The prince’s body slipped convulsively down the steps till it rested at the
bottom. Very soon, in five minutes or so, he was discovered, and a crowd
collected around him.
A pool of blood on the steps near his head gave rise to grave fears. Was it
a case of accident, or had there been a crime? It was, however, soon
recognized as a case of epilepsy, and identification and proper measures for
restoration followed one another, owing to a fortunate circumstance. Colia
Ivolgin had come back to his hotel about seven o’clock, owing to a sudden
impulse which made him refuse to dine at the Epanchins’, and, finding a
note from the prince awaiting him, had sped away to the latter’s address.
Arrived there, he ordered a cup of tea and sat sipping it in the coffee-room.
While there he heard excited whispers of someone just found at the bottom
of the stairs in a fit; upon which he had hurried to the spot, with a
presentiment of evil, and at once recognized the prince.
The sufferer was immediately taken to his room, and though he partially
regained consciousness, he lay long in a semi-dazed condition.
The doctor stated that there was no danger to be apprehended from the
wound on the head, and as soon as the prince could understand what was
going on around him, Colia hired a carriage and took him away to
Lebedeff’s. There he was received with much cordiality, and the departure
to the country was hastened on his account. Three days later they were all at
Pavlofsk.
VI.
Lebedeff’s country-house was not large, but it was pretty and convenient,
especially the part which was let to the prince.
A row of orange and lemon trees and jasmines, planted in green tubs,
stood on the fairly wide terrace. According to Lebedeff, these trees gave the
house a most delightful aspect. Some were there when he bought it, and he
was so charmed with the effect that he promptly added to their number.
When the tubs containing these plants arrived at the villa and were set in
their places, Lebedeff kept running into the street to enjoy the view of the
house, and every time he did so the rent to be demanded from the future
tenant went up with a bound.
This country villa pleased the prince very much in his state of physical
and mental exhaustion. On the day that they left for Pavlofsk, that is the day
after his attack, he appeared almost well, though in reality he felt very far
from it. The faces of those around him for the last three days had made a
pleasant impression. He was pleased to see, not only Colia, who had
become his inseparable companion, but Lebedeff himself and all the family,
except the nephew, who had left the house. He was also glad to receive a
visit from General Ivolgin, before leaving St. Petersburg.
It was getting late when the party arrived at Pavlofsk, but several people
called to see the prince, and assembled in the verandah. Gania was the first
to arrive. He had grown so pale and thin that the prince could hardly
recognize him. Then came Varia and Ptitsin, who were rusticating in the
neighbourhood. As to General Ivolgin, he scarcely budged from Lebedeff’s
house, and seemed to have moved to Pavlofsk with him. Lebedeff did his
best to keep Ardalion Alexandrovitch by him, and to prevent him from
invading the prince’s quarters. He chatted with him confidentially, so that
they might have been taken for old friends. During those three days the
prince had noticed that they frequently held long conversations; he often
heard their voices raised in argument on deep and learned subjects, which
evidently pleased Lebedeff. He seemed as if he could not do without the
general. But it was not only Ardalion Alexandrovitch whom Lebedeff kept
out of the prince’s way. Since they had come to the villa, he treated his own
family the same. Upon the pretext that his tenant needed quiet, he kept him
almost in isolation, and Muishkin protested in vain against this excess of
zeal. Lebedeff stamped his feet at his daughters and drove them away if
they attempted to join the prince on the terrace; not even Vera was excepted.
“They will lose all respect if they are allowed to be so free and easy;
besides it is not proper for them,” he declared at last, in answer to a direct
question from the prince.
“Why on earth not?” asked the latter. “Really, you know, you are making
yourself a nuisance, by keeping guard over me like this. I get bored all by
myself; I have told you so over and over again, and you get on my nerves
more than ever by waving your hands and creeping in and out in the
mysterious way you do.”
