Most likely he spent the night in the Scales Hotel, very near here.
Which means that Kolya is either there or in Pavlovsk with the Epanchins.
He had some money, he wanted to go yesterday.
So he's either in the Scales or in Pavlovsk."
"In Pavlovsk, in Pavlovsk! . . .
And we'll go this way, this way, to the garden, and . . . have a little coffee ..."
And Lebedev pulled the prince by the arm.
They left the room, walked across the courtyard, and went through the gate.
Here there actually was a very small and very sweet little garden, in which, thanks to the fine weather, the trees were already covered with leaves.
Lebedev sat the prince down on a green wooden bench, at a green table fixed in the ground, and placed himself opposite him.
A minute later coffee actually arrived.
The prince did not refuse.
Lebedev went on glancing obsequiously and greedily into his eyes.
"I didn't know you had such a homestead," said the prince, with the look of a man who is thinking of something else.
"Or-orphans," Lebedev began, cringing, but stopped: the prince looked ahead of him distractedly and had quite certainly forgotten his question.
Another minute passed; Lebedev kept glancing and waiting.
"Well, so?" said the prince, as if coming to his senses. "Ah, yes!
You yourself know what our business is, Lebedev: I've come in response to your letter.
Speak."
Lebedev became embarrassed, tried to say something, but only stammered: nothing came out.
The prince waited and smiled sadly.
"I think I understand you very well, Lukyan Timofeevich: you probably weren't expecting me.
You thought I wouldn't emerge from my backwoods at your first indication, and you wrote to clear your own conscience.
But I up and came.
Well, leave off, don't deceive me.
Leave off serving two masters.
Rogozhin has been here for three weeks now, I know everything.
Did you manage to sell her to him like the other time, or not?
Tell me the truth."
"The monster found out himself, himself."
"Don't abuse him. Of course, he treated you badly . . ."
"He beat me, he beat me!" Lebedev chimed in with terrible fervor. "And he chased me with a dog through Moscow, chased me down the street with a borzoi bitch.
A horrible bitch."
"You take me for a little boy, Lebedev.
Tell me, did she seriously abandon him this time, in Moscow?"
"Seriously, seriously, again right at the foot of the altar.
The man was already counting the minutes, and she dashed off here to Petersburg and straight to me:
'Save me, protect me, Lukyan, and don't tell the prince . . .' She's afraid of you, Prince, even more than of him, and that's—most wise!"
And Lebedev slyly put his finger to his forehead.
"But now you've brought them together again?"
"Illustrious Prince, how . . . how could I prevent it?"
"Well, enough, I'll find everything out myself.
Only tell me, where is she now?
At his place?"
"Oh, no!
Never!
She's still on her own.
I'm free, she says, and, you know, Prince, she stands firm on it, she says, I'm still completely free! She's still on the Petersburg side, at my sister-in-law's, as I wrote to you."
"And she's there now?"
"Yes, unless she's in Pavlovsk, what with the fine weather, at Darya Alexeevna's dacha.