But if Ganya was indeed expecting a whole series of impatient questions, inadvertent communications, friendly outpourings, then, of course, he was very much mistaken. For all the twenty minutes of his visit, the prince was even very pensive, almost absentminded. The expected questions or, better to say, the one main question that Ganya expected, could not be asked. Then Ganya, too, decided to speak with great restraint. He spent all twenty minutes talking without pause, laughing, indulging in the most light, charming, and rapid babble, but never touching on the main thing.

Ganya told him, incidentally, that Nastasya Filippovna had been there in Pavlovsk for only four days and was already attracting general attention. She was living somewhere, in some Matrosskaya Street, in a gawky little house, with Darya Alexeevna, but her carriage was just about the best in Pavlovsk. Around her a whole crowd of old and young suitors had already gathered; her carriage was sometimes accompanied by men on horseback. Nastasya Filippovna, as before, was very discriminating, admitting only choice people to her company. But all the same a whole troop had formed around her, to stand for her in case of need. One previously engaged man from among the summer people had already quarreled with his fiancée over her; one little old general had almost cursed his son. She often took with her on her rides a lovely girl, just turned sixteen, a distant relation of Darya Alexeevna's; the girl was a good

singer—so that in the evenings their little house attracted attention. Nastasya Filippovna, however, behaved extremely properly, dressed not magnificently but with extraordinary taste, and all the ladies envied "her taste, her beauty, and her carriage."

"Yesterday's eccentric incident," Ganya allowed, "was, of course, premeditated and, of course, should not count. To find any sort of fault with her, one would have to hunt for it on purpose or else use slander, which, however, would not be slow in coming," Ganya concluded, expecting that here the prince would not fail to ask: "Why did he call yesterday's incident a premeditated incident? And why would it not be slow in coming?" But the prince did not ask.

About Evgeny Pavlovich, Ganya again expatiated on his own, without being specially asked, which was very strange, because he inserted him into the conversation with no real pretext. In Gavrila Ardalionovich's view, Evgeny Pavlovich had not known Nastasya Filippovna, and now also knew her only a little, and that because he had been introduced to her some four days ago during a promenade, and it was unlikely that he had been to her house even once along with the others. As for the promissory notes, that was also possible (Ganya even knew it for certain); Evgeny Pavlovich's fortune was big, of course, but "certain affairs to do with the estate were indeed in a certain disorder." On this curious matter Ganya suddenly broke off. About Nastasya Filippovna's escapade yesterday he did not say a single word, beyond what he had said earlier in passing. Varvara Ardalionovna finally came to fetch Ganya, stayed for a moment, announced (also unasked) that Evgeny Pavlovich would be in Petersburg today and maybe tomorrow, that her husband (Ivan Petrovich Ptitsyn) was also in Petersburg, and almost on Evgeny Pavlovich's business as well, because something had actually happened there. As she was leaving, she added that Lizaveta Prokofyevna was in an infernal mood today, but the strangest thing was that Aglaya had quarreled with the whole family, not only with her father and mother but even with both sisters, and "that it was not nice at all." Having imparted as if in passing this last bit of news (extremely meaningful for the prince), the brother and sister left. Ganechka also did not mention a word about the affair of "Pavlishchev's son," perhaps out of false modesty, perhaps "sparing the prince's feelings," but all the same the prince thanked him again for having diligently concluded the affair.

The prince was very glad to be left alone at last; he went down

from the terrace, crossed the road, and entered the park; he wanted to think over and decide about a certain step. Yet this "step" was not one of those that can be thought over, but one of those that precisely cannot be thought over, but simply resolved upon: he suddenly wanted terribly to leave all this here and go back where he came from, to some far-off, forsaken place, to go at once and even without saying good-bye to anyone. He had the feeling that if he remained here just a few more days, he would certainly be drawn into this world irretrievably, and this world would henceforth be his lot. But he did not even reason for ten minutes and decided at once that to flee was "impossible," that it would be almost pusillanimous, that such tasks stood before him that he now did not even have any right not to resolve them, or at least not to give all his strength to their resolution. In such thoughts he returned home after barely a quarter of an hour's walk. He was utterly unhappy at that moment.

Lebedev was still not at home, so that towards nightfall Keller managed to barge in on the prince, not drunk, but full of outpourings and confessions. He declared straight out that he had come to tell the prince his whole life's story and that he had stayed in Pavlovsk just for that. There was not the slightest possibility of turning him out: he would not have gone for anything. Keller was prepared to talk very long and very incoherently, but suddenly at almost the first word he jumped ahead to the conclusion and declared that he had lost "any ghost of morality" ("solely out of disbelief in the Almighty"), so much so that he even stole. "If you can imagine that!"

"Listen, Keller, in your place I'd rather not confess it without some special need," the prince began, "and anyhow, maybe you're slandering yourself on purpose?"

"To you, solely to you alone, and solely so as to help my own development! Not to anybody else; I'll die and carry my secret off under the shroud! But, Prince, if you only knew, if you only knew how difficult it is to get money in our age! Where is a man to get it, allow me to ask after that? One answer: bring gold and diamonds, and we'll give you money for them—that is, precisely what I haven't got, can you imagine that? I finally got angry and just stood there. 'And for emeralds?' I say. 'For emeralds, too,' he says. 'Well, that's splendid,' I say, put on my hat, and walk out; devil take you, scoundrels! By God!"

"But did you really have emeralds?"

"What kind of emeralds could I have! Oh, Prince, your view of life is still so bright and innocent, and even, one might say, pastoral!"

The prince finally began to feel not so much sorry as a bit ashamed. The thought even flashed in him: "Wouldn't it be possible to make something of this man under someone's good influence?" His own influence, for certain reasons, he considered quite unsuitable—not out of self-belittlement, but owing to a certain special view of things. They gradually warmed to the conversation, so much so that they did not want to part. Keller confessed with extraordinary readiness to having done such things that it was impossible to imagine how one could tell about them. Starting out each time, he would positively insist that he was repentant and inwardly "filled with tears," and yet he would tell of his action as if he were proud of it, and at the same time occasionally in such a funny way that he and the prince would end up laughing like crazy.

"Above all, there is some childlike trustfulness and extraordinary honesty in you," the prince said at last. "You know, that by itself already redeems you greatly."