"Lord, and I was really about to hit him."
"It was Aglaya Ivanovna who held you back. I'm not mistaken? This is your daughter Aglaya Ivanovna? She's so pretty that I guessed it was her at first sight earlier, though I'd never seen her before. Grant me at least to look at a beautiful girl for the last time in my life," Ippolit smiled a sort of awkward, crooked smile. "The prince is here, and your husband, and the whole company. Why would you deny me my last wish?"
"A chair!" cried Lizaveta Prokofyevna, but she seized one herself and sat down facing Ippolit. "Kolya," she ordered, "go with him at once, take him home, and tomorrow I myself will be sure to . . ."
"If you'll permit me, I'd like to ask the prince for a cup of tea . . . I'm very tired. You know, Lizaveta Prokofyevna, it seems you wanted to take the prince home with you for tea; stay here instead, we can spend some time together, and the prince will surely give us all tea. Excuse me for giving orders like that. . . But I know you, you're kind, so is the prince . . . we're all so kind it's comical . . ."
The prince got into a flutter, Lebedev rushed headlong out of the room, and Vera ran after him.
"That's true, too," Mrs. Epanchin decided abruptly. "Talk, then, only more softly, and don't get carried away. You've made me all pitiful. . . Prince! You're not worthy of my having tea with you, but so be it, I'm staying, though I ask nobody's forgiveness! Nobody's! Nonsense! . . . Forgive me, though, if I scolded you, Prince— though only if you want to. Though I'm not keeping anybody," she suddenly turned to her husband and daughters with a look of extraordinary wrath, as if it were they who were terribly guilty before her for something, "I can find my way home by myself. . ."
But they did not let her finish. They all came and eagerly gathered around her. The prince at once began begging everyone
to stay for tea and apologized for not having thought of it till then. Even the general was so amiable as to mutter something reassuring and amiably ask Lizaveta Prokofyevna whether it was not, after all, too cool for her on the terrace. He even all but asked Ippolit how long he had been studying at the university, but he did not ask. Evgeny Pavlovich and Prince Shch. suddenly became extremely amiable and merry; the faces of Adelaida and Alexandra, through their continuing astonishment, even expressed pleasure; in short, everyone was obviously glad that Lizaveta Prokofyevna's crisis was over. Only Aglaya was sullen and silently sat down a little way off. The rest of the company also stayed; no one wanted to leave, not even General Ivolgin, to whom Lebedev, however, whispered something in passing, probably something not entirely pleasant, because the general at once effaced himself somewhere in a corner. The prince also went and invited Burdovsky and his company, not leaving anyone out. They muttered with a strained air that they would wait for Ippolit, and withdrew at once to the furthest corner of the terrace, where they all sat down side by side again. Lebedev had probably had tea prepared for himself long ago, because it appeared at once. The clock struck eleven.
X
Ippolit moistened his lips with the cup of tea Vera Lebedev served him, set the cup down on the table, and suddenly, as if abashed, looked around almost in embarrassment.
"Look, Lizaveta Prokofyevna, these cups," he was hurrying somehow strangely, "these china cups, and fine china by the look of it, Lebedev always keeps locked up in a glass case; he never serves them . . . the usual thing, they came with his wife's dowry . . . the usual thing with them . . . and now he's served them, in your honor, naturally, he's so glad . . ."
He wanted to add something more, but found no words.
"He got embarrassed, just as I expected," Evgeny Pavlovich suddenly whispered in the prince's ear. "That's dangerous, eh? The surest sign that now, out of spite, he'll pull off something so eccentric that even Lizaveta Prokofyevna may not be able to sit it out."
The prince looked at him questioningly.
"You're not afraid of eccentricity?" Evgeny Pavlovich added. "I'm not either, I even wish for it; in fact, all I want is that our dear
Lizaveta Prokofyevna be punished, and that without fail, today, right now; I don't want to leave without that. You seem to be feverish?"
"Later, don't interfere. Yes, I'm unwell," the prince replied distractedly and even impatiently. He had heard his name, Ippolit was speaking about him.
"You don't believe it?" Ippolit laughed hysterically. "That's as it should be, but the prince will believe it from the first and won't be the least surprised."
"Do you hear, Prince?" Lizaveta Prokofyevna turned to him. "Do you hear?"
There was laughter all around. Lebedev fussily thrust himself forward and squirmed right in front of Lizaveta Prokofyevna.
"He says that this clown here, your landlord . . . corrected the article for that gentleman, the one that was just read about you."
The prince looked at Lebedev in surprise.
"Why are you silent?" Lizaveta Prokofyevna even stamped her foot.
"Well," the prince murmured, continuing to scrutinize Lebedev, "I can already see that he did."
"Is it true?" Lizaveta Prokofyevna quickly turned to Lebedev.
"The real truth, Your Excellency!" Lebedev replied firmly and unshakeably, placing his hand on his heart.
"It's as if he's boasting!" she all but jumped in her chair.
"I'm mean, mean!" Lebedev murmured, beginning to beat his breast and bowing his head lower and lower.
"What do I care if you're mean! He thinks he can say 'I'm mean' and wriggle out of it. Aren't you ashamed, Prince, to keep company with such wretched little people, I say it again? I'll never forgive you!
"The prince will forgive me!" Lebedev said with conviction and affection.
"Solely out of nobility," Keller, suddenly jumping over to them, began loudly and resoundingly, addressing Lizaveta Prokofyevna directly, "solely out of nobility, ma'am, and so as not to give away a compromised friend, did I conceal the fact of the correcting earlier, though he suggested chucking us down the stairs, as you heard yourself. So as to reestablish the truth, I confess that I actually did turn to him, for six roubles, though not at all for the style, but, essentially, as a competent person, to find out the facts, which for the most part were unknown to me. About his gaiters,
about his appetite at the Swiss professor's, about the fifty roubles instead of two hundred and fifty, in short, that whole grouping, all belongs to him, for six roubles, but the style wasn't corrected."
"I must observe," Lebedev interrupted him with feverish impatience and in a sort of creeping voice, while the laughter spread more and more, "that I corrected only the first half of the article, but since we disagreed in the middle and quarreled over an idea, I left the second half of the article uncorrected, sir, so all that's illiterate there (and it is illiterate!) can't be ascribed to me, sir . . ."
"See what he's fussing about!" cried Lizaveta Prokofyevna.
"If I may ask," Evgeny Pavlovich turned to Keller, "when was the article corrected?"
"Yesterday morning," Keller reported, "we had a meeting, promising on our word of honor to keep the secret on both sides."
"That was when he was crawling before you and assuring you of his devotion! Ah, wretched little people! I don't need your Pushkin, and your daughter needn't come to see me!"
Lizaveta Prokofyevna was about to get up, but suddenly turned irritably to the laughing Ippolit: