and shameless: the thought of a possible hope immediately flashed in him; I realized it at once. After that he began trying to trap me; he does it still. But enough. Take the note and give it back to him, right now, when you've left our house, naturally, not before."
"And what shall I tell him in reply?"
"Nothing, of course. That's the best reply. So you intend to live in his house?"
"Ivan Fyodorovich himself recommended it to me earlier," said the prince.
"Beware of him, I'm warning you; he won't forgive you for giving him back the note."
Aglaya pressed the prince's hand lightly and left. Her face was serious and frowning, she did not even smile as she nodded goodbye to the prince.
"One moment, I'll just fetch my bundle," the prince said to Ganya, "and we can go."
Ganya stamped his foot in impatience. His face even darkened with rage. Finally the two men went outside, the prince carrying his bundle.
"The reply? The reply?" Ganya fell upon him. "What did she say to you? Did you give her the letter?"
The prince silently handed him his note. Ganya was dumbfounded.
"What? My note?" he cried. "He didn't give it to her! Oh, I should have guessed! Oh, cur-r-rse it ... I see why she didn't understand anything just now! But why, why, why didn't you give it to her, oh, cur-r-rse it . . ."
"Excuse me, but, on the contrary, I managed to deliver your note at once, the moment you gave it to me and exactly as you asked me to. It ended up with me again, because Aglaya Ivanovna gave it back to me just now."
"When? When?"
"As soon as I finished writing in the album and she asked me to go with her. (Didn't you hear?) We went to the dining room, she gave me the note, told me to read it, and then told me to give it back to you."
"To re-e-ead it!" Ganya shouted almost at the top of his lungs. "To read it! You read it?"
And he again stood petrified in the middle of the sidewalk, so astonished that he even opened his mouth wide.
"Yes, I read it just now."
"And she, she herself gave it to you to read? She herself?"
"She herself, and, believe me, I wouldn't have read it without her invitation."
Ganya was silent for a moment, making painful efforts to figure something out, but suddenly he exclaimed:
"That can't be! She couldn't have told you to read it. You're lying! You read it yourself!"
"I'm telling you the truth," the prince replied in the same completely imperturbable tone, "and, believe me, I'm very sorry that it makes such an unpleasant impression on you."
"But, you wretch, did she at least say anything as she did it? Did she respond in any way?"
"Yes, of course."
"Speak then, speak—ah, the devil! . . ."
And Ganya stamped his right foot, shod in a galosh, twice on the sidewalk.
"As soon as I finished reading it, she told me that you were trying to trap her; that you wished to compromise her, in order to obtain some hope from her and then, on the basis of that hope, to break without losses from the other hope for a hundred thousand. That if you had done it without negotiating with her, had broken it off by yourself without asking her for a guarantee beforehand, she might perhaps have become your friend. That's all, I think. Ah, one more thing: when I had already taken the note and asked what the reply would be, she said that no reply would be the best reply—I think that was it; forgive me if I've forgotten her exact expression, but I'm conveying it as I understood it myself."
Boundless spite came over Ganya, and his rage exploded without restraint.
"Ahh! So that's how it is!" he rasped. "She throws my notes out the window! Ahh! She doesn't negotiate—then I will! We'll see! There's a lot about me ... we'll see!... I'll tie them in little knots!..."
He grimaced, turned pale, frothed, shook his fist. They went a few steps like that. He was not embarrassed in the least by the prince's presence, as if he were alone in his room, because he regarded him as nothing in the highest degree. But he suddenly realized something and came to his senses.
"How did it happen," he suddenly turned to the prince, "how did it happen that you"—"an idiot!" he added to himself—"have suddenly been taken into such confidence, after being acquainted for two hours? How is it?"
With all his torments he only lacked envy. It suddenly stung him to the very heart.
"I'm unable to explain it to you," replied the prince.
Ganya looked at him spitefully:
"Was it her confidence she wanted to give you when she called you to the dining room? Wasn't she going to give you something?"
"I can't understand it in any other way than precisely that."
"But why, devil take it! What did you do there? What was it they liked? Listen," he was fussing with all his might (just then everything in him was somehow scattered and seething in disorder, so that he was unable to collect his thoughts), "listen, can't you somehow recall and put in order precisely what you were talking about, all the words, from the very beginning? Didn't you notice anything, can't you recall?"
"Oh, I recall very well," the prince replied. "From the very beginning, when I went in and was introduced, we started talking about Switzerland."
"Well, to hell with Switzerland!"
"Then about capital punishment ..."
"About capital punishment?"
"Yes, apropos of something . . . then I told them how I'd lived there for three years, and also the story of a poor village girl . . ."
"To hell with the poor village girl! Go on!" Ganya tore ahead impatiently.
"Then how Schneider gave me his opinion of my character and urged me ..."
"Blast Schneider and spit on his opinion! Go on!"
"Then, apropos of something, I started talking about faces— that is, about facial expressions, and I said that Aglaya Ivanovna was almost as good-looking as Nastasya Filippovna. It was here that I let slip about the portrait ..."
"But you didn't repeat, you surely didn't repeat everything you'd heard earlier in the office? Did you? Did you?"
"I tell you again that I didn't."
"Then how the devil . . . Bah! Maybe Aglaya showed the note to the old lady?"
"About that I can fully guarantee you that she did not show it to her. I was there all the while; and she also didn't have time."
"Or maybe you didn't notice something . . . Oh! cur-r-rsed idiot," he exclaimed, now completely beside himself, "he can't even tell anything!"
Once he began to swear and met no resistance, Ganya gradually lost all restraint, as always happens with certain people. A little more and he might have started spitting, so enraged he was. But, precisely because of that rage, he was blind; otherwise he would long since have paid attention to the fact that this "idiot," whom he mistreated so, was sometimes capable of understanding everything all too quickly and subtly, and of giving an extremely satisfactory account of it. But suddenly something unexpected happened.
"I must point out to you, Gavrila Ardalionovich," the prince suddenly said, "that formerly I was indeed unwell, so that in fact I was almost an idiot; but I have been well for a long time now, and therefore I find it somewhat unpleasant when I'm called an idiot to my face. Though you might be excused, considering your misfortunes, in your vexation you have even abused me a couple of times. I dislike that very much, especially the way you do it, suddenly, from the start. And since we're now standing at an intersection, it might be better if we parted: you go home to the right, and I'll go left. I have twenty-five roubles, and I'm sure I'll find furnished rooms."
Ganya was terribly embarrassed and even blushed with shame.