been looking for him and asking after him all day long. But when they met, Kolya could not say anything special, except that he was decidedly "displeased" with the general and his present behavior: "They drag themselves around, drink in the local tavern, embrace each other, quarrel in the streets, egg each other on, and simply cannot part." When the prince observed to him that earlier as well it had been the same almost every day, Kolya decidedly did not know what to answer to that and how to explain precisely what caused his present anxiety.
The morning after the bacchic song and quarrel, when the prince was leaving the house at around eleven o'clock, the general suddenly appeared before him, extremely agitated by something, almost shaken.
"I have long been seeking the honor and occasion of meeting you, my much-esteemed Lev Nikolaevich, long, very long," he murmured, pressing the prince's hand extremely hard, almost painfully, "very, very long."
The prince invited him to sit down.
"No, I won't sit down, and moreover I'm keeping you, I will— some other time. It seems I may take this opportunity to congratulate you on . . . the fulfillment . . . of your heart's desires."
"What heart's desires?"
The prince was embarrassed. Like a great many people in his position, he thought that decidedly no one saw anything, guessed anything, understood anything.
"Don't worry, don't worry! I won't upset your most delicate feelings. I have experienced and know myself how it is when a stranger's . . . nose, so to speak . . . according to the saying . . . goes poking where it hasn't been invited. I experience it every morning. I have come on a different matter, Prince, an important one. A very important matter, Prince."
The prince once again invited him to sit down and sat down himself.
"Perhaps for one second . . . I've come for advice. I, of course, live without any practical goals, but, having respect for myself and . . . for efficiency, which is so lacking in the Russian man, generally speaking ... I wish to put myself, my wife, and my children in a position ... in short, Prince, I am looking for advice."
The prince warmly praised his intention.
"Well, that's all nonsense," the general quickly interrupted, "moreover, I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about something
different, and important. And I shall venture to explain it precisely to you, Lev Nikolaevich, as a man the sincerity of whose reception and the nobility of whose feelings I trust as . . . as . . . You're not surprised at my words, Prince?"
The prince was following his visitor with great attention and curiosity, if not with any particular surprise. The old man was slightly pale, his lips occasionally twitched a little, his hands seemed unable to find a place to rest. He had been sitting for only a few minutes, and had twice managed to get up suddenly from his chair for some reason and suddenly to sit down again, obviously not paying the least attention to his maneuvers. Some books were lying on the table; he took one, went on talking, opened it and peeked at a page, closed it again at once and put it on the table, snatched another book, which he did not open now, but spent the rest of the time holding in his right hand, constantly brandishing it in the air.
"Enough!" he cried suddenly. "I see I've greatly inconvenienced you.
"Why, not in the least, good heavens, you're quite welcome. On the contrary, I've been listening and wish I could guess . . ."
"Prince! I wish to put myself in a respectable position ... I wish to respect myself and . . . my rights."
"A man with such wishes is deserving of every respect for that alone."
The prince uttered this copybook phrase in the firm conviction that it would have an excellent effect. He somehow instinctively guessed that such a hollow but agreeable phrase, if spoken aptly, might suddenly subdue and pacify the soul of such a man, and especially in such a position as the general's. In any case, such a visitor had to be sent away with his heart eased, and in that lay his task.
The phrase flattered, touched, and greatly pleased: the general suddenly waxed sentimental, instantly changed tone, and lapsed into rapturously lengthy explanations. But no matter how the prince strained, no matter how he listened, he literally could not understand a thing. The general spoke for some ten minutes, heatedly, quickly, as if he had no time to articulate his crowding thoughts; in the end tears even glistened in his eyes, but all the same it was only phrases with no beginning or end, unexpected words and unexpected thoughts, which broke through quickly and unexpectedly and leaped one over the other.
"Enough! You've understood me, and I am at peace," he suddenly concluded, getting up. "A heart such as yours cannot fail to understand a sufferer. Prince, you are as noble as an ideal! What are others compared with you? But you are young, and I give you my blessing. In the final end I have come to ask you to appoint me an hour for a serious conversation, and in this lies my chiefest hope. I seek only friendship and heart, Prince; I never could control the demands of my heart."
"But why not now? I'm prepared to hear out . . ."
"No, Prince, no!" the general interrupted hotly. "Not now! Now is a dream! It is too, too important, too important! This hour of conversation will be the hour of my ultimate destiny. It will be myhour, and I would not wish us to be interrupted at such a sacred moment by the first comer, the first impudent fellow, and not seldom such an impudent fellow," he suddenly bent over the prince with a strange, mysterious, and almost frightened whisper, "such an impudent fellow as is not worth the heel ... of your foot, my beloved Prince! Oh, I don't say of my foot! Make special note that I did not mention my foot; I respect myself enough to be able to say it without beating around the bush; but you alone are able to understand that, by rejecting my own heel in this case, I am showing, perhaps, an extraordinary pride of dignity. Besides you, no one else will understand, and heat the head of all the others. Hedoesn't understand anything, Prince; he's totally, totally unable to understand! One must have heart in order to understand!"
In the end the prince was almost frightened and arranged to meet the general the next day at the same hour. The man went away cheerful, extremely comforted, and almost calm. In the evening, past six o'clock, the prince sent to ask Lebedev to come to him for a moment.
Lebedev appeared with extreme haste, "considering it an honor," as he began to say at once on coming in; there seemed to be no shadow of that three-day-long hiding and obvious avoidance of meeting the prince. He sat down on the edge of a chair, with grimaces, with smiles, with laughing and peering little eyes, with a rubbing of hands, and with an air of the most naïve expectation of hearing some sort of capital information, long awaited and guessed by all. The prince winced again; it was becoming clear to him that everyone had suddenly begun to expect something from him, that everyone looked at him as if wishing to congratulate him for some-
thing, dropping hints, smiling, and winking. Keller had already stopped by three times for a moment, and also with an obvious wish to congratulate him: he began each time rapturously and vaguely, never finished anything, and quickly effaced himself. (For the last few days he had been drinking especially heavily somewhere and had made a row in some billiard parlor.) Even Kolya, despite his sadness, also once or twice began talking vaguely about something with the prince.
The prince asked Lebedev directly and somewhat irritably what he thought of the general's present state and why he was in such anxiety. In a few words he recounted that day's scene for him.