I'm completely free, she says; just yesterday she kept boasting to Nikolai Ardalionovich about her freedom.
A bad sign, sir!"
And Lebedev grinned.
"Does Kolya see much of her?"
"Light-minded, and incomprehensible, and not secretive."
"Were you there long ago?"
"Every day, every day."
"Meaning yesterday?"
"N-no, three days ago, sir."
"Too bad you're slightly drunk, Lebedev!
Otherwise I'd ask you something."
"No, no, no, stone sober!"
Lebedev was all agog.
"Tell me, how was she when you left?"
"S-searching . . ."
"Searching?"
"As if she was searching all over for something, as if she'd lost something.
Even the thought of the forthcoming marriage is loathsome to her, and she takes offense at it.
Of him she thinks as much as of an orange peel, not more, or else more, but with fear and horror, she even forbids all mention of him, and they see each other only by necessity . . . and he feels it all too well!
But there's no avoiding it, sir! . . .
She's restless, sarcastic, double-tongued, explosive . . ."
"Double-tongued and explosive?"
"Explosive—because she all but seized me by the hair last time for one of my conversations.
I was reprimanding her with the Apocalypse."11
"How's that?" asked the prince, thinking he had not heard right.
"I was reading the Apocalypse.
A lady with a restless imagination, heh, heh!
And, besides, I've come to the conclusion that she's much inclined towards serious topics, even unrelated ones.
She likes them, likes them, and even takes it as a sign of special respect for her.
Yes, sir.
And I'm strong on interpreting the Apocalypse and have been doing it for fifteen years.
She agreed with me that we live in the time of the third horse, the black one, and the rider with a balance in his hand, because in our time everything is in balances and contracts, and people are all only seeking their rights: A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny . . .' And with all that they want to preserve a free spirit, and a pure heart, and a healthy body, and all of God's gifts.
But they can't do it with rights alone, and there will follow a pale horse and him whose name is Death, and after him Hell12 . . . We get together and interpret it and—she's strongly affected."
"You believe that yourself?" asked the prince, giving Lebedev a strange look.
"Believe it and interpret it.
For I'm poor and naked, and an atom in the whirl of people.
Who will honor Lebedev?
They all sharpen their wit on him, and accompany him by all but kicks.
But here, in this interpreting, I'm the equal of a courtier.
The mind!
And a courtier trembled once ... in his chair, feeling it with his mind.
His excellency, Nil Alexeevich, two years ago, before Easter, heard about me—when I still worked in their department—and had Pyotr Zakharych summon me specially from my duty to his office, and asked me, when we were alone: 'Is it true that you're a professor of the Antichrist?'
And I didn't hide it: 'I am,' I said, and I explained it, and presented it, and didn't soften the fear, but mentally increased it as I unrolled the allegorical scroll and quoted the numbers.
And he was smiling, but at the numbers and likenesses he began to tremble, and asked me to close the book, and to leave, and awarded me a bonus for Easter, and on St. Thomas's13 he gave up his soul to God."
"Come now, Lebedev!"
"It's a fact.
He fell out of his carriage after dinner . . . struck his temple on the hitching post and passed away right there, like a baby, like a little baby.
He was seventy-three years old according to his papers; a red-faced, gray-haired little fellow, all sprayed with perfume, and he used to smile, to smile all the time, just like a baby.
Pyotr Zakharych remembered then: 'You foretold it,' he said."
The prince began to get up.