But if you wish to make an appointment with me, Mr. Burdovsky, say, for tomorrow morning, and bring your own witnesses (as many as you like) and experts in the identification of handwriting, I have no doubt that you will not fail to be convinced of the obvious truth of the fact of which I have informed you.
And if so, then, naturally, this whole affair collapses and ceases of itself."
Again a general stir and profound agitation ensued.
Burdovsky himself suddenly got up from his chair.
"If so, then I was deceived, deceived, not by Chebarov, but long, long ago. I don't want any experts, I don't want any appointments, I believe you, I renounce ... no need for the ten thousand . . . good-bye . . ."
He took his peaked cap and pushed a chair aside in order to leave.
"If you can, Mr. Burdovsky," Gavrila Ardalionovich said softly and sweetly, "please stay for another five minutes or so.
Several more extremely important facts have been discovered in this affair, quite curious ones, especially for you in any case.
In my opinion, you ought without fail to become acquainted with them, and for you yourself, perhaps, it will be more pleasant if the affair is completely cleared up . . ."
Burdovsky sat down silently, bowing his head a little, as if in deep thought.
After him, Lebedev's nephew, who had also gotten up to go with him, sat down again; though he had not lost his head or his pluck, he was obviously greatly puzzled.
Ippolit was downcast, sad, and seemed very surprised.
Just then, however, he began to cough so hard that he even got bloodstains on his handkerchief.
The boxer was all but frightened.
"Eh, Antip!" he cried bitterly.
"Didn't I tell you then . . . two days ago . . . that maybe in fact you're not Pavlishchev's son?"
Suppressed laughter was heard, two or three laughed louder than the others.
"The fact of which you have just informed us, Mr. Keller," Gavrila Ardalionovich picked up, "is a very precious one.
Nevertheless I have the full right, on the basis of very precise data, to maintain that Mr. Burdovsky, though he was, of course, only too well aware of the date of his birth, was completely unaware of the circumstances of Pavlishchev's residence abroad, where Mr. Pavlishchev spent the greater part of his life, never returning to Russia for more than short periods.
Besides that, the very fact of his departure at that time is so unremarkable in itself that even those who knew Pavlishchev intimately would hardly remember it after more than twenty years, to say nothing of Mr. Burdovsky, who was not even born yet.
Of course, to obtain information now turned out to be not impossible; but I must confess that the information I received came to me quite by chance, and might very well not have come; so that for Mr. Burdovsky, and even for Chebarov, this information would indeed have been almost impossible to obtain, even if they had taken it into their heads to obtain it.
But they might not have taken it into their heads . . ."
"If you please, Mr. Ivolgin," Ippolit suddenly interrupted him irritably, "why all this galimatias (forgive me)?
The affair has been explained, we agree to believe the main fact, why drag out this painful and offensive rigmarole any longer?
Maybe you want to boast about the deftness of your research, to show us and the prince what a good investigator and sleuth you are?
Or do you mean to try to excuse and vindicate Burdovsky by the fact that he got mixed up in this affair out of ignorance?
But that is impudent, my dear sir!
Burdovsky has no need of your vindications and excuses, let that be known to you!
He's offended, it's painful for him as it is, he's in an awkward position, you ought to have guessed, to have understood that. . ."
"Enough, Mr. Terentyev, enough," Gavrila Ardalionovich managed to interrupt him. "Calm down, don't get irritated; you seem to be very ill?
I sympathize with you.
In that case, if you wish, I'm done, that is, I am forced to convey only briefly those facts which, in my conviction, it would not be superfluous to know in all their fullness," he added, noticing a general movement that looked like impatience.
"I merely wish to tell you, with evidence, for the information of all those interested in the affair, that your mother, Mr. Burdovsky, enjoyed the affection and care of Pavlishchev solely because she was the sister of a house-serf girl with whom Mr. Pavlishchev had been in love in his early youth, so much so that he would certainly have married her if she had not died unexpectedly.
I have proofs that this family fact, absolutely precise and true, is very little known, even quite forgotten.
Furthermore, I could explain how your mother, as a ten-year-old child, was taken by Mr. Pavlishchev to be brought up like a relation, that a significant dowry was set aside for her, and that all these cares generated extremely alarmed rumors among Pavlishchev's numerous relations: they even thought he might marry his ward, but in the end she married by inclination (and I can prove that in the most precise fashion) a land surveyor, Mr. Burdovsky, when she was nineteen.
Here I have gathered several very precise facts proving that your father, Mr. Burdovsky, a totally impractical man, having received fifteen thousand as your mother's dowry, abandoned his job, got into commercial ventures, was cheated, lost his capital, could not bear his grief, began to drink, which caused his illness, and finally died prematurely, in the eighth year of his marriage to your mother.
Then, according to your mother's own testimony, she was left destitute and would have perished altogether without the constant and magnanimous assistance of Pavlishchev, who gave her up to six hundred roubles a year as support.
Then there are countless testimonies that he was extremely fond of you as a child.
According to these testimonies, and again with your mother's confirmation, it appears that he loved you mainly because as a child you had a speech defect and the look of a cripple, a pathetic, miserable child (and Pavlishchev, as I have deduced from precise evidence, had all his life a certain tender inclination towards everything oppressed and wronged by nature, especially in children—a fact, in my conviction, of extreme importance for our affair).
Finally, I can boast of the most precise findings about the main fact of how this great attachment to you on the part of Pavlishchev (through whose efforts you entered high school and studied under special supervision) in the end gradually produced among Pavlishchev's relations and household the notion that you were his son and that your father was merely a deceived husband.
But the main thing is that this notion hardened into a precise and general conviction only in the last years of Pavlishchev's life, when everyone had fears about the will and all the original facts were forgotten and inquiries were impossible.
Undoubtedly this notion reached you, Mr. Burdovsky, and took complete possession of you.
Your mother, whose acquaintance I had the honor of making personally, knew all about these rumors, but does not know to this day (I, too, concealed it from her) that you, her son, were also under the spell of this rumor.
I found your much-esteemed mother in Pskov, Mr. Burdovsky, beset by illnesses and in the most extreme poverty, which she fell into after Pavlishchev's death.
She told me with tears of gratitude that she was alive in the world only through you and your support; she expects much from you in the future and fervently believes in your future success . . ."
"This is finally unbearable!" Lebedev's nephew suddenly declared loudly and impatiently.
"Why this whole novel?"
"Disgustingly indecent!" Ippolit stirred violently.
But Burdovsky noticed nothing and did not even budge.
"Why?