"Lord, and I was really about to hit him."
"It was Aglaya Ivanovna who held you back. I'm not mistaken? This is your daughter Aglaya Ivanovna?
She's so pretty that I guessed it was her at first sight earlier, though I'd never seen her before.
Grant me at least to look at a beautiful girl for the last time in my life," Ippolit smiled a sort of awkward, crooked smile. "The prince is here, and your husband, and the whole company.
Why would you deny me my last wish?"
"A chair!" cried Lizaveta Prokofyevna, but she seized one herself and sat down facing Ippolit.
"Kolya," she ordered, "go with him at once, take him home, and tomorrow I myself will be sure to . . ."
"If you'll permit me, I'd like to ask the prince for a cup of tea . . . I'm very tired.
You know, Lizaveta Prokofyevna, it seems you wanted to take the prince home with you for tea; stay here instead, we can spend some time together, and the prince will surely give us all tea.
Excuse me for giving orders like that. . . But I know you, you're kind, so is the prince . . . we're all so kind it's comical . . ."
The prince got into a flutter, Lebedev rushed headlong out of the room, and Vera ran after him.
"That's true, too," Mrs. Epanchin decided abruptly. "Talk, then, only more softly, and don't get carried away.
You've made me all pitiful. . . Prince!
You're not worthy of my having tea with you, but so be it, I'm staying, though I ask nobody's forgiveness!
Nobody's!
Nonsense! . . .
Forgive me, though, if I scolded you, Prince— though only if you want to.
Though I'm not keeping anybody," she suddenly turned to her husband and daughters with a look of extraordinary wrath, as if it were they who were terribly guilty before her for something, "I can find my way home by myself. . ."
But they did not let her finish.
They all came and eagerly gathered around her.
The prince at once began begging everyone to stay for tea and apologized for not having thought of it till then.
Even the general was so amiable as to mutter something reassuring and amiably ask Lizaveta Prokofyevna whether it was not, after all, too cool for her on the terrace.
He even all but asked Ippolit how long he had been studying at the university, but he did not ask.
Evgeny Pavlovich and Prince Shch. suddenly became extremely amiable and merry; the faces of Adelaida and Alexandra, through their continuing astonishment, even expressed pleasure; in short, everyone was obviously glad that Lizaveta Prokofyevna's crisis was over.
Only Aglaya was sullen and silently sat down a little way off.
The rest of the company also stayed; no one wanted to leave, not even General Ivolgin, to whom Lebedev, however, whispered something in passing, probably something not entirely pleasant, because the general at once effaced himself somewhere in a corner.
The prince also went and invited Burdovsky and his company, not leaving anyone out.
They muttered with a strained air that they would wait for Ippolit, and withdrew at once to the furthest corner of the terrace, where they all sat down side by side again.
Lebedev had probably had tea prepared for himself long ago, because it appeared at once.
The clock struck eleven.
X
Ippolit moistened his lips with the cup of tea Vera Lebedev served him, set the cup down on the table, and suddenly, as if abashed, looked around almost in embarrassment.
"Look, Lizaveta Prokofyevna, these cups," he was hurrying somehow strangely, "these china cups, and fine china by the look of it, Lebedev always keeps locked up in a glass case; he never serves them . . . the usual thing, they came with his wife's dowry . . . the usual thing with them . . . and now he's served them, in your honor, naturally, he's so glad . . ."
He wanted to add something more, but found no words.
"He got embarrassed, just as I expected," Evgeny Pavlovich suddenly whispered in the prince's ear. "That's dangerous, eh?
The surest sign that now, out of spite, he'll pull off something so eccentric that even Lizaveta Prokofyevna may not be able to sit it out."
The prince looked at him questioningly.
"You're not afraid of eccentricity?" Evgeny Pavlovich added.
"I'm not either, I even wish for it; in fact, all I want is that our dear Lizaveta Prokofyevna be punished, and that without fail, today, right now; I don't want to leave without that.
You seem to be feverish?"
"Later, don't interfere.
Yes, I'm unwell," the prince replied distractedly and even impatiently.
He had heard his name, Ippolit was speaking about him.
"You don't believe it?" Ippolit laughed hysterically. "That's as it should be, but the prince will believe it from the first and won't be the least surprised."
"Do you hear, Prince?" Lizaveta Prokofyevna turned to him. "Do you hear?"
There was laughter all around.
Lebedev fussily thrust himself forward and squirmed right in front of Lizaveta Prokofyevna.
"He says that this clown here, your landlord . . . corrected the article for that gentleman, the one that was just read about you."
The prince looked at Lebedev in surprise.
"Why are you silent?" Lizaveta Prokofyevna even stamped her foot.