An anonymity?"
"I don't understand anything, what's this about a visor?" Mrs. Epanchin was growing vexed and beginning to have a very good idea of who was meant by the name (probably agreed upon long ago) of the "poor knight."
But she exploded particularly when Prince Lev Nikolaevich also became embarrassed and finally as abashed as a ten-year-old boy.
"Will there be no end to this foolishness?
Are you going to explain this 'poor knight' to me or not?
Is there some terrible secret in it that I can't even go near?"
But they all just went on laughing.
"Quite simply, there's a strange Russian poem," Prince Shch. finally mixed in, obviously wishing to hush things up quickly and change the subject, "about a 'poor knight,' a fragment with no beginning or end.28 Once, about a month ago, we were all laughing together after dinner and, as usual, suggesting a subject for Adelaida Ivanovna's future painting.
You know that our common family task has long consisted in finding subjects for Adelaida Ivanovna's paintings.
It was then that we hit upon the 'poor knight,' I don't remember who first . . ."
"Aglaya Ivanovna!" cried Kolya.
"That may be, I agree, only I don't remember," Prince Shch. went on.
"Some laughed at this subject, others declared that nothing could be loftier, but in order to portray the 'poor knight' there had in any case to be a face. We began going through the faces of all our acquaintances, but none was suitable, and the matter ended there; that's all; I don't understand why Nikolai Ardalionovich suddenly thought of bringing it all up again.
What was funny once, and appropriate, is quite uninteresting now."
"Because there's some new sort of foolishness implied in it, sarcastic and offensive," Lizaveta Prokofyevna snapped.
"There isn't any foolishness, only the deepest respect," Aglaya suddenly declared quite unexpectedly in a grave and serious voice, having managed to recover completely and overcome her former embarrassment.
Moreover, by certain tokens it could be supposed, looking at her, that she herself was now glad that the joke had gone further and further, and that this turnabout had occurred in her precisely at the moment when the prince's embarrassment, which was increasing more and more and reaching an extreme degree, had become all too noticeable.
"First they laugh dementedly, and then suddenly the deepest respect appears!
Raving people!
Why respect?
Tell me right now, why does this deepest respect of yours appear so suddenly out of the blue?"
"The deepest respect because," Aglaya went on as seriously and gravely, in answer to her mother's almost spiteful question, "because this poem directly portrays a man capable of having an ideal and, second, once he has the ideal, of believing in it and, believing in it, of blindly devoting his whole life to it.
That doesn't always happen in our time.
In the poem it's not said specifically what made up the ideal of the 'poor knight,' but it's clear that it was some bright image, 'an image of pure beauty,'29 and instead of a scarf the enamored knight even wore a rosary around his neck.
True, there's also some sort of dark, unexpressed motto, the letters A.N.?., that he traced on his shield . . ."
"A.N.D.," Kolya corrected.30
"But I say A.N.?., and that's how I want to say it," Aglaya interrupted with vexation. "Be that as it may, it's clear that it made no difference to this 'poor knight' who his lady was or what she might do.
It was enough for him that he had chosen her and believed in her 'pure beauty,' and only then did he bow down to her forever; and the merit of it is that she might have turned out later to be a thief, but still he had to believe in her and wield the sword for her pure beauty.
It seems the poet wanted to combine in one extraordinary image the whole immense conception of the medieval chivalrous platonic love of some pure and lofty knight; naturally, it's all an ideal.
But in the 'poor knight' that feeling reached the ultimate degree—asceticism. It must be admitted that to be capable of such feeling means a lot and that such feelings leave a deep and, on the one hand, a very praiseworthy mark, not to mention Don Quixote.
The 'poor knight' is that same Don Quixote, only a serious and not a comic one.
At first I didn't understand and laughed, but now I love the 'poor knight' and, above all, respect his deeds."
So Aglaya concluded, and, looking at her, it was hard to tell whether she was speaking seriously or laughing.
"Well, he's some sort of fool, he and his deeds!" Mrs. Epanchin decided.
"And you, dear girl, blathered out a whole lecture; in my opinion, it's even quite unsuitable on your part.
Inadmissible, in any case.
What is this poem?
Recite it, you surely know it!
I absolutely want to know this poem.
All my life I never could stand poetry, as if I had a presentiment.
For God's sake, Prince, be patient, it's clear that you and I must be patient together," she turned to Prince Lev Nikolaevich.
She was very vexed.
Prince Lev Nikolaevich wanted to say something but, in his continuing embarrassment, was unable to get a word out.
Only Aglaya, who had allowed herself so much in her "lecture," was not abashed in the least, she even seemed glad.
She stood up at once, still as serious and grave as before, looking as though she had prepared for it earlier and was only waiting to be asked, stepped into the middle of the terrace, and stood facing the prince, who went on sitting in his armchair.
They all looked at her with a certain surprise, and nearly all of them—Prince Shch., her sisters, her mother—looked with an unpleasant feeling at this new prank she had prepared, which in any case had gone a bit too far.
But it was evident that Aglaya precisely liked all this affectation with which she began the ceremony of reciting the poem.
Lizaveta Prokofyevna nearly chased her back to her seat, but just at the moment when Aglaya began to declaim the well-known ballad, two new guests, talking loudly, came from the street onto the terrace.
They were General Ivan Fyodorovich Epanchin and after him a young man.
There was a slight stir.