It was a fact that Lebedeff, though he was so anxious to keep everyone
else from disturbing the patient, was continually in and out of the prince’s
room himself. He invariably began by opening the door a crack and peering
in to see if the prince was there, or if he had escaped; then he would creep
softly up to the arm-chair, sometimes making Muishkin jump by his sudden
appearance. He always asked if the patient wanted anything, and when the
latter replied that he only wanted to be left in peace, he would turn away
obediently and make for the door on tip-toe, with deprecatory gestures to
imply that he had only just looked in, that he would not speak a word, and
would go away and not intrude again; which did not prevent him from
reappearing in ten minutes or a quarter of an hour. Colia had free access to
the prince, at which Lebedeff was quite disgusted and indignant. He would
listen at the door for half an hour at a time while the two were talking. Colia
found this out, and naturally told the prince of his discovery.
“Do you think yourself my master, that you try to keep me under lock
and key like this?” said the prince to Lebedeff. “In the country, at least, I
intend to be free, and you may make up your mind that I mean to see whom
I like, and go where I please.”
“Why, of course,” replied the clerk, gesticulating with his hands.
The prince looked him sternly up and down.
“Well, Lukian Timofeyovitch, have you brought the little cupboard that
you had at the head of your bed with you here?”
“No, I left it where it was.”
“Impossible!”
“It cannot be moved; you would have to pull the wall down, it is so
firmly fixed.”
“Perhaps you have one like it here?”
“I have one that is even better, much better; that is really why I bought
this house.”
“Ah! What visitor did you turn away from my door, about an hour ago?”
“The-the general. I would not let him in; there is no need for him to visit
you, prince… I have the deepest esteem for him, he is a—a great man. You
don’t believe it? Well, you will see, and yet, most excellent prince, you had
much better not receive him.”
“May I ask why? and also why you walk about on tiptoe and always
seem as if you were going to whisper a secret in my ear whenever you come
near me?”
“I am vile, vile; I know it!” cried Lebedeff, beating his breast with a
contrite air. “But will not the general be too hospitable for you?”
“Too hospitable?”
“Yes. First, he proposes to come and live in my house. Well and good;
but he sticks at nothing; he immediately makes himself one of the family.
We have talked over our respective relations several times, and discovered
that we are connected by marriage. It seems also that you are a sort of
nephew on his mother’s side; he was explaining it to me again only
yesterday. If you are his nephew, it follows that I must also be a relation of
yours, most excellent prince. Never mind about that, it is only a foible; but
just now he assured me that all his life, from the day he was made an ensign
to the 11th of last June, he has entertained at least two hundred guests at his
table every day. Finally, he went so far as to say that they never rose from
the table; they dined, supped, and had tea, for fifteen hours at a stretch. This
went on for thirty years without a break; there was barely time to change
the table-cloth; directly one person left, another took his place. On feast-
days he entertained as many as three hundred guests, and they numbered
seven hundred on the thousandth anniversary of the foundation of the
Russian Empire. It amounts to a passion with him; it makes one uneasy to
hear of it. It is terrible to have to entertain people who do things on such a
scale. That is why I wonder whether such a man is not too hospitable for
you and me.”
“But you seem to be on the best of terms with him?”
“Quite fraternal—I look upon it as a joke. Let us be brothers-in-law, it is
all the same to me,—rather an honour than not. But in spite of the two
hundred guests and the thousandth anniversary of the Russian Empire, I can
see that he is a very remarkable man. I am quite sincere. You said just now
that I always looked as if I was going to tell you a secret; you are right. I
have a secret to tell you: a certain person has just let me know that she is
very anxious for a secret interview with you.”
“Why should it be secret? Not at all; I will call on her myself tomorrow.”
“No, oh no!” cried Lebedeff, waving his arms; “if she is afraid, it is not
for the reason you think. By the way, do you know that the monster comes
every day to inquire after your health?”
“You call him a monster so often that it makes me suspicious.”
