The Insulted and the Injured

Natasha looked at him caressingly, and as it were mournfully, and did not speak. His words seemed like a caress, and yet a torment to her.

“And I saw how fine Katya was a long time ago, at least a fortnight,” he went on. “ I’ve been going to them every evening, you see. As I went home I kept thinking of you both, kept comparing you.”

“Which of us came off best?” asked Natasha, smiling.

“Sometimes you and sometimes she. But you were always the best in the long run. When I talk to her I always feel I become somehow better, cleverer, and somehow finer. But tomorrow, tomorrow will settle everything!”

“And aren’t you sorry for her? She loves you, you know. You say you’ve noticed it yourself.”

“Yes, I am, Natasha. But we’ll all three love one another, and then . . .”

“And then ‘good-bye’” Natasha brought out quietly, as though to herself.

Alyosha looked at her in amazement.

But our conversation was suddenly interrupted in the most unexpected way. In the kitchen, which was at the same time the entry, we heard a slight noise as though someone had come in. A minute later Mavra opened the door and began nodding to Alyosha on the sly, beckoning to him. We all turned to her.

“Someone’s asking for you. Come along,” she said in a mysterious voice.

“Who can be asking for me now?” said Alyosha, looking at us in bewilderment. “I’m coming!”

In the kitchen stood his father’s servant in livery. It appeared that the prince had stopped his carriage at Natasha’s lodging on his way home, and had sent to inquire whether Alyosha were there. Explaining this, the footman went away at once.

“Strange! This has never happened before,” said Alyosha, looking at us in confusion. “What does it mean?”

Natasha looked at him uneasily. Suddenly Mavra opened the door again.

“Here’s the prince himself!” she said in a hurried whisper, and at once withdrew.

Natasha turned pale and got up from her seat. Suddenly her eyes kindled. She stood leaning a little on the table, and looked in agitation towards the door, by which the uninvited visitor would enter.

“Natasha, don’t be afraid! You’re with me. I won’t let you be insulted,” whispered Alyosha, disconcerted but not overwhelmed. The door opened, and Prince Valkovsky in his own person appeared on the threshold.

Last updated on Wed Jan 12 09:26:21 2011 for eBooks@Adelaide.

The Insulted and the Injured, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Chapter II

HE took us all in in a rapid attentive glance. It was impossible to guess from this glance whether he had come as a friend or as an enemy. But I will describe his appearance minutely. He struck me particularly that evening.

I had seen him before. He was a man of forty-five, not more, with regular and strikingly handsome features, the expression of which varied according to circumstances; but it changed abruptly, completely, with extraordinary rapidity, passing from the most agreeable to the most surly or displeased expression, as though some spring were suddenly touched. The regular oval of his rather swarthy face, his superb teeth, his small, rather thin, beautifully chiselled lips, his rather long straight nose, his high forehead, on which no wrinkle could be discerned, his rather large grey eyes, made him handsome, and yet his face did not make a pleasant impression. The face repelled because its expression was not spontaneous, but always, as it were, artificial, deliberate, borrowed, and a blind conviction grew upon one that one would never read his real expression. Looking more carefully one began to suspect behind the invariable mask something spiteful, cu

He went straight up to Natasha and said, looking at her firmly:

“My calling upon you at such an hour, and una

He said all this courteously but with force, and, as it were, emphasis.

“Sit down,” said Natasha, still unable to shake off her confusion and some alarm.

He made a slight bow and sat down.

“First of all allow me to say a couple of words to him,” he said, indicating his son. “As soon as you had gone away, Alyosha, without waiting for me or even taking leave of us, the countess was informed that Katerina Fyodorovna was ill. She was hastening to her, but Katerina Fyodorovna herself suddenly came in distressed and violently agitated. She told us, forthwith, that she could not marry you. She said, too, that she was going into a nu

“I hope I shall understand and appreciate what you are going to say, as I ought,” answered Natasha, faltering.

The prince scrutinized her intently as though he were in a hurry to understand her through and through in one minute. “I am relying on your penetration too,” he went on, “and I have ventured to come to you now just because I knew with whom I should have to deal. I have known you for a long time now, although I was at one time so unfair to you and did you injustice. Listen. You know that between me and your father there are disagreements of long standing. I don’t justify myself; perhaps I have been more to blame in my treatment of him than I had supposed till now. But if so I was myself deceived. I am suspicious, and I recognize it. I am disposed to suspect evil rather than good: an unhappy trait, characteristic of a cold heart. But it is not my habit to conceal my failings. I believed in the past all that was said against you, and when you left your parents I was terror-stricken for Alyosha. But then I did not know you. The information I have gathered little by little has completely reassured me. I have watched you, studied you, and am at last convinced that my suspicions were groundless. I have learnt that you are cut off from your family. I know, too, that your father is utterly opposed to your marriage with my son, and the mere fact that, having such an influence, such power, one may say, over Alyosha, you have not hitherto taken advantage of that power to force him to marry you — that alone says much for you. And yet I confess it openly, I was firmly resolved at that time to hinder any possibility of your marriage with my son. I know I am expressing myself too straight forwardly, but, at this moment straightforwardness on my part is what is most needed. You will admit that yourself when you have heard me to the end. Soon after you left your home I went away from Petersburg, but by then I had no further fears for Alyosha. I relied on your generous pride. I knew that you did not yourself want a marriage before the family dissensions were over, that you were unwilling to destroy the good understanding between Alyosha and me — for I should never have forgiven his marriage with you — that you were unwilling, too, to have it said of you that you were trying to catch a prince for a husband, and to be co