"Nothing would surprise me; she's insane."

"Here are the letters" (Aglaya took from her pocket three letters

in three envelopes and threw them down in front of the prince). "For a whole week now she's been imploring, persuading, luring me into marrying you. She . . . ah, yes, she's intelligent, though she's insane, and you say rightly that she's much more intelligent than I am . . . she writes to me that she's in love with me, that every day she looks for a chance of seeing me at least from afar. She writes that you love me, that she knows it, that she noticed it long ago, and that you spoke with her about me there. She wants to see you happy; she's sure that only I can make you happy . . . She writes so wildly . . . strangely ... I haven't shown anyone these letters, I was waiting for you. Do you know what it means? Can you guess anything?"

"It's madness; it's proof that she's insane," said the prince, and his lips trembled.

"You're not crying, are you?"

"No, Aglaya, no, I'm not crying," the prince looked at her.

"What am I to do about it? What do you advise me? I cannot keep receiving these letters!"

"Oh, let her be, I implore you!" the prince cried. "What can you do in this darkness; I'll make every effort so that she doesn't write to you anymore."

"If so, then you're a man with no heart!" cried Aglaya. "Can't you see that it's not me she's in love with, but you, you alone that she loves! Can it be that you've managed to notice everything in her, but didn't notice that? Do you know what these letters mean? It's jealousy; it's more than jealousy! She ... do you think she'll really marry Rogozhin, as she writes here in these letters? She'll kill herself the very day after we get married!"

The prince gave a start; his heart sank. But he looked at Aglaya in surprise: it was strange for him to admit that this child had long been a woman.

"God knows, Aglaya, I'd give my life to bring back her peace and make her happy, but... I can't love her now, and she knows it!"

"Sacrifice yourself, then, it suits you so well! You're such a great benefactor. And don't call me Aglaya' . . . Earlier, too, you called me simply Aglaya' . . . You must resurrect her, it's your duty, you must go away with her again to pacify and soothe her heart. Anyway, you do love her!"

"I can't sacrifice myself like that, though I did want to once and . . . maybe still want to. But I know for certain that she'll perish with me, and that's why I'm leaving her. I was to see her tonight

at seven o'clock; maybe I won't go now. In her pride she'll never forgive me my love—and we'll both perish! It's unnatural, but everything here is unnatural. You say she loves me, but is this love? Can there be such a love, after what I've already endured? No, there's something else here, but not love!"

"How pale you've grown!" Aglaya suddenly became alarmed.

"Never mind; I didn't sleep enough; I feel weak, I... we actually did talk about you then, Aglaya."

"So it's true? You really could talk with her about me and . . . and . how could you love me, if you'd seen me only once?"

"I don't know how. In my darkness then I dreamed . . . perhaps I thought I'd seen a new dawn. I don't know how it was that you were the first one I thought of. I wrote you the truth then, that I didn't know. It was all only a dream, from the horror of that time ... I began to study then; I wouldn't have come back here for three years . . ."

"So you came for her sake?"

And something trembled in Aglaya's voice.

"Yes, for her sake."

Two minutes of gloomy silence passed on both sides. Aglaya got up from her place.

"If you say," she began in an unsteady voice, "if you yourself believe that this . . . your woman ... is insane, then I have nothing to do with her insane fantasies ... I ask you, Lev Nikolaevich, to take these three letters and throw them at her from me! And if she dares," Aglaya suddenly cried, "if she dares once more to send me even a single line, tell her that I will complain to my father, and she will be taken to the madhouse . . ."

The prince jumped up and stared in alarm at Aglaya's sudden rage; and all at once it was as if a mist fell before him . . .

"You can't feel that way . . . it's not true!" he murmured.

"It is true! True!" Aglaya cried, almost forgetting herself.

"What is true? How is it true?" a frightened voice was heard close by.

Before them stood Lizaveta Prokofyevna.

"It's true that I'm going to marry Gavrila Ardalionovich! That I love Gavril Ardalionovich and am eloping from the house with him tomorrow!" Aglaya fell upon her. "Do you hear? Is your curiosity satisfied? Are you pleased?"

And she ran home.

"No, my dear man, you're not leaving now," Lizaveta Prokofyevna

stopped the prince. "Do me a service, kindly come home and explain yourself to me . . . This is such a torment, and I didn't sleep all night as it is . . ." The prince followed after her.

IX

On entering her house, Lizaveta Prokofyevna stopped in the very first room; she could not go any further and lowered herself onto the couch, quite strengthless, forgetting even to invite the prince to sit down. It was a rather large room, with a round table in the middle, a fireplace, a multitude of flowers on what-nots by the windows, and with another glass door to the garden in the far wall. Adelaida and Alexandra came in at once, looking at the prince and their mother questioningly and with perplexity.

The girls usually got up at around nine o'clock in the country; only Aglaya, during the last two or three days, had taken to getting up a little earlier and going for a stroll in the garden, but all the same not at seven o'clock, but at eight or even a bit later. Lizaveta Prokofyevna, who indeed had not slept all night because of her various worries, got up at around eight o'clock, on purpose to meet Aglaya in the garden, supposing that she was already up; but she did not find her either in the garden or in her bedroom. At this point she became definitively alarmed and awakened her daughters. They learned from the maid that Aglaya Ivanovna had gone out to the park before seven. The girls smiled at this new fantasy of their fantastic little sister's and observed to their mama that if she went looking for her in the park, Aglaya might get angry, and that she was probably now sitting with a book on the green bench, which she had already spoken of three days ago and over which she had almost quarreled with Prince Shch., because he did not find anything special in the location of this bench. Coming upon the meeting and hearing her daughter's strange words, Lizaveta Prokofyevna was terribly frightened, for many reasons; but, now that she had brought the prince home with her, she felt cowardly at having begun the business: "Why shouldn't Aglaya have met and conversed with the prince in the park, even, finally, if it was a previously arranged meeting?"

"Don't imagine, my dear Prince," she finally pulled herself together, "that I've dragged you here today for an interrogation . . .

After yesterday evening, dear heart, I might not have wanted to meet you for a long time ..."

She faltered slightly.

"But all the same you'd like very much to know how Aglaya Ivanovna and I met today?" the prince finished quite calmly.

"Well, and what if I would!" Lizaveta Prokofyevna flared up at once. "I'm not afraid of speaking directly. Because I'm not offending anyone and have never wished to offend ..."