I dared to offer you capital' . . . and what are you laughing at, you little fanfaron!" she suddenly fell upon Lebedev's nephew. "'We refuse the capital,' he says, 'we demand, and do not ask!' As if he doesn't know that tomorrow this idiot will again drag himself to them offering his friendship and capital! Will you go? Will you go or not?"
"I will," said the prince in a quiet and humble voice.
"You've heard it! And that is what you were counting on," she turned to Doktorenko again. "The money's as good as in your pocket, that's why you're playing the fanfaron, blowing smoke in our eyes . . . No, my dear, find yourself some other fools, I can see through you ... I see your whole game!"
"Lizaveta Prokofyevna!" exclaimed the prince.
"Let's go home, Lizaveta Prokofyevna, it's high time, and we'll take the prince with us," Prince Shch., smiling, said as calmly as he could.
The girls stood to one side, almost frightened, and the general was frightened in earnest; the whole company was astonished. Some, those who stood a little further away, smiled slyly and exchanged whispers; Lebedev's face displayed the utmost degree of rapture.
"You can find outrage and chaos everywhere, ma'am," Lebedev's nephew said, though significantly puzzled.
"But not like that! Not like yours just now, dear boys, not like that!" Lizaveta Prokofyevna picked up gleefully, as if in hysterics. "Oh, do let me be," she shouted at those who were persuading her, "no, since even you yourself, Evgeny Pavlych, told us just now that even the defense lawyer himself said in court that there was nothing more natural than doing in six people out of poverty, then the last times have really come. I've never yet heard of such a thing. Now it's all clear to me! Wouldn't this tongue-tied one here put a knife in somebody?" (She pointed to Burdovsky, who was looking at her in extreme perplexity.) "I bet he would! Your money, your ten thousand, perhaps he won't take, perhaps in good conscience he won't, but he'll come in the night and put a knife in you, and take it from the strongbox. Take it in good conscience! He doesn't find it dishonest! It's 'a noble impulse of despair,' it's 'negation,' or devil knows what it is . . . Pah! Everything's inside out, everybody's topsy-turvy. A girl grows up at home, suddenly in the middle of the street she jumps into a droshky: 'Mummy dear, the other day I got married to somebody-or-other Karlych or Ivanych, good-
bye!' 39Is that a good way to behave, in your opinion? Is it natural, is it worthy of respect? The woman question? This boy here" (she pointed to Kolya), "even he insisted the other day that that is what the 'woman question' means. The mother may be a fool, but still you must treat her humanly! . . . And you, walking in earlier with your heads thrown back? 'Out of the way: we're coming. Give us all the rights, and don't you dare make a peep before us. Show us all respect, even such as doesn't exist, and we'll treat you worse than the lowest lackey!' They seek truth, they insist on their rights, yet they themselves slander him up and down like heathens in their article. 'We demand, and do not ask, and you'll get no gratitude from us, because you do it for the satisfaction of your own conscience!' Nice morality! But if there'll be no gratitude from you, then the prince can also say in answer to you that he feels no gratitude towards Pavlishchev, because Pavlishchev did good for the satisfaction of his own conscience. And this gratitude towards Pavlishchev was the only thing you were counting on: he didn't borrow money from you, he doesn't owe you anything, what were you counting on if not gratitude? How, then, can you renounce it yourselves? Madmen! You acknowledge that society is savage and inhuman because it disgraces a seduced girl. But if you acknowledge that society is inhuman, it means you acknowledge that this girl has been hurt by this society. But if she's been hurt, why, then, do you yourselves bring her out in front of that same society in your newspapers and demand that it not hurt her? Mad! Vainglorious! They don't believe in God, they don't believe in Christ! You're so eaten up by vanity and pride that you'll end by eating each other, that I foretell to you. Isn't this havoc, isn't it chaos, isn't it an outrage? And after that this disgraceful creature goes asking their forgiveness! Are there many like you? What are you grinning at: that I've disgraced myself with you? Well, so I'm disgraced, there's no help for it now! . . . And take that grin off your face, you stinker!" (she suddenly fell on Ippolit). "He can barely breathe, yet he corrupts others. You've corrupted this boy for me" (she pointed to Kolya again). "He raves about you only, you teach him atheism, you don't believe in God, but you could do with a good whipping, my dear sir! Ah, I spit on you all! ... So you'll go to them, Prince Lev Nikolaevich, you'll go to them tomorrow?" she asked the prince again, almost breathless.
"I will."
"Then I don't want to know you!" She quickly turned to leave,
but suddenly turned back again. "And you'll go to this atheist?" she pointed to Ippolit. "Why are you grinning at me!" she exclaimed somehow unnaturally and suddenly rushed at Ippolit, unable to bear his sarcastic grin.
"Lizaveta Prokofyevna! Lizaveta Prokofyevna! Lizaveta Prokofyevna!" came from all sides at once.
"Maman,it's shameful!" Aglaya cried loudly.
"Don't worry, Aglaya Ivanovna," Ippolit replied calmly. Lizaveta Prokofyevna, who had run up to him, seized him and for some unknown reason held him tightly by the arm; she stood before him, her furious gaze as if riveted to him. "Don't worry, your mamanwill realize that one cannot fall upon a dying man . . . I'm prepared to explain why I laughed ... I'd be very glad to be permitted ..."
Here he suddenly began coughing terribly and for a whole minute could not calm the cough.
"He's dying, and he goes on orating!" exclaimed Lizaveta Prokofyevna, letting go of his arm and watching almost with horror as he wiped the blood from his lips. "What are you talking for! You should simply go to bed ..."
"So it will be," Ippolit replied quietly, hoarsely, and almost in a whisper. "As soon as I go home tonight, I'll lie down at once . . .
in two weeks I'll be dead, I know that . . . Last week -------n 40told me himself. . . So, with your permission, I would like to say a couple of words to you in farewell."
"Are you out of your mind, or what? Nonsense! You must be treated, this is no time for talking! Go, go, lie down! . . ." Lizaveta Prokofyevna cried in fright.
"If I lie down, then I won't get up till I die," Ippolit smiled. "Yesterday I wanted to lie down like that and not get up till I die, but I decided to postpone it for two days, while I can still use my legs ... in order to come here with them today . . . only I'm very tired ..."
"Sit down, sit down, don't stand there! Here's a chair for you," Lizaveta Prokofyevna roused herself and moved a chair for him.
"Thank you," Ippolit continued quietly, "and you sit down opposite me, and we'll talk . . . we'll certainly talk, Lizaveta Prokofyevna, I insist on it now . . ." He smiled at her again. "Think of it, today I'm outside and with people for the last time, and in two weeks I'll probably be under the ground. So this will be a sort of farewell both to people and to nature. Though I'm not very
sentimental, you can imagine how glad I am that it all happened here in Pavlovsk: at least you can look at a tree in leaf."
"What's this talk now," Lizaveta Prokofyevna was becoming more and more frightened, "you're all feverish. You were just shrieking and squealing, and now you're out of breath, suffocating!"
"I'll rest presently. Why do you want to deny me my last wish? . . . You know . . . I've long been dreaming of somehow getting to know you, Lizaveta Prokofyevna; I've heard a lot about you . . . from Kolya; he's almost the only one who hasn't abandoned me . . . You're an original woman, an eccentric woman, now I've seen it myself. . . you know, I even loved you a little."