“What I expected has happened! But I am sorry, you poor fellow, that you should have had to suffer for it,” he murmured, with a most charming smile.
Aglaya left without saying goodbye. But the evening was not to end without a last adventure. An unexpected meeting was yet in store for Lizabetha Prokofievna.
She had scarcely descended the terrace steps leading to the high road that skirts the park at Pavlofsk, when suddenly there dashed by a smart open carriage, drawn by a pair of beautiful white horses. Having passed some ten yards beyond the house, the carriage suddenly drew up, and one of the two ladies seated in it turned sharp round as though she had just caught sight of some acquaintance whom she particularly wished to see.
“Evgenie Pavlovitch! Is that you?” cried a clear, sweet voice, which caused the prince, and perhaps someone else, to tremble. “Well, I am glad I’ve found you at last! I’ve sent to town for you twice today myself! My messengers have been searching for you everywhere!”
Evgenie Pavlovitch stood on the steps like one struck by lightning. Mrs. Epanchin stood still too, but not with the petrified expression of Evgenie. She gazed haughtily at the audacious person who had addressed her companion, and then turned a look of astonishment upon Evgenie himself.
“There’s news!” continued the clear voice. “You need not be anxious about Kupferof’s I.O.U.s—Rogojin has bought them up. I persuaded him to!—I dare say we shall settle Biscup too, so it’s all right, you see! Au revoir, tomorrow! And don’t worry!” The carriage moved on, and disappeared.
“The woman’s mad!” cried Evgenie, at last, crimson with anger, and looking confusedly around. “I don’t know what she’s talking about! What I.O.U.s? Who is she?” Mrs. Epanchin continued to watch his face for a couple of seconds; then she marched briskly and haughtily away towards her own house, the rest following her.
A minute afterwards, Evgenie Pavlovitch reappeared on the terrace, in great agitation.
“Prince,” he said, “tell me the truth; do you know what all this means?”
“I know nothing whatever about it!” replied the latter, who was, himself, in a state of nervous excitement.
“No?”
“No!”
“Well, nor do I!” said Evgenie Pavlovitch, laughing suddenly. “I haven’t the slightest knowledge of any such I.O.U.s as she mentioned, I swear I haven’t—What’s the matter, are you fainting?”
“Oh, no—no—I’m all right, I assure you!”
XI
The anger of the Epanchin family was unappeased for three days. As usual the prince reproached himself, and had expected punishment, but he was inwardly convinced that Lizabetha Prokofievna could not be seriously angry with him, and that she probably was more angry with herself. He was painfully surprised, therefore, when three days passed with no word from her. Other things also troubled and perplexed him, and one of these grew more important in his eyes as the days went by. He had begun to blame himself for two opposite tendencies—on the one hand to extreme, almost “senseless,” confidence in his fellows, on the other to a “vile, gloomy suspiciousness.”
By the end of the third day the incident of the eccentric lady and Evgenie Pavlovitch had attained enormous and mysterious proportions in his mind. He sorrowfully asked himself whether he had been the cause of this new “monstrosity,” or was it … but he refrained from saying who else might be in fault. As for the letters N. P. B., he looked on that as a harmless joke, a mere childish piece of mischief—so childish that he felt it would be shameful, almost dishonourable, to attach any importance to it.
The day after these scandalous events, however, the prince had the honour of receiving a visit from Adelaida and her fiancé, Prince S⸺. They came, ostensibly, to inquire after his health. They had wandered out for a walk, and called in “by accident,” and talked for almost the whole of the time they were with him about a certain most lovely tree in the park, which Adelaida had set her heart upon for a picture. This, and a little amiable conversation on Prince S⸺’s part, occupied the time, and not a word was said about last evening’s episodes. At length Adelaida burst out laughing, apologized, and explained that they had come incognito; from which, and from the circumstance that they said nothing about the prince’s either walking back with them or coming to see them later on, the latter inferred that he was in Mrs. Epanchin’s black books. Adelaida mentioned a watercolour that she would much like to show him, and explained that she would either send it by Colia, or bring it herself the next day—which to the prince seemed very suggestive.
At length, however, just as the visitors were on the point of departing, Prince S⸺ seemed suddenly to recollect himself. “Oh yes, by the by,” he said, “do you happen to know, my dear Lef Nicolaievitch, who that lady was who called out to Evgenie Pavlovitch last night, from the carriage?”
“It was Nastasia Philipovna,” said the prince; “didn’t you know that? I cannot tell you who her companion was.”
“But what on earth did she mean? I assure you it is a real riddle to me—to me, and to others, too!” Prince S⸺ seemed to be under the influence of sincere astonishment.
“She spoke of some bills of Evgenie Pavlovitch’s,” said the prince, simply, “which Rogojin had bought up from someone; and implied that Rogojin would not press him.”
“Oh, I heard that much, my dear fellow! But the thing is so impossibly absurd! A man of property like Evgenie to give I.O.U.s to a moneylender, and to be worried about them! It is ridiculous. Besides, he cannot possibly be on such intimate terms with Nastasia Philipovna as she gave us to understand; that’s the principal part of the mystery! He has given
