Prince what?
Myshkin?" she repeated to Ganya, who, still holding the prince by the shoulder, meanwhile managed to introduce him.
"Our tenant," repeated Ganya.
Obviously, the prince was being presented as something rare (and useful to them all as a way out of a false situation), he was *If it's not true . . . almost shoved at Nastasya Filippovna; the prince even clearly heard the word "idiot" whispered behind him, probably by Ferdyshchenko, in explanation to Nastasya Filippovna.
"Tell me, why didn't you undeceive me just now, when I made such a terrible . . . mistake about you?" Nastasya Filippovna went on, scrutinizing the prince from head to foot in a most unceremonious manner. She impatiently awaited the answer, as if fully convinced that the answer was bound to be so stupid that it would be impossible not to laugh.
"I was astonished, seeing you so suddenly . . ." the prince murmured.
"And how did you know it was me?
Where have you seen me before?
In fact, it's as if I have seen him somewhere—why is that?
And, allow me to ask you, why did you stand there so dumbstruck just now?
What's so dumbstriking about me?"
"Well, so? so?" Ferdyshchenko kept clowning. "Well, and so?
Oh, Lord, what things I'd say to such a question!
Well, so . . . What a booby you are, Prince, after this!"
"And what things I'd say, too, in your place!" the prince laughed to Ferdyshchenko. "I was very struck by your portrait today," he went on to Nastasya Filippovna. "Then I talked about you with the Epanchins . . . and early in the morning, still on the train, before I arrived in Petersburg, Parfyon Rogozhin told me a lot about you . . . And at the very moment when I opened the door, I was also thinking about you, and suddenly there you were."
"But how did you recognize me?"
"From the portrait and ..."
"And?"
"And also because that was precisely how I imagined you . . . It's as if I've also seen you somewhere."
"Where?
Where?"
"As if I've seen your eyes somewhere . . . but that can't be!
I'm just . . . I've never even been here before.
Maybe in a dream . . ."
"Bravo, Prince!" cried Ferdyshchenko.
"No, I take back my se non e vero . . .
But anyhow, anyhow, it's all just his innocence!" he added with regret.
The prince had spoken his few phrases in an uneasy voice, faltering and stopping frequently to catch his breath. Everything about him betrayed extreme agitation.
Nastasya Filippovna looked at him with curiosity, but was no longer laughing.
Just then a loud new voice was suddenly heard from behind the crowd that closely surrounded the prince and Nastasya Filippovna, parting the crowd, as it were, and dividing it in two.
Before Nastasya Filippovna stood the father of the family, General Ivolgin himself.
He was wearing a tailcoat and a clean shirtfront; his moustache was dyed . . .
This was more than Ganya could bear.
Proud and vainglorious to the point of insecurity, of hypochondria; seeking all those two months for at least some point on which he could rest with a certain dignity and show himself nobly; feeling himself still a novice on the chosen path, who might fail to keep to it; finally, in despair, having resolved to become totally insolent in his own house, where he was a despot, but not daring to show the same resolve before Nastasya Filippovna, who went on confusing him until the last moment and mercilessly kept the upper hand; "an impatient pauper," in Nastasya Filippovna's own phrase, of which he had been informed; having sworn with all possible oaths to exact painful recompense for it later, and at the same time occasionally dreaming childishly to himself of making all ends meet and reconciling all opposites—he now had to drink this terrible cup as well and, above all, at such a moment!
One more unforeseen but most awful torture for a vainglorious man—the torment of blushing for his own family in his own house—fell to his lot.
"Is the reward finally worth it?" flashed in Ganya's head at that moment.
What, for those two months, he had dreamed of only at night, as a nightmare which had made him freeze with horror and burn with shame, was taking place at that very moment: a family meeting was finally taking place between his father and Nastasya Filippovna.
Occasionally, teasing and chafing himself, he had tried to imagine the general during the wedding ceremony, but he had never been able to finish the painful picture and had hastily abandoned it.
Perhaps he had exaggerated the disaster beyond measure; but that is what always happens with vainglorious people.
In those two months he had had time to think it over and decide, promising himself that he would try at all costs to cancel his father at least for a time, and even to efface him from Petersburg, if possible, whether his mother agreed to it or not.
Ten minutes ago, when Nastasya Filippovna came in, he had been so stricken, so stunned, that he had completely forgotten the possibility of Ardalion Alexandrovich's appearance on the scene, and had not made any arrangements.
And so, here was the general, before them all, solemnly prepared and in a tailcoat besides, precisely at the moment when Nastasya Filippovna "was only seeking a chance to shower him and his household with mockery." (Of that he was convinced.) And what, in fact, did her present visit mean if not that?
Had she come to make friends with his mother and sister, or to insult them in his own house?
But by the way both sides placed themselves, there could no longer be any doubt: his mother and sister sat to one side as if spat upon, while Nastasya Filippovna seemed to have forgotten they were even in the same room with her . . . And if she behaved like that, she certainly had her purpose!
Ferdyshchenko rushed to support the general and led him forward.
"Ardalion Alexandrovich Ivolgin," the bowing and smiling general said with dignity, "an old and unfortunate soldier, and the father of a family happy in the hope of receiving into itself such a lovely ..."
He did not finish. Ferdyshchenko quickly offered him a chair from behind, and the general, somewhat weak in the legs after dinner, simply flopped or, better to say, collapsed into it; however, that did not embarrass him.
He sat directly facing Nastasya Filippovna and, with a pleasant little grimace, slowly and dramatically brought her fingers to his lips.
On the whole, it was rather difficult to embarrass the general.
His appearance, apart from a certain slovenliness, was still quite decent, as he knew very well himself.