always did so begin a conversation with youngpeople. But it happened that this time he had really hit upon the truth,though he had himself entirely forgotten the fact. But when Adelaida andAglaya recalled the episode of the pigeon, his mind became filledwith 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 weresuch a lovely little thing--Nina Alexandrovna!--Gania, listen! I wasreceived 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. Butyou’ve broken your wife’s heart, sir--and instead of looking afteryour children, you have spent your time in public-houses and debtors’prisons! Go away, my friend, stand in some corner and weep, and bemoanyour fallen dignity, and perhaps God will forgive you yet! Go, go! I’mserious! There’s nothing so favourable for repentance as to think of thepast with feelings of remorse!”
There was no need to repeat that she was serious. The general, like alldrunkards, was extremely emotional and easily touched by recollectionsof his better days. He rose and walked quietly to the door, so meeklythat Mrs. Epanchin was instantly sorry for him.
“Ardalion Alexandrovitch,” she cried after him, “wait a moment, we areall sinners! When you feel that your conscience reproaches you a littleless, come over to me and we’ll have a talk about the past! I dare say Iam 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 asthough to come back.
“Don’t go after him just now, Colia, or he’ll be vexed, and the benefitof this moment will be lost!” said the prince, as the boy was hurryingout 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!” saidLebedeff. “It reduced him to tears.”
“Come, come! the less _you_ say about it the better--to judge from all Ihave heard about you!” replied Mrs. Epanchin.
The prince took the first opportunity of informing the Epanchin ladiesthat he had intended to pay them a visit that day, if they had notthemselves come this afternoon, and Lizabetha Prokofievna replied thatshe 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 soonfollowed him.
The latter had behaved modestly, but with dignity, on this occasionof his first meeting with the Epanchins since the rupture. Twice Mrs.Epanchin had deliberately examined him from head to foot; but he hadstood fire without flinching. He was certainly much changed, as anyonecould see who had not met him for some time; and this fact seemed toafford Aglaya a good deal of satisfaction.
“That was Gavrila Ardalionovitch, who just went out, wasn’t it?” sheasked suddenly, interrupting somebody else’s conversation to make theremark.
“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 seeany 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 wasstanding 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 ofeach 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 hisimpudence by twisting other people’s words,” said Aglaya, haughtily.
Every time that Aglaya showed temper (and this was very often), therewas so much childish pouting, such “school-girlishness,” as it were, inher apparent wrath, that it was impossible to avoid smiling at her, toher own unutterable indignation. On these occasions she would say, “Howcan they, how _dare_ they laugh at me?”
This time everyone laughed at her, her sisters, Prince S., PrinceMuishkin (though he himself had flushed for some reason), and Colia.Aglaya was dreadfully indignant, and looked twice as pretty in herwrath.
“He’s always twisting round what one says,” she cried.
“I am only repeating your own exclamation!” said Colia. “A month ago youwere turning over the pages of your Don Quixote, and suddenly called out‘there is nothing better than the poor knight.’ I don’t know whomyou were referring to, of course, whether to Don Quixote, or EvgeniePavlovitch, or someone else, but you certainly said these words, andafterwards there was a long conversation...”
“You are inclined to go a little too far, my good boy, with yourguesses,” said Mrs. Epanchin, with some show of annoyance.
“But it’s not I alone,” cried Colia. “They all talked about it, and theydo still. Why, just now Prince S. and Adelaida Ivanovna declared thatthey upheld ‘the poor knight’; so evidently there does exist a ‘poorknight’; and if it were not for Adelaida Ivanovna, we should have knownlong 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 wholesubject 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?” saidMrs. Epanchin, irritably. She began to see pretty clearly though whatit meant, and whom they referred to by the generally accepted title of“poor knight.” But what specially annoyed her was that the prince waslooking so uncomfortable, and blushing like a ten-year-old child.
“Well, have you finished your silly joke?” she added, “and am I to betold what this ‘poor knight’ means, or is it a solemn secret whichcannot be approached lightly?”
But they all laughed on.
“It’s simply that there is a Russian poem,” began Prince S., evidentlyanxious to change the conversation, “a strange thing, without beginningor end, and all about a ‘poor knight.’ A month or so ago, we were alltalking and laughing, and looking up a subject for one of Adelaida’spictures--you know it is the principal business of this family to findsubjects for Adelaida’s pictures. Well, we happened upon this ‘poorknight.’ 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 declaredthat, in order to make a picture of the gentleman, she must first seehis face. We then began to think over all our friends’ faces to seeif 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 upthe joke now. What was appropriate and funny then, has quite lost allinterest 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; infact, from certain signs, it was fair to conclude that she was delightedto see this joke going so far; and a careful observer might haveremarked that her satisfaction dated from the moment when the fact ofthe 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? Tellme at once, why have you suddenly developed this ‘profound respect,’eh?”
“Because,” replied Aglaya gravely, “in the poem the knight is describedas a man capable of living up to an ideal all his life. That sort ofthing is not to be found every day among the men of our times. In thepoem it is not stated exactly what the ideal was, but it was evidentlysome vision, some revelation of pure Beauty, and the knight wore roundhis neck, instead of a scarf, a rosary. A device--A. N. B.--the meaningof 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. Hehad chosen his ideal, and he was bound to serve her, and break lancesfor her, and acknowledge her as the ideal of pure Beauty, whatever shemight say or do afterwards. If she had taken to stealing, he would havechampioned her just the same. I think the poet desired to embody in thisone picture the whole spirit of medieval chivalry and the platonic loveof a