“Rogojin!” announced Ferdishenko.
“Oh! it’s not a great matter to guess who told her. A thief! A thief in our family, and the head of the family, too!”
“Coming, coming,” said the general. “Son of my old friend--” he was heard muttering as he went down the passage.
“A-ah! if he is to be under special patronage, I withdraw my claws.”
“Sacrilege, certainly--certainly sacrilege,” said the latter.
“Who told you that?” broke in Evgenie Pavlovitch.

As for Aglaya, she hardly said a word all the evening; but she listened with all her ears to Lef Nicolaievitch’s talk, and scarcely took her eyes off him.

“But perhaps we shall not be poor; we may be very rich, Nastasia Philipovna,” continued the prince, in the same timid, quivering tones. “I don’t know for certain, and I’m sorry to say I haven’t had an opportunity of finding out all day; but I received a letter from Moscow, while I was in Switzerland, from a Mr. Salaskin, and he acquaints me with the fact that I am entitled to a very large inheritance. This letter--”
Perhaps the sisterly love and friendship of the three girls had more or less exaggerated Aglaya’s chances of happiness. In their opinion, the latter’s destiny was not merely to be very happy; she was to live in a heaven on earth. Aglaya’s husband was to be a compendium of all the virtues, and of all success, not to speak of fabulous wealth. The two elder sisters had agreed that all was to be sacrificed by them, if need be, for Aglaya’s sake; her dowry was to be colossal and unprecedented.

Poor General Epanchin “put his foot in it” by answering the above questions in his own way. He said there was no cryptic message at all. As for the hedgehog, it was just a hedgehog, which meant nothing--unless, indeed, it was a pledge of friendship,--the sign of forgetting of offences and so on. At all events, it was a joke, and, of course, a most pardonable and innocent one.

“I assure you I did not mean to reckon up debits and credits,” he began, “and if you--”
“The Emperor was much struck.”
The general sat still with a most preoccupied air. The sisters were looking very serious and did not speak a word, and Lizabetha Prokofievna did not know how to commence the conversation.
“You are at least logical. I would only point out that from the right of might, to the right of tigers and crocodiles, or even Daniloff and Gorsky, is but a step.”
“My legs won’t move,” said the prince; “it’s fear, I know. When my fear is over, I’ll get up--”
“Nor do I! They always try to bury me underground when there’s anything going on; they don’t seem to reflect that it is unpleasant to a man to be treated so! I won’t stand it! We have just had a terrible scene!--mind, I speak to you as I would to my own son! Aglaya laughs at her mother. Her sisters guessed about Evgenie having proposed and been rejected, and told Lizabetha.
“Of course no one knows anything about her but you,” muttered the young man in a would-be jeering tone.
“Oh, then you _do_ intend to take a room?”
“Hurrah!” cried a number of voices. A rush was made for the wine by Rogojin’s followers, though, even among them, there seemed some sort of realization that the situation had changed. Rogojin stood and looked on, with an incredulous smile, screwing up one side of his mouth.
His audience consisted of a youth of about fifteen years of age with a clever face, who had a book in his hand, though he was not reading; a young lady of twenty, in deep mourning, stood near him with an infant in her arms; another girl of thirteen, also in black, was laughing loudly, her mouth wide open; and on the sofa lay a handsome young man, with black hair and eyes, and a suspicion of beard and whiskers. He frequently interrupted the speaker and argued with him, to the great delight of the others. “I didn’t know they called you a fool. I certainly don’t think you one.”
“I know that, father. Look here, dear old father, come back home! Let’s go back to mother. Look, she ran after us when we came out. What have you stopped her for, just as though you didn’t take in what I said? Why are you crying, father?”

Mrs. Epanchin gazed keenly into the prince’s eyes. She was anxious to see what impression the news as to Evgenie Pavlovitch had made upon him.

“That was Gavrila Ardalionovitch, who just went out, wasn’t it?” she asked suddenly, interrupting somebody else’s conversation to make the remark.
“Get on, quick!” shrieked Ferdishenko, rushing wildly up to Gania, and trying to drag him to the fire by the sleeve of his coat. “Get it, you dummy, it’s burning away fast! Oh--_damn_ the thing!”
To all this her mother replied that Alexandra was a freethinker, and that all this was due to that “cursed woman’s rights question.”

“Ferdishenko,” he said, gazing intently and inquiringly into the prince’s eyes.

“He has gone to get his coat,” said the boy.
“Soon?”

She next turned to General Epanchin and observed, most courteously, that she had long since known of his daughters, and that she had heard none but good report; that she had learned to think of them with deep and sincere respect. The idea alone that she could in any way serve them, would be to her both a pride and a source of real happiness.

He looked at his listeners again with that same serious, searching expression.

“Papa, how can you?” cried Adelaida, walking quickly up to the prince and holding out her hand.

The general rose.

The prince frowned for a moment in silence, and then said suddenly:

Gania might justly complain of the hardness with which fate treated him. Varia dared not speak to him for a long while, as he strode past her, backwards and forwards. At last he went and stood at the window, looking out, with his back turned towards her. There was a fearful row going on upstairs again. He glanced at Aglaya, who was listening with a look of hatred on her face. “Yes, of course, she did say something!” “I don’t know in the least; I wasn’t present when the joke was made. It _is_ a joke. I suppose, and that’s all.”
“Are you going to cross my path for ever, damn you!” cried Gania; and, loosening his hold on Varia, he slapped the prince’s face with all his force.
“Look here,” said Lizabetha Prokofievna, turning round suddenly; “we are passing his house. Whatever Aglaya may think, and in spite of anything that may happen, he is not a stranger to us; besides which, he is ill and in misfortune. I, for one, shall call in and see him. Let anyone follow me who cares to.”
“There is too much about myself, I know, but--” As Hippolyte said this his face wore a tired, pained look, and he wiped the sweat off his brow.