Nor was any word of him mentioned for the whole third day.
When Aglaya inadvertently let slip over dinner that maman was angry because the prince had not come, to which the general observed at once that "he was not to blame for that"—Lizaveta Prokofyevna got up and wrathfully left the table.
Finally, towards evening, Kolya appeared with all the news and descriptions of all the prince's adventures he knew about. As a result, Lizaveta Prokofyevna was triumphant, but Kolya caught it badly anyway:
"He usually spends whole days flitting about here and there's no getting rid of him, but now he might at least have let us know, if it didn't occur to him to come by."
Kolya was about to get angry at the phrase "no getting rid of him," but he put it off to another time, and if the phrase itself had not been so offensive, he might have forgiven it altogether: so pleased he was by Lizaveta Prokofyevna's worry and anxiety at the news of the prince's illness.
She insisted for some time on the need to send a messenger at once to Petersburg, to get hold of some eminent medical celebrity and rush him here on the first train.
But the daughters talked her out of it; they did not want to lag behind their mama, however, when she instantly made ready to go and visit the sick man.
"He's on his deathbed," Lizaveta Prokofyevna said, bustling about, "and we are not going to stand on any ceremony!
Is he a friend of our house or not?"
"Still, you should look before you leap," Aglaya observed.
"Don't go, then, it will even be better: Evgeny Pavlych will come and there will be no one to receive him."
After these words Aglaya naturally set out at once after them all, as she had intended to do in any event.
Prince Shch., who was sitting with Adelaida, at her request immediately agreed to accompany the ladies.
Still earlier, at the beginning of his acquaintance with the Epanchins, he had been extremely interested when he heard about the prince from them.
It turned out that he was acquainted with him, that they had become acquainted not long ago and had lived together for a couple of weeks in the same little town.
That was about three months ago.
Prince Shch. had even told them a good deal about the prince and generally spoke of him with great sympathy, so that now it was with genuine pleasure that he went to visit his old acquaintance.
General Ivan Fyodorovich was not at home at the time.
Evgeny Pavlovich also had not arrived yet.
Lebedev's dacha was no more than three hundred paces from the Epanchins'.
Lizaveta Prokofyevna's first unpleasant impression at the prince's was to find him surrounded by a whole company of guests, not to mention that she decidedly hated two or three persons in that company; the second was her surprise at the sight of the completely healthy-looking, smartly dressed, and laughing young man coming to meet them, instead of a dying man on his deathbed, as she had expected to find him.
She even stopped in perplexity, to the extreme delight of Kolya, who, of course, could have explained perfectly well, before she set off from her dacha, that precisely no one was dying, nor was there any deathbed, but who had not done so, slyly anticipating Mrs. Epanchin's future comic wrath when, as he reckoned, she was bound to get angry at finding the prince, her sincere friend, in good health.
Kolya was even so indelicate as to utter his surmise aloud, to definitively annoy Lizaveta Prokofyevna, whom he needled constantly and sometimes very maliciously, despite the friendship that bound them.
"Wait, my gentle sir, don't be in such a hurry, don't spoil your triumph!" Lizaveta Prokofyevna replied, settling into the armchair that the prince offered her.
Lebedev, Ptitsyn, and General Ivolgin rushed to offer chairs to the girls.
The general offered Aglaya a chair.
Lebedev also offered a chair to Prince Shch., even the curve of his back managing to show an extraordinary deference.
Varya and the girls exchanged greetings, as usual, with rapture and whispering.
"It's true, Prince, that I thought to find you all but bedridden, so greatly did I exaggerate in my worry, and—I wouldn't lie for anything—I felt terribly vexed just now at your happy face, but, by God, it was only for a moment, till I had time to reflect.
When I reflect, I always act and speak more intelligently; you do, too, I suppose.
But to speak truly, I might be less glad of my own son's recovery, if I had one, than I am of yours; and if you don't believe me about that, the shame is yours, not mine.
And this malicious brat allows himself even worse jokes with me.
He seems to be your protege; so I'm warning you that one fine day, believe me, I shall renounce the further satisfaction of enjoying the honor of his acquaintance."
"What fault is it of mine?" Kolya shouted. "However much I insisted that the prince was almost well now, you'd have refused to believe it, because it was far more interesting to imagine him on his deathbed."
"Will you be staying with us long?" Lizaveta Prokofyevna turned to the prince.
"The whole summer, and perhaps longer."
"And you're alone?
Not married?"
"No, not married," the prince smiled at the naivety of the barb sent his way.
"You've no reason to smile; it does happen.
I was referring to the dacha. Why didn't you come to stay with us?
We have a whole wing empty; however, as you wish.
Do you rent it from him?
This one?" she added in a half-whisper, nodding towards Lebedev.
"Why is he grimacing all the time?"
Just then Vera came outside to the terrace, with the baby in her arms as usual.
Lebedev, who had been cringing by the chairs, decidedly unable to figure out what to do with himself but terribly reluctant to leave, suddenly fell upon Vera, waved his arms at her to chase her from the terrace, and, forgetting himself, even stamped his feet at her.
"Is he crazy?" Mrs. Epanchin suddenly added.
"No, he ..."
"Drunk, maybe?