All this news was received with a somewhat gloomy interest. Nastasya Filippovna was silent, obviously unwilling to speak her mind; Ganya also.
General Epanchin was almost more worried than anyone else: the pearls he had already presented earlier in the day had been received with a much too cool politeness, and even with a sort of special smile.
Ferdyshchenko alone of all the guests was in jolly and festive spirits, and guffawed loudly, sometimes for no known reason, only because he had adopted for himself the role of buffoon.
Afanasy Ivanovich himself, reputed to be a fine and elegant talker, who on previous occasions had presided over the conversation at these parties, was obviously in low spirits and even in some sort of perplexity that was quite unlike him.
The remainder of the guests, of whom, incidentally, there were not many (one pathetic little old schoolteacher, invited for God knows what purpose, some unknown and very young man, who was terribly timid and kept silent all the time, a sprightly lady of about forty, an actress, and one extremely beautiful, extremely well and expensively dressed, and extraordinarily taciturn young lady), were not only unable to enliven the conversation especially, but sometimes simply did not know what to talk about.
Thus, the prince's appearance was even opportune.
When he was announced, it caused bewilderment and a few strange smiles, especially as it was evident from Nastasya Filippovna's surprised look that she had never thought of inviting him.
But after her surprise, Nastasya Filippovna suddenly showed such pleasure that the majority prepared at once to meet the unexpected guest with laughter and merriment.
"I suppose it comes of his innocence," Ivan Fyodorovich Epanchin concluded, "and to encourage such inclinations is in any case rather dangerous, but at the present moment it's really not bad that he has decided to come, though in such an original manner. He may even amuse us a bit, at least so far as I can judge about him."
"The more so as he's invited himself!" Ferdyshchenko put in at once.
"So what of it?" the general, who hated Ferdyshchenko, asked drily.
"So he'll have to pay at the door," the latter explained.
"Well, all the same, sir, Prince Myshkin isn't Ferdyshchenko," the general could not help himself, having been so far unable to accept the thought of being in the same company and on an equal footing with Ferdyshchenko.
"Hey, General, spare Ferdyshchenko," the latter said, grinning.
"I'm here under special dispensation."
"What is this special dispensation of yours?"
"Last time I had the honor of explaining it to the company in detail; I'll repeat it once more for Your Excellency.
Kindly note, Your Excellency: everybody else is witty, but I am not.
To make up for it, I asked permission to speak the truth, since everybody knows that only those who are not witty speak the truth.
Besides, I'm a very vindictive man, and that's also because I'm not witty.
I humbly bear with every offense, until the offender's first misstep; at his first misstep I remember at once and at once take my revenge in some way—I kick, as Ivan Petrovich Ptitsyn said of me, a man who, of course, never kicks anybody.
Do you know Krylov's fable, Your Excellency:
'The Lion and the Ass'?39 Well, that's you and me both, it was written about us."
"It seems you're running off at the mouth again, Ferdyshchenko," the general boiled over.
"What's that to you, Your Excellency?" Ferdyshchenko picked up. He was counting on being able to pick it up and embroider on it still more. "Don't worry, Your Excellency, I know my place: if I said you and I were the Lion and the Ass from Krylov's fable, I was, of course, taking the Ass's role on myself, and you, Your Excellency, are the Lion, as it says in Krylov's fable:
The mighty Lion, terror of the forest, In old age saw his strength begin to fail.
And I, Your Excellency, am the Ass."
"With that last bit I agree," the general imprudently let slip. All this was, of course, crude and deliberately affected, but there was a general agreement that Ferdyshchenko was allowed to play the role of buffoon.
"But I'm kept and let in here," Ferdyshchenko once exclaimed, "only so that I can talk precisely in this spirit.
I mean, is it really possible to receive somebody like me? I do understand that.
I mean, is it possible to sit me, such a Ferdyshchenko, next to a refined gentleman like Afanasy Ivanovich?
We're left willy-nilly with only one explanation: they do it precisely because it's impossible to imagine."
But though it was crude, all the same it could be biting, sometimes even very much so, and that, it seems, was what Nastasya Filippovna liked.
Those who wished absolutely to call on her had no choice but to put up with Ferdyshchenko.
It may be that he had guessed the whole truth in supposing that the reason he was received was that from the first his presence had become impossible for Totsky.
Ganya, for his part, had endured a whole infinity of torments from him, and in that sense Ferdyshchenko had managed to be very useful to Nastasya Filippovna.
"And I'll have the prince start by singing a fashionable romance," Ferdyshchenko concluded, watching out for what Nastasya Filippovna would say.
"I think not, Ferdyshchenko, and please don't get excited," she observed drily.
"Ahh!
If he's under special patronage, then I, too, will ease up .. ."
But Nastasya Filippovna rose without listening and went herself to meet her guest.
"I regretted," she said, appearing suddenly before the prince, "that earlier today, being in a flurry, I forgot to invite you here, and I'm very glad that you have now given me the chance to thank you and to praise you for your determination."
Saying this, she peered intently at the prince, trying at least somehow to interpret his action to herself.
The prince might have made some reply to her amiable words, but he was so dazzled and struck that he could not even get a word out.
Nastasya Filippovna noticed it with pleasure.
This evening she was in full array and made an extraordinary impression.
She took him by the arm and brought him to her guests.
Just before entering the reception room, the prince suddenly stopped and, with extraordinary excitement, hurriedly whispered to her:
"Everything in you is perfection . . . even the fact that you're so thin and pale . . . one has no wish to imagine you otherwise ... I wanted so much to come to you . . . I . . . forgive me ..."
"Don't ask forgiveness," Nastasya Filippovna laughed. "That will ruin all the strangeness and originality.