"What do you mean?" said the prince.
"That is, allegorically speaking, the future second murderer of the future second Zhemarin family, if one turns up.
He's headed for that ..."
Everybody laughed.
It occurred to the prince that Lebedev might indeed be squirming and clowning only because, anticipating his questions, he did not know how to answer them and was gaining time.
"He's a rebel!
A conspirator!" Lebedev shouted, as if no longer able to control himself. "Well, and can I, do I have the right to regard such a slanderer, such a harlot, one might say, and monster, as my own nephew, the only son of my late sister Anisya?"
"Oh, stop it, you drunkard!
Would you believe, Prince, he's now decided to become a lawyer, to plead in the courts; he waxes eloquent and talks in high-flown style with his children at home.
Five days ago he spoke before the justices of the peace.
And who do you think he defended? Not the old woman who implored, who begged him, because she'd been fleeced by a scoundrel of a moneylender who took five hundred roubles from her, everything she had, but the moneylender himself, some Zeidler or other, a Yid, because he promised him fifty roubles for it . . ."
"Fifty roubles if I win and only five if I lose," Lebedev suddenly explained in a completely different voice than before, as if he had never been shouting.
"Well, it was a washout, of course, the old rules have been changed, they only laughed at him there.
But he remained terribly pleased with himself. Remember, he said, impartial gentlemen of the court, that an old man of sorrows, a cripple, who lives by honest labor, is being deprived of his last crust of bread. Remember the wise words of the lawgiver:
'Let mercy reign in the courts.'8 And believe me: every morning he repeats this speech for us here, exactly as he said it there; this is the fifth day; he was reciting it just before you came, he likes it so much.
He drools over himself.
And he's getting ready to defend somebody else.
You're Prince Myshkin, I believe?
Kolya told me about you. He says he's never met anyone in the world more intelligent than you ..."
"And there is no one!
No one!
No one more intelligent in the world!" Lebedev picked up at once.
"Well, I suppose this one's just babbling.
The one loves you, and the other fawns on you; but I have no intention of flattering you, let that be known to you.
You must have some sense, so decide between him and me.
Well, do you want the prince to decide between us?" he said to his uncle.
"I'm even glad you've turned up, Prince."
"Let him!" Lebedev cried resolutely, looking around involuntarily at his audience, which had again begun to advance upon him.
"What's going on with you here?" the prince said, making a wry face.
He really had a headache, and besides, he was becoming more and more convinced that Lebedev was duping him and was glad that the business could be put off.
"Here's how things stand.
I am his nephew, he wasn't lying about that, though everything he says is a lie.
I haven't finished my studies, but I want to finish them, and I'll get my way because I have character.
And meanwhile, in order to exist, I'm taking a job with the railways that pays twenty-five roubles.
I'll admit, besides, that he has already helped me two or three times.
I had twenty roubles and lost them gambling.
Would you believe it, Prince, I was so mean, so low, that I gambled them away!"
"To a blackguard, a blackguard, who shouldn't have been paid!" cried Lebedev.
"Yes, to a blackguard, but who still had to be paid," the young man went on.
"And that he's a blackguard, I, too, will testify, not only because he gave you a beating.
He's a rejected officer, Prince, a retired lieutenant from Rogozhin's former band, who teaches boxing.
They're all wandering about now, since Rogozhin scattered them.
But the worst thing is that I knew he was a blackguard, a scoundrel, and a petty thief, and I still sat down to play with him, and that, as I bet my last rouble (we were playing cribbage), I thought to myself: I'll lose, go to Uncle Lukyan, bow to him—he won't refuse.
That was meanness, that was real meanness!
That was conscious baseness!"
"Yes, there you have conscious baseness!" repeated Lebedev.
"Well, don't triumph, wait a moment," the touchy nephew cried, "don't be so glad.
I came to see him, Prince, and admitted everything; I acted nobly, I didn't spare myself; I denounced myself before him as much as I could, everybody here is a witness.
To take this job with the railways, I absolutely must outfit myself at least somehow, because I'm all in rags.
Here, look at my boots!