from themselves.
They seemed to be laughing at me in their sleeves--those elder girls--I
don't know why."

Gania had begun to frown, and probably Varia added this last sentence
in order to probe his thought. However, at this moment, the noise began
again upstairs.

"I'll turn him out!" shouted Gania, glad of the opportunity of venting
his vexation. "I shall just turn him out--we can't have this."

"Yes, and then he'll go about the place and disgrace us as he did
yesterday."

"How 'as he did yesterday'? What do you mean? What did he do yesterday?"
asked Gania, in alarm.

"Why, goodness me, don't you know?" Varia stopped short.

"What? You don't mean to say that he went there yesterday!" cried Gania,
flushing red with shame and anger. "Good heavens, Varia! Speak! You have
just been there. WAS he there or not, QUICK?" And Gania rushed for the
door. Varia followed and caught him by both hands.

"What are you doing? Where are you going to? You can't let him go now;
if you do he'll go and do something worse."

"What did he do there? What did he say?" "They couldn't tell me
themselves; they couldn't make head or tail of it; but he frightened
them all. He came to see the general, who was not at home; so he asked
for Lizabetha Prokofievna. First of all, he begged her for some place,
or situation, for work of some kind, and then he began to complain about
US, about me and my husband, and you, especially YOU; he said a lot of
things."

"Oh! couldn't you find out?" muttered Gania, trembling hysterically.

"No--nothing more than that. Why, they couldn't understand him
themselves; and very likely didn't tell me all."

Gania seized his head with both hands and tottered to the window; Varia
sat down at the other window.

"Funny girl, Aglaya," she observed, after a pause. "When she left me she
said, 'Give my special and personal respects to your parents; I shall
certainly find an opportunity to see your father one day,' and so
serious over it. She's a strange creature."

"Wasn't she joking? She was speaking sarcastically!" "Not a bit of it;
that's just the strange part of it."

"Does she know about father, do you think--or not?"

"That they do NOT know about it in the house is quite certain, the rest
of them, I mean; but you have given me an idea. Aglaya perhaps knows.
She alone, though, if anyone; for the sisters were as astonished as I
was to hear her speak so seriously. If she knows, the prince must have
told her.