"You ought to be dismissed. Go and announce me."

The prince wanted to say something, but he was so much at a loss that nothing came out, and, holding the coat, which he had picked up from the floor, he went towards the drawing room.

"Well, so now he goes with the coat! Why are you taking the coat? Ha, ha, ha! Are you crazy or something?"

The prince came back and stood like a stone idol looking at her; when she laughed, he also smiled, but he was still unable to move his tongue. In the first moment, as he opened the door for her, he was pale; now color suddenly suffused his face.

"Ah, what an idiot!" Nastasya Filippovna cried indignantly, stamping her foot at him. "Well, what are you doing? Who are you going to announce?"

"Nastasya Filippovna," murmured the prince.

"How do you know me?" she asked quickly. "I've never seen you before! Go and announce . . . What's that shouting?"

"They're quarreling," the prince replied and went to the drawing room.

He came in at a rather decisive moment: Nina Alexandrovna was ready to forget entirely that she was "resigned to everything"; she was, however, defending Varya. Ptitsyn, too, was standing beside Varya, having abandoned his scribbled-over paper. Varya herself was not intimidated, nor was she the timid sort; but her brother's rudeness was becoming more and more impolite and insufferable. On such occasions she usually stopped talking and merely looked at her brother silently, mockingly, not taking her eyes off him. This maneuver, as she knew, was apt to drive him to the utmost limits. At that very moment the prince stepped into the room and said loudly:

"Nastasya Filippovna!"

IX

A general hush fell: everyone looked at the prince as if they did not understand him and—did not wish to understand. Ganya went numb with fright.

Nastasya Filippovna's arrival, especially at the present moment, was a most strange and bothersome surprise for them all. There was the fact alone that Nastasya Filippovna was visiting for the first time; until then she had behaved so haughtily that, in her conversations with Ganya, she had not even expressed any wish to meet his relations, and lately had not even mentioned them at all, as if they did not exist. Though he was partly glad that such a bothersome conversation had been put off, in his heart Ganya had laid this haughtiness to her account. In any case, he had expected sneers and barbs at his family from her sooner than a visit; he knew for certain that she was informed of all that went on in his home to do with his marital plans and what views his relations had of her. Her visit now, after giving him her portrait and on her birthday, the day when she had promised to decide his fate, almost signified the decision itself.

The perplexity with which everyone gazed at the prince did not last long: Nastasya Filippovna herself appeared in the doorway of the drawing room and again, as she came in, pushed the prince slightly aside.

"I finally managed to get in . . . why did you tie up the bell?"

she asked gaily, holding out her hand to Ganya, who rushed to meet her. "What is this overturned look on your face? Introduce me, please ..."

Completely at a loss, Ganya introduced her to Varya first, and the two women exchanged strange looks before offering each other their hands. Nastasya Filippovna laughed, however, and put on a mask of gaiety; while Varya had no wish to put on a mask and looked at her sullenly and intently; not even the shade of a smile, something required by simple politeness, appeared on her face. Ganya went dead; there was nothing to ask and no time to ask, and he shot such a menacing glance at Varya that she understood, from the force of it, what this moment meant for her brother. Here, it seems, she decided to yield to him and smiled faintly at Nastasya Filippovna. (They all still loved each other very much in the family.) Things were improved somewhat by Nina Alexandrovna, whom Ganya, utterly thrown off, introduced after his sister and even led up to Nastasya Filippovna. But Nina Alexandrovna had only just managed to start something about her "particular pleasure" when Nastasya Filippovna, without listening to the end, quickly turned to Ganya and, sitting down (though she had not yet been invited to) on a small sofa in the corner by the window, said loudly:

"Where's your study? And . . . and where are the tenants? Don't you keep tenants?"

Ganya blushed terribly and tried to mutter some reply, but Nastasya Filippovna immediately added:

"Where can you keep tenants here? You don't even have a study. Is it profitable?" she suddenly asked Nina Alexandrovna.

"It's a bit of a bother," Nina Alexandrovna began. "Of course, there should be some profit. Though we've just ..."

But again Nastasya Filippovna was no longer listening: she was looking at Ganya, laughing and saying loudly to him:

"What's that face? Oh, my God, what a face you've got right now!

This laughter continued for several moments, and Ganya's face indeed became very distorted: his stupor, his comical, cowardly bewilderment suddenly left him; but he turned terribly pale; his lips twisted convulsively; silently, with a fixed and nasty look, not tearing his eyes away, he stared into the face of his visitor, who went on laughing.

There was yet another observer who also had not yet rid himself

of his near stupefaction at the sight of Nastasya Filippovna; but though he stood "like a post" in his former place, in the doorway to the drawing room, he nevertheless managed to notice Ganya's pallor and the malignant change in his face. This observer was the prince. All but frightened, he suddenly stepped forward mechanically.

"Drink some water," he whispered to Ganya, "and don't stare like that . . ."

It was evident that he had said it without any calculation, without any particular design, just so, on the first impulse; but his words produced an extraordinary effect. It seemed that all of Ganya's spite suddenly poured out on the prince; he seized him by the shoulder and looked at him silently, vengefully, and hatefully, as if unable to utter a word. There was general agitation. Nina Alexandrovna even gave a little cry. Ptitsyn took a step forward in alarm, Kolya and Ferdyshchenko appeared in the doorway and stopped in amazement, Varya alone watched as sullenly as before, but observed attentively. She did not sit down, but stood to one side, next to her mother, her arms folded on her breast.

But Ganya came to his senses at once, almost at the moment of his reaction, and laughed nervously. He recovered completely.

"What are you, Prince, a doctor or something?" he cried as gaily and simple-heartedly as he could. "He even frightened me. Nastasya Filippovna, allow me to introduce this precious specimen to you, though I myself met him only this morning."

Nastasya Filippovna looked at the prince in perplexity.

"Prince? He's a prince? Imagine, and just now, in the front hall, I took him for a lackey and sent him to announce me! Ha, ha, ha!"

"No harm, no harm!" Ferdyshchenko picked up, approaching hastily and delighted that they had begun to laugh. "No harm: se non è vero . . ."*³²

"And I all but scolded you, Prince. Forgive me, please. Ferdyshchenko, what are you doing here at such an hour? I thought I'd at least not find you here. Who? Prince what? Myshkin?" she repeated to Ganya, who, still holding the prince by the shoulder, meanwhile managed to introduce him.