"Well," the prince murmured, continuing to scrutinize Lebedev, "I can already see that he did."
"Is it true?" Lizaveta Prokofyevna quickly turned to Lebedev.
"The real truth, Your Excellency!" Lebedev replied firmly and unshakeably, placing his hand on his heart.
"It's as if he's boasting!" she all but jumped in her chair.
"I'm mean, mean!" Lebedev murmured, beginning to beat his breast and bowing his head lower and lower.
"What do I care if you're mean!
He thinks he can say 'I'm mean' and wriggle out of it.
Aren't you ashamed, Prince, to keep company with such wretched little people, I say it again?
I'll never forgive you!
"The prince will forgive me!" Lebedev said with conviction and affection.
"Solely out of nobility," Keller, suddenly jumping over to them, began loudly and resoundingly, addressing Lizaveta Prokofyevna directly, "solely out of nobility, ma'am, and so as not to give away a compromised friend, did I conceal the fact of the correcting earlier, though he suggested chucking us down the stairs, as you heard yourself.
So as to reestablish the truth, I confess that I actually did turn to him, for six roubles, though not at all for the style, but, essentially, as a competent person, to find out the facts, which for the most part were unknown to me.
About his gaiters, about his appetite at the Swiss professor's, about the fifty roubles instead of two hundred and fifty, in short, that whole grouping, all belongs to him, for six roubles, but the style wasn't corrected."
"I must observe," Lebedev interrupted him with feverish impatience and in a sort of creeping voice, while the laughter spread more and more, "that I corrected only the first half of the article, but since we disagreed in the middle and quarreled over an idea, I left the second half of the article uncorrected, sir, so all that's illiterate there (and it is illiterate!) can't be ascribed to me, sir . . ."
"See what he's fussing about!" cried Lizaveta Prokofyevna.
"If I may ask," Evgeny Pavlovich turned to Keller, "when was the article corrected?"
"Yesterday morning," Keller reported, "we had a meeting, promising on our word of honor to keep the secret on both sides."
"That was when he was crawling before you and assuring you of his devotion! Ah, wretched little people!
I don't need your Pushkin, and your daughter needn't come to see me!"
Lizaveta Prokofyevna was about to get up, but suddenly turned irritably to the laughing Ippolit:
"What is it, my dear, have you decided to make me a laughingstock here?"
"God save us," Ippolit smiled crookedly, "but I'm struck most of all by your extreme eccentricity, Lizaveta Prokofyevna; I confess, I deliberately slipped that in about Lebedev, I knew how it would affect you, affect you alone, because the prince really will forgive him and probably already has . . . maybe has even already found an excuse in his mind—is it so, Prince, am I right?"
He was breathless, his strange excitement was growing with every word.
"Well? . . ." Lizaveta Prokofyevna said wrathfully, surprised at his tone. "Well?"
"About you I've already heard a lot, in that same vein . . . with great gladness . . . have learned to have the highest respect for you," Ippolit went on.
He was saying one thing, but as if he wanted to say something quite different with the same words.
He spoke with a shade of mockery and at the same time was disproportionately agitated, looked around suspiciously, was evidently confused and at a loss for every word, all of which, together with his consumptive look and strange, glittering, and as if frenzied gaze, involuntarily continued to draw people's attention to him.
"I'd be quite surprised, however, not knowing society (I admit it), that you not only remained in the company of our people tonight, which is quite unsuitable for you, but that you also kept these . . . girls here to listen to a scandalous affair, though they've already read it all in novels.
However, I may not know . . . because I get confused, but, in any case, who except you would have stayed ... at the request of a boy (yes, a boy, again I admit it) to spend an evening with him and take . . . part in everything and ... so as ... to be ashamed the next day ... (I agree, however, that I'm not putting it right), I praise all that highly and deeply respect it, though by the mere look of his excellency your husband one can see how unpleasant it all is for him . . . heh, hee!" he tittered, quite confused, and suddenly went into such a fit of coughing that for some two minutes he was unable to go on.
"He even choked!" Lizaveta Prokofyevna said coldly and sharply, studying him with stern curiosity. "Well, dear boy, enough of you.
It's time to go!"
"And allow me, my dear sir, for my part, to point out to you," Ivan Fyodorovich, having lost all patience, suddenly said vexedly, "that my wife is here visiting Prince Lev Nikolaevich, our mutual friend and neighbor, and that in any case it is not for you, young man, to judge Lizaveta Prokofyevna's actions, nor to refer aloud and in my teeth to what is written on my face.
No, sir.
And if my wife stayed here," he went on, growing more and more vexed with every word, "it was sooner out of amazement, sir, and an understandable contemporary curiosity to see some strange young people.
And I myself stayed, as I stop sometimes in the street when I see something that can be looked upon as ... as ... as .. ."
"As a rarity," prompted Evgeny Pavlovich.
"Excellent and right," rejoiced his excellency, who had become a bit muddled in his comparison, "precisely as a rarity.
But in any case, for me what is most amazing and even chagrining, if it may be put that way grammatically, is that you, young man, were not even able to understand that Lizaveta Prokofyevna stayed with you now because you are ill—if you are indeed dying—out of compassion, so to speak, on account of your pathetic words, sir, and that no sort of mud can cling to her name, qualities, and importance . . . Lizaveta Prokofyevna!" the flushed general concluded, "if you want to go, let us take leave of our good prince . . ."
"Thank you for the lesson, General," Ippolit interrupted gravely and unexpectedly, looking at him pensively.
"Let's go, maman, how long must this continue!" Aglaya said impatiently and wrathfully, getting up from her chair.
"Two more minutes, my dear Ivan Fyodorovich, if you permit," Lizaveta Prokofyevna turned to her husband with dignity, "it seems to me that he's all feverish and simply raving; I'm convinced by his eyes; he cannot be left like this.
Lev Nikolaevich! May he spend the night here, so that they won't have to drag him to Petersburg tonight?
Cher prince, are you bored?" she suddenly turned to Prince Shch. for some reason.
"Come here, Alexandra, your hair needs putting right, my dear."
She put right her hair, which did not need putting right, and kissed her; that was all she had called her for.
"I considered you capable of development . . ." Ippolit spoke again, coming out of his pensiveness. "Yes! this is what I wanted to say." He was glad, as if he had suddenly remembered: "Burdovsky here sincerely wants to protect his mother, isn't that so?
And it turns out that he disgraces her.
The prince here wants to help Burdovsky, offers him, with purity of heart, his tender friendship and his capital, and is maybe the only one among you all who does not feel loathing for him, and here they stand facing each other like real enemies . . . Ha, ha, ha!
You all hate Burdovsky, because in your opinion his attitude towards his mother is not beautiful and graceful—right? right? right?
And you're all terribly fond of the beauty and gracefulness of forms, you stand on that alone, isn't it so? (I've long suspected it was on that alone!) Well, know, then, that maybe not one of you has loved his mother as Burdovsky has!