condition; for not
to speak of the excitements of the day, he had spent the night before in
the train, and had not slept more than a wink for forty-eight hours.

"This, gentlemen, is a hundred thousand roubles," said Nastasia
Philipovna, addressing the company in general, "here, in this dirty
parcel. This afternoon Rogojin yelled, like a madman, that he would
bring me a hundred thousand in the evening, and I have been waiting for
him all the while. He was bargaining for me, you know; first he offered
me eighteen thousand; then he rose to forty, and then to a hundred
thousand. And he has kept his word, see! My goodness, how white he is!
All this happened this afternoon, at Gania's. I had gone to pay his
mother a visit--my future family, you know! And his sister said to my
very face, surely somebody will turn this shameless creature out. After
which she spat in her brother Gania's face--a girl of character, that!"

"Nastasia Philipovna!" began the general, reproachfully. He was
beginning to put his own interpretation on the affair.

"Well, what, general? Not quite good form, eh? Oh, nonsense! Here have
I been sitting in my box at the French theatre for the last five years
like a statue of inaccessible virtue, and kept out of the way of all
admirers, like a silly little idiot! Now, there's this man, who comes
and pays down his hundred thousand on the table, before you all, in
spite of my five years of innocence and proud virtue, and I dare be
sworn he has his sledge outside waiting to carry me off. He values me
at a hundred thousand! I see you are still angry with me, Gania!
Why, surely you never really wished to take ME into your family? ME,
Rogojin's mistress! What did the prince say just now?"

"I never said you were Rogojin's mistress--you are NOT!" said the
prince, in trembling accents.

"Nastasia Philipovna, dear soul!" cried the actress, impatiently, "do
be calm, dear! If it annoys you so--all this--do go away and rest! Of
course you would never go with this wretched fellow, in spite of his
hundred thousand roubles! Take his money and kick him out of the house;
that's the way to treat him and the likes of him! Upon my word, if it
were my business, I'd soon clear them all out!"

The actress was a kind-hearted woman, and highly impressionable. She was
very angry now.

"Don't be cross, Daria Alexeyevna!" laughed Nastasia. "I was not angry
when I spoke; I wasn't reproaching Gania. I don't know how it was that I