"But my own, my own!" he babbled to the prince. "At my own expense, to glorify and celebrate, and there'll be food, a little snack, my daughter will see to that; but if you only knew, Prince, what a theme we've got going. Remember in Hamlet:'To be or not to be'? A modern theme, sir, modern! Questions and answers . . . And Mr. Terentyev is in the highest degree . . . unwilling to sleep! He had just a sip of champagne, a sip, nothing harmful . . . Come closer, Prince, and decide! Everybody's been waiting for you, everybody's only been waiting for your happy wit . . ."
The prince noticed the sweet, tender eyes of Vera Lebedev, who was also hurriedly making her way to him through the crowd. He reached past them all and gave her his hand first; she blushed with pleasure and wished him "a happy life starting this very day."Then she rushed off to the kitchen; she was preparing the snack there; but before the prince's arrival—the moment she could tear herself away from her work—she would come to the terrace and listen as hard as she could to the heated arguments constantly going on among the tipsy guests about things that were most abstract and strange to her. Her younger sister, the one who opened her mouth, fell asleep on a trunk in the next room, but the boy, Lebedev's son, stood beside Kolya and Ippolit, and the very look on his animated
face showed that he was prepared to stand there in the same spot, relishing and listening, for another ten hours on end.
"I've been especially waiting for you, and I'm terribly glad you've come so happy," Ippolit said, when the prince went over to shake hands with him immediately after Vera.
"And how do you know that I'm 'so happy'?"
"By the look on your face. Greet the gentlemen, and then quickly come to sit with us. I've been waiting especially for you," he added, significantly stressing the fact that he had been waiting. To the prince's remark that it might be bad for him to stay up so late, he replied that he was surprised at his wanting to die three days ago and that he had never felt better than that evening.
Burdovsky jumped up and murmured that he had come "just so . . . ," that he was with Ippolit "as an escort," and that he was also glad; that he had "written nonsense" in his letter, and that now he was "simply glad . . ." He did not finish, pressed the prince's hand firmly, and sat down on a chair.
After everyone else, the prince went over to Evgeny Pavlovich. The latter immediately took him by the arm.
"I have only a couple of words to say to you," he whispered in a low voice, "and about an extremely important circumstance. Let's step aside for a moment."
"A couple of words," another voice whispered into the prince's other ear, and another hand took him by the arm from the other side. The prince was surprised to see a terribly disheveled, flushed, winking and laughing face, in which he instantly recognized Ferdyshchenko, who had appeared from God knows where.
"Remember Ferdyshchenko?" the man asked.
"Where did you come from?" cried the prince.
"He repents!" cried Keller, running up. "He was hiding, he didn't want to come out to you, he was hiding there in the corner, he repents, Prince, he feels guilty."
"But of what, of what?"
"It was I who met him, Prince, I met him just now and brought him along; he's a rare one among my friends; but he repents."
"I'm very glad, gentlemen. Go and sit there with everyone, I'll be back presently." The prince finally got rid of them and hurried to Evgeny Pavlovich.
"It's amusing here," Evgeny Pavlovich observed, "and it was with pleasure that I waited half an hour for you. The thing is, my most gentle Lev Nikolaevich, that I've settled everything with
Kurmyshev and have come to put you at ease; there's nothing to worry about, he took the matter very, very reasonably, the more so because, in my opinion, it was sooner his fault."
"What Kurmyshev?"
"The one you seized by the arms today . . . He was so infuriated that he wanted to send someone to you tomorrow for explanations."
"Come, come, what nonsense!"
"Naturally it's nonsense and would probably have ended in nonsense; but these people . . ."
"Perhaps you've come for something else, Evgeny Pavlovich?"
"Oh, naturally there's something else," the man laughed. "Tomorrow at daybreak, my dear Prince, I'm going to Petersburg on this unfortunate business (I mean, about my uncle). Imagine to yourself: it's all true and everybody already knows it except me. I was so struck that I haven't had time to go there(to the Epanchins'); I won't see them tomorrow either, because I'll be in Petersburg, you understand? I may not be back for three days—in short, my affairs are in poor shape. Though the matter is not of infinite importance, I reasoned that I ought to have a most candid talk with you about certain things, and without losing time, that is, before my departure. I'll sit here now and wait, if you tell me to, till the company disperses; besides, I have nothing else to do with myself: I'm so agitated that I won't be able to sleep. Finally, though it's shameless and improper to pursue a person so directly, I'll tell you directly: I've come to seek your friendship, my dear Prince. You are a most incomparable man, that is, you don't lie at every step, and maybe not at all, and there's one matter in which I need a friend and an advisor, because I now decidedly find myself among the unfortunate . . ."
He laughed again.
"The trouble is," the prince reflected for a moment, "that you want to wait till they disperse, but God knows when that will be. Wouldn't it be better to go down to the park now? They'll wait, really; I'll apologize."
"No, no, I have my reasons for not arousing the suspicion that we are having an urgent conversation with some purpose; there are people here who are very interested in our relations—don't you know that, Prince? And it will be much better if they see that they are the most friendly relations, and not merely urgent ones—you understand? They'll leave in a couple of hours; I'll take about twenty minutes of your time—maybe half an hour . . ."
"You're most welcome, please stay. I'm very glad even without explanations; and thank you very much for your kind words about our friendly relations. You must forgive me for being absentminded tonight; you know, I simply cannot be attentive at the moment."
"I see, I see," Evgeny Pavlovich murmured with a slight smile. He laughed very easily that evening.
"What do you see?" the prince roused himself up.
"And don't you suspect, dear Prince," Evgeny Pavlovich went on smiling, without answering the direct question, "don't you suspect that I've simply come to hoodwink you and, incidentally, to worm something out of you, eh?"
"There's no doubt at all that you've come to worm something out of me," the prince finally laughed, too, "and it may even be that you've decided to deceive me a bit. But so what? I'm not afraid of you; what's more, it somehow makes no difference to me now, can you believe that? And . . . and . . . and since I'm convinced before all that you are still an excellent person, we may indeed end by becoming friends. I like you very much, Evgeny Pavlych; in my opinion, you're ... a very, very decent man!"
"Well, in any case it's very nice dealing with you, even in whatever it may be," Evgeny Pavlovich concluded. "Come, I'll drink a glass to your health; I'm terribly pleased to have joined you here. Ah!" he suddenly stopped, "has this gentleman Ippolit come to live with you?"
"Yes."
"He's not going to die at once, I suppose?"
"Why?"
"No, nothing; I spent half an hour with him here . . ."
All this time Ippolit was waiting for the prince and constantly glancing at him and Evgeny Pavlovich, while they stood aside talking. He became feverishly animated as they approached the table. He was restless and agitated; sweat broke out on his forehead. His eyes, along with a sort of roving, continual restlessness, also showed a certain vague impatience; his gaze moved aimlessly from object to object, from person to person. Though up to then he had taken great part in the general noisy conversation, his animation was only feverish; he paid no attention to the conversation itself; his arguments were incoherent, ironic, and carelessly paradoxical; he did not finish and dropped something he himself had begun saying a moment earlier with feverish ardor. The prince learned with surprise and regret that he had been allowed, unhindered, to