The Idiot

"First of all, about my learned daughters," Mrs. Epanchin snapped, "and since that is enough in itself, there's no point in expatiating on the rest. There's been enough verbosity. We'll see how the two of you (I don't count Aglaya), with your brains and verbosity, are going to find your way and whether you, my much esteemed Alexandra Ivanovna, are going to be happy with your honorable gentleman . . . Ah! ..." she exclaimed, seeing the entering Ganya. "Here comes one more matrimony. How do you do!" she responded to Ganya's bow without inviting him to sit down. "Are you embarking upon matrimony?"

"Matrimony?... How? ... What matrimony? ..." Gavrila Ardalionovich murmured in stupefaction. He was terribly bewildered.

"Are you getting married, I'm asking, if you like that phrasing better?"

"N-no . . . I'm . . . n-not," Gavrila Ardalionovich lied, and a flush of shame spread over his face. He glanced fleetingly at Aglaya, who was sitting to one side, and quickly looked away. Aglaya was looking at him coldly, intently, calmly, not taking her eyes off him, and observing his confusion.

"No? Did you say no?" the implacable Lizaveta Prokofyevna persistently interrogated him. "Enough! I'll remember that today, Wednesday afternoon, you said 'No' to my question. Is today Wednesday?"

"I think so, maman,"replied Adelaida.

"They never know what day it is. What's the date?"

"The twenty-seventh," replied Ganya.

"The twenty-seventh? That's good, for certain considerations. Good-bye. I suppose you have many things to do, and for me it's time to dress and be on my way. Take your portrait. Give my respects to the unfortunate Nina Alexandrovna. Good-bye, Prince, my dear boy! Come more often, and I'll be sure to call on old Belokonsky and tell her about you. And listen, my dear: I believe God brought you to Petersburg from Switzerland precisely for me. Maybe you'll have other things to do, but it was mainly for me. That's precisely how God reckoned. Good-bye, my dears. Alexandra, stop by for a minute."

Mrs. Epanchin left. Ganya, overturned, confused, spiteful, took the portrait from the table and turned to the prince with a crooked smile:

"Prince, I'm going home now. If you haven't changed your intention of living with us, I'll take you there, since you don't know the address."

"Wait, Prince," said Aglaya, suddenly getting up from her chair, "you still have to write something in my album. Papa said you're a calligrapher. I'll bring it to you right now . . ."

And she left.

"Good-bye, Prince, I'm going, too," said Adelaida.

She firmly shook the prince's hand, smiled at him affably and tenderly, and left. She did not look at Ganya.

"It was you," Ganya rasped, suddenly falling upon the prince once everyone had gone, "you blabbed to them that I'm getting

married!" he muttered in a quick half whisper, with a furious face, flashing his eyes spitefully. "You shameless babbler!"

"I assure you that you are mistaken," the prince replied calmly and politely, "I didn't even know you were getting married."

"You heard Ivan Fyodorovich say earlier that everything would be decided tonight at Nastasya Filippovna's, and you told it to them! You're lying! How could they have found out? Devil take it, who could have told them besides you? Didn't the old lady hint to me?"

"You ought to know better who told them, if you really think she was hinting to you. I didn't say a word about it."

"Did you deliver my note? Any answer?" Ganya interrupted him with feverish impatience. But at that very moment Aglaya came back, and the prince had no time to reply.

"Here, Prince," said Aglaya, putting her album on the little table. "Choose a page and write something for me. Here's a pen, a new one. Does it matter if it's steel? I've heard calligraphers don't write with steel pens."

Talking with the prince, she seemed not to notice that Ganya was right there. But while the prince was testing the pen, selecting a page, and preparing himself, Ganya went over to the fireplace where Aglaya was standing, to the right of the prince, and in a trembling, faltering voice said almost in her ear:

"One word, only one word from you—and I'm saved."

The prince turned quickly and looked at the two. There was genuine despair in Ganya's face; it seemed he had uttered these words somehow without thinking, as if headlong. Aglaya looked at him for a few seconds with exactly the same calm astonishment as she had looked at the prince earlier, and it seemed that this calm astonishment of hers, this perplexity, as if she totally failed to understand what had been said to her, was more terrible for Ganya at that moment than the strongest contempt.

"What am I to write?" asked the prince.

"I'll dictate to you right now," said Aglaya, turning to him. "Are you ready? Write: 'I don't negotiate.' Now put the day and the month. Show me."

The prince handed her the album.

"Excellent! You've written it amazingly well; you have a wonderful hand! Thank you. Good-bye, Prince . . . Wait," she added, as if suddenly remembering something. "Come, I want to give you something as a memento."

The prince followed her; but having entered the dining room, Aglaya stopped.

"Read this," she said, handing him Ganya's note.

The prince took the note and looked at Aglaya in perplexity.

"I know you haven't read it and you cannot be in this man's confidence. Read it, I want you to."

The note had obviously been written in haste.

Today my fate will be decided, you know in what manner. Today I will have to give my word irrevocably. I have no right to your sympathy, I dare not have any hopes; but you once uttered a word, just one word, and that word lit up the whole dark night of my life and became a beacon for me. Say another such word to me now—and you will save me from disaster! Only say to me: break it all off,and I will break it all off today. Oh, what will it cost you to say it! I am asking for this word only as a sign of your sympathy and compassion for me—only, only! And nothing more, nothing.I dare not think of any hope, because I am not worthy of it. But after your word I will accept my poverty again, I will joyfully endure my desperate situation. I will meet the struggle, I will be glad of it, I will resurrect in it with new strength!

Send me this word of compassion (of compassion only,I swear to you!). Do not be angry at the boldness of a desperate man, at a drowning man, for daring to make a last effort to save himself from disaster.

"This man assures me," Aglaya said sharply, when the prince had finished reading, "that the words break it all offwill not compromise me or commit me in any way, and, as you see, he gives me a written guarantee of it by this very note. See how naively he hastened to underline certain words and how crudely his secret thought shows through. He knows, however, that if he broke it all off, but by himself, alone, not waiting for a word from me, and even not telling me about it, without any hope in me, I would then change my feelings for him and would probably become his friend. He knows that for certain! But his soul is dirty: he knows and yet hesitates; he knows and still asks for a guarantee. He's unable to make a decision on faith. Instead of a hundred thousand, he wants me to give him hope in me. As for the previous word he talks about in his letter and which supposedly lit up his whole life, there he's lying brazenly. I simply felt sorry for him once. But he's bold