“Yes, the one who waits in the entrance hall, a greyish, red-faced man--”
“Absolutely and utterly impossible--and yet, so it must be. But one thing I am sure of, if it be a theft, it was committed, not in the evening when we were all together, but either at night or early in the morning; therefore, by one of those who slept here. Burdovsky and Colia I except, of course. They did not even come into my room.”

“Do you wish to make acquaintance?” asked the prince.

“I guessed which was your house from a hundred yards off,” said the prince at last.
The prince held out the letter silently, but with a shaking hand.
“Who said that, Colia?”
“But--why?”

“In our dear country, as indeed in the whole of Europe, a famine visits humanity about four times a century, as far as I can remember; once in every twenty-five years. I won’t swear to this being the exact figure, but anyhow they have become comparatively rare.”

“Come!”
“It is not in the least beyond all limits, mamma!” said her daughter, firmly. “I sent the prince a hedgehog this morning, and I wish to hear his opinion of it. Go on, prince.”

“And how did you recognize me?”

“I’ll die before I invite you! I shall forget your very name! I’ve forgotten it already!”

The general spoke hotly and quickly for ten minutes; he spoke as though his words could not keep pace with his crowding thoughts. Tears stood in his eyes, and yet his speech was nothing but a collection of disconnected sentences, without beginning and without end--a string of unexpected words and unexpected sentiments--colliding with one another, and jumping over one another, as they burst from his lips.

“Very well! Tell me the truth,” he said, dejectedly.
“Oh well, as you like!” said Muishkin. “I will think it over. You shall lose nothing!”
“Yes, indeed, and it is all our own fault. But I have a great friend who is much worse off even than we are. Would you like to know him?”
“And I’ve heard one!” said Adelaida. All three of the girls laughed out loud, and the prince laughed with them.
“Out of obstinacy” shouted Gania. “You haven’t married, either, thanks to your obstinacy. Oh, you needn’t frown at me, Varvara! You can go at once for all I care; I am sick enough of your company. What, you are going to leave us are you, too?” he cried, turning to the prince, who was rising from his chair.

“Well, that’s a comfort, at all events. You don’t suppose she could take any interest in you, do you? Why, she called you an ‘idiot’ herself.”

Towards six o’clock he found himself at the station of the Tsarsko-Selski railway.

“How strange that criminals seldom swoon at such a moment! On the contrary, the brain is especially active, and works incessantly--probably hard, hard, hard--like an engine at full pressure. I imagine that various thoughts must beat loud and fast through his head--all unfinished ones, and strange, funny thoughts, very likely!--like this, for instance: ‘That man is looking at me, and he has a wart on his forehead! and the executioner has burst one of his buttons, and the lowest one is all rusty!’ And meanwhile he notices and remembers everything. There is one point that cannot be forgotten, round which everything else dances and turns about; and because of this point he cannot faint, and this lasts until the very final quarter of a second, when the wretched neck is on the block and the victim listens and waits and _knows_--that’s the point, he _knows_ that he is just _now_ about to die, and listens for the rasp of the iron over his head. If I lay there, I should certainly listen for that grating sound, and hear it, too! There would probably be but the tenth part of an instant left to hear it in, but one would certainly hear it. And imagine, some people declare that when the head flies off it is _conscious_ of having flown off! Just imagine what a thing to realize! Fancy if consciousness were to last for even five seconds!
So spoke the good lady, almost angrily, as she took leave of Evgenie Pavlovitch.
“Yes--I saw an execution in France--at Lyons. Schneider took me over with him to see it.”
Hippolyte himself sat quite unconscious of what was going on, and gazed around with a senseless expression.
“We haven’t met for some time. Meanwhile I have heard things about you which I should not have believed to be possible.”
“I, too, should have been unable to tear my eyes away,” said Aglaya.
“But I told you she is not at Pavlofsk. And what would be the use if she were?”
He felt in a very curious condition today, a condition similar to that which had preceded his fits in bygone years.
“To _read?_” cried Gania, almost at the top of his voice; “to _read_, and you read it?”
Things had come to this unexpected point too quickly. Unexpected because Nastasia Philipovna, on her way to Pavlofsk, had thought and considered a good deal, and had expected something different, though perhaps not altogether good, from this interview; but Aglaya had been carried away by her own outburst, just as a rolling stone gathers impetus as it careers downhill, and could not restrain herself in the satisfaction of revenge.
Her father, mother, and sisters came into the room and were much struck with the last words, which they just caught as they entered--“absurdity which of course meant nothing”--and still more so with the emphasis with which Aglaya had spoken.
A strange thought passed through the prince’s brain; he gazed intently at Aglaya and smiled.
“Mamma, it’s rather a strange order, that!” said Adelaida, who was fussing among her paints and paint-brushes at the easel. Aglaya and Alexandra had settled themselves with folded hands on a sofa, evidently meaning to be listeners. The prince felt that the general attention was concentrated upon himself.
True enough, most of the guests, next day and the day after, were not in very good humour. Ivan Petrovitch was a little offended, but not seriously so. General Epanchin’s chief was rather cool towards him for some while after the occurrence. The old dignitary, as patron of the family, took the opportunity of murmuring some kind of admonition to the general, and added, in flattering terms, that he was most interested in Aglaya’s future. He was a man who really did possess a kind heart, although his interest in the prince, in the earlier part of the evening, was due, among other reasons, to the latter’s connection with Nastasia Philipovna, according to popular report. He had heard a good deal of this story here and there, and was greatly interested in it, so much so that he longed to ask further questions about it.
“It was to be fifty if I won the case, only five if I lost,” interrupted Lebedeff, speaking in a low tone, a great contrast to his earlier manner.

He said the last words nervously.

“I quite agree with you there!” said Prince S., laughing.
Ferdishenko led the general up to Nastasia Philipovna.
“The urchin! the urchin!” interrupted Lizabetha Prokofievna in an angry voice. “I do not want to know if it were Nicolai Ardalionovitch! The urchin!”
“I didn’t mean that; at least, of course, I’m glad for your sake, too,” added the prince, correcting himself, “but--how did you find it?”
“But I tell you she is not in Pavlofsk! She’s in Colmina.”
Just at this moment the door opened and the prince entered, announcing:

“He is boring us!”

“Sacrilege, certainly--certainly sacrilege,” said the latter.

“Why, how strange!” he ejaculated. “You didn’t answer me seriously, surely, did you?”
“I give you my word that he shall come and see you--but he--he needs rest just now.”

“Dear me, general,” said Nastasia Philipovna, absently, “I really never imagined you had such a good heart.”

“Oh, Aglaya--perhaps you cannot understand all this. Try to realize that in the perpetual admission of guilt she probably finds some dreadful unnatural satisfaction--as though she were revenging herself upon someone.
“Gospel truth, sir, Gospel truth!” exclaimed another passenger, a shabbily dressed man of about forty, who looked like a clerk, and possessed a red nose and a very blotchy face. “Gospel truth! All they do is to get hold of our good Russian money free, gratis, and for nothing.”
“He is drunk,” said the prince, quietly, “and he loves you very much.”
“House of Rogojin, hereditary and honourable citizen.”
The prince took a droshky. It struck him as he drove on that he ought to have begun by coming here, since it was most improbable that Rogojin should have taken Nastasia to his own house last night. He remembered that the porter said she very rarely came at all, so that it was still less likely that she would have gone there so late at night.
“Would it not be better to peruse it alone... later,” asked the prince, nervously.
Aglaya sat next to Evgenie Pavlovitch, and laughed and talked to him with an unusual display of friendliness. Evgenie himself behaved rather more sedately than usual, probably out of respect to the dignitary. Evgenie had been known in society for a long while. He had appeared at the Epanchins’ today with crape on his hat, and Princess Bielokonski had commended this action on his part. Not every society man would have worn crape for “such an uncle.” Lizabetha Prokofievna had liked it also, but was too preoccupied to take much notice. The prince remarked that Aglaya looked attentively at him two or three times, and seemed to be satisfied with his behaviour.