"You've lost your mind!" he cried, extremely disconcerted.
"Not entirely, my much-esteemed Prince," Lebedev answered, not without anger. "True, I was going to give it to you, into your own hands, so as to be of service . . . but I chose rather to be of service there and tell the most noble mother about everything . . . just as I had informed her once before in an anonymous letter; and when I wrote a note today, asking beforehand to be received at twenty past eight, I also signed it: 'your secret correspondent'; I was admitted at once, immediately, even with great haste, by the back door ... to see the most noble mother."
"Well?"
"And you know the rest, sir. She nearly gave me a beating, sir; that is, very nearly, sir, so that one might consider that she all but gave me a beating, sir. And she flung the letter at me. True, she wanted to keep it—I could see that, I noticed it—but she changed her mind and flung it at me: 'If you, such as you are, were entrusted with delivering it, then go and deliver it. ..' She even got offended. If she didn't feel ashamed to say it in front of me, it means she got offended. A hot-tempered lady