"Lord!" escaped from Lizaveta Prokofyevna.
"This is unbearable!" muttered the general.
"Allow me, gentlemen, allow me, I will explain the matter," the prince entreated. "About five weeks ago, Mr. Burdovsky, your agent and solicitor, Chebarov, came to see me in Z-------.
You describe him very flatteringly in your article, Mr. Keller," the prince, laughing suddenly, turned to the boxer, "but I didn't like him at all.
I only understood from the first that this Chebarov was the chief thing and that it may have been he who prompted you to start all this, Mr. Burdovsky, taking advantage of your simplicity, if I may speak frankly."
"You have no right. . . I . . . not simple . . . that. . ." Burdovsky babbled in agitation.
"You have no right to make such assumptions," Lebedev's nephew intervened didactically.
"That is highly insulting!" shrieked Ippolit. "It's an insulting, false, and inappropriate assumption!"
"Sorry, gentlemen, sorry," the prince hastily apologized, "please forgive me; it's because I thought it would be better for us to be completely sincere with each other; but let it be as you will.
I told Chebarov that, as I was not in Petersburg, I would immediately entrust a friend of mine with the conduct of this affair, and you, Mr. Burdovsky, will be informed of that.
I'll tell you directly, gentlemen, that this seemed to me a most crooked affair, precisely because of Chebarov . . .
Ah, don't be offended, gentlemen! For God's sake, don't be offended!" the prince cried fearfully, again seeing expressions of offended confusion in Burdovsky, of agitation and protest in his friends. "It cannot concern you personally if I say that I considered this a crooked affair!
I didn't know any of you personally then, and didn't know your last names; I judged only by Chebarov. I'm speaking in general, because . . . if you only knew how terribly people have deceived me since I got my inheritance!"
"You're terribly naive, Prince," Lebedev's nephew observed mockingly.
"And with all that—a prince and a millionaire!
With your maybe indeed kind and somewhat simple heart, you are, of course, still unable to avoid the general law," Ippolit proclaimed.
"That may be, that very well may be, gentlemen," the prince hurried, "though I don't understand what general law you're talking about; but I'll continue, only don't get offended for nothing; I swear I haven't the slightest wish to offend you.
And what in fact is this, gentlemen: it's impossible to say a single sincere word, or you get offended at once!
But, first of all, I was terribly struck that 'Pavlishchev's son' existed, and existed in such terrible conditions as Chebarov explained to me.
Pavlishchev was my benefactor and my father's friend. (Ah, what made you write such an untruth about my father in your article, Mr. Keller?
There was no embezzlement of company funds, nor any offending of subordinates—I'm positively sure of that, and how could you raise your hand to write such slander?) And what you wrote about Pavlishchev is absolutely unbearable: you call that noblest of men lascivious and frivolous, so boldly, so positively, as if you were indeed telling the truth, and yet he was the most chaste man in the world!
He was even a remarkable scholar; he corresponded with many respected men of science and contributed a great deal of money to science.
As for his heart, his good deeds, oh, of course, you have correctly written that I was almost an idiot at that time and could understand nothing (though I did speak Russian and could understand it), but I can well appreciate all that I now remember . . ."
"Excuse me," shrieked Ippolit, "but isn't this a bit too sentimental?
We're not children.
You wanted to get straight to business, it's past nine, remember that."
"If you please, if you please, gentlemen," the prince agreed at once. "After my initial distrust, I decided that I might be mistaken and that Pavlishchev might actually have a son.
But I was terribly struck that this son should so easily, that is, I mean to say, so publicly reveal the secret of his birth and, above all, disgrace his mother.
Because Chebarov had already frightened me with publicity then . . ."
"How stupid!" Lebedev's nephew cried.
"You have no right . . . you have no right!" cried Burdovsky.
"A son isn't answerable for his father's depraved conduct, and the mother is not to blame," Ippolit shrieked vehemently.
"The sooner, it seems, she should be spared . . ." the prince said timidly.
"You're not only naive, Prince, but maybe even more far gone," Lebedev's nephew grinned spitefully.
"And what right did you have! . . ." Ippolit shrieked in a most unnatural voice.
"None, none at all!" the prince hastily interrupted. "You're right about that, I admit, but it was involuntary, and I said to myself at once just then that my personal feelings shouldn't have any influence on the affair, because if I acknowledge it as my duty to satisfy Mr. Burdovsky's demands in the name of my feelings for Pavlishchev, then I must satisfy them in any case, that is, regardless of whether or not I respect Mr. Burdovsky.
I began to speak of it, gentlemen, only because it did seem unnatural to me that a son should reveal his mother's secret so publicly ... In short, that was mainly why I was convinced that Chebarov must be a blackguard and must have prompted Mr. Burdovsky, by deceit, to such crookedness."
"But this is insupportable!" came from the visitors' side, some of whom even jumped up from their seats.
"Gentlemen!
That is why I decided that the unfortunate Mr. Burdovsky must be a simple, defenseless man, a man easily swayed by crooks, and thus I had all the more reason to help him as 'Pavlishchev's son'—first, by opposing Mr. Chebarov, second, by my devotion and friendship, in order to guide him, and, third, by arranging to pay him ten thousand roubles, which, as I calculate, is all that Pavlishchev could have spent on me in cash . . ."
"What!
Only ten thousand!" cried Ippolit.
"Well, Prince, you're not very strong in arithmetic, or else you're very strong, though you pretend to be a simpleton!" Lebedev's nephew cried out.
"I don't agree to ten thousand," said Burdovsky.
"Antip!
Agree!" the boxer, leaning over the back of Ippolit's chair, said in a quick and distinct whisper. "Agree, and then later we'll see!"
"Listen he-e-ere, Mr. Myshkin," shrieked Ippolit, "understand that we're not fools, not vulgar fools, as your guests all probably think we are, and these ladies, who are smirking at us with such indignation, and especially this high-society gentleman" (he pointed to Evgeny Pavlovich), "whom I naturally do not have the honor of knowing, but of whom I seem to have heard a thing or two ..."
"Excuse me, excuse me, gentlemen, but again you haven't understood me!" the prince addressed them in agitation. "First of all, Mr. Keller, in your article you give an extremely inexact notion of my fortune: I didn't get any millions; I have only an eighth or a tenth part of what you suppose. Second, no one ever spent any tens of thousands on me in Switzerland: Schneider was paid six hundred roubles a year, and that only for the first three years; and Pavlishchev never went to Paris for pretty governesses—that again is slander.
I think far less than ten thousand was spent on me in all, but I decided on ten thousand and, you must agree, in repaying a debt, I simply couldn't offer Mr. Burdovsky more, even if I was terribly fond of him, I couldn't do it simply from a feeling of delicacy, precisely because I was paying him back a debt and not sending him charity.
I don't see how you can fail to understand that, gentlemen!