked Switzerland, your first impressions. You'll see, he's going to begin now, and begin beautifully."
"The impression was a strong one . . ." the prince began.
"There," the impatient Lizaveta Prokofyevna picked up, turning to her daughters, "he's begun."
"Give him a chance to speak at least, maman"Alexandra stopped her. "This prince may be a great rogue and not an idiot at all," she whispered to Aglaya.
"He surely is, I saw it long ago," answered Aglaya. "And it's mean of him to play a role. What does he want to gain by it?"
"The first impression was a very strong one," the prince repeated. "When they brought me from Russia, through various German towns, I only looked on silently and, I remember, I didn't even ask about anything. That was after a series of strong and painful fits of my illness, and whenever my illness worsened and I had several fits in a row, I always lapsed into a total stupor, lost my memory completely, and though my mind worked, the logical flow of thought was as if broken. I couldn't put more than two or three ideas together coherently. So it seems to me. But when the fits subsided, I became healthy and strong again, as I am now. I remember a feeling of unbearable sadness; I even wanted to weep; I was surprised and anxious all the time: it affected me terribly that it was all foreign—that much I understood. The foreign was killing me. I was completely awakened from that darkness, I remember, in the evening, in Basel, as we drove into Switzerland, and what roused me was the braying of an ass in the town market. The ass struck me terribly and for some reason I took an extraordinary liking to it, and at the same time it was as if everything cleared up in my head."