“You must have no suspicions, none whatever,” said Lebedeff quickly. “I
only want you to know that the person in question is not afraid of him, but
of something quite, quite different.”
“What on earth is she afraid of, then? Tell me plainly, without any more
beating about the bush,” said the prince, exasperated by the other’s
mysterious grimaces.
“Ah that is the secret,” said Lebedeff, with a smile.
“Whose secret?”
“Yours. You forbade me yourself to mention it before you, most excellent
prince,” murmured Lebedeff. Then, satisfied that he had worked up
Muishkin’s curiosity to the highest pitch, he added abruptly: “She is afraid
of Aglaya Ivanovna.”
The prince frowned for a moment in silence, and then said suddenly:
“Really, Lebedeff, I must leave your house. Where are Gavrila
Ardalionovitch and the Ptitsins? Are they here? Have you chased them
away, too?”
“They are coming, they are coming; and the general as well. I will open
all the doors; I will call all my daughters, all of them, this very minute,”
said Lebedeff in a low voice, thoroughly frightened, and waving his hands
as he ran from door to door.
At that moment Colia appeared on the terrace; he announced that
Lizabetha Prokofievna and her three daughters were close behind him.
Moved by this news, Lebedeff hurried up to the prince.
“Shall I call the Ptitsins, and Gavrila Ardalionovitch? Shall I let the
general in?” he asked.
“Why not? Let in anyone who wants to see me. I assure you, Lebedeff,
you have misunderstood my position from the very first; you have been
wrong all along. I have not the slightest reason to hide myself from
anyone,” replied the prince gaily.
Seeing him laugh, Lebedeff thought fit to laugh also, and though much
agitated his satisfaction was quite visible.
Colia was right; the Epanchin ladies were only a few steps behind him.
As they approached the terrace other visitors appeared from Lebedeff’s side
of the house—the Ptitsins, Gania, and Ardalion Alexandrovitch.
The Epanchins had only just heard of the prince’s illness and of his
presence in Pavlofsk, from Colia; and up to this time had been in a state of
considerable bewilderment about him. The general brought the prince’s card
down from town, and Mrs. Epanchin had felt convinced that he himself
would follow his card at once; she was much excited.
In vain the girls assured her that a man who had not written for six
months would not be in such a dreadful hurry, and that probably he had
enough to do in town without needing to bustle down to Pavlofsk to see
them. Their mother was quite angry at the very idea of such a thing, and
announced her absolute conviction that he would turn up the next day at
latest.
So next day the prince was expected all the morning, and at dinner, tea,
and supper; and when he did not appear in the evening, Mrs. Epanchin
quarrelled with everyone in the house, finding plenty of pretexts without so
much as mentioning the prince’s name.
On the third day there was no talk of him at all, until Aglaya remarked at
dinner: “Mamma is cross because the prince hasn’t turned up,” to which the
general replied that it was not his fault.
Mrs. Epanchin misunderstood the observation, and rising from her place
she left the room in majestic wrath. In the evening, however, Colia came
with the story of the prince’s adventures, so far as he knew them. Mrs.
Epanchin was triumphant; although Colia had to listen to a long lecture.
“He idles about here the whole day long, one can’t get rid of him; and then
when he is wanted he does not come. He might have sent a line if he did not
wish to inconvenience himself.”
At the words “one can’t get rid of him,” Colia was very angry, and nearly
flew into a rage; but he resolved to be quiet for the time and show his
resentment later. If the words had been less offensive he might have
forgiven them, so pleased was he to see Lizabetha Prokofievna worried and
anxious about the prince’s illness.
She would have insisted on sending to Petersburg at once, for a certain
great medical celebrity; but her daughters dissuaded her, though they were
not willing to stay behind when she at once prepared to go and visit the
invalid. Aglaya, however, suggested that it was a little unceremonious to go
en masse to see him.
“Very well then, stay at home,” said Mrs. Epanchin, “and a good thing
too, for Evgenie Pavlovitch is coming down and there will be no one at
home to receive him.”
