Bravo, Natalya Nikolaevna!
I drink to her health.” (He took a drink.) “It’s not only brains, it must have been her heart too, that saved her from being deceived.
And her heart didn’t mislead her.
Of course her game is lost. The prince will get his way and Alyosha will give her up.
I’m only sorry for Ichmenyev – to pay ten thousand to that scoundrel.
Why, who took up his case, who acted for him?
Managed it himself, I bet!
Eech! just like all these noble, exalted people!
They’re no good for anything!
That’s not the way to deal with the prince.
I’d have found a nice little lawyer for Ichmenyev – ech!”
And he thumped on the table with vexation.
“Well, now about Prince Valkovsky?”
“Ah, you’re still harping on the prince.
But what am I to say about him?
I’m sorry I’ve offered to, I only wanted, Vanya, to warn you against that swindler, to protect you, so to say, from his influence.
No one is safe who comes in contact with him.
So keep your eyes open, that’s all.
And here you’ve been imagining I had some mysteries of Paris I wanted to reveal to you.
One can see you’re a novelist.
Well, what am I to tell you about the villain?
The villain’s a villain. . . . Well, for example, I’ll tell you one little story, of course without mentioning places, towns, or persons, that is, without the exactitude of a calendar.
You know that when he was very young and had to live on his official salary, he married a very rich merchant’s daughter.
Well, he didn’t treat that lady very ceremoniously, and though we’re not discussing her case now, I may mention in passing, friend Vanya, that he has all his life been particularly fond of turning such affairs to profit.
Here’s another example of it. He went abroad.
There …”
“Stop, Masloboev, what journey abroad are you speaking of?
In what year?”
“Just ninetynine years and three months ago.
Well, there he seduced the daughter of a certain father, and carried her off with him to Paris.
And this is what he did!
The father was some sort of a manufacturer, or was a partner in some enterprise of that sort.
I don’t know for sure.
What I tell you is what I’ve gathered from my own conjectures, and what I’ve concluded from other facts.
Well, the prince cheated him, worming himself into his business too.
He swindled him out and out, and got hold of his money.
The old man, of course, had some legal documents to prove that the prince had had the money from him.
The prince didn’t want to give it back; that is, in plain Russian, wanted to steal it.
The old man had a daughter, and she was a beauty, and she had an ideal lover, one of the Schiller brotherhood, a poet, and at the same time a merchant, a young dreamer; in short a regular German, one Pfefferkuchen.”
“Do you mean to say Pfefferkuchen was his surname?”
“Well, perhaps it wasn’t Pfefferkuchen. Hang the man, he doesn’t matter.
But the prince made up to the daughter, and so successfully that she fell madly in love with him.
The prince wanted two things at that time, first to possess the daughter, and secondly the documents relating to the money he had had from the old man.
All the old man’s keys were in his daughter’s keeping.
The old man was passionately fond of his daughter, so much so that he didn’t want her to be married.
Yes, really.
He was jealous of every suitor she had, he didn’t contemplate parting with her, and he turned Pfefferkuchen out. He was a queer fish the father, an Englishman. . . .”
“An Englishman?
But where did it all happen?”
“I only called him an Englishman, speaking figuratively, and you catch me up.