money out of me by means of tears, but you swear yourself that your confession had another, noble purpose, not only money. As for the money, you need it to go carousing, right? After such a confession, that is, naturally, pusillanimous. But how, also, is one to give up carousing in a single moment? It's impossible. What then is to be done? Best of all is to leave it to your own conscience, don't you think?"
The prince looked at Keller with extreme curiosity. The question of double thoughts had evidently occupied him for a long time.
"Well, why they call you an idiot after that, I don't understand!" exclaimed Keller.
The prince blushed slightly.
"The preacher Bourdaloue wouldn't have spared a man, but you spared a man and reasoned about me in a human way! To punish myself and show that I'm touched, I don't want a hundred and fifty roubles, give me just twenty-five roubles, and enough! That's all I need for at least two weeks. I won't come for money before two weeks from now. I wanted to give Agashka a treat, but she doesn't deserve it. Oh, dear Prince, God bless you!"
Lebedev came in at last, having only just returned, and, noticing the twenty-five-rouble note in Keller's hand, he winced. But Keller, finding himself in possession of the money, hurried off and effaced himself immediately. Lebedev at once began talking him down.
"You're unfair, he was actually sincerely repentant," the prince observed at last.
"What good is his repentance! Exactly like me yesterday: 'mean, mean,' but it's all just words, sir!"
"So with you it was just words? And I thought . . ."
"Well, to you, to you alone I'll tell the truth, because you can see through a man: words, deeds, lies, truth—they're all there together in me and completely sincere. The truth and deeds in me are made up of sincere repentance, believe it or not, I'll swear to it, but the words and lies are made up of an infernal (and ever-present) notion, of somehow snaring a man here, too, of somehow profiting even from tears of repentance! By God, it's so! I wouldn't have told any other man—he'd laugh or spit; but you, Prince, you reason in a human way."
"There, now, that's exactly what he just said to me," cried the prince, "and it's as if you're both boasting! You even surprise me, only he's more sincere than you are, with you it's turned into a decided profession. Well, enough, don't wince, Lebedev, and don't
put your hands to your heart. Haven't you got something to tell me? You never come for nothing . . ."
Lebedev began grimacing and squirming.
"I've been waiting for you all day so as to ask you a single question; at least once in your life tell me the truth straight off: did you participate to any extent in that carriage yesterday or not?"
Lebedev again began grimacing, tittering, rubbing his hands, and finally went into a sneezing fit, but still could not bring himself to say anything.
"I see you did."
"But indirectly, only indirectly! It's the real truth I'm telling! I participated only by sending a timely message to a certain person, that such-and-such a company had gathered at my place and that certain persons were present."
"I know you sent your son there,he told me himself earlier, but what sort of intrigue is this!" the prince exclaimed in impatience.
"It's not my intrigue, not mine," Lebedev waved his hands, "others, others are in it, and it's sooner, so to speak, a fantasy than an intrigue."
"What is it about, explain to me, for Christ's sake? Don't you see that it concerns me directly? Evgeny Pavlych was blackened here."
"Prince! Illustrious Prince!" Lebedev squirmed again. "You don't let me speak the whole truth; I've already tried to tell you the truth; more than once; you wouldn't let me go on . . ."
The prince paused and pondered.
"Well, all right, speak the truth," he said heavily, obviously after a great struggle.
"Aglaya Ivanovna . . ." Lebedev began at once.
"Shut up, shut up!" the prince shouted furiously, turning all red with indignation and perhaps with shame. "It can't be, it's all nonsense! You thought it all up yourself, or some madmen like you. I never want to hear any more of it from you!"
Late at night, past ten o'clock, Kolya arrived with a whole bagful of news. His news was of a double sort: from Petersburg and from Pavlovsk. He quickly told the main Petersburg news (mostly about Ippolit and yesterday's story), in order to return to it later, and hastened on to the Pavlovsk news. Three hours ago he came back from Petersburg and, without stopping at the prince's, went straight to the Epanchins'. "Terrible goings-on there!" Naturally, the carriage was in the foreground, but something else had certainly
happened there, something unknown to him and the prince. "I naturally didn't spy and didn't want to ask questions; however, they received me well, better than I expected, but not a word about you, Prince!" The chiefest and most interesting thing was that Aglaya had quarreled with her family over Ganya. What the details of the matter were, he did not know, only it was over Ganya (imagine that!), and they had quarreled terribly, so it was something important. The general arrived late, arrived scowling, arrived with Evgeny Pavlovich, who was received excellently, and Evgeny Pavlovich himself was surprisingly merry and nice. The most capital news was that Lizaveta Prokofyevna, without any noise, sent for Varvara Ardalionovna, who was sitting with the girls, and threw her out of the house once and for all, in the most courteous way, incidentally—"I heard it from Varya herself." But when Varya left Lizaveta Prokofyevna and said good-bye to the girls, they did not even know that she had been denied the house once and for all and that she was saying good-bye to them for the last time.
"But Varvara Ardalionovna was here at seven o'clock," said the astonished prince.
"And she was thrown out before eight or at eight. I'm very sorry for Varya, sorry for Ganya ... no doubt it's their eternal intrigues, they can't do without them. And I've never been able to find out what they're planning, and don't want to know. But I assure you, my dear, my kind Prince, that Ganya has a heart. He's a lost man in many respects, of course, but in many respects there are qualities in him that are worth seeking out, and I'll never forgive myself for not understanding him before ... I don't know if I should go on now, after the story with Varya. True, I took a completely independent and separate stand from the very beginning, but all the same I must think it over."
"You needn't feel too sorry for your brother," the prince observed to him. "If things have come to that, it means that Gavrila Ardalionovich is dangerous in Lizaveta Prokofyevna's eyes, and that means that certain of his hopes are being affirmed."
"How, what hopes?" Kolya cried out in amazement. "You don't think Aglaya ... it can't be!"
The prince said nothing.
"You're a terrible skeptic, Prince," Kolya added after a couple of minutes. "I've noticed that since a certain time you've become an extreme skeptic; you're beginning not to believe anything and to
suppose everything . . . have I used the word 'skeptic' correctly in this case?"
"I think so, though, anyhow, I don't know for certain myself."