Sometimes she put this question to Ivan Fyodorovich, hysterically, as was usual with her, threateningly, expecting an immediate answer.
Ivan Fyodorovich would hem, frown, shrug his shoulders, and, spreading his arms, finally decide:
"She needs a husband!"
"Only God grant he's not one like you, Ivan Fyodorych," Lizaveta Prokofyevna would finally explode like a bomb, "not like you in his opinions and verdicts, Ivan Fyodorych; not such a boorish boor as you, Ivan Fyodorych . . ."
Ivan Fyodorovich would immediately run for his life, and Lizaveta Prokofyevna, after her explosion, would calm down.
Naturally, towards evening that same day she would inevitably become extraordinarily attentive, quiet, affectionate, and respectful towards Ivan Fyodorovich, towards her "boorish boor" Ivan Fyodorovich, her kind, dear, and adored Ivan Fyodorovich, because all her life she had loved and had even been in love with her Ivan Fyodorovich, which Ivan Fyodorovich himself knew excellently well and for which he infinitely respected his Lizaveta Prokofyevna.
But her chief and constant torment was Aglaya.
"Exactly, exactly like me, my portrait in all respects," Lizaveta Prokofyevna said to herself, "a willful, nasty little demon!
Nihilistic, eccentric, crazy, wicked, wicked, wicked!
Oh, Lord, how unhappy she's going to be!"
But, as we have already said, the risen sun softened and brightened everything for a moment.
There was nearly a month in Lizaveta Prokofyevna's life when she rested completely from all her worries.
On the occasion of Adelaida's impending wedding there was also talk in society about Aglaya, while Aglaya everywhere bore herself so beautifully, so equably, so intelligently, so victoriously, a little proudly, but that was so becoming to her!
She was so affectionate, so affable to her mother for the whole month! ("True, this Evgeny Pavlovich must still be very closely scrutinized, plumbed to the depths, and besides, Aglaya doesn't seem to favor him much more than the others!") All the same she had suddenly become such a nice girl—and how pretty she is, God, how pretty she is, and getting better day by day! And then . . .
And then that nasty little prince, that worthless little idiot, appeared and everything immediately got stirred up, everything in the house turned upside down!
What had happened, though?
For other people, probably, nothing would have happened.
But this was what made Lizaveta Prokofyevna different, that in a combination and confusion of the most ordinary things, she always managed, through her ever-present worry, to discern something that inspired in her, sometimes to the point of morbidity, a most insecure, most inexplicable, and therefore most oppressive, fear.
How must it have been for her now, when suddenly, through that whole muddle of ridiculous and groundless worries, there actually came a glimpse of something that indeed seemed important, something that indeed seemed worthy of alarms, doubts, and suspicions.
"And how dared they, how dared they write me that cursed anonymous letter about that creature being in touch with Aglaya?" Lizaveta Prokofyevna thought all the way, as she dragged the prince with her, and at home, when she sat him at the round table where the whole family was gathered. "How dared they even think of it?
But I'd die of shame if I believed the smallest drop of it or showed the letter to Aglaya!
Such mockery of us, the Epanchins!
And all, all through Ivan Fyodorych, all through you, Ivan Fyodorych!
Ah, why didn't we move to Elagin: I told them we should move to Elagin!
Maybe it was Varka who wrote the letter, I know, or maybe . . . it's all, all Ivan Fyodorych's fault!
That creature pulled that stunt on him in memory of their former connections, to show him what a fool he is, just as she laughed at him before, the foolish man, and led him by the nose when he brought her those pearls . .. And in the end we're mixed up in it all the same, your daughters are, Ivan Fyodorych, girls, young ladies, young ladies of the best society, marriageable; they were right there, stood there, heard everything, and also got mixed up in the story with the nasty boys, be glad that they were there as well and listening!
I won't forgive him, I won't forgive that wretched princeling, I'll never forgive him!
And why has Aglaya been in hysterics for three days, why has she nearly quarreled with her sisters, even Alexandra, whose hands she always used to kiss like her mother's—she respected her so much?
Why has she been setting everyone riddles for three days?
What has Gavrila Ivolgin got to do with it?
Why did she take to praising Gavrila Ivolgin yesterday and today and then burst into tears?
Why does that anonymous letter mention that cursed 'poor knight,' when she never even showed the prince's letter to her sisters?
And why . . . what, what made me go running to him like a singed cat and drag him here myself?
Lord, I've lost my mind, what have I done now!
To talk with a young man about my daughter's secrets, and what's more . . . what's more, about secrets that all but concern him!
Lord, it's a good thing at least that he's an idiot and . . . and ... a friend of the house!
Only, can it be that Aglaya got tempted by such a little freak?
Lord, what drivel I'm spouting!
Pah!
We're originals . . . they should put us all under glass and show us to people, me first, ten kopecks for admission.
I won't forgive you that, Ivan Fyodorych, I'll never forgive you!
And why doesn't she give him a dressing-down now?
She promised to give him a dressing-down and yet she doesn't do it!
There, there, she's looking at him all eyes, says nothing, doesn't go away, stays, and it was she who told him not to come . . . He sits there all pale.
And that cursed, cursed babbler Evgeny Pavlych keeps up the whole conversation by himself!
Look at him talking away, not letting anybody put a word in.
I'd have learned everything, if only I could have turned it the right way . . ."
The prince indeed sat, all but pale, at the round table and, it seemed, was at one and the same time extremely frightened and, for moments, in an incomprehensible, exhilarating ecstasy.
Oh, how afraid he was to look in that direction, into that corner from which two familiar dark eyes gazed intently at him, and at the same time how seized with happiness he was to be sitting among them again, to hear the familiar voice—after what she had written to him.
"Lord, what will she say now!"