Varya got up to go upstairs to Nina Alexandrovna, but stopped and looked intently at her brother.
"Who could have told her?"
"Ippolit, it must be.
I suppose he considered it his prime pleasure to report it to mother, as soon as he moved in with us."
"But how does he know, pray tell?
The prince and Lebedev decided not to tell anyone, even Kolya doesn't know."
"Ippolit?
He found it out himself.
You can't imagine what a cunning creature he is; what a gossip he is; what a nose he's got for smelling out everything bad, everything scandalous.
Well, believe it or not, but I'm convinced that he's already got Aglaya in his hands!
And if he hasn't, he will.
Rogozhin has also entered into relations with him.
How does the prince not notice it!
And how he wants to do me a bad turn now!
He considers me his personal enemy, I saw through him long ago, and why, what is it to him, he'll die anyway—I can't understand it!
But I'll fool him; I'll do him a bad turn, and not he me, you'll see."
"Why did you lure him here, then, if you hate him so much?
And is it worth it to do him a bad turn?"
"It was you who advised me to lure him here."
"I thought he'd be useful; and do you know that he has now fallen in love with Aglaya himself and has written to her?
They questioned me . . . it's just possible that he's written to Lizaveta Prokofyevna, too."
"He's no danger in that sense!" Ganya said with a spiteful laugh. "However, there's probably something else in it.
He may very well be in love, because he's a boy!
But... he wouldn't write anonymous letters to the old lady.
He's such a spiteful, worthless, self-satisfied mediocrity! . . .
I'm convinced, I know for certain, that he represented me to her as an intriguer, and began with that.
I confess that like a fool I let things slip to him at first; I thought he'd take up my interests just to be revenged on the prince; he's such a cunning creature!
Oh, now I've seen through him completely.
And the theft he heard about from his own mother, the captain's widow.
If the old man ventured to do that, it was for her sake.
Suddenly, out of the blue, he tells me that 'the general' has promised his mother four hundred roubles, and he does it just like that, out of the blue, without any ceremony.
Then I understood everything.
And he just peeks into my eyes with some kind of relish; he probably also told mother solely for the pleasure of breaking her heart.
And why doesn't he die, pray tell?
He promised to die in three weeks, but he's even grown fatter here!
He doesn't cough any more; yesterday evening he said himself that he hadn't coughed up blood for two days."
"Throw him out."
"I don't hate him, I despise him," Ganya said proudly.
"Well, yes, yes, I do hate him, I do!" he suddenly cried with extraordinary fury. "And I'll say it right to his face, even when he's about to die, on his pillow!
If you'd only read his 'Confession'—God, what naivety of impudence!
It's Lieutenant Pirogov, it's Nozdryov5 in a tragedy, and above all—a little brat!
Oh, with what relish I'd have given him a whipping then, precisely to astonish him.
He's taking revenge on everybody now, because it didn't come off then . . . But what's that?
More noise there?
No, what is it, finally?
I won't put up with it, finally!
Ptitsyn!" he shouted to Ptitsyn, who was coming into the room. "What is this, what are things here coming to, finally?
It's . . . it's . . ."
But the noise was quickly approaching, the door was suddenly flung open, and old man Ivolgin, in wrath, purple, shaken, beside himself, also fell upon Ptitsyn.
The old man was followed by Nina Alexandrovna, Kolya, and, last of all, Ippolit.