Of course, after this, Aglaya went with the rest. In fact, she had never had
the slightest intention of doing otherwise.
Prince S., who was in the house, was requested to escort the ladies. He
had been much interested when he first heard of the prince from the
Epanchins. It appeared that they had known one another before, and had
spent some time together in a little provincial town three months ago.
Prince S. had greatly taken to him, and was delighted with the opportunity
of meeting him again.
The general had not come down from town as yet, nor had Evgenie
Pavlovitch arrived.
It was not more than two or three hundred yards from the Epanchins’
house to Lebedeff’s. The first disagreeable impression experienced by Mrs.
Epanchin was to find the prince surrounded by a whole assembly of other
guests—not to mention the fact that some of those present were particularly
detestable in her eyes. The next annoying circumstance was when an
apparently strong and healthy young fellow, well dressed, and smiling,
came forward to meet her on the terrace, instead of the half-dying
unfortunate whom she had expected to see.
She was astonished and vexed, and her disappointment pleased Colia
immensely. Of course he could have undeceived her before she started, but
the mischievous boy had been careful not to do that, foreseeing the
probably laughable disgust that she would experience when she found her
dear friend, the prince, in good health. Colia was indelicate enough to voice
the delight he felt at his success in managing to annoy Lizabetha
Prokofievna, with whom, in spite of their really amicable relations, he was
constantly sparring.
“Just wait a while, my boy!” said she; “don’t be too certain of your
triumph.” And she sat down heavily, in the arm-chair pushed forward by the
prince.
Lebedeff, Ptitsin, and General Ivolgin hastened to find chairs for the
young ladies. Varia greeted them joyfully, and they exchanged confidences
in ecstatic whispers.
“I must admit, prince, I was a little put out to see you up and about like
this—I expected to find you in bed; but I give you my word, I was only
annoyed for an instant, before I collected my thoughts properly. I am
always wiser on second thoughts, and I dare say you are the same. I assure
you I am as glad to see you well as though you were my own son,—yes,
and more; and if you don’t believe me the more shame to you, and it’s not
my fault. But that spiteful boy delights in playing all sorts of tricks. You are
his patron, it seems. Well, I warn you that one fine morning I shall deprive
myself of the pleasure of his further acquaintance.”
“What have I done wrong now?” cried Colia. “What was the good of
telling you that the prince was nearly well again? You would not have
believed me; it was so much more interesting to picture him on his death-
bed.”
“How long do you remain here, prince?” asked Madame Epanchin.
“All the summer, and perhaps longer.”
“You are alone, aren’t you,—not married?”
“No, I’m not married!” replied the prince, smiling at the ingenuousness
of this little feeler.
“Oh, you needn’t laugh! These things do happen, you know! Now then—
why didn’t you come to us? We have a wing quite empty. But just as you
like, of course. Do you lease it from him?—this fellow, I mean,” she added,
nodding towards Lebedeff. “And why does he always wriggle so?”
At that moment Vera, carrying the baby in her arms as usual, came out of
the house, on to the terrace. Lebedeff kept fidgeting among the chairs, and
did not seem to know what to do with himself, though he had no intention
of going away. He no sooner caught sight of his daughter, than he rushed in
her direction, waving his arms to keep her away; he even forgot himself so
far as to stamp his foot.
“Is he mad?” asked Madame Epanchin suddenly.
“No, he…”
“Perhaps he is drunk? Your company is rather peculiar,” she added, with
a glance at the other guests….
“But what a pretty girl! Who is she?”
“That is Lebedeff’s daughter—Vera Lukianovna.”
“Indeed? She looks very sweet. I should like to make her acquaintance.”
The words were hardly out of her mouth, when Lebedeff dragged Vera
forward, in order to present her.
“Orphans, poor orphans!” he began in a pathetic voice.
