and on his gratefully respectful feeling for the late Pavlishchev; he based it, finally (which is most important), on certain chivalrous views the prince holds concerning the duties of honor and conscience. As far as Mr. Burdovsky himself is concerned, it may even be said that, owing to certain convictions of his, he was so set up by Chebarov and the company around him that he started the affair almost not out of self-interest at all, but almost in the service of truth, progress, and mankind. Now that these facts have been made known, it must be clear to everyone that Mr. Burdovsky is a pure man, despite all appearances, and now the prince can, the sooner and all the more willingly than before, offer him both his friendly assistance and the active help which he mentioned earlier, speaking about schools and Pavlishchev."
"Stop, Gavrila Ardalionovich, stop!" the prince cried in genuine alarm, but it was too late.
"I've said, I've already said three times," Burdovsky cried irritably, "that I don't want any money! I won't accept . . . what for ... I don't want . . . away!"
And he nearly rushed off the terrace. But Lebedev's nephew seized him by the arm and whispered something to him. The man quickly came back and, taking a large unsealed envelope from his pocket, threw it down on a little table near the prince.
"Here's the money! . . . You shouldn't have dared . . . you shouldn't have! . . . Money! . . ."
"The two hundred and fifty roubles that you dared to send him as charity through Chebarov," Doktorenko explained.
"The article said fifty!" cried Kolya.
"I'm to blame!" said the prince, going up to Burdovsky. "I'm very much to blame before you, Burdovsky, but, believe me, I didn't send it as charity. I'm to blame now ... I was to blame earlier." (The prince was very upset, he looked tired and weak, and his words were incoherent.) "I said that about crookedness . . . but it wasn't about you, I was mistaken. I said that you . . . are like me— a
"This is a madhouse!" Lizaveta Prokofyevna cried out.
"Of course, a house full of madmen!" Aglaya lost patience and
spoke sharply, but her words were drowned in the general noise; everyone was talking loudly, everyone was arguing, some disputing, some laughing. Ivan Fyodorovich Epanchin was in the utmost degree of indignation, and, with an air of offended dignity, was waiting for Lizaveta Prokofyevna. Lebedev's nephew put in a last little word:
"Yes, Prince, you must be given credit, you're so good at exploiting your . . . hm, sickness (to put it decently); you managed to offer your friendship and money in such a clever form that it is now quite impossible for a noble man to accept them. It's either all too innocent, or all too clever . . . you, however, know which."
"If you please, gentlemen," cried Gavrila Ardalionovich, who had meanwhile opened the envelope with the money, "there are not two hundred and fifty roubles here, but only a hundred. I say it, Prince, so that there will be no misunderstandings."
"Let it be, let it be," the prince waved his arms at Gavrila Ardalionovich.
"No, don't 'let it be'!" Lebedev's nephew immediately latched on to it. "Your 'let it be' is insulting to us, Prince. We're not hiding, we declare openly: yes, there's only a hundred roubles here, and not the whole two hundred and fifty, but isn't it all the same . . ."
"N-no, it's not all the same," Gavrila Ardalionovich managed to put in, with a look of naïve perplexity.
"Don't interrupt me, we're not such fools as you think, mister lawyer," Lebedev's nephew exclaimed with spiteful vexation. "Of course, a hundred roubles aren't two hundred and fifty, and it's not all the same, but what's important is the principle; it's the initiative that's important and the fact of the missing hundred and fifty roubles is merely a detail. What's important is that Burdovsky does not accept charity from you, Your Highness, that he throws it in your face, and in this sense a hundred is the same as two hundred and fifty. Burdovsky did not accept the ten thousand, you saw that; he wouldn't have brought the hundred roubles if he were dishonest! Those hundred and fifty roubles were Chebarov's expenses for traveling to see the prince. Sooner laugh at our clumsiness and our inexperience in handling the affair; you've already done all you could to make us look ridiculous; but do not dare to say we're dishonest. All of us together will pay the prince back these hundred and fifty roubles, my dear sir; we will pay it back even if it's rouble by rouble, and we will pay it back with interest. Burdovsky is poor, Burdovsky has no millions, and Chebarov presented the bill after
his trip. We hoped to win . . . Who would have acted differently in his place?"
"What do you mean who?" exclaimed Prince Shch.
"I'll go out of my mind here!" cried Lizaveta Prokofyevna.
"This reminds me," laughed Evgeny Pavlovich, who had long been standing and watching, "of a famous defense made recently by a lawyer, who, presenting poverty as an excuse for his client, who had murdered six people at one go in order to rob them, suddenly concluded along these lines: 'It is natural,' he says, 'that my client, out of poverty, should have taken it into his head to commit this murder of six people, and who in his place would not have taken it into his head?' Something along those lines, only very amusing."
"Enough!" Lizaveta Prokofyevna suddenly announced, almost trembling with wrath. "It's time to break off this galimatias! . . ."
She was in the most terrible agitation; she threw her head back menacingly and, with haughty, burning, and impatient defiance, passed her flashing gaze over the whole company, scarcely distinguishing at that moment her friends from her enemies. This was the point of a long-suppressed but finally unleashed wrath, when the main impulse is immediate battle, the immediate need to fall upon someone as soon as possible. Those who knew Lizaveta Prokofyevna sensed at once that something peculiar was happening with her. Ivan Fyodorovich said the next day to Prince Shch. that "it happens with her, but even with her it rarely happens to such a degree as yesterday, perhaps once in three years, but never more often! never more often!" he added in clarification.
"Enough, Ivan Fyodorovich! Let me be!" exclaimed Lizaveta Prokofyevna. "Why do you offer me your arm now? You weren't able to take me away earlier; you're a husband, you're the head of the family; you should have led me out by the ear, fool that I am, if I didn't obey you and leave. You should have done it at least for your daughters' sake! But now we'll find our way without you, this is shame enough for a whole year . . . Wait, I still want to thank the prince! . . . Thank you, Prince, for the treat! Here I sat, listening to our young people . . . How base, how base! It's chaos, outrage, you don't even dream of such things! Are there many like them? . . . Silence, Aglaya! Silence, Alexandra! It's none of your business! . . . Don't fuss around me, Evgeny Pavlych, I'm tired of you! ... So you, my dearest, are asking their forgiveness," she picked up again, turning to the prince. "'I'm sorry,' you say, 'that