VIII
For the prince, too, that morning began under the influence of painful forebodings; they might have been explained by his sickly condition, but he was too indefinitely sad, and that was the most tormenting thing for him.
True, the facts stood before him, vivid, painful, and biting, but his sadness went beyond anything he recalled and realized; he understood that he could not calm down by himself.
The expectation gradually took root in him that something special and definitive was going to happen to him that same day.
His fit of the evening before had been a mild one; besides hypochondria, some heaviness in the head and pain in his limbs, he did not feel upset in any other way.
His head worked quite distinctly, though his soul was sick.
He got up rather late and at once clearly recalled the previous evening; though not quite distinctly, he recalled all the same that about half an hour after the fit he had been brought home.
He learned that a messenger had already come from the Epanchins to inquire after his health.
Another came at half-past eleven; this pleased him.
Vera Lebedev was one of the first who came to visit him and look after him.
The moment she saw him, she suddenly burst into tears, but the prince at once calmed her down, and she laughed.
He was somehow suddenly struck by the strong compassion this girl felt for him; he seized her hand and kissed it.
Vera blushed.
"Ah, don't, don't!" she exclaimed in fear, quickly pulling her hand away.
She soon left in some strange embarrassment.
Among other things, she had time to tell him that that morning, at daybreak, her father had gone running to "the deceased," as he called the general, to find out whether or not he had died in the night, and had heard it said that he would probably die soon.
Towards noon Lebedev himself came home and called on the prince, but, essentially, "just for a moment, to inquire after his precious health," and so on, and, besides that, to pay a visit to the "little cupboard."
He did nothing but "oh" and "ah," and the prince quickly dismissed him, but all the same the man tried to ask questions about yesterday's fit, though it was obvious that he already knew about it in detail.
Kolya stopped to see him, also for a moment; this one was indeed in a hurry and in great and dark anxiety.
He began by asking the prince, directly and insistently, to explain everything that had been concealed from him, adding that he had already learned almost everything yesterday.
He was strongly and deeply shaken.
With all the possible sympathy that he was capable of, the prince recounted the whole affair, restoring the facts with full exactitude, and he struck the poor boy as if with a thunderbolt.
He could not utter a word, and wept silently.
The prince sensed that this was one of those impressions that remain forever and mark a permanent break in a young man's life.
He hastened to tell him his own view of the affair, adding that in his opinion the old man's death had been caused, mainly, by the horror that remained in his heart after his misdeed, and that not everyone was capable of that.
Kolya's eyes flashed as he heard the prince out.
"Worthless Ganka, and Varya, and Ptitsyn!
I'm not going to quarrel with them, but our paths are different from this moment on!
Ah, Prince, since yesterday I've felt so much that's new; it's a lesson for me!
I also consider my mother as directly on my hands now; though she's provided for at Varya's, it's all not right . . ."
He jumped up, remembering that he was expected, hurriedly asked about the state of the prince's health and, having heard the answer, suddenly added hastily:
"Is there anything else?
I heard yesterday . . . (though I have no right), but if you ever need a faithful servant in anything, he's here before you.
It seems neither of us is entirely happy, isn't it so?
But . . . I'm not asking, I'm not asking . . ."
He left, and the prince began to ponder still more deeply: everyone was prophesying unhappiness, everyone had already drawn conclusions, everyone looked as if they knew something, and something that he did not know; Lebedev asks questions, Kolya hints outright, and Vera weeps.
At last he waved his hand in vexation: "Cursed, morbid insecurity," he thought.
His face brightened when, past one o'clock, he saw the Epanchins coming to call on him "for a moment."
They indeed dropped in for a moment.
Lizaveta Prokofyevna, getting up from lunch, announced that they were all going for a walk right then and together.
The information was given in the form of an order, abruptly, drily, without explanations.
They all went out—that is, mama, the girls, and Prince Shch.
Lizaveta Prokofyevna went straight in the opposite direction from the one they took every day.
They all understood what it meant, and they all kept silent, fearing to annoy the mother, while she, as if to shelter herself from reproaches and objections, walked ahead of them all without looking back.
Finally Adelaida observed that there was no need to run like that during a stroll and that there was no keeping up with mother.
"I tell you what," Lizaveta Prokofyevna suddenly turned around, "we're now passing his house.
Whatever Aglaya may think and whatever may happen afterwards, he's not a stranger to us, and now on top of it he's unhappy and sick; I at least will stop and see him.
Whoever wants to come with me can come, whoever doesn't can walk past; the way is clear."
They all went in, of course.
The prince, as was proper, hastened once again to apologize for yesterday's vase and . . . the scandal.