“The child she carries is an orphan, too. She is Vera’s sister, my daughter
Luboff. The day this babe was born, six weeks ago, my wife died, by the
will of God Almighty…. Yes… Vera takes her mother’s place, though she is
but her sister… nothing more… nothing more…”
“And you! You are nothing more than a fool, if you’ll excuse me! Well!
well! you know that yourself, I expect,” said the lady indignantly.
Lebedeff bowed low. “It is the truth,” he replied, with extreme respect.
“Oh, Mr. Lebedeff, I am told you lecture on the Apocalypse. Is it true?”
asked Aglaya.
“Yes, that is so… for the last fifteen years.”
“I have heard of you, and I think read of you in the newspapers.”
“No, that was another commentator, whom the papers named. He is dead,
however, and I have taken his place,” said the other, much delighted.
“We are neighbours, so will you be so kind as to come over one day and
explain the Apocalypse to me?” said Aglaya. “I do not understand it in the
least.”
“Allow me to warn you,” interposed General Ivolgin, “that he is the
greatest charlatan on earth.” He had taken the chair next to the girl, and was
impatient to begin talking. “No doubt there are pleasures and amusements
peculiar to the country,” he continued, “and to listen to a pretended student
holding forth on the book of the Revelations may be as good as any other. It
may even be original. But… you seem to be looking at me with some
surprise—may I introduce myself—General Ivolgin—I carried you in my
arms as a baby—”
“Delighted, I’m sure,” said Aglaya; “I am acquainted with Varvara
Ardalionovna and Nina Alexandrovna.” She was trying hard to restrain
herself from laughing.
Mrs. Epanchin flushed up; some accumulation of spleen in her suddenly
needed an outlet. She could not bear this General Ivolgin whom she had
once known, long ago—in society.
“You are deviating from the truth, sir, as usual!” she remarked, boiling
over with indignation; “you never carried her in your life!”
“You have forgotten, mother,” said Aglaya, suddenly. “He really did
carry me about,—in Tver, you know. I was six years old, I remember. He
made me a bow and arrow, and I shot a pigeon. Don’t you remember
shooting a pigeon, you and I, one day?”
“Yes, and he made me a cardboard helmet, and a little wooden sword—I
remember!” said Adelaida.
“Yes, I remember too!” said Alexandra. “You quarrelled about the
wounded pigeon, and Adelaida was put in the corner, and stood there with
her helmet and sword and all.”
The poor general had merely made the remark about having carried
Aglaya in his arms because he always did so begin a conversation with
young people. But it happened that this time he had really hit upon the
truth, though he had himself entirely forgotten the fact. But when Adelaida
and Aglaya recalled the episode of the pigeon, his mind became filled with
memories, and it is impossible to describe how this poor old man, usually
half drunk, was moved by the recollection.
“I remember—I remember it all!” he cried. “I was captain then. You were
such a lovely little thing—Nina Alexandrovna!—Gania, listen! I was
received then by General Epanchin.”
“Yes, and look what you have come to now!” interrupted Mrs. Epanchin.
“However, I see you have not quite drunk your better feelings away. But
you’ve broken your wife’s heart, sir—and instead of looking after your
children, you have spent your time in public-houses and debtors’ prisons!
Go away, my friend, stand in some corner and weep, and bemoan your
fallen dignity, and perhaps God will forgive you yet! Go, go! I’m serious!
There’s nothing so favourable for repentance as to think of the past with
feelings of remorse!”
There was no need to repeat that she was serious. The general, like all
drunkards, was extremely emotional and easily touched by recollections of
his better days. He rose and walked quietly to the door, so meekly that Mrs.
Epanchin was instantly sorry for him.
“Ardalion Alexandrovitch,” she cried after him, “wait a moment, we are
all sinners! When you feel that your conscience reproaches you a little less,
come over to me and we’ll have a talk about the past! I dare say I am fifty
times more of a sinner than you are! And now go, go, good-bye, you had
better not stay here!” she added, in alarm, as he turned as though to come
back.
