"But I'm telling you, judge for yourself, what can there be in common between Evgeny Pavlych and . . . her, and with Rogozhin on top of it? I repeat to you, his fortune is enormous, that I know perfectly well; there's another fortune expected from his uncle. Nastasya Filippovna simply ..."
Prince Shch. suddenly fell silent, evidently because he did not want to go on telling the prince about Nastasya Filippovna.
"It means, in any case, that he's acquainted with her?" Prince Lev Nikolaevich suddenly asked, after a moment's silence.
"It seems so—a flighty fellow! However, if so, it was very long ago, still before, that is, two or three years ago. He used to know Totsky, too. But now there could be nothing of the sort, and they could never be on familiar terms! You know yourself that she hasn't been here; she hasn't been anywhere here. Many people don't know that she's appeared again. I noticed her carriage only three days ago, no more."
"A magnificent carriage!" said Adelaida.
"Yes, the carriage is magnificent."
They both went away, however, in the most friendly, the
most, one might say, brotherly disposition towards Prince Lev Nikolaevich.
But for our hero this visit contained in itself something even capital. We may assume that he himself had suspected a great deal since the previous night (and perhaps even earlier), but till their visit he had not dared to think his apprehensions fully borne out. Now, though, it was becoming clear: Prince Shch. had, of course, interpreted the event wrongly, but still he had wandered around the truth, he had understood that this was an intrigue.("Incidentally, he may understand it quite correctly in himself," thought the prince, "only he doesn't want to say it and therefore deliberately interprets it wrongly.") The clearest thing of all was that people were now visiting him (namely, Prince Shch.) in hopes of some explanation; and if so, then they thought he was a direct participant in the intrigue. Besides that, if it was all indeed so important, then it meant that shehad some terrible goal, but what was this goal? Terrible! "And how can shebe stopped? It's absolutely impossible to stop herif she's sure of her goal!" That the prince already knew from experience. "A madwoman. A madwoman."
But there were far, far too many other insoluble circumstances that had come together that morning, all at the same time, and all demanding immediate resolution, so that the prince felt very sad. He was slightly distracted by Vera Lebedev, who came with Lyubochka and, laughing, spent a long time telling him something. She was followed by her sister, the one who kept opening her mouth wide, then by the high-school boy, Lebedev's son, who assured him that the "star Wormwood" in the Apocalypse, which fell to earth on the fountains of water, 44was, in his father's interpretation, the railway network spread across Europe. The prince did not believe that Lebedev interpreted it that way, and they decided to check it with him at the first opportunity. From Vera Lebedev the prince learned that Keller had migrated over to them the day before and, by all tokens, would not be leaving for a long time, because he had found the company of and made friends with General Ivolgin; however, he declared that he was staying with them solely in order to complete his education. The prince was beginning to like Lebedev's children more and more every day. Kolya was away the whole day: he left for Petersburg very early. (Lebedev also left at daybreak on some little business of his own.) But the prince was waiting impatiently for a visit from Gavrila Ardalionovich, who was bound to call on him that same day.
He arrived past six in the evening, just after dinner. With the first glance at him, it occurred to the prince that this gentleman at least must unmistakably know all the innermost secrets—and how could he not, having such helpers as Varvara Ardalionovna and her husband? But the prince's relations with Ganya were somehow special. The prince, for instance, had entrusted him with the handling of the Burdovsky affair and had asked him especially to do it; but, despite this trust and some things that had gone before, there always remained between them certain points on which it was as if they had mutually decided to say nothing. It sometimes seemed to the prince that Ganya, for his part, might be wishing for the fullest and friendliest sincerity; now, for instance, as soon as he came in, it immediately seemed to the prince that Ganya was convinced in the highest degree that the time had come to break the ice between them on all points. (Gavrila Ardalionovich was in a hurry, however; his sister was waiting for him at Lebedev's; the two were hastening about some business.)
But if Ganya was indeed expecting a whole series of impatient questions, inadvertent communications, friendly outpourings, then, of course, he was very much mistaken. For all the twenty minutes of his visit, the prince was even very pensive, almost absentminded. The expected questions or, better to say, the one main question that Ganya expected, could not be asked. Then Ganya, too, decided to speak with great restraint. He spent all twenty minutes talking without pause, laughing, indulging in the most light, charming, and rapid babble, but never touching on the main thing.
Ganya told him, incidentally, that Nastasya Filippovna had been there in Pavlovsk for only four days and was already attracting general attention. She was living somewhere, in some Matrosskaya Street, in a gawky little house, with Darya Alexeevna, but her carriage was just about the best in Pavlovsk. Around her a whole crowd of old and young suitors had already gathered; her carriage was sometimes accompanied by men on horseback. Nastasya Filippovna, as before, was very discriminating, admitting only choice people to her company. But all the same a whole troop had formed around her, to stand for her in case of need. One previously engaged man from among the summer people had already quarreled with his fiancée over her; one little old general had almost cursed his son. She often took with her on her rides a lovely girl, just turned sixteen, a distant relation of Darya Alexeevna's; the girl was a good
singer—so that in the evenings their little house attracted attention. Nastasya Filippovna, however, behaved extremely properly, dressed not magnificently but with extraordinary taste, and all the ladies envied "her taste, her beauty, and her carriage."
"Yesterday's eccentric incident," Ganya allowed, "was, of course, premeditated and, of course, should not count. To find any sort of fault with her, one would have to hunt for it on purpose or else use slander, which, however, would not be slow in coming," Ganya concluded, expecting that here the prince would not fail to ask: "Why did he call yesterday's incident a premeditated incident? And why would it not be slow in coming?" But the prince did not ask.
About Evgeny Pavlovich, Ganya again expatiated on his own, without being specially asked, which was very strange, because he inserted him into the conversation with no real pretext. In Gavrila Ardalionovich's view, Evgeny Pavlovich had not known Nastasya Filippovna, and now also knew her only a little, and that because he had been introduced to her some four days ago during a promenade, and it was unlikely that he had been to her house even once along with the others. As for the promissory notes, that was also possible (Ganya even knew it for certain); Evgeny Pavlovich's fortune was big, of course, but "certain affairs to do with the estate were indeed in a certain disorder." On this curious matter Ganya suddenly broke off. About Nastasya Filippovna's escapade yesterday he did not say a single word, beyond what he had said earlier in passing. Varvara Ardalionovna finally came to fetch Ganya, stayed for a moment, announced (also unasked) that Evgeny Pavlovich would be in Petersburg today and maybe tomorrow, that her husband (Ivan Petrovich Ptitsyn) was also in Petersburg, and almost on Evgeny Pavlovich's business as well, because something had actually happened there. As she was leaving, she added that Lizaveta Prokofyevna was in an infernal mood today, but the strangest thing was that Aglaya had quarreled with the whole family, not only with her father and mother but even with both sisters, and "that it was not nice at all." Having imparted as if in passing this last bit of news (extremely meaningful for the prince), the brother and sister left. Ganechka also did not mention a word about the affair of "Pavlishchev's son," perhaps out of false modesty, perhaps "sparing the prince's feelings," but all the same the prince thanked him again for having diligently concluded the affair.