was now so sore that she appeared to be quiteoverwhelmed, and the very thought of the prince became distasteful toher.
There was a question to be decided--most important, but most difficult;so much so, that Mrs. Epanchin did not even see how to put it intowords. Would the prince do or not? Was all this good or bad? If good(which might be the case, of course), _why_ good? If bad (which washardly doubtful), _wherein_, especially, bad? Even the general, thepaterfamilias, though astonished at first, suddenly declared that, “uponhis honour, he really believed he had fancied something of the kind,after all. At first, it seemed a new idea, and then, somehow, it lookedas familiar as possible.” His wife frowned him down there. This wasin the morning; but in the evening, alone with his wife, he had giventongue again.
“Well, really, you know”--(silence)--“of course, you know all this isvery strange, if true, which I cannot deny; but”--(silence).--“But,on the other hand, if one looks things in the face, you know--upon myhonour, the prince is a rare good fellow--and--and--and--well, his name,you know--your family name--all this looks well, and perpetuates thename and title and all that--which at this moment is not standing sohigh as it might--from one point of view--don’t you know? The world,the world is the world, of course--and people will talk--and--and--theprince has property, you know--if it is not very large--and thenhe--he--” (Continued silence, and collapse of the general.)
Hearing these words from her husband, Lizabetha Prokofievna was drivenbeside herself.
According to her opinion, the whole thing had been one huge,fantastical, absurd, unpardonable mistake. “First of all, this prince isan idiot, and, secondly, he is a fool--knows nothing of the world, andhas no place in it. Whom can he be shown to? Where can you take him to?What will old Bielokonski say? We never thought of such a husband as_that_ for our Aglaya!”
Of course, the last argument was the chief one. The maternal hearttrembled with indignation to think of such an absurdity, although inthat heart there rose another voice, which said: “And _why_ is not theprince such a husband as you would have desired for Aglaya?” It was thisvoice which annoyed Lizabetha Prokofievna more than anything else.
For some reason or other, the sisters liked the idea of the prince. Theydid not even consider it very strange; in a word, they might be expectedat any moment to range themselves strongly on his side. But both of themdecided to say nothing either way. It had always been noticed in thefamily that the stronger Mrs. Epanchin’s opposition was to any project,the nearer she was, in reality, to giving in.
Alexandra, however, found it difficult to keep absolute silence onthe subject. Long since holding, as she did, the post of “confidentialadviser to mamma,” she was now perpetually called in council, and askedher opinion, and especially her assistance, in order to recollect “howon earth all this happened?” Why did no one see it? Why did no one sayanything about it? What did all that wretched “poor knight” joke mean?Why was she, Lizabetha Prokofievna, driven to think, and foresee, andworry for everybody, while they all sucked their thumbs, and counted thecrows in the garden, and did nothing? At first, Alexandra had been verycareful, and had merely replied that perhaps her father’s remark was notso far out: that, in the eyes of the world, probably the choice of theprince as a husband for one of the Epanchin girls would be considered avery wise one. Warming up, however, she added that the prince was by nomeans a fool, and never had been; and that as to “place in the world,” no one knew what the position of a respectable person in Russia wouldimply in a few years--whether it would depend on successes in thegovernment service, on the old system, or what.
To all this her mother replied that Alexandra was a freethinker, andthat all this was due to that “cursed woman’s rights question.”
Half an hour after this conversation, she went off to town, and thenceto the Kammenny Ostrof, [“Stone Island,” a suburb and park of St.Petersburg] to see Princess Bielokonski, who had just arrived fromMoscow on a short visit. The princess was Aglaya’s godmother.
“Old Bielokonski” listened to all the fevered and despairing lamentationsof Lizabetha Prokofievna without the least emotion; the tears of thissorrowful mother did not evoke answering sighs--in fact, she laughed ather. She was a dreadful old despot, this princess; she could not allowequality in anything, not even in friendship of the oldest standing, andshe insisted on treating Mrs. Epanchin as her _protégée_, as she had beenthirty-five years ago. She could never put up with the independence andenergy of Lizabetha’s character. She observed that, as usual, the wholefamily had gone much too far ahead, and had converted a fly into anelephant; that, so far as she had heard their story, she was persuadedthat nothing of any seriousness had occurred; that it would surelybe better to wait until something _did_ happen; that the prince, inher opinion, was a very decent young fellow, though perhaps a littleeccentric, through illness, and not quite as weighty in the world as onecould wish. The worst feature was, she said, Nastasia Philipovna.
