“Listen, Alyosha, you’d better keep to the point!” Natasha cried impatiently.
“I thought you would tell me something about us, and you only want to tell us how you distinguished yourself at Count Nainsky’s.
Your count is no concern of mine!”
“No concern!
Do you hear, Ivan Petrovitch, she says it’s no concern of hers!
Why, it’s the greatest concern!
You’ll see it is yourself, it will all be explained in the end.
Only let me tell you about it. And in fact (why not be open about it?) I’ll. tell you what, Natasha, and you, too, Ivan Petrovitch, perhaps I really am sometimes very, very injudicious, granted even I’m sometimes stupid (for I know it is so at times).
But in this case, I assure you, I showed a great deal of cunning . . . in fact . . . of cleverness, so that I thought you’d be quite pleased that I’m not always so . . . stupid.”
“What are you saying, Alyosha?
Nonsense, dear!”
Natasha couldn’t bear Alyosha to be considered stupid.
How often she pouted at me, though she said nothing when I proved to Alyosha without ceremony that he had done something stupid it was a sore spot in her heart.
She could not bear to see Alyosha humiliated, and probably felt it the more, the more she recognized his limitations.
But she didn’t give him a hint of her opinion for fear of wounding his vanity.
He was particularly sensitive on this point, and always knew exactly what she was secretly thinking.
Natasha saw this and was very sorry, and she at once tried to flatter and soothe him.
That is why his words now raised painful echoes in her heart.
“Nonsense, Alyosha, you’re only thoughtless. You’re not at all like that,” she added. “Why do you run yourself down?”
“Well, that’s all right. So let me prove it to you.
Father was quite angry with me after the reception at the count’s.
I thought, ‘wait a bit.’
We were driving then to the princess’s. I heard long ago that she was so old that she was almost doting, and deaf besides, and awfully fond of little dogs.
She has a perfect pack of them, and adores them.
In spite of all that, she has an immense influence in society, so that even Count Nainsky, le superbe, does l’antichambre to her.
So I hatched a complete plan of future action on the way. And what do you think I built it all on?
Why, on the fact that dogs always like me.
Yes, really; I have noticed it.
Either there’s some magnetism in me, or else it’s because I’m fond of all animals, I don’t know. Dogs do like me, anyway.
And, by the way, talking of magnetism, I haven’t told you, Natasha, we called up spirits the other day; I was at a spiritualist’s. It’s awfully curious, Ivan Petrovitch; it really, impressed me.
I called up Julius Caesar.”
“My goodness!
What did you want with Julius Caesar?” cried Natasha, going off into a peal of laughter.
“That’s the last straw!”
“Why not . . . as though I were such a . . . why shouldn’t I call up Julius Caesar?
What does it matter to him?
Now she’s laughing!”
“Of course it wouldn’t matter to him at all ... oh, you dear!
Well, what did Julius Caesar say to you?”
“Oh, he didn’t say anything.
I simply held the pencil and the pencil moved over the paper and wrote of itself.
They said it was Julius Caesar writing.
I don’t believe in it.”
“But what did he write, then?”
“Why, he wrote something like the ‘dip it in’ in Gogol. Do leave oft laughing!”
“Oh, tell me about the princess, then.”
“Well, you keep interrupting me.
We arrived at the princess’s and I began by making love to Mimi.
Mimi is a most disgusting, horrid old dog, obstinate, too, and fond of biting.
The princess dotes on her, she simply worships her , I believe they are the same age.