I stood there and blessed him into eternity.
Your mother ..."
The general paused as if in sad remembrance.
"Yes, she also died six months later, of a chill," said the prince.
"Not of a chill, not of a chill, believe an old man. I was there, I buried her, too.
Of grief over the prince, and not of a chill.
Yes, sir, I have memories of the princess, too!
Youth!
Because of her, the prince and I, childhood friends, nearly killed each other."
The prince began listening with a certain mistrust.
"I was passionately in love with your mother while she was still a fiancee—my friend's fiancee.
The prince noticed it and was shocked.
He comes to me in the morning, before seven o'clock, wakes me up.
I get dressed in amazement; there is silence on both sides; I understand everything.
He takes two pistols from his pocket.
Across a handkerchief.28 Without witnesses.
Why witnesses, if we'll be sending each other into eternity in five minutes?
We loaded the pistols, stretched out the handkerchief, put the pistols to each other's hearts, and looked into each other's faces.
Suddenly tears burst from our eyes, our hands trembled.
Both of us, both of us, at once!
Well, naturally, then came embraces and a contest in mutual magnanimity.
The prince cries: 'She's yours!' I cry: 'She's yours!'
In short... in short . . . you've come ... to live with us?"
"Yes, for a while, perhaps," said the prince, as if stammering slightly.
"Prince, mama wants to see you," cried Kolya, looking in at the door.
The prince got up to leave, but the general placed his right hand on his shoulder and amiably forced him back down on the couch.
"As a true friend of your father's I wish to warn you," said the general, "I have suffered, as you can see yourself, owing to a tragic catastrophe—but without a trial!
Without a trial!
Nina Alexandrovna is a rare woman.
Varvara Ardalionovna, my daughter, is a rare daughter!
Owing to certain circumstances, we let rooms—an unheard-of degradation!
I, for whom it only remained to become a governor-general! . . .
But we're always glad to have you.
And meanwhile there's a tragedy in my house!"
The prince looked at him questioningly and with great curiosity.
"A marriage is being prepared, a rare marriage.
A marriage between an ambiguous woman and a young man who could be a kammerjunker.29 This woman will be introduced into the house in which my daughter and wife live!
But as long as there is breath in me, she will not enter it!
I'll lie down on the threshold, and just let her step over me! ...
I almost don't speak with Ganya now, I even avoid meeting him.
I'm warning you on purpose, though if you live with us you'll witness it anyway without that.
But you are my friend's son, and I have the right to hope . . ."
"Prince, be so kind as to come to me in the drawing room," Nina Alexandrovna called, appearing in the doorway herself.
"Imagine, my friend;" cried the general, "it appears I dandled the prince in my arms!"
Nina Alexandrovna looked reproachfully at the general and searchingly at the prince, but did not say a word.
The prince followed her; but they had only just come to the drawing room and sat down, and Nina Alexandrovna had only just begun telling the prince something hastily and in a half-whisper, when the general himself suddenly arrived in the drawing room.
Nina Alexandrovna fell silent at once and bent over her knitting with obvious vexation.
The general may have noticed her vexation, but he continued to be in the most excellent spirits.
"My friend's son!" he cried, addressing Nina Alexandrovna. "And so unexpectedly!
I'd long ceased imagining.