Lizabetha Prokofievna well understood that the old lady was angry at thefailure of Evgenie Pavlovitch--her own recommendation. She returnedhome to Pavlofsk in a worse humour than when she left, and of courseeverybody in the house suffered. She pitched into everyone, because, shedeclared, they had ‘gone mad.’ Why were things always mismanaged in herhouse? Why had everybody been in such a frantic hurry in this matter?So far as she could see, nothing whatever had happened. Surely they hadbetter wait and see what was to happen, instead of making mountains outof molehills.
And so the conclusion of the matter was that it would be far better totake it quietly, and wait coolly to see what would turn up. But, alas!peace did not reign for more than ten minutes. The first blow dealt toits power was in certain news communicated to Lizabetha Prokofievna asto events which had happened during her trip to see the princess. (Thistrip had taken place the day after that on which the prince had turnedup at the Epanchins at nearly one o’clock at night, thinking it wasnine.)
The sisters replied candidly and fully enough to their mother’simpatient questions on her return. They said, in the first place, thatnothing particular had happened since her departure; that the princehad been, and that Aglaya had kept him waiting a long while beforeshe appeared--half an hour, at least; that she had then come in, andimmediately asked the prince to have a game of chess; that the princedid not know the game, and Aglaya had beaten him easily; that she hadbeen in a wonderfully merry mood, and had laughed at the prince, andchaffed him so unmercifully that one was quite sorry to see his wretchedexpression.
She had then asked him to play cards--the game called “little fools.” At this game the tables were turned completely, for the prince had shownhimself a master at it. Aglaya had cheated and changed cards, and stolenothers, in the most bare-faced way, but, in spite of everything theprince had beaten her hopelessly five times running, and she had beenleft “little fool” each time.
Aglaya then lost her temper, and began to say such awful things to theprince that he laughed no more, but grew dreadfully pale, especiallywhen she said that she should not remain in the house with him, and thathe ought to be ashamed of coming to their house at all, especially atnight, “_after all that had happened._”
So saying, she had left the room, banging the door after her, and theprince went off, looking as though he were on his way to a funeral, inspite of all their attempts at consolation.
Suddenly, a quarter of an hour after the prince’s departure, Aglaya hadrushed out of her room in such a hurry that she had not even wiped hereyes, which were full of tears. She came back because Colia had broughta hedgehog. Everybody came in to see the hedgehog. In answer to theirquestions Colia explained that the hedgehog was not his, and that he hadleft another boy, Kostia Lebedeff, waiting for him outside. Kostia wastoo shy to come in, because he was carrying a hatchet; they had boughtthe hedgehog and the hatchet from a peasant whom they had met on theroad. He had offered to sell them the hedgehog, and they had paid fiftycopecks for it; and the hatchet had so taken their fancy that they hadmade up their
minds to buy it of their own accord. On hearing this,Aglaya urged Colia to sell her the hedgehog; she even called him “dearColia,” in trying to coax him. He refused for a long time, but at lasthe could hold out no more, and went to fetch Kostia Lebedeff. The latterappeared, carrying his hatchet, and covered with confusion. Then it cameout that the hedgehog was not theirs, but the property of a schoolmate,one Petroff, who had given them some money to buy Schlosser’s Historyfor him, from another schoolfellow who at that moment was driven toraising money by the sale of his books. Colia and Kostia were about tomake this purchase for their friend when chance brought the hedgehogto their notice, and they had succumbed to the temptation of buying it.They were now taking Petroff the hedgehog and hatchet which they hadbought with his money, instead of Schlosser’s History. But Aglaya soentreated them that at last they consented to sell her the hedgehog. Assoon as she had got possession of it, she put it in a wicker basket withColia’s help, and covered it with a napkin. Then she said to