"That's clear from the fact that she invited him to come every day from one till two, and the man drags himself there every day, and she's still not sick of him," Mrs. Epanchin concluded, adding that through "the old woman" the prince was now received in two or three good houses.
"It's good that he doesn't sit in his corner feeling bashful like a fool."
The girls, to whom all this was imparted, noticed at once that their dear mama had concealed a great deal of her letter from them.
They might have known it from Varvara Ardalionovna, who could and certainly did know everything that Ptitsyn knew about the prince and his stay in Moscow.
And Ptitsyn might have been even better informed than anyone else.
But he was a man of extreme reticence in business matters, though he certainly shared things with Varya.
Mrs. Epanchin at once began to dislike Varvara Ardalionovna still more for it.
But be that as it may, the ice was broken, and it suddenly became possible to talk openly about the prince.
Besides that, the extraordinary impression and the exceedingly great interest that the prince had aroused and left behind him in the Epanchins' house once more clearly showed itself.
Mrs. Epanchin even marveled at the impression made on her daughters by the news from Moscow.
And the daughters also marveled at their mother, who had so solemnly announced to them that it was "the chiefest feature of her life to be constantly mistaken about people," and at the same time had recommended the prince to the attention of the "powerful" old Princess Belokonsky in Moscow, having, of course, to beg for her attention in the name of Christ and God, because on certain occasions the "old woman" was hard to get going.
But once the ice was broken and a fresh wind blew, the general also hastened to speak his mind.
It turned out that he, too, was extraordinarily interested.
He informed them, however, only of "the business side of the subject."
It turned out that, in the interests of the prince, he had charged a couple of gentlemen, highly reliable and of a certain sort of influence in Moscow, to keep an eye on him and especially on his guide Salazkin. Everything that had been said about the inheritance, "about the fact of the inheritance, so to speak," turned out to be true, but the inheritance itself turned out in the end to be by no means as significant as had originally been spread about.
The fortune was half entangled; there turned out to be debts; there turned out to be some sort of claimants, and the prince, in spite of all guidance, behaved in a most unbusinesslike way,
"Of course, God be with him": now that the "ice of silence" was broken, the general was glad to declare this "in all the sincerity" of his soul, because, "though the fellow's a bit like that," all the same he deserved it.
But meanwhile, all the same, he had made some blunders here: for instance, some of the dead merchant's creditors had appeared, with disputable, worthless papers, and some, having heard about the prince, even came without any papers—and what then?
The prince satisfied almost all of them, though his friends pointed out to him that all these petty folk and petty creditors were completely without rights; and he had only satisfied them because it actually turned out that a few of them had indeed suffered.
To this Mrs. Epanchin responded that Belokonsky had written something of the same sort to her and that "this is stupid, very stupid; but there's no curing a fool"—she added sharply, but one could see from her face how glad she was of what this "fool" had done.
In conclusion to all this the general noticed that his wife was as concerned for the prince as if he were her own son and that she had also begun to be terribly affectionate to Aglaya; seeing which, Ivan Fyodorovich assumed a very businesslike air for a time.
But once again all this pleasant mood did not exist for long.
Only two weeks went by and something suddenly changed again, Mrs. Epanchin scowled, and the general, after shrugging his shoulders a few times, again submitted to the "ice of silence."
The thing was that just two weeks earlier he had received undercover information, brief and therefore not quite clear, but reliable, that Nastasya Filippovna, who had first disappeared in Moscow, had then been found in Moscow by Rogozhin, had then disappeared again somewhere and had again been found by him, had finally given him an almost certain promise that she would marry him.
And now, only two weeks later, his excellency had suddenly received information that Nastasya Filippovna had run away for a third time, almost from the foot of the altar, and this time had disappeared somewhere in the provinces, and meanwhile Prince Myshkin had also vanished from Moscow, leaving Salazkin in charge of all his affairs, "together with her, or simply rushing after her, no one knows, but there's something in it," the general concluded.
Lizaveta Prokofyevna, for her part, also received some unpleasant information.
In the end, two months after the prince's departure, almost all the rumors about him in Petersburg had definitively died out, and in the Epanchins' house the "ice of silence" was not broken again.
Varvara Ardalionovna, however, still visited the girls.
To have done with all these rumors and reports, let us also add that a great many upheavals had taken place at the Epanchins' by spring, so that it was hard not to forget about the prince, who for his part never sent, and perhaps did not wish to send, any news of himself. Gradually, in the course of the winter, they finally decided to go abroad for the summer—that is, Lizaveta Prokofyevna and her daughters; the general, naturally, could not spend time on "empty entertainment."
The decision was taken at the extreme and persistent urging of the girls, who had become completely convinced that their parents did not want to take them abroad because they were constantly concerned with getting them married and finding suitors for them.
It may be that the parents also finally became convinced that suitors could be met abroad as well, and that one summer trip not only could not upset anything, but perhaps "might even contribute."
Here it would be appropriate to mention that the intended marriage between Afanasy Ivanovich Totsky and the eldest Epanchin girl broke up altogether, and no formal proposal ever took place.
It happened somehow by itself, without long discussions and without any family struggles.
Since the time of the prince's departure, everything had suddenly quieted down on both sides.
This circumstance was one of the causes of the then heavy mood in the Epanchin family, though Mrs. Epanchin said at the time that she would gladly "cross herself with both hands."
The general, though in disgrace and aware that it was his own fault, pouted for a long time all the same; he was sorry to lose Afanasy Ivanovich: "such a fortune, and such a dexterous man!"
Not long afterwards the general learned that Afanasy Ivanovich had been captivated by a traveling high-society Frenchwoman, a marquise and a legitimiste,2 that a marriage was to take place, after which Afanasy Ivanovich would be taken to Paris and then somewhere in Brittany.
"Well, the Frenchwoman will be the end of him," the general decided.
But the Epanchins were preparing to leave by summer.
And suddenly a circumstance occurred which again changed everything in a new way, and the trip was again postponed, to the greatest joy of the general and his wife.
A certain prince arrived in Petersburg from Moscow, Prince Shch., a well-known man, incidentally, and known from a quite, quite good point.
He was one of those people, or, one might even say, activists of recent times, honest, modest, who sincerely and consciously wish to be useful, are always working, and are distinguished by this rare and happy quality of always finding work.
Without putting himself forward, avoiding the bitterness and idle talk of parties, not counting himself among the foremost, the prince nevertheless had a quite substantial understanding of much that was happening in recent times.
Formerly he had been in government service, then he began to participate in zemstvo3 activity.
Besides that, he was a useful corresponding member of several Russian learned societies.
Together with an engineer acquaintance, he contributed, by gathering information and research, to correcting the planned itinerary of one of the most important railways.
He was about thirty-five years old.
He was a man "of the highest society" and, besides that, had a fortune that was "good, serious, incontestable," as the general put it, having met and become acquainted with the prince on the occasion of some rather serious business at the office of the count, his superior.
The prince, out of some special curiosity, never avoided making the acquaintance of Russia's "businesspeople."
It so happened that the prince also became acquainted with the general's family.