"I don't mean that. You know, they left the seams showing on purpose, so that it would be noticed by... the right people. Do you understand?"
"No, I don't."
"Tant mieux.[lxxx] Passons. I'm very irritated today."
"But why did you argue with him, Stepan Trofimovich?" I said reproachfully.
"Je voulais convertir.[lxxxi] Laugh, of course, go on. Cette pauvre auntie, elle entendra de belles choses![lxxxii] Oh, my friend, would you believe, I felt like a patriot today! But, in fact, I've always considered myself a Russian... yes, a true Russian cannot but be like you and me. Il y a là-dedans quelque chose d'aveugle et de louche."[lxxxiii]
"Absolutely," I replied.
"My friend, the real truth is always implausible, did you know that? To make the truth more plausible, it's absolutely necessary to mix a bit of falsehood with it. People have always done so. Perhaps there's something here that we don't understand. What do you think, is there something in this victorious squealing that we don't understand? I wish there was. I do wish it."
I kept my silence. He, too, was silent for a very long time.
"They say that the French mind..." he began babbling suddenly, as if in a fever, "but that's a lie, it has always been so. Why slander the French mind? It's simply Russian laziness, our humiliating impotence to produce an idea, our disgusting parisitism among the nations. Ils sont tout simplement des paresseux,[lxxxiv] and not the French mind. Oh, Russians ought to be exterminated for the good of mankind, like harmful parasites! It was not for that, it was not at all for that that we strove; I don't understand any of it. I've ceased to understand! But do you understand, I cry to him, do you understand that if you have the guillotine in the forefront, and with such glee, it's for the sole reason that cutting heads off is the easiest thing, and having an idea is difficult! Vous êtes des paresseux! Votre drapeau est une guenille, une impuissance.[lxxxv] Those carts—or how does it go?—'the rumble of carts bringing bread to mankind' is more useful than the Sistine Madonna,[79] or however it goes... une bêtise dans ce genre.[lxxxvi] But do you understand, I cry to him, do you understand that along with happiness, in the exact same way and in perfectly equal proportion, man also needs unhappiness! Il rit. You're tossing off bon mots here, he says, while 'pampering your members on a velvet sofa' (he put it more nastily)... And note our new custom of familiar speech between father and son: it's very well when the two agree, but what if they're quarreling?"
We were silent again for about a minute.
"Cher," he suddenly concluded, rising quickly, "do you know that this will most certainly end with something?"
"That it will," I said.
"Vous ne comprenez pas.[lxxxvii] Passons. But... in this world things usually end with nothing, but here there will be an end, most certainly, most certainly!"
He got up, paced the room in the greatest agitation, and, coming to the sofa again, strengthlessly collapsed on it.
On Friday morning, Pyotr Stepanovich went somewhere in the district and was gone until Monday. I learned of his departure from Liputin, and just then, somehow in conversation, found out from him that the Lebyadkins, brother and sister, were both somewhere across the river, in the potters' quarter. "It was I who took them across," Liputin added, and, dropping the Lebyadkin subject, suddenly declared to me that Lizaveta Nikolaevna was going to marry Mavriky Nikolaevich, and though it had not been announced yet, there had been an engagement and the matter was concluded. The next day I met Lizaveta Nikolaevna on horseback, accompanied by Mavriky Nikolaevich, venturing out for the first time after her illness. She flashed her eyes at me from afar, laughed, and gave me a very friendly nod. All this I conveyed to Stepan Trofimovich; he paid some attention only to the news about the Lebyadkins.
And now, having described our puzzled situation during those eight days, when we still did not know anything, I will set out to describe the subsequent events of my chronicle, this time knowingly, so to speak, as they have now been revealed and explained. I will begin precisely from the eighth day following that Sunday, that is, from Monday evening, because it was essentially from that evening that the "new story" began.
III
It was seven o'clock in the evening, and Nikolai Vsevolodovich was sitting alone in his study—his favorite room from long past, lofty, spread with carpets, filled with somewhat heavy, old-fashioned furniture. He sat in the corner on the sofa, dressed as if to go out, but he did not seem to be going anywhere. On the table before him stood a lamp with a shade. The sides and corners of this big room remained in shadow. His look was pensive and concentrated, not altogether at ease; his face was tired and had grown somewhat thin. He was indeed suffering from a swollen cheek; but the rumor about the knocked-out tooth was exaggerated. The tooth had been loosened, but was now firm again; the lower lip had also been cut inside, but this, too, had healed. It had taken a whole week for the swelling to go down only because he did not want to receive the doctor and have him lance the abscess, but waited until it broke of itself. Not just the doctor, he would scarcely even admit his mother, and then only for a moment, once a day, and inevitably at dusk, when it was already dark but before the lights had been brought in. He did not receive Pyotr Stepanovich either, who nevertheless ran by two or three times a day, while he was still in town, to see Varvara Petrovna. And then at last, on Monday, having returned in the morning from his three-day absence, having run all over town, and having dined at Yulia Mikhailovna's, Pyotr Stepanovich came at last in the evening to Varvara Petrovna, who was awaiting him impatiently. The ban had been lifted, Nikolai Vsevolodovich was receiving. Varvara Petrovna herself led the guest to the door of the study; she had long wanted this meeting, and Pyotr Stepanovich gave her his word that he would run to her from Nicolas and recount it all. She timidly knocked for Nikolai Vsevolodovich and, getting no answer, ventured to open the door a couple of inches.
"Nicolas, may I bring Pyotr Stepanovich in?" she asked softly and restrainedly, trying to make Nikolai Vsevolodovich out behind the lamp.
"You may, you may, of course you may!" Pyotr Stepanovich himself cried loudly and gaily, opened the door with his own hand, and walked in.
Nikolai Vsevolodovich had not heard the knock on the door, he heard only his mother's timid question, but had no time to answer it. At that moment there lay before him a letter he had just read, over which he was pondering deeply. Hearing Pyotr Stepanovich's sudden cry, he started and quickly covered the letter with a paperweight that happened to be there, but not quite successfully: a corner of the letter and almost the entire envelope could be seen.
"I cried as loud as I could on purpose, to give you time to get ready,” Pyotr Stepanovich whispered hastily, with surprising naivety, running over to the desk and instantly fixing his eyes on the paperweight and the corner of the letter.
"And of course you had time to spy me hiding this just-received letter under the paperweight," Nikolai Vsevolodovich said calmly, without stirring from his seat.