"A screw," Ippolit grinned.
"Because you're trash, you tormented people for half an hour, thinking you'd frighten them that you were going to shoot yourself with your unloaded pistol, with which you bungled it so shamefully, you failed suicide, you . . . walking bile. I showed you hospitality, you've grown fatter, stopped coughing, and you repay me . . ."
"Just a couple of words, if you please, sir; I am staying with Varvara Ardalionovna, not with you; you have not offered me any hospitality, and I even think that you yourself are enjoying the hospitality of Mr. Ptitsyn. Four days ago I asked my mother to find lodgings for me in Pavlovsk and to move here herself, because I actually do feel better here, though I haven't grown fatter and I still cough. Yesterday evening my mother informed me that the apartment is ready, and I hasten to inform you for my part that, after thanking your dear mother and sister, I will move to my own place today, as I already decided to do last evening. Excuse me, I interrupted you; it seems you had much more to say."
"Oh, in that case . . ." Ganya began to tremble.
"But in that case, allow me to sit down," Ippolit added, sitting down most calmly on the chair that the general had been sitting on. "I am ill after all; well, now I'm ready to listen to you, the more so as this is our last conversation and perhaps even our last meeting."
Ganya suddenly felt ashamed.
"Believe me, I shall not lower myself to squaring accounts with you," he said, "and if you . . ."
"You needn't be so supercilious," Ippolit interrupted. "For my part, on the first day I moved here I promised myself not to deny myself the pleasure of speaking my mind to you as we said goodbye, and that in the most frank way. I intend to do so precisely now—after you, naturally."
"And I ask you to leave this room."
"Better speak, you'll regret not saying everything."
"Stop it, Ippolit! All this is terribly shameful. Be so good as to stop!" said Varya.
"Only for a lady," Ippolit laughed, standing up. "If you please, Varvara Ardalionovna, I'm prepared to make it shorter for you, but only shorter, because some explanation between your brother and me has become quite necessary, and not for anything will I go away and leave any perplexity behind."
"You're quite simply a gossip," Ganya cried out, "that's why you won't leave without gossiping."
"There, you see," Ippolit observed coolly, "you've already lost control of yourself. You really will regret not saying everything. Once more I yield the floor to you. I shall wait."
Gavrila Ardalionovich was silent and looked at him contemptuously.
"You don't want to? You intend to stand firm—as you will. For my part, I shall be as brief as possible. Two or three times today I have listened to a reproach about hospitality; that is unfair. In inviting me to stay with you, you wanted to catch me in your nets; you calculated that I wanted to be revenged on the prince. Moreover, you heard that Aglaya Ivanovna had shown concern for me and was reading my 'Confession.' Calculating, for some reason, that I would surrender myself entirely to your interests, you may have hoped to find some support in me. I shall not go into detail! Nor do I demand any acknowledgment or recognition on your part; suffice it that I leave you with your own conscience and that we now understand each other perfectly."
"But you make God knows what out of a most ordinary matter!" cried Varya.
"I told you: 'a gossip and a little brat,' " said Ganya.
"If you please, Varvara Ardalionovna, I shall continue. Of course, I can neither love nor respect the prince, but he is decidedly a kind man, though ... a ridiculous one. But I have absolutely no reason to hate him; I remained impassive when your brother incited me against the prince; I precisely counted on having a good laugh at the denouement. I knew your brother would let things slip and miss the mark in the highest degree. And so it happened . . . I'm ready to spare him now, but solely out of respect for you, Varvara Ardalionovna. But, having explained to you that it is not so easy to catch me on a hook, I will also explain to you why I wanted so much to make a fool of your brother. Know that I did it out of hatred, I confess it frankly. In dying (because I shall die all the same, even though I've grown fatter, as you assure me), in dying, I have felt that I would go to paradise incomparably more peacefully if I managed to make a fool out of at least one of that numberless sort of people who have hounded me all my life, whom I have hated all my life, and of whom your much-esteemed brother serves as such a vivid representation. I hate you, Gavrila Ardalionovich, solely because—this may seem astonishing to you— solely becauseyou are the type and embodiment, the personification and apex of the most impudent, the most self-satisfied, the most vulgar and vile ordinariness! You are a puffed-up ordinariness, an unquestioning and Olympianly calm ordinariness; you are the routine of routines! Not the least idea of your own will ever be embodied in your mind or in your heart. But you are infinitely envious; you are firmly convinced that you are the greatest of geniuses, but all the same, doubt visits you occasionally in your darkest moments, and you become angry and envious. Oh, there are still dark spots on your horizon; they will go away when you become definitively stupid, which is not far off; but all the same a long and diverse path lies ahead of you, I do not say a cheerful one, and I'm glad of that. First of all, I predict to you that you will not attain a certain person ..."
"No, this is unbearable!" Varya cried out. "Will you ever finish, you disgusting little stinker?"
Ganya was pale, trembling, and silent. Ippolit stopped, looked at him intently and with relish, shifted his gaze to Varya, grinned, bowed, and left without adding a single word.
Gavrila Ardalionovich could justly complain of his fate and ill luck. For some time Varya did not dare to address him, did not even glance at him, as he paced by her with big strides; finally, he went to the window and stood with his back to her. Varya was thinking about the proverb: every stick has two ends. There was noise again upstairs.
"Are you leaving?" Ganya suddenly turned, hearing her get up from her seat. "Wait. Look at this."
He went over to her and flung down on the chair before her a small piece of paper folded like a little note
"Lord!" Varya cried and clasped her hands.
There were exactly seven lines in the note:
Gavrila Ardalionovich! Being convinced that you are kindly disposed towards me, I venture to ask your advice in a matter that is of importance for me. I would like to meet you tomorrow, at exactly seven o'clock in the morning, by the green bench. It is not far from our dacha. Varvara Ardalionovna, who must accompany you without fail,knows the place very well. A.E.
"Try figuring her out after that!" Varvara Ardalionovna spread her arms.
Much as Ganya would have liked to swagger at that moment, he simply could not help showing his triumph, especially after such humiliating predictions from Ippolit. A self-satisfied smile shone openly on his face, and Varya herself became all radiant with joy.
"And that on the very day when they're announcing the engagement! Try figuring her out after that!"
"What do you think she's going to talk about tomorrow?" asked Ganya.