And it's true, then, what they say about you, that you're a strange man.
So you consider me perfection, do you?"
"I do."
"Though you're a master at guessing, you're nevertheless mistaken.
I'll remind you of it tonight . . ."
She introduced the prince to the guests, the majority of whom already knew him.
Totsky at once said something amiable.
Everyone seemed to cheer up a little, everyone immediately began talking and laughing.
Nastasya Filippovna sat the prince down beside her.
"But anyhow, what's so astonishing in the prince's appearance?" Ferdyshchenko shouted louder than everyone else. "The matter's clear, it speaks for itself!"
"The matter's all too clear and speaks all too much for itself," the silent Ganya suddenly picked up.
"I've been observing the prince almost uninterruptedly today, from the moment he first looked at Nastasya Filippovna's portrait on Ivan Fyodorovich's desk this morning.
I remember very well that already this morning I thought of something which I'm now perfectly convinced of, and which, let it be said in passing, the prince himself has confessed to me."
Ganya uttered this whole phrase very gravely, without the slightest jocularity, even gloomily, which seemed somewhat strange.
"I didn't make any confessions to you," the prince replied, blushing, "I merely answered your question."
"Bravo, bravo!" cried Ferdyshchenko. "At least it's candid—both clever and candid!"
Everyone laughed loudly.
"Don't shout, Ferdyshchenko," Ptitsyn observed to him disgustedly in a half-whisper.
"I didn't expect such prouesse* from you, Prince," said Ivan Fyodorovich. "Do you know what sort of man that suits?
And I considered you a philosopher!
Oh, the quiet one!"
"And judging by the way the prince blushes at an innocent joke like an innocent young girl, I conclude that, like a noble youth, he is nurturing the most praiseworthy intentions in his heart," the toothless and hitherto perfectly silent seventy-year-old schoolteacher, whom no one would have expected to make a peep all evening, suddenly said, or, better, maundered.
Everyone laughed still more.
The little old man, probably thinking they were laughing at his witticism, looked at them all and started laughing all the harder, which brought on so terrible a fit of coughing that Nastasya Filippovna, who for some reason was extremely fond of all such original little old men and women, and even of holy fools, at once began making a fuss over him, kissed him on both cheeks, and *Prowess. ordered more tea for him.
When the maid came in, she asked for her mantilla, which she wrapped around herself, and told her to put more wood on the fire.
Asked what time it was, the maid said it was already half-past ten.
"Ladies and gentlemen, would you care for champagne?" Nastasya Filippovna suddenly invited.
"I have it ready.
Maybe it will make you merrier.
Please don't stand on ceremony."
The invitation to drink, especially in such naive terms, seemed very strange coming from Nastasya Filippovna.
Everyone knew the extraordinary decorum of her previous parties.
Generally, the evening was growing merrier, but not in the usual way.
The wine, however, was not refused, first, by the general himself, second, by the sprightly lady, the little old man, Ferdyshchenko, and the rest after him.
Totsky also took his glass, hoping to harmonize the new tone that was setting in, possibly giving it the character of a charming joke.
Ganya alone drank nothing.
In the strange, sometimes very abrupt and quick outbursts of Nastasya Filippovna, who also took wine and announced that she would drink three glasses that evening, in her hysterical and pointless laughter, which alternated suddenly with a silent and even sullen pensiveness, it was hard to make anything out.
Some suspected she was in a fever; they finally began to notice that she seemed to be waiting for something, glanced frequently at her watch, was growing impatient, distracted.
"You seem to have a little fever?" asked the sprightly lady.
"A big one even, not a little one—that's why I've wrapped myself in a mantilla," replied Nastasya Filippovna, who indeed had turned paler and at moments seemed to suppress a violent shiver.
They all started and stirred.
"Shouldn't we allow our hostess some rest?" Totsky suggested, glancing at Ivan Fyodorovich.
"Certainly not, gentlemen!
I precisely ask you to stay.
Your presence is particularly necessary for me tonight," Nastasya Filippovna suddenly said insistently and significantly.
And as almost all the guests now knew that a very important decision was to be announced that evening, these words seemed extremely weighty.
Totsky and the general exchanged glances once again; Ganya stirred convulsively.
"It would be nice to play some petit jeu,"* said the sprightly lady.
"I know an excellent and new petit jeu," Ferdyshchenko picked *Parlor game. up, "at least one that happened only once in the world, and even then it didn't succeed."
"What was it?" the sprightly lady asked.