“Upon my word, I didn’t! To this moment I don’t know how it all happened. I—I ran after Aglaya Ivanovna, but Nastasia Philipovna fell down in a faint; and since that day they won’t let me see Aglaya—that’s all I know.”
“It’s all the same; you ought to have run after Aglaya though the other was fainting.”
“Yes, yes, I ought—but I couldn’t! She would have died—she would have killed herself. You don’t know her; and I should have told Aglaya everything afterwards—but I see, Evgenie Pavlovitch, you don’t know all. Tell me now, why am I not allowed to see Aglaya? I should have cleared it all up, you know. Neither of them kept to the real point, you see. I could never explain what I mean to you, but I think I could to Aglaya. Oh! my God, my God! You spoke just now of Aglaya’s face at the moment when she ran away. Oh, my God! I remember it! Come along, come along—quick!” He pulled at Evgenie’s coat-sleeve nervously and excitedly, and rose from his chair.
“Where to?”
“Come to Aglaya—quick, quick!”
“But I told you she is not at Pavlofsk. And what would be the use if she were?”
“Oh, she’ll understand, she’ll understand!” cried the prince, clasping his hands. “She would understand that all this is not the point—not a bit the real point—it is quite foreign to the real question.”
“How can it be foreign? You are going to be married, are you not? Very well, then you are persisting in your course. Are you going to marry her or not?”
“Yes, I shall marry her—yes.”
“Then why is it ‘not the point’?”