d spent the evening, as just
recorded, was not of very long duration. Next day Aglaya quarrelled with
the prince again, and so she continued to behave for the next few days.
For whole hours at a time she ridiculed and chaffed the wretched man,
and made him almost a laughing-stock.

It is true that they used to sit in the little summer-house together for
an hour or two at a time, very often, but it was observed that on
these occasions the prince would read the paper, or some book, aloud to
Aglaya.

"Do you know," Aglaya said to him once, interrupting the reading, "I've
remarked that you are dreadfully badly educated. You never know anything
thoroughly, if one asks you; neither anyone's name, nor dates, nor about
treaties and so on. It's a great pity, you know!"

"I told you I had not had much of an education," replied the prince.

"How am I to respect you, if that's the case? Read on now. No--don't!
Stop reading!"

And once more, that same evening, Aglaya mystified them all. Prince S.
had returned, and Aglaya was particularly amiable to him, and asked a
great deal after Evgenie Pavlovitch. (Muishkin had not come in as yet.)

Suddenly Prince S. hinted something about "a new and approaching
change in the family." He was led to this remark by a communication
inadvertently made to him by Lizabetha Prokofievna, that Adelaida's
marriage must be postponed a little longer, in order that the two
weddings might come off together.

It is impossible to describe Aglaya's irritation. She flared up, and
said some indignant words about "all these silly insinuations."
She added that "she had no intentions as yet of replacing anybody's
mistress."

These words painfully impressed the whole party; but especially her
parents. Lizabetha Prokofievna summoned a secret council of two, and
insisted upon the general's demanding from the prince a full explanation
of his relations with Nastasia Philipovna. The general argued that it
was only a whim of Aglaya's; and that, had not Prince S. unfortunately
made that remark, which had confused the child and made her blush, she
never would have said what she did; and that he was sure Aglaya knew
well that anything she might have heard of the prince and Nastasia
Philipovna was merely the fabrication of malicious tongues, and that
the woman was going to marry Rogojin. He insisted that the prince had
nothing whatever to do with Nastasia Philipovna, so far as any liaison
was concerned; and, if the t