this moment!"

"But you declared I wasn't--"

"Don't be a simpleton. You behave just as though you weren't a man at
all. Come on! I shall see, now, with my own eyes. I shall see all."

"Well, let me get my hat, at least."

"Here's your miserable hat He couldn't even choose a respectable shape
for his hat! Come on! She did that because I took your part and said you
ought to have come--little vixen!--else she would never have sent you
that silly note. It's a most improper note, I call it; most improper for
such an intelligent, well-brought-up girl to write. H'm! I dare say she
was annoyed that you didn't come; but she ought to have known that one
can't write like that to an idiot like you, for you'd be sure to take it
literally." Mrs. Epanchin was dragging the prince along with her all
the time, and never let go of his hand for an instant. "What are you
listening for?" she added, seeing that she had committed herself a
little. "She wants a clown like you--she hasn't seen one for some
time--to play with. That's why she is anxious for you to come to the
house. And right glad I am that she'll make a thorough good fool of you.
You deserve it; and she can do it--oh! she can, indeed!--as well as most
people."

PART III

I.

THE Epanchin family, or at least the more serious members of it, were
sometimes grieved because they seemed so unlike the rest of the world.
They were not quite certain, but had at times a strong suspicion that
things did not happen to them as they did to other people. Others led a
quiet, uneventful life, while they were subject to continual upheavals.
Others kept on the rails without difficulty; they ran off at the
slightest obstacle. Other houses were governed by a timid routine;
theirs was somehow different. Perhaps Lizabetha Prokofievna was alone
in making these fretful observations; the girls, though not wanting in
intelligence, were still young; the general was intelligent, too, but
narrow, and in any difficulty he was content to say, "H'm!" and leave
the matter to his wife. Consequently, on her fell the responsibility. It
was not that they distinguished themselves as a family by any particular
originality, or that their excursions off the track led to any breach of
the proprieties. Oh no.

There was nothing premeditated, there was not even any conscious purpose
in it all, and yet, in spite of everything, the family, although highly
respected, was not quite what every highly respected f