“Don’t go after him just now, Colia, or he’ll be vexed, and the benefit of
this moment will be lost!” said the prince, as the boy was hurrying out of
the room.
“Quite true! Much better to go in half an hour or so,” said Mrs. Epanchin.
“That’s what comes of telling the truth for once in one’s life!” said
Lebedeff. “It reduced him to tears.”
“Come, come! the less you say about it the better—to judge from all I
have heard about you!” replied Mrs. Epanchin.
The prince took the first opportunity of informing the Epanchin ladies
that he had intended to pay them a visit that day, if they had not themselves
come this afternoon, and Lizabetha Prokofievna replied that she hoped he
would still do so.
By this time some of the visitors had disappeared.
Ptitsin had tactfully retreated to Lebedeff’s wing; and Gania soon
followed him.
The latter had behaved modestly, but with dignity, on this occasion of his
first meeting with the Epanchins since the rupture. Twice Mrs. Epanchin
had deliberately examined him from head to foot; but he had stood fire
without flinching. He was certainly much changed, as anyone could see
who had not met him for some time; and this fact seemed to afford Aglaya a
good deal of satisfaction.
“That was Gavrila Ardalionovitch, who just went out, wasn’t it?” she
asked suddenly, interrupting somebody else’s conversation to make the
remark.
“Yes, it was,” said the prince.
“I hardly knew him; he is much changed, and for the better!”
“I am very glad,” said the prince.
“He has been very ill,” added Varia.
“How has he changed for the better?” asked Mrs. Epanchin. “I don’t see
any change for the better! What’s better in him? Where did you get that idea
from? what’s better?”
“There’s nothing better than the ‘poor knight’!” said Colia, who was
standing near the last speaker’s chair.
“I quite agree with you there!” said Prince S., laughing.
“So do I,” said Adelaida, solemnly.
“What poor knight?” asked Mrs. Epanchin, looking round at the face of
each of the speakers in turn. Seeing, however, that Aglaya was blushing, she
added, angrily:
“What nonsense you are all talking! What do you mean by poor knight?”
“It’s not the first time this urchin, your favourite, has shown his
impudence by twisting other people’s words,” said Aglaya, haughtily.
Every time that Aglaya showed temper (and this was very often), there
was so much childish pouting, such “school-girlishness,” as it were, in her
apparent wrath, that it was impossible to avoid smiling at her, to her own
unutterable indignation. On these occasions she would say, “How can they,
how dare they laugh at me?”
This time everyone laughed at her, her sisters, Prince S., Prince Muishkin
(though he himself had flushed for some reason), and Colia. Aglaya was
dreadfully indignant, and looked twice as pretty in her wrath.
“He’s always twisting round what one says,” she cried.
“I am only repeating your own exclamation!” said Colia. “A month ago
you were turning over the pages of your Don Quixote, and suddenly called
out ‘there is nothing better than the poor knight.’ I don’t know whom you
were referring to, of course, whether to Don Quixote, or Evgenie
Pavlovitch, or someone else, but you certainly said these words, and
afterwards there was a long conversation…”
“You are inclined to go a little too far, my good boy, with your guesses,”
said Mrs. Epanchin, with some show of annoyance.
“But it’s not I alone,” cried Colia. “They all talked about it, and they do
still. Why, just now Prince S. and Adelaida Ivanovna declared that they
upheld ‘the poor knight’; so evidently there does exist a ‘poor knight’; and
if it were not for Adelaida Ivanovna, we should have known long ago who
the ‘poor knight’ was.”
“Why, how am I to blame?” asked Adelaida, smiling.
“You wouldn’t draw his portrait for us, that’s why you are to blame!
Aglaya Ivanovna asked you to draw his portrait, and gave you the whole
subject of the picture. She invented it herself; and you wouldn’t.”
