“Do you know why I have just told you these lies?” She appealed to the prince, of a sudden, with the most childlike candour, and with the laugh still trembling on her lips. “Because when one tells a lie, if one insists on something unusual and eccentric--something too ‘out of the way’ for anything, you know--the more impossible the thing is, the more plausible does the lie sound. I’ve noticed this. But I managed it badly; I didn’t know how to work it.” She suddenly frowned again at this point as though at some sudden unpleasant recollection.
“I see for myself that it is so--and I shall tell _her_. But you are not quite yourself, Lef Nicolaievitch.”
Lebedeff, who was slightly intoxicated, answered with a sigh:
Two days after the strange conclusion to Nastasia Philipovna’s birthday party, with the record of which we concluded the first part of this story, Prince Muishkin hurriedly left St. Petersburg for Moscow, in order to see after some business connected with the receipt of his unexpected fortune.

“Very well.”

“Yes, of course; he had written letters to the latter with proposals of peace, had he not?” put in the prince.
“Oh! but that’s all I have,” said the prince, taking it.
“I have come to you--now--to--”
“I am speaking allegorically, of course; but he will be the murderer of a Zemarin family in the future. He is getting ready. ...”
“One more second and I should have stopped him,” said Keller, afterwards. In fact, he and Burdovsky jumped into another carriage and set off in pursuit; but it struck them as they drove along that it was not much use trying to bring Nastasia back by force.
“Probably when he is alone he looks quite different, and hardly smiles at all!” thought the prince.
He left the room quickly, covering his face with his hands.

“Oh, I supposed you were coming,” the other replied, smiling sarcastically, “and I was right in my supposition, you see; but how was I to know that you would come _today?_”

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

“They are very anxious to see me blow my brains out,” said Hippolyte, bitterly.

“They drag each other about the place,” he said, “and get drunk together at the pub close by here, and quarrel in the street on the way home, and embrace one another after it, and don’t seem to part for a moment.”
“Yes, especially this kind.”
“Who said that, Colia?”

“In point of fact I don’t think I thought much about it,” said the old fellow. He seemed to have a wonderfully good memory, however, for he told the prince all about the two old ladies, Pavlicheff’s cousins, who had taken care of him, and whom, he declared, he had taken to task for being too severe with the prince as a small sickly boy--the elder sister, at least; the younger had been kind, he recollected. They both now lived in another province, on a small estate left to them by Pavlicheff. The prince listened to all this with eyes sparkling with emotion and delight.

This time everyone laughed at her, her sisters, Prince S., Prince Muishkin (though he himself had flushed for some reason), and Colia. Aglaya was dreadfully indignant, and looked twice as pretty in her wrath.

“I’ve brought your book back,” he began, indicating a book lying on the table. “Much obliged to you for lending it to me.”

“And you’ll never reproach me with it?”

“Who are these people?” said the prince.

“I _do_ know all!” she cried, with another burst of indignation. “You were living in the same house as that horrible woman with whom you ran away.” She did not blush as she said this; on the contrary, she grew pale, and started from her seat, apparently oblivious of what she did, and immediately sat down again. Her lip continued to tremble for a long time.

“Well, a day or two afterwards, when I returned from drill, Nikifor says to me: ‘We oughtn’t to have left our tureen with the old lady, I’ve nothing to serve the soup in.’

It was only now that everyone realized to what a ridiculous dead-lock the whole matter had been brought. Excepting feigned surprise, indignation, laughter, and jeering--both at the prince and at everyone who asked her questions,--nothing could be got out of Aglaya.

“The project was abandoned; Davoust shrugged his shoulders and went out, whispering to himself--‘_Bah, il devient superstitieux!_’ Next morning the order to retreat was given.”
They certainly were put out, both of them.

Nastasia gazed at the prince in bewilderment. “Prince? He a Prince? Why, I took him for the footman, just now, and sent him in to announce me! Ha, ha, ha, isn’t that good!”

“Perhaps she wants to laugh at me,” thought the prince, “but no; for if she did she certainly would do so.”

“Ask Gavrila Ardalionovitch to step this way,” said she to the man who answered.
“Lebedeff, you seem to be angry for some reason!” said the prince.
“Practised hand--eh?”

But it was a hysterical laugh; he was feeling terribly oppressed. He remembered clearly that just here, standing before this window, he had suddenly turned round, just as earlier in the day he had turned and found the dreadful eyes of Rogojin fixed upon him. Convinced, therefore, that in this respect at all events he had been under no delusion, he left the shop and went on.

“Bravo, prince!” cried Ferdishenko, delighted.

At the first sound of Nastasia’s voice a shudder ran through her frame. Of course “that woman” observed and took in all this.

There he lay on the carpet, and someone quickly placed a cushion under his head.
Rogojin took the chair offered him, but he did not sit long; he soon stood up again, and did not reseat himself. Little by little he began to look around him and discern the other guests. Seeing Gania, he smiled venomously and muttered to himself, “Look at that!”

“Antip Burdovsky,” stuttered the son of Pavlicheff.

He awaited the reply in deadly anxiety.