d, but
nothing was said to him about the party until the night before it was to
take place.

He could not help observing the excited and agitated condition of all
members of the family, and from certain hints dropped in conversation he
gathered that they were all anxious as to the impression he should
make upon the princess. But the Epanchins, one and all, believed that
Muishkin, in his simplicity of mind, was quite incapable of realizing
that they could be feeling any anxiety on his account, and for this
reason they all looked at him with dread and uneasiness.

In point of fact, he did attach marvellously little importance to the
approaching event. He was occupied with altogether different thoughts.
Aglaya was growing hourly more capricious and gloomy, and this
distressed him. When they told him that Evgenie Pavlovitch was expected,
he evinced great delight, and said that he had long wished to see
him--and somehow these words did not please anyone.

Aglaya left the room in a fit of irritation, and it was not until late
in the evening, past eleven, when the prince was taking his departure,
that she said a word or two to him, privately, as she accompanied him as
far as the front door.

"I should like you," she said, "not to come here tomorrow until evening,
when the guests are all assembled. You know there are to be guests,
don't you?"

She spoke impatiently and with severity; this was the first allusion she
had made to the party of tomorrow.

She hated the idea of it, everyone saw that; and she would probably
have liked to quarrel about it with her parents, but pride and modesty
prevented her from broaching the subject.

The prince jumped to the conclusion that Aglaya, too, was nervous about
him, and the impression he would make, and that she did not like to
admit her anxiety; and this thought alarmed him.

"Yes, I am invited," he replied.

She was evidently in difficulties as to how best to go on. "May I speak
of something serious to you, for once in my life?" she asked, angrily.
She was irritated at she knew not what, and could not restrain her
wrath.

"Of course you may; I am very glad to listen," replied Muishkin.

Aglaya was silent a moment and then began again with evident dislike of
her subject:

"I do not wish to quarrel with them about this; in some things they
won't be reasonable. I always did feel a loathing for the laws which
seem to guide mamma's conduct at times. I don't speak of father, fo