“What was I to draw? According to the lines she quoted:
“‘From his face he never lifted
That eternal mask of steel.’”
“What sort of a face was I to draw? I couldn’t draw a mask.”
“I don’t know what you are driving at; what mask do you mean?” said
Mrs. Epanchin, irritably. She began to see pretty clearly though what it
meant, and whom they referred to by the generally accepted title of “poor
knight.” But what specially annoyed her was that the prince was looking so
uncomfortable, and blushing like a ten-year-old child.
“Well, have you finished your silly joke?” she added, “and am I to be told
what this ‘poor knight’ means, or is it a solemn secret which cannot be
approached lightly?”
But they all laughed on.
“It’s simply that there is a Russian poem,” began Prince S., evidently
anxious to change the conversation, “a strange thing, without beginning or
end, and all about a ‘poor knight.’ A month or so ago, we were all talking
and laughing, and looking up a subject for one of Adelaida’s pictures—you
know it is the principal business of this family to find subjects for
Adelaida’s pictures. Well, we happened upon this ‘poor knight.’ I don’t
remember who thought of it first—”
“Oh! Aglaya Ivanovna did,” said Colia.
“Very likely—I don’t recollect,” continued Prince S.
“Some of us laughed at the subject; some liked it; but she declared that,
in order to make a picture of the gentleman, she must first see his face. We
then began to think over all our friends’ faces to see if any of them would
do, and none suited us, and so the matter stood; that’s all. I don’t know why
Nicolai Ardalionovitch has brought up the joke now. What was appropriate
and funny then, has quite lost all interest by this time.”
“Probably there’s some new silliness about it,” said Mrs. Epanchin,
sarcastically.
“There is no silliness about it at all—only the profoundest respect,” said
Aglaya, very seriously. She had quite recovered her temper; in fact, from
certain signs, it was fair to conclude that she was delighted to see this joke
going so far; and a careful observer might have remarked that her
satisfaction dated from the moment when the fact of the prince’s confusion
became apparent to all.
“‘Profoundest respect!’ What nonsense! First, insane giggling, and then,
all of a sudden, a display of ‘profoundest respect.’ Why respect? Tell me at
once, why have you suddenly developed this ‘profound respect,’ eh?”
“Because,” replied Aglaya gravely, “in the poem the knight is described
as a man capable of living up to an ideal all his life. That sort of thing is not
to be found every day among the men of our times. In the poem it is not
stated exactly what the ideal was, but it was evidently some vision, some
revelation of pure Beauty, and the knight wore round his neck, instead of a
scarf, a rosary. A device—A. N. B.—the meaning of which is not explained,
was inscribed on his shield—”
“No, A. N. D.,” corrected Colia.
“I say A. N. B., and so it shall be!” cried Aglaya, irritably. “Anyway, the
‘poor knight’ did not care what his lady was, or what she did. He had
chosen his ideal, and he was bound to serve her, and break lances for her,
and acknowledge her as the ideal of pure Beauty, whatever she might say or
do afterwards. If she had taken to stealing, he would have championed her
just the same. I think the poet desired to embody in this one picture the
whole spirit of medieval chivalry and the platonic love of a pure and high-
souled knight. Of course it’s all an ideal, and in the ‘poor knight’ that spirit
reached the utmost limit of asceticism. He is a Don Quixote, only serious
and not comical. I used not to understand him, and laughed at him, but now
I love the ‘poor knight,’ and respect his actions.”
So ended Aglaya; and, to look at her, it was difficult, indeed, to judge
whether she was joking or in earnest.
“Pooh! he was a fool, and his actions were the actions of a fool,” said
Mrs. Epanchin; “and as for you, young woman, you ought to know better.
At all events, you are not to talk like that again. What poem is it? Recite it!
I want to hear this poem! I have hated poetry all my life. Prince, you must
excuse this nonsense. We neither of us like this sort of thing! Be patient!”
They certainly were put out, both of them.
