It seemed he wanted to say more, but he did not finish, dropped into his chair, covered his face with his hands, and wept like a little child.
"Well, what would you have me do with him now?" Lizaveta Prokofyevna exclaimed, jumped over to him, seized his head, and pressed it tightly to her bosom. He was sobbing convulsively. "There, there, there! Don't cry! There, there, enough, you're a good boy, God will forgive you in your ignorance; there, enough, be brave . . . And besides, you'll be ashamed . . ."
"At home," Ippolit said, trying to raise his head, "at home I have a brother and sisters, children, little, poor, innocent . . . Shewill corrupt them! You—you're a saint, you're ... a child yourself— save them! Tear them away from that . . . she . . . shame . . . Oh, help them, help them, God will reward you for it a hundredfold, for God's sake, for Christ's sake! . . ."
"Speak finally, Ivan Fyodorovich, what's to be done now!" Lizaveta Prokofyevna cried irritably. "Kindly break your majestic silence! If you don't decide anything, be it known to you that I myself will stay and spend the night here; you've tyrannized me enough under your autocracy!"
Lizaveta Prokofyevna asked with enthusiasm and wrath, and expected an immediate answer. But in such cases, those present, even if there are many of them, most often respond with silence, with passive curiosity, unwilling to take anything on themselves, and express their thoughts long afterwards. Among those present this time there were some who were prepared to sit even till morning without saying a word, for instance, Varvara Ardalionovna, who sat a little apart all evening, silent and listening all the while with extreme curiosity, and who may have had her own reasons for doing so.
"My opinion, dear," the general spoke out, "is that what's needed here is, so to speak, sooner a sick-nurse than our agitation, and probably a reliable, sober person for the night. In any case, we must ask the prince and . . . immediately give him rest. And tomorrow we can concern ourselves again."
"It's now twelve o'clock, and we're leaving. Does he come with us or stay with you?" Doktorenko addressed the prince irritably and angrily.
"If you want, you may also stay with him," said the prince, "there will be room enough."
"Your Excellency," Mr. Keller unexpectedly and rapturously
jumped over to the general, "if there's need of a satisfactory person for the night, I'm prepared to make the sacrifice for a friend . . . he's such a soul! I've long considered him a great man, Your Excellency! I, of course, have neglected my education, but when he criticizes, it's pearls, pearls pouring out, Your Excellency! . . ."
The general turned away in despair.
"I'll be very glad if he stays, of course, it's hard for him to go," the prince said in reply to Lizaveta Prokofyevna's irritable questions.
"Are you asleep, or what? If you don't want to, dear boy, I'll have him transported to my place! Lord, he can barely stand up himself! Are you sick, or what?"
Earlier, not finding the prince on his deathbed, Lizaveta Prokofyevna had indeed greatly exaggerated the satisfactoriness of his state of health, judging it by appearances, but the recent illness, the painful memories that accompanied it, the fatigue of the eventful evening, the incident with "Pavlishchev's son," the present incident with Ippolit—all this irritated the prince's morbid impressionability indeed almost to a feverish state. But, besides that, in his eyes there was now some other worry, even fear; he looked at Ippolit warily, as if expecting something more from him.
Suddenly Ippolit stood up, terribly pale and with a look of dreadful, despairing shame on his distorted face. It was expressed mainly in the glance that he shot hatefully and timorously at the gathering, and in the lost, crooked, and creeping grin on his twitching lips. He lowered his eyes at once and trudged, swaying and still smiling in the same way, towards Burdovsky and Doktorenko, who stood by the terrace door: he was leaving with them.
"Well, that's what I was afraid of!" exclaimed the prince. "It had to be so!"
Ippolit quickly turned to him with the most furious spite, and every little line of his face seemed to quiver and speak.
"Ah, you were afraid of that! 'It had to be so,' in your opinion? Know, then, that if I hate anyone here," he screamed, wheezing, shrieking, spraying from his mouth, "and I hate all of you, all of you!—but you, you Jesuitical, treacly little soul, idiot, millionaire-benefactor, I hate you more than anyone or anything in the world! I understood you and hated you long ago, when I'd only heard about you, I hated you with all the hatred of my soul ... It was you who set it all up! It was you who drove me into a fit! You've driven a dying man to shame, you, you, you are to blame for my
mean faintheartedness! I'd kill you, if I stayed alive! I don't need your benefactions, I won't accept anything from anybody, do you hear, from anybody! I was delirious, and don't you dare to triumph! ... I curse you all now and forever!"
By then he was completely out of breath.
"Ashamed of his tears!" Lebedev whispered to Lizaveta Prokofyevna. " 'It had to be so!' That's the prince for you! Read right through him ..."
But Lizaveta Prokofyevna did not deign to look at him. She stood proud, erect, her head thrown back, and scrutinized "these wretched little people" with scornful curiosity. When Ippolit finished, the general heaved his shoulders; she looked him up and down wrathfully, as if demanding an account of his movement, and at once turned to the prince.
"Thank you, Prince, eccentric friend of our house, for the pleasant evening you have provided for us all. Your heart must surely be glad of your success in hitching us to your foolery . . . Enough, dear friend of our house, thank you for at least allowing us finally to have a look at you! . . ."
She indignantly began straightening her mantilla, waiting until "they" left. At that moment a hired droshky, which Doktorenko had sent Lebedev's son, a high-school student, to fetch a quarter of an hour ago, drove up for "them." Right after his wife, the general put in his own little word:
"Indeed, Prince, I never expected . . . after everything, after all our friendly connections . . . and, finally, Lizaveta Prokofyevna . . ."
"But how, how can this be!" exclaimed Adelaida, and she quickly went up to the prince and gave him her hand.
The prince, looking like a lost man, smiled at her. Suddenly a hot, quick whisper seemed to scald his ear.
"If you don't drop these loathsome people at once, I'll hate you alone all my life, all my life!" whispered Aglaya; she was as if in a frenzy, but she turned away before the prince had time to look at her. However, there was nothing and no one for him to drop: they had meanwhile managed to put the sick Ippolit into the cab, and it drove off.
"Well, is this going to go on long, Ivan Fyodorovich? What do you think? How long am I to suffer from these wicked boys?"
"I, my dear . . . naturally, I'm prepared . . . and the prince . . ."
Ivan Fyodorovich nevertheless held out his hand to the prince, but had no time for a handshake and rushed after Lizaveta
Prokofyevna, who was noisily and wrathfully going down the steps from the terrace. Adelaida, her fiancé, and Alexandra took leave of the prince sincerely and affectionately. Evgeny Pavlovich was also among them, and he alone was merry.
"It turned out as I thought! Only it's too bad that you, too, suffered, poor man," he whispered with the sweetest smile.