Though there was certainly some purpose in this impudent pestering, this advertising of an acquaintance and an intimacy that did not exist, and there could now be no doubt of it—Evgeny Pavlovich had thought first to get rid of her somehow or other, and did his best to ignore the offender. But Nastasya Filippovna's words struck him like a thunderbolt; hearing of his uncle's death, he went pale as a sheet and turned to the bearer of the news. At that moment Lizaveta Prokofyevna quickly got up from her seat, got everyone up with her, and all but rushed out. Only Prince Lev Nikolaevich stayed where he was for a second, as if undecided, and Evgeny Pavlovich went on standing there, not having come to his senses. But the Epanchins had not managed to go twenty steps before a frightful scandal broke out.

The officer, a great friend of Evgeny Pavlovich's, who had been talking with Aglaya, was indignant in the highest degree.

"Here you simply need a whip, there's no other way with this creature!" he said almost aloud. (It seems he had been Evgeny Pavlovich's confidant even before.)

Nastasya Filippovna instantly turned to him. Her eyes flashed; she rushed to a young man completely unknown to her who was standing two steps away and holding a thin, braided riding crop, tore it out of his hand, and struck her offender across the face as hard as she could. All this occurred in a second . . . The officer, forgetting himself, rushed at her; Nastasya Filippovna's retinue was no longer around her; the decent middle-aged gentleman had already managed to efface himself completely, and the tipsy gentle man stood to one side and guffawed with all his might. In a minute, of course, the police would arrive, but for that minute things would have gone badly for Nastasya Filippovna if unexpected help had not come in time: the prince, who had also stopped two paces away, managed to seize the officer by the arms from behind. Pulling his arm free, the officer shoved him hard in the chest; the prince was sent flying about three paces and fell on a chair. But by then

*Good luck.

two more defenders had turned up for Nastasya Filippovna. Before the attacking officer stood the boxer, author of the article already familiar to the reader and an active member of Rogozhin's former band.

"Keller! Retired lieutenant," he introduced himself with swagger. "If you'd like to fight hand to hand, Captain, I'm at your service, to replace the weaker sex; I've gone through the whole of English boxing. Don't push, Captain; I sympathize with the bloody offense, but I cannot allow for the right of fists with a woman before the eyes of the public. But if, as befits a no-o-oble person, you'd prefer it in a different manner, then—naturally, you must understand me, Captain . . ."

But the captain had already recovered himself and was no longer listening to him. At that moment Rogozhin emerged from the crowd, quickly took Nastasya Filippovna by the arm, and led her away with him. For his part, Rogozhin seemed terribly shaken, was pale and trembling. As he led Nastasya Filippovna away, he still had time to laugh maliciously in the officer's face and say, with the look of a triumphant shopkeeper:

"Nyah! Take that! Your mug's all bloody! Nyah!"

Having recovered and realizing perfectly well whom he was dealing with, the officer politely (though covering his face with a handkerchief) addressed the prince, who had gotten up from the chair:

"Prince Myshkin, whose acquaintance I had the pleasure of making?"

"She's crazy! Mad! I assure you!" the prince replied in a trembling voice, reaching his trembling hands out to him for some reason.

"I, of course, cannot boast of being so well informed; but I do need to know your name."

He bowed his head and walked off. The police arrived exactly five seconds after the last of the participants had gone. However, the scandal had lasted no more than two minutes. Some of the public got up from their chairs and left, others merely changed places; a third group was very glad of the scandal; a fourth began intensely talking and questioning. In short, the matter ended as usual. The orchestra started playing again. The prince followed after the Epanchins. If it had occurred to him or he had managed to look to the left, as he sat on the chair after being shoved away, he would have seen Aglaya, who had stopped some twenty paces from him to watch the scandalous scene and did not heed the calls

of her mother and sisters, who had already moved further off. Prince Shch., running up to her, finally persuaded her to leave quickly. Lizaveta Prokofyevna remembered that Aglaya rejoined them in such agitation that she could hardly have heard their calls. But exactly two minutes later, just as they entered the park, Aglaya said in her usual indifferent and capricious voice: "I wanted to see how the comedy would end."

III

The incident at the vauxhall struck both mother and daughters almost with terror. Alarmed and agitated, Lizaveta Prokofyevna literally all but ran with her daughters the whole way home from the vauxhall. In her view and understanding, all too much had occurred and been revealed in this incident, so that in her head, despite all the disorder and fear, resolute thoughts were already germinating. But everyone else also understood that something special had happened and that, perhaps fortunately, some extraordinary mystery was beginning to be revealed. Despite the earlier assurances of Prince Shch., Evgeny Pavlovich had now been "brought into the open," exposed, uncovered, and "formally revealed as having connections with that creature." So thought Lizaveta Prokofyevna and even her two elder daughters. The profit of this conclusion was that still more riddles accumulated. The girls, though inwardly somewhat indignant at their mother's exaggerated alarm and so obvious flight, did not dare to trouble her with questions in the first moments of the turmoil. Besides that, for some reason it seemed to them that their little sister, Aglaya Ivanovna, might know more about this affair than the three of them, including the mother. Prince Shch. was also dark as night and also very pensive. Lizaveta Prokofyevna did not say a word to him all the way, but he seemed not to notice it. Adelaida tried to ask him who this uncle was who had just been spoken of and what had happened in Petersburg. But he mumbled in reply to her, with a very sour face, something very vague about some inquiries and that it was all, of course, an absurdity. "There's no doubt of that!" Adelaida replied and did not ask him anything more. Aglaya was somehow extraordinarily calm and only observed, on the way, that they were running much too quickly. Once she turned and saw the prince, who was trying to catch up with them. Noticing his

efforts, she smiled mockingly and did not turn to look at him anymore.

Finally, almost at their dacha, they met Ivan Fyodorovich walking towards them; he had just come from Petersburg. At once, with the first word, he inquired about Evgeny Pavlovich. But his spouse walked past him menacingly, without answering and without even glancing at him. By the looks of his daughters and Prince Shch., he immediately guessed that there was a storm in the house. But even without that, his own face reflected some extraordinary anxiety. He at once took Prince Shch. by the arm, stopped him at the entrance, and exchanged a few words with him almost in a whisper. By the alarmed look of the two men as they went up onto the terrace afterwards and went to Lizaveta Prokofyevna's side, one might have thought they had both heard some extraordinary news. Gradually they all gathered in Lizaveta Prokofyevna's drawing room upstairs, and only the prince was left on the terrace. He was sitting in the corner as if waiting for something, though he did not know why himself; it did not even occur to him to leave, seeing the turmoil in the house; it seemed he had forgotten the whole universe and was prepared to sit it out for two years in a row, wherever he might be sitting. From time to time echoes of anxious conversation came to his ears. He himself would have been unable to say how long he had been sitting there. It was getting late and quite dark. Suddenly Aglaya came out on the terrace; she looked calm, though somewhat pale. Seeing the prince, whom she "obviously wasn't expecting" to meet there, sitting on a chair in the corner, Aglaya smiled as if in perplexity.