this woman. He decided to settle Nastasya Filippovna in Petersburg and surround her with luxurious comfort. If not the one thing, then the other: he could show Nastasya Filippovna off and even boast of her in a certain circle. And Afanasy Ivanovich cherished his reputation along that line.
Five years of Petersburg life had already gone by, and, naturally, in such a period many things had become clear. Afanasy Ivanovich's position was ungratifying; worst of all was that, having once turned coward, he could never afterwards be at peace. He was afraid— and did not even know why—he was simply afraid of Nastasya Filippovna. For some time, during the first two years, he began to suspect that Nastasya Filippovna wanted to marry him herself, but said nothing out of her extraordinary vanity and was stubbornly waiting for him to propose. It would have been a strange pretension; Afanasy Ivanovich scowled and pondered heavily. To his great and (such is man's heart!) rather unpleasant amazement, he had occasion suddenly to become convinced that even if he had proposed, he would not have been accepted. For a long time he could not understand it. Only one explanation seemed possible to him, that the pride of the "insulted and fantastic woman" had reached such frenzy that she found it more pleasant to show her contempt once by refusing than to define her position forever and attain an unattainable grandeur. The worst of it was that Nastasya Filippovna had gained the upper hand terribly much. She also would not yield to mercenary interests, even if the interests were very great, and though she accepted the offered comfort, she lived very modestly and in those five years saved almost nothing. Afanasy Ivanovich risked another very clever means of breaking his fetters: he began inconspicuously and artfully to tempt her, being skillfully aided, with various ideal temptations; but the incarnate ideals—princes, hussars, embassy secretaries, poets, novelists, even socialists—nothing made any impression on Nastasya Filippovna, as if she had a stone in place of a heart, and her feeling had dried up and died out once and for all. She lived a largely solitary life, read, even studied, liked music. She had very few acquaintances; she kept company with some poor and ridiculous wives of officials, knew two actresses, some old women, was very fond of the numerous family of a certain respectable teacher, and this family was very fond of her and received her with pleasure. In the evening she quite often had gatherings of five or six acquaintances, not more. Totsky came very often and punctually. More recently General Epanchin, not without
difficulty, had made Nastasya Filippovna's acquaintance. At the same time, quite easily and without any difficulty, a young clerk named Ferdyshchenko had made her acquaintance—a very indecent and salacious buffoon, with a pretense to gaiety and a penchant for drink. She was also acquainted with a strange young man by the name of Ptitsyn, modest, neat, and sleek, who had risen from destitution and become a moneylender. Gavrila Ardalionovich, too, finally made her acquaintance ... It ended with Nastasya Filippovna acquiring a strange fame: everyone knew of her beauty, but only that; no one had anything to boast of, no one had anything to tell. This reputation, her cultivation, elegant manners, wit—all this finally confirmed Afanasy Ivanovich in a certain plan. And it was at this moment that General Epanchin himself began to take such an active and great part in the story.
When Totsky so courteously turned to him for friendly advice concerning one of his daughters, he at once, in the noblest fashion, made a most full and candid confession. He revealed that he had already resolved to stop at nothing to gain his freedom; that he would not be at peace even if Nastasya Filippovna herself declared to him that henceforth she would leave him entirely alone; that words were not enough for him, and he wanted the fullest guarantees. They came to an understanding and decided to act together. At first they determined to try the gentlest ways and to touch, so to speak, only on "the noble strings of the heart." They both went to Nastasya Filippovna, and Totsky began straight off with the unbearable horror of his position; he blamed himself for everything; he said frankly that he was unable to repent of his initial behavior with her, because he was an inveterate sensualist and not in control of himself, but that now he wanted to marry, and the whole fate of this most highly respectable and society marriage was in her hands; in short, that he placed all his hopes in her noble heart. Then General Epanchin began to speak in his quality as father, and spoke reasonably, avoiding emotion, mentioning only that he fully recognized her right to decide Afanasy Ivanovich's fate, deftly displaying his own humility, pointing out that the fate of his daughter, and perhaps of his two other daughters, now depended on her decision. To Nastasya Filippovna's question: "Precisely what did they want of her?"—Totsky, with the same perfectly naked candor, admitted to her that he had been so frightened five years ago that even now he could not be entirely at peace until Nastasya Filippovna herself had married someone. He added at once that this request would, of
course, be absurd on his part, if he did not have some grounds in this regard. He had noted very well and had positive knowledge that a young man of very good name, and living in a most worthy family, Gavrila Ardalionovich Ivolgin, whom she knew and received in her house, had long loved her with all the force of passion and would certainly give half his life just for the hope of obtaining her sympathy. Gavrila Ardalionovich himself had confessed it to him, Afanasy Ivanovich, long ago, in a friendly way and out of the purity of his young heart, and it had long been known to Ivan Fyodorovich, the young man's benefactor. Finally, if he was not mistaken, Nastasya Filippovna herself had known of the young man's love for a long time, and it even seemed to him that she looked indulgently upon that love. Of course, it was hardest for him of all people to speak of it. But if Nastasya Filippovna would allow him, Totsky, apart from egoism and the desire to arrange his own lot, to wish her at least some good as well, she would understand that he had long found it strange and even painful to contemplate her solitude: that here there was only uncertain darkness, total disbelief in the renewal of life, which could so beautifully resurrect in love and a family, and thereby acquire a new purpose; that here were ruined abilities, perhaps brilliant ones, a voluntary reveling in her own sorrow, in short, even some sort of romanticism unworthy both of Nastasya Filippovna's common sense and of her noble heart. After repeating once again that it was harder for him to speak than for anyone else, he ended by saying that he could not give up the hope that Nastasya Filippovna would not reply to him with contempt if he expressed his sincere wish to secure her lot in the future and offer her the sum of seventy-five thousand roubles. He added by way of clarification that in any case this sum had already been allotted to her in his will; in short, that this was in no way a compensation of any sort. . . and that, finally, why not allow and excuse in him the human wish to unburden his conscience at least in some way, and so on and so forth—all that is usually said on the subject in such cases. Afanasy Ivanovich spoke long and eloquently, having appended, in passing so to speak, the very curious piece of information that he was now mentioning the seventy-five thousand for the first time and that no one knew of it, not even Ivan Fyodorovich himself, who was sitting right there; in short, no one knew.