“How beautiful that is!” cried Mrs. Epanchin, with sincere admiration. “Whose is it?”
“Pushkin’s, mama, of course! Don’t disgrace us all by showing your ignorance,” said Adelaida.
“As soon as we reach home give it to me to read.”
“I don’t think we have a copy of Pushkin in the house.”
“There are a couple of torn volumes somewhere; they have been lying about from time immemorial,” added Alexandra.
“Send Feodor or Alexey up by the very first train to buy a copy, then.—Aglaya, come here—kiss me, dear, you recited beautifully! but,” she added in a whisper, “if you were sincere I am sorry for you. If it was a joke, I do not approve of the feelings which prompted you to do it, and in any case you would have done far better not to recite it at all. Do you understand?—Now come along, young woman; we’ve sat here too long. I’ll speak to you about this another time.”
Meanwhile the prince took the opportunity of greeting General Epanchin, and the general introduced Evgenie Pavlovitch to him.
“I caught him up on the way to your house,” explained the general. “He had heard that we were all here.”
“Yes, and I heard that you were here, too,” added Evgenie Pavlovitch; “and since I had long promised myself the pleasure of seeking not only your acquaintance but your friendship, I did not wish to waste time, but came straight on. I am sorry to hear that you are unwell.”
“Oh, but I’m quite well now, thank you, and very glad to make your acquaintance. Prince S⸺ has often spoken to me about you,” said Muishkin, and for an instant the two men looked intently into one another’s eyes.
The prince remarked that Evgenie Pavlovitch’s plain clothes had evidently made a great impression upon the company present, so much so that all other interests seemed to be effaced before this surprising fact.
His change of dress was evidently a matter of some importance. Adelaida and Alexandra poured out a stream of questions; Prince S⸺, a relative of the young man, appeared annoyed; and Ivan Fedorovitch quite excited. Aglaya alone was not interested. She merely looked closely at Evgenie for a minute, curious perhaps as to whether civil or military clothes became him best, then turned away and paid no more attention to him or his costume. Lizabetha Prokofievna asked no questions, but it was clear that she was uneasy, and the prince fancied that Evgenie was not in her good graces.
“He has astonished me,” said Ivan Fedorovitch. “I nearly fell down with surprise. I could hardly believe my eyes when I met him in Petersburg just now. Why this haste? That’s what I want to know. He has always said himself that there is no need to break windows.”
Evgenie Pavlovitch remarked here that he had spoken of his intention of leaving the service long ago. He had, however, always made more or less of a joke about it, so no one had taken him seriously. For that matter he joked about everything, and his friends never knew what to believe, especially if he did not wish them to understand him.
“I have only retired for a time,” said he, laughing. “For a few months; at most for a year.”
“But there is no necessity for you to retire at all,” complained the general, “as far as I know.”
“I want to go and look after my country estates. You advised me to do that yourself,” was the reply. “And then I wish to go abroad.”
After a few more expostulations, the conversation drifted into other channels, but the prince, who had been an attentive listener, thought all this excitement about so small a matter very curious. “There must be more in it than appears,” he said to himself.
“I see the ‘poor knight’ has come on the scene again,” said Evgenie Pavlovitch, stepping to Aglaya’s side.
To the amazement of the prince, who overheard the remark, Aglaya looked haughtily and inquiringly at the questioner, as though she would give him to know, once for all, that there could be no talk between them about the “poor knight,” and that she did not understand his question.
“But not now! It is too late to send to town for a Pushkin now. It is much too late, I say!” Colia was exclaiming in a loud voice. “I have told you so at least a hundred times.”
“Yes, it is really much too late to send to town now,” said Evgenie Pavlovitch, who had escaped from Aglaya as rapidly as possible. “I am sure the shops are shut in Petersburg; it is past eight o’clock,” he added, looking at his watch.
“We have done without him so far,” interrupted Adelaida in her turn. “Surely we can wait until tomorrow.”
“Besides,” said Colia, “it is quite unusual, almost improper, for people in our position to take any interest in literature. Ask Evgenie Pavlovitch if I am not right. It is much more fashionable to drive a wagonette with red wheels.”
“You got that from some magazine, Colia,” remarked Adelaida.
“He gets most of his conversation in that way,” laughed Evgenie Pavlovitch. “He borrows whole phrases from the reviews. I have long had the pleasure of knowing both Nicholai Ardalionovitch and his conversational methods, but this time he was not repeating something he had read; he was alluding, no doubt, to my yellow wagonette, which has, or had, red wheels. But I have exchanged it, so you are rather behind the times, Colia.”
The prince had been listening attentively
