"I'm mean, mean, I feel it," Lebedev answered unexpectedly, beating his breast with feeling. "But won't the general be too hospitable for you, sir?"
"Be too hospitable?"
"Hospitable, sir. First of all, he's already planning to live in my house; that's all right, sir, but he's enthusiastic, wants straight off to be like family. We've tried several times to figure out our relation, it turns out we're in-laws. You also turn out to be his nephew twice removed on his wife's side, he explained it to me yesterday. If you're his nephew, it means, illustrious Prince, that you and I are related. Never mind that, sir, it's a small weakness, but then he assured me that every day of his life, from when he became a lieutenant through the eleventh of June last year, he had never had less than two hundred persons sitting at his table. It finally went so far that they never got up, so that they had dinner, and supper, and tea fifteen hours a day for thirty years, without the slightest break, with barely time to change the tablecloth. One gets up and leaves, another comes, and on feast days and imperial birthdays the
number of guests rose to three hundred. And on the millennium of Russia, 27he counted seven hundred people. It's awful, sir; such stories—it's a very bad sign, sir; to receive such hospitable people is even frightening, and I thought: won't such a man be too hospitable for you and me?"
"But you seem to be on very good terms with him."
"In a brotherly way, and I take it as a joke; let us be in-laws: the more's the honor for me. Even through two hundred persons and the millennium of Russia, I can discern a very remarkable man in him. I'm speaking sincerely, sir. You mentioned secrets just now, Prince—that is, that I supposedly approach you as though I want to tell you a secret—and, as if on purpose, there is a secret: a certain person has sent a message that she wishes very much to have a secret meeting with you."
"Why secret? On no account. I'll visit her myself, maybe today."
"On no account, no, on no account," Lebedev waved, "and she's not afraid of what you think. Incidentally: the monster comes regularly every day to inquire after your health, do you know that?"
"You call him monster a bit too often, it makes me very suspicious."
"You cannot have any suspicions, not any," Lebedev hastened to defer. "I only wanted to explain that the certain person is not afraid of him, but of something quite different, quite different."
"But of what? Tell me quickly," the prince pressed him impatiently, looking at Lebedev's mysterious grimacing.
"That's the secret."
And Lebedev grinned.
"Whose secret?"
"Yours. You yourself forbade me, illustrious Prince, to speak in your presence . . ." Lebedev murmured and, delighted to have brought his listener's curiosity to the point of morbid impatience, he suddenly concluded: "She's afraid of Aglaya Ivanovna."
The prince winced and was silent for a moment.
"By God, Lebedev, I'll leave your dacha," he said suddenly. "Where are Gavrila Ardalionovich and the Ptitsyns? With you? You've lured them to you as well."
"They're coming, sir, they're coming. And even the general is coming after them. I'll open all the doors and call all my daughters, everybody, now, right now," Lebedev whispered fearfully, waving his arms and dashing from one door to the other.
At that moment Kolya appeared on the terrace, coming in from
the street, and announced that visitors, Lizaveta Prokofyevna and her three daughters, were following him.
"Am I or am I not to admit the Ptitsyns and Gavrila Ardalionovich? Am I or am I not to admit the general?" Lebedev jumped, struck by the news.
"But why not? All of them, anyone who likes! I assure you, Lebedev, that you've misunderstood something about my relations from the very beginning; you're in some sort of ceaseless error. I don't have the slightest reason to sneak or hide from anyone," the prince laughed.
Looking at him, Lebedev felt it his duty to laugh, too. Despite his extreme agitation, Lebedev evidently was also extremely pleased.
The news reported by Kolya was correct; he had arrived only a few steps ahead of the Epanchins in order to announce them, and thus visitors suddenly appeared on both sides, the Epanchins from the terrace, and the Ptitsyns, Ganya, and General Ivolgin from inside.
The Epanchins had learned of the prince's illness and of his being in Pavlovsk only just then, from Kolya, until when Mrs. Epanchin had been in painful perplexity. Two days ago the general had conveyed the prince's visiting card to his family; this card had awakened an absolute certainty in Lizaveta Prokofyevna that the prince himself would immediately follow the card to Pavlovsk in order to see them. In vain had the girls assured her that a man who had not written for half a year might not be in such a hurry, and that he might have much to do in Petersburg without them— who knew about his affairs? These observations decidedly angered Mrs. Epanchin, and she was ready to bet that the prince would come the very next day at least, though "that will already be much too late." The next day she waited the whole morning; waited till dinner, till evening, and, when it was quite dark, Lizaveta Prokofyevna became angry at everything and quarreled with everyone, naturally without mentioning the prince as the motive of the quarrel. Nor was any word of him mentioned for the whole third day. When Aglaya inadvertently let slip over dinner that mamanwas angry because the prince had not come, to which the general observed at once that "he was not to blame for that"—Lizaveta Prokofyevna got up and wrathfully left the table. Finally, towards evening, Kolya appeared with all the news and descriptions of all the prince's adventures he knew about. As a result, Lizaveta
Prokofyevna was triumphant, but Kolya caught it badly anyway: "He usually spends whole days flitting about here and there's no getting rid of him, but now he might at least have let us know, if it didn't occur to him to come by." Kolya was about to get angry at the phrase "no getting rid of him," but he put it off to another time, and if the phrase itself had not been so offensive, he might have forgiven it altogether: so pleased he was by Lizaveta Prokofyevna's worry and anxiety at the news of the prince's illness. She insisted for some time on the need to send a messenger at once to Petersburg, to get hold of some eminent medical celebrity and rush him here on the first train. But the daughters talked her out of it; they did not want to lag behind their mama, however, when she instantly made ready to go and visit the sick man.
"He's on his deathbed," Lizaveta Prokofyevna said, bustling about, "and we are not going to stand on any ceremony! Is he a friend of our house or not?"
"Still, you should look before you leap," Aglaya observed.
"Don't go, then, it will even be better: Evgeny Pavlych will come and there will be no one to receive him."
After these words Aglaya naturally set out at once after them all, as she had intended to do in any event. Prince Shch., who was sitting with Adelaida, at her request immediately agreed to accompany the ladies. Still earlier, at the beginning of his acquaintance with the Epanchins, he had been extremely interested when he heard about the prince from them. It turned out that he was acquainted with him, that they had become acquainted not long ago and had lived together for a couple of weeks in the same little town. That was about three months ago. Prince Shch. had even told them a good deal about the prince and generally spoke of him with great sympathy, so that now it was with genuine pleasure that he went to visit his old acquaintance. General Ivan Fyodorovich was not at home at the time. Evgeny Pavlovich also had not arrived yet.