The sick boy did seem cheerful, as is often the case with consumptives.
His purpose in going up to the prince was to say something sarcastic about his happy look, but he got thrown off at once and started talking about himself.
He began to complain, complained much and long and rather incoherently.
"You wouldn't believe," he concluded, "the degree to which they are all irritable, petty, egoistic, vainglorious, ordinary; would you believe, they took me in only on the condition that I should die as soon as possible, and now everybody's furious that I don't die and, on the contrary, feel better.
A comedy!
I'll bet you don't believe me!"
The prince did not want to object.
"I sometimes even think of moving back to your place," Ippolit added casually.
"So you, however, do not consider them capable of receiving a person with the notion that he should die without fail and as soon as possible?"
"I thought they invited you with something else in mind."
"Aha!
No, you're not at all as simple as they recommend you to be!
Now's not the time, or I'd reveal to you a thing or two about that Ganechka and his hopes.
You're being undermined, Prince, pitilessly undermined, and . . . it's even a pity you're so calm.
But alas—you couldn't be otherwise!"
"What a thing to be pitied for!" laughed the prince. "So in your opinion I'd be happier if I worried more?"
"It's better to be unhappy, but to know, than to be happy and live ... as a fool.
It seems you don't believe in the least that you have a rival and ... on that side?"
"Your words about rivalry are slightly cynical, Ippolit; I'm sorry I don't have the right to answer you.
As for Gavrila Ardalionovich, you must agree that he can't remain calm after all he has lost, if you know his affairs at least in part.
It seems to me that it's better to look at it from that point of view.
He still has time to change; he has a long life ahead of him, and life is rich . . . but anyhow . . . anyhow," the prince was suddenly at a loss, "as for the undermining ... I don't even understand what you're talking about; it's better if we drop this conversation, Ippolit."
"We'll drop it for a time; besides, it's impossible to do without the noble pose on your part.
Yes, Prince, you'll have to touch it with your own finger in order to stop believing again, ha, ha!25 And, what do you think, do you despise me very much now?"
"What for?
For having suffered and for suffering more than we?"
"No, but for being unworthy of my suffering."
"If someone can suffer more, it means he's worthy of suffering more.
Aglaya Ivanovna wanted to see you, when she read your 'Confession,' but . . ."
"She's putting it off. . . it's impossible for her, I understand, I understand . . ." Ippolit interrupted, as if trying to divert the conversation quickly.
"By the way, they say you read all that galimatias to her out loud; it was truly written and . . . done in delirium.
And I don't understand the extent to which one must be—I won't say cruel (that would be humiliating to me), but childishly vain and vengeful, to reproach me with that 'Confession' and use it against me as a weapon!
Don't worry, I'm not saying that with regard to you . . ."
"But I'm sorry that you reject that notebook, Ippolit; it's sincere, and you know that even its ridiculous sides, and it has many" (Ippolit winced deeply), "are redeemed by suffering, because to admit them was also suffering and . . . perhaps took great courage.
The thought that moved you certainly had a noble basis, however it may seem.
The further it goes, the more clearly I see it, I swear to you.
I'm not judging you, I'm saying it in order to speak my whole mind, and I'm sorry I was silent then . . ."
Ippolit flushed.
The thought occurred to him that the prince was pretending and trying to catch him; but, peering into his face, he could not help believing in his sincerity; his face brightened.
"And here I have to die all the same!" he said, and nearly added: "such a man as I!" "And imagine how your Ganechka plagues me; he thought up, in the guise of an objection, that of those who listened to my notebook, three or four might die before me!
I like that!
He thinks it's a consolation, ha, ha!
First of all, they haven't died yet; and even if those people all died off, what sort of consolation would it be, you'll agree!
He judges by himself; however, he goes further still, he now simply abuses me, saying that a respectable man dies silently in such cases, and that the whole thing was only egoism on my part!
I like that!
No, but what egoism on his part!
What a refinement or, better to say, at the same time what an ox-like crudeness of their egoism, which all the same they are in no way able to notice in themselves! . . .
Have you read, Prince, about a certain death, of a certain Stepan Glebov, in the eighteenth century?
I read it by chance yesterday ..."
"What Stepan Glebov?"