after receiving your commission, and I gave it, too, just as you asked me to. It has come into my hands now because Aglaya Ivanovna has just returned it to me.”
“How? When?”
“As soon as I finished writing in her album for her, and when she asked me to come out of the room with her (you heard?), we went into the dining-room, and she gave me your letter to read, and then told me to return it.”
“To READ?” cried Gania, almost at the top of his voice; “to READ, and you read it?”
And again he stood like a log in the middle of the pavement; so amazed that his mouth remained open after the last word had left it.
“Yes, I have just read it.”
“And she gave it you to read herself — HERSELF?”
“Yes, herself; and you may believe me when I tell you that I would not have read it for anything without her permission.”
Gania was silent for a minute or two, as though thinking out some problem. Suddenly he cried:
“It’s impossible, she cannot have given it to you to read! You are lying. You read it yourself!”
“I am telling you the truth,” said the prince in his former composed tone of voice; “and believe me, I am extremely sorry that the circumstance should have made such an unpleasant impression upon you!”
“But, you wretched man, at least she must have said something? There must be SOME answer from her!”
“Yes, of course, she did say something!”
“Out with it then, damn it! Out with it at once!” and Gania stamped his foot twice on the pavement.
“As soon as I had finished reading it, she told me that you were fishing for her; that you wished to compromise her so far as to receive some hopes from her, trusting to which hopes you might break with the prospect of receiving a hundred thousand roubles. She said that if you had done this without bargaining with her, if you had broken with the money prospects without trying to force a guarantee out of her first, she might have been your friend. That’s all, I think. Oh no, when I asked her what I was to say, as I took the letter, she replied that ‘no answer is the best answer.’ I think that was it. Forgive me if I do not use her exact expressions. I tell you the sense as I understood it myself.”
Ungovernable rage and madness took entire possession of Gania, and his fury burst out without the least attempt at restraint.
“Oh! that’s it, is it!” he yelled. “She throws my letters out of the window, does she! Oh! and she does not condescend to bargain, while I DO, eh? We shall see, we shall see! I shall pay her out for this.”
He twisted himself about with rage, and grew paler and paler; he shook his fist. So the pair walked along a few steps. Gania did not stand on ceremony with the prince; he behaved just as though he were alone in his room. He clearly counted the latter as a nonentity. But suddenly he seemed to have an idea, and recollected himself.
“But how was it?” he asked, “how was it that you (idiot that you are),” he added to himself, “were so very confidential a couple of hours after your first meeting with these people? How was that, eh?”
Up to this moment jealousy had not been one of his torments; now it suddenly gnawed at his heart.
“That is a thing I cannot undertake to explain,” replied the prince. Gania looked at him with angry contempt.
“Oh! I suppose the present she wished to make to you, when she took you into the dining-room, was her confidence, eh?”
“I suppose that was it; I cannot explain it otherwise?”
“But why, WHY? Devil take it, what did you do in there? Why did they fancy you? Look here, can’t you remember exactly what you said to them, from the very beginning? Can’t you remember?”
“Oh, we talked of a great many things. When first I went in we began to speak of Switzerland.”
“Oh, the devil take Switzerland!”
“Then about executions.”
“Executions?”
“Yes — at least about one. Then I told the whole three years’ story of my life, and the history of a poor peasant girl —”
“Oh, damn the peasant girl! go on, go on!” said Gania, impatiently.
“Then how Schneider told me about my childish nature, and —”
“Oh, CURSE Schneider and his dirty opinions! Go on.”
“Then I began to talk about faces, at least about the EXPRESSIONS of faces, and said that Aglaya Ivanovna was nearly as lovely as Nastasia Philipovna. It was then I blurted out about the portrait —”
“But you didn’t repeat what you heard in the study? You didn’t repeat that — eh?”
“No, I tell you I did NOT.”
“Then how did they — look here! Did Aglaya show my letter to the old lady?”
“Oh, there I can give you my fullest assurance that she did NOT. I was there all the while — she had no time to do it!”
“But perhaps you may not have observed it, oh, you damned idiot, you!” he shouted, quite beside himself with fury. “You can’t even describe what went on.”
Gania having once descended to abuse, and receiving no check, very soon knew no bounds or limit to his licence, as is often the way in such cases. His rage so blinded him that he had not even been able to detect that this “idiot,” whom he was abusing to such an extent, was very far from being slow of comprehension, and had a way of taking in an impression, and afterwards giving it out again, which was very un-idiotic indeed. But something a little unforeseen now occurred.
“I think I ought to tell you, Gavrila Ardalionovitch,” said the prince, suddenly, “that though I once was so ill that I really was little better than an idiot, yet now I am almost recovered, and that, therefore, it is not altogether pleasant to be called an idiot to my face. Of course your anger is excusable, considering the treatment you have just experienced; but I must remind you that you have twice abused me rather rudely. I do not like this sort of thing, and especially so at the first time of meeting a man, and, therefore, as we happen to be at this moment standing at a crossroad, don’t you think we had better part, you to the left, homewards, and I to the right, here? I have twenty-five roubles, and I shall easily find a lodging.”
Gania was much confused, and blushed for shame “Do forgive me, prince!” he cried, suddenly changing his abusive tone for one of great courtesy. “For Heaven’s sake, forgive me! You see what a miserable plight I am in, but you hardly know anything of the facts of the case as yet. If you did, I am sure you would forgive me, at least partially. Of course it was inexcusable of me, I know, but —”
“Oh, dear me, I really do not require such profuse apologies,” replied the prince, hastily. “I quite understand how unpleasant your position is, and that is what made you abuse me. So come along to your house, after all. I shall be delighted —”
“I am not going to let him go like this,” thought Gania, glancing angrily at the prince as they walked along. “ The fellow has sucked everything out of me, and now he takes off his mask — there’s something more than appears, here we shall see. It shall all be as clear as water by tonight, everything!”
But by this time they had reached Gania’s house.
Chapter VIII.
The flat occupied by Gania and his family was on the third floor of the house. It was reached by a clean light staircase, and consisted of seven rooms, a nice enough lodging, and one would