Oh, forgive me, forgive me!"
He left quickly, covering his face with his hands.
The prince could not doubt the sincerity of his emotion.
He also realized that * A little girl, then. + Never tell a lie. Napoleon, your sincere friend. the old man had left intoxicated by his success; but all the same he had a presentiment that he was one of that category of liars who, though they lie to the point of sensuality and even self-forgetfulness, at the highest point of their intoxication suspect to themselves all the same that people do not and even cannot believe them.
In his present state, the old man might recollect himself, become ashamed beyond measure, suspect the prince of an excessive compassion for him, feel insulted.
"Didn't I do worse by driving him to such inspiration?" the prince worried and suddenly could not help himself and laughed terribly, for about ten minutes.
He was about to reproach himself for this laughter; but he understood at once that there was nothing to reproach himself for, because he felt a boundless pity for the general.
His presentiment came true.
That evening he received a strange note, brief but resolute.
The general informed him that he was also parting with him forever, that he respected him and was grateful to him, but that even from him he would not accept "tokens of compassion humiliating to the dignity of a man already unfortunate without that."
When the prince heard that the old man had locked himself up at Nina Alexandrovna's, he almost stopped worrying about him.
But we have already seen that the general had also caused some sort of trouble at Lizaveta Prokofyevna's.
We cannot go into detail here, but will note briefly that the essence of their meeting consisted in the general's frightening Lizaveta Prokofyevna and driving her to indignation with his bitter allusions to Ganya.
He had been led out in disgrace.
That was why he had spent such a night and such a morning, had become definitively cracked and had rushed out to the street almost in a state of insanity.
Kolya did not fully understand the matter yet and even hoped to win out by severity.
"Well, where are we going to drag ourselves now, General?" he said. "You don't want to go to the prince, you've quarreled with Lebedev, you have no money, and I never have any: so here we are in the street without a shirt to our name."
"It's better than having a shirt and no name," the general murmured. "This pun of mine . . . was received with raptures . . . a company of officers ... in the year forty-four . . . Eighteen . . . hundred . . . and forty-four, yes! ...
I don't remember . . . Oh, don't remind me, don't remind me!
'Where is my youth, where is my freshness!'
So exclaimed . . . Who exclaimed that, Kolya?"
"It's from Gogol, in Dead Souls,21 papa," Kolya replied and gave his father a frightened sidelong glance.
"Dead souls!
Oh, yes, dead!
When you bury me, write on my tombstone:
'Here lies a dead soul!'
Disgrace pursues me!
Who said that, Kolya?"
"I don't know, papa."
"There was no Eropegov!
No Eroshka Eropegov! . . ." he cried out in a frenzy, stopping in the street, "and that is my son, my own son!
Eropegov, who for eleven months was like a brother to me, for whom I'd have gone to a duel . . . Prince Vygoretsky, our captain, says to him over a bottle:
'You, Grisha, where did you get your Anna,22 tell me that?'
'On the battlefields of my fatherland, that's where!' 'Bravo, Grisha!' I shout.
Well, that led to a duel, and then he married . . . Marya Petrovna Su . . . Sutugin and was killed on the battlefield . . . The bullet ricocheted off the cross on my chest and hit him right in the forehead.
'I'll never forget!' he cried and fell on the spot.
I ... I served honestly, Kolya; I served nobly, but disgrace—'disgrace pursues me'!
You and Nina will come to my little grave . . .
'Poor Nina!'
I used to call her that, Kolya, long ago, in the beginning, and she so loved . . . Nina, Nina!
What have I done to your life!
What can you love me for, patient soul!
Your mother is an angelic soul, do you hear, Kolya, an angelic soul!"
"I know that, papa.
Papa, dearest, let's go home to mama!
She ran after us!
Well, why are you standing there?
As if you don't understand . . . What are you crying for?"
Kolya himself was crying and kissing his father's hands.
"You're kissing my hands, mine!"