Page 440 - the-idiot

XI

HE anger of the Epanchin family was unappeased for
Tthree days. As usual the prince reproached himself, and
had expected punishment, but he was inwardly convinced
that Lizabetha Prokofievna could not be seriously angry
with him, and that she probably was more angry with her-
self. He was painfully surprised, therefore, when three days
passed with no word from her. Other things also troubled
and perplexed him, and one of these grew more impor-
tant in his eyes as the days went by. He had begun to blame
himself for two opposite tendencies—on the one hand to
extreme, almost ‘senseless,’ confidence in his fellows, on the
other to a ‘vile, gloomy suspiciousness.’
By the end of the third day the incident of the eccentric
lady and Evgenie Pavlovitch had attained enormous and
mysterious proportions in his mind. He sorrowfully asked
himself whether he had been the cause of this new ‘mon-
strosity,’ or was it ... but he refrained from saying who else
might be in fault. As for the letters N.P.B., he looked on that
as a harmless joke, a mere childish piece of mischief—so
childish that he felt it would be shameful, almost dishon-
ourable, to attach any importance to it.
The day after these scandalous events, however, the prince
had the honour of receiving a visit from Adelaida and her
fiance, Prince S. They came, ostensibly, to inquire after his