"An ass? That's strange," observed Mrs. Epanchin. "And yet there's nothing strange about it, some one of us may yet fall in love with an ass," she observed, looking wrathfully at the laughing girls. "It has happened in mythology. 21Go on, Prince."
"Since then I've had a terrible fondness for asses. It's even some sort of sympathy in me. I began inquiring about them, because I'd never seen them before, and I became convinced at once that they're most useful animals, hardworking, strong, patient, cheap, enduring; and because of that ass I suddenly took a liking to the whole of Switzerland, so that my former sadness went away entirely."
"That's all very strange, but we can skip the ass; let's go on to some other subject. Why are you laughing, Aglaya? And you, Adelaida? The prince spoke beautifully about the ass. He saw it himself, and what have you ever seen? You haven't been abroad."
"I've seen an ass, maman,"said Adelaida.
"And I've heard one," Aglaya picked up. The three girls laughed again. The prince laughed with them.
"That's very naughty of you," observed Mrs. Epanchin. "You must forgive them, Prince, they really are kind. I'm eternally scolding them, but I love them. They're flighty, frivolous, mad."
"But why?" the prince laughed. "In their place I wouldn't have missed the chance either. But all the same I stand up for the ass: an ass is a kind and useful fellow."
"And are you kind, Prince? I ask out of curiosity," Mrs. Epanchin asked.
They all laughed again.
"Again that accursed ass turns up! I wasn't even thinking of it!" Mrs. Epanchin cried. "Please believe me, Prince, I wasn't . . ."
"Hinting? Oh, I believe you, without question!"
And the prince never stopped laughing.
"It's very good that you laugh. I see you're a most kind young man," said Mrs. Epanchin.
"Sometimes I'm not," replied the prince.
"And I am kind," Mrs. Epanchin put in unexpectedly, "I'm always kind, if you wish, and that is my only failing, because one should not always be kind. I'm often very angry, with these ones here, with Ivan Fyodorovich especially, but the trouble is that I'm kindest when I'm angry. Today, before you came, I was angry and pretended I didn't and couldn't understand anything. That happens to me—like a child. Aglaya taught me a lesson; I thank you, Aglaya. Anyhow, it's all nonsense. I'm still not as stupid as I seem and as my daughters would have me appear. I have a strong character and am not very shy. Anyhow, I don't say it spitefully. Come here, Aglaya, kiss me. Well . . . enough sentiment," she observed, when Aglaya kissed her with feeling on the lips and hand. "Go on, Prince. Perhaps you'll remember something more interesting than the ass."
"I still don't understand how it's possible to tell things just like that," Adelaida observed again. "I wouldn't find anything to say."
"But the prince would, because the prince is extremely intelligent and at least ten times more intelligent than you, or maybe twelve times. I hope you'll feel something after that. Prove it to them, Prince, go on. We can indeed finally get past that ass. Well, so, besides the ass, what did you see abroad?"
"That was intelligent about the ass, too," observed Alexandra. "The prince spoke very interestingly about the case of his illness, and how he came to like everything because of one external push. It has always been interesting to me, how people go out of their minds and then recover again. Especially if it happens suddenly."
"Isn't it true? Isn't it true?" Mrs. Epanchin heaved herself up. "I see you, too, can sometimes be intelligent. Well, enough
laughing! You stopped, I believe, at nature in Switzerland, Prince. Well?"
"We came to Lucerne, and I was taken across the lake. I felt how good it was, but I also felt terribly oppressed," said the prince.
"Why?" asked Alexandra.
"I don't understand why. I always feel oppressed and uneasy when I look at such nature for the first time—both good and uneasy. Anyhow, that was all while I was still sick."
"Ah, no, I've always wanted very much to see it," said Adelaida. "I don't understand why we never go abroad. For two years I've been trying to find a subject for a picture:
East and South have long since been portrayed . . 22
Find me a subject for a picture, Prince."
"I don't understand anything about it. It seems to me you just look and paint."
"I don't know how to look."
"Why are you talking in riddles? I don't understand a thing!" Mrs. Epanchin interrupted. "What do you mean, you don't know how to look? You have eyes, so look. If you don't know how to look here, you won't learn abroad. Better tell us how you looked yourself, Prince."
"Yes, that would be better," Adelaida added. "The prince did learn to look abroad."
"I don't know. My health simply improved there; I don't know if I learned to look. Anyhow, I was very happy almost the whole time."
"Happy! You know how to be happy?" Aglaya cried out. "Then how can you say you didn't learn to look? You should teach us."
"Teach us, please," Adelaida laughed.
"I can't teach you anything," the prince was laughing, too. "I spent almost all my time abroad living in a Swiss village; occasionally I went somewhere not far away; what can I teach you? At first I was simply not bored; I started to recover quickly; then every day became dear to me, and the dearer as time went on, so that I began to notice it. I went to bed very content, and got up happier still. But why all that—it's rather hard to say."
"So you didn't want to go anywhere, you had no urge to go anywhere?" asked Alexandra.
"At first, at the very first, yes, I did have an urge, and I would fall into great restlessness. I kept thinking about how I was going to live; I wanted to test my fate, I became restless especially at
certain moments. You know, there are such moments, especially in solitude. We had a waterfall there, not a big one, it fell from high up the mountain in a very thin thread, almost perpendicular— white, noisy, foamy; it fell from a great height, but it seemed low; it was half a mile away, but it seemed only fifty steps. I liked listening to the noise of it at night; and at those moments I'd sometimes get very restless. Also at noon sometimes, when I'd wander off somewhere into the mountains, stand alone halfway up a mountain, with pines all around, old, big, resinous; up on a cliff there's an old, ruined medieval castle, our little village is far down, barely visible; the sun is bright, the sky blue, the silence terrible. Then there would come a call to go somewhere, and it always seemed to me that if I walked straight ahead, and kept on for a long, long time, and went beyond that line where sky and earth meet, the whole answer would be there, and at once I'd see a new life, a thousand times stronger and noisier than ours; I kept dreaming of a big city like Naples, where it was all palaces, noise, clatter, life ... I dreamed about all kinds of things! And then it seemed to me that in prison, too, you could find an immense life."
"That last praiseworthy thought I read in my Readerwhen I was twelve years old," said Aglaya.
"It's all philosophy," observed Adelaida. "You're a philosopher and have come to teach us."