As he was going, Masloboev seemed hesitating and on the point of saying something, but he put it off.
But when after saying goodnight to the old people I went up to my attic, to my surprise I found him there.
He was sitting at the little table, turning over the leaves of a book and waiting for me.
“I turned back on the way, Vanya, because it’s better to tell you now.
Sit down.
It’s a stupid business, you see, vexatiously so, in fact.”
“Why, what’s the matter?”
“Why, your scoundrel of a prince flew into a rage a fortnight ago; and such a rage that I’m angry still.”
“Why, what’s the matter?
Surely you’re not still on terms with the prince?”
“There you go with your ‘what’s the matter?’ as though something extraordinary had happened.
You’re for all the world like my Alexandra Semyonovna and all these insufferable females! ... I can’t endure females...
If a crow calls, it’s ‘what’s the matter? ‘ with them.”
“Don’t be angry.”
“I’m not a bit angry; but every sort of affair ought to be looked at reasonably, and not exaggerated ... that’s what I say.”
He paused a little, as though he were still feeling vexed with me.
I did not interrupt him.
“You see, Vanya,” he began again, “I’ve come upon a clue. That’s to say, I’ve not really come upon it, and it’s not really a clue. But that’s how it struck me ... that is, from certain considerations I gather that Nellie ... perhaps ... well, in fact, is the prince’s legitimate daughter.”
“What are you saying?”
“There you go roaring again, ‘what are you saying?’
So that one really can’t say anything to people like this!” he shouted, waving his hand frantically.
Have I told you anything positive, you featherhead?
Did I tell you she’s been proved to be the prince’s legitimate daughter?
Did I, or did I not?”
“Listen, my dear fellow,” I said to him in great excitement. For God’s sake don’t shout, but explain things clearly and precisely.
I swear I shall understand you.
You must realize how important the matter is, and what consequences...”
“Consequences, indeed, of what?
Where are the proofs?
Things aren’t done like that, and I’m telling you a secret now.
And why I’m telling you I’ll explain later.
You may be sure there’s a reason for it.
Listen and hold your tongue and understand that all this is a secret....
This is how it was, you see.
As soon as the prince came back from Warsaw in the winter, before Smith died, he began to go into this business.
That is, he had begun it much earlier, during the previous year.
But at that time he was on the lookout for one thing, and later he was on the lookout for something else.
What mattered was that he’d lost the thread.
It was thirteen years since he parted from Nellie’s mother in Paris and abandoned her, but all that time he had kept an incessant watch on her; he knew that she was living with Heinrich, whom Nellie was talking about today; he knew she had Nellie, he knew she was ill; he knew everything, in fact, but then he suddenly lost the thread.
And this seems to have happened soon after the death of Heinrich, when she came to Petersburg.
In Petersburg, of course, he would very soon have found her, whatever name she went by in Russia; but the thing was that his agents abroad misled him with false information, informing him that she was living in an outoftheway little town in South Germany. They deceived him through carelessness. They mistook another woman for her.
So it went on for a year or more.
But during the previous year the prince had begun to have doubts; certain facts had led him even earlier to suspect that it was not the right woman.
Then the question arose: where was the real lady?
And it occurred to him (though he’d nothing to go upon) to wonder whether she were not in Petersburg.
Inquiries were being made meanwhile abroad, and he set other inquiries on foot here; but apparently he did not care to make use of the official channels, and he became acquainted with me.
He was recommended to me: he was told this and that about me, that I took up detective work as an amateur, and so on, and so on...
Well, so he explained the business to me; only vaguely, damn the fellow; he explained it vaguely and ambiguously.
He made a lot of mistakes, repeated himself several times; he represented facts in different lights at the same time... Well, as we all know, if you’re ever so cunning you can’t hide every track.
Well, of course, I began, all obsequiousness and simplicity of heart, slavishly devoted, in fact. But I acted on a principle I’ve adopted once for all, and a law of nature, too (for it is a law of nature), and considered in the first place whether he had told me what he really wanted, and secondly whether, under what he had told me, there lay concealed something else he hadn’t told me.