f late that you have grown sceptical about
everything. You don't seem to believe in people as you did, and are
always attributing motives and so on--am I using the word 'sceptic' in
its proper sense?"

"I believe so; but I'm not sure."

"Well, I'll change it, right or wrong; I'll say that you are not
sceptical, but JEALOUS. There! you are deadly jealous of Gania, over
a certain proud damsel! Come!" Colia jumped up, with these words, and
burst out laughing. He laughed as he had perhaps never laughed before,
and still more when he saw the prince flushing up to his temples. He was
delighted that the prince should be jealous about Aglaya. However, he
stopped immediately on seeing that the other was really hurt, and the
conversation continued, very earnestly, for an hour or more.

Next day the prince had to go to town, on business. Returning in the
afternoon, he happened upon General Epanchin at the station. The latter
seized his hand, glancing around nervously, as if he were afraid
of being caught in wrong-doing, and dragged him into a first-class
compartment. He was burning to speak about something of importance.

"In the first place, my dear prince, don't be angry with me. I would
have come to see you yesterday, but I didn't know how Lizabetha
Prokofievna would take it. My dear fellow, my house is simply a hell
just now, a sort of sphinx has taken up its abode there. We live in an
atmosphere of riddles; I can't make head or tail of anything. As for
you, I feel sure you are the least to blame of any of us, though you
certainly have been the cause of a good deal of trouble. You see, it's
all very pleasant to be a philanthropist; but it can be carried too far.
Of course I admire kind-heartedness, and I esteem my wife, but--"

The general wandered on in this disconnected way for a long time; it
was clear that he was much disturbed by some circumstance which he could
make nothing of.

"It is plain to me, that YOU are not in it at all," he continued, at
last, a little less vaguely, "but perhaps you had better not come to
our house for a little while. I ask you in the friendliest manner,
mind; just till the wind changes again. As for Evgenie Pavlovitch," he
continued with some excitement, "the whole thing is a calumny, a dirty
calumny. It is simply a plot, an intrigue, to upset our plans and to
stir up a quarrel. You see, prince, I'll tell you privately, Evgenie and
ourselves have not said a word yet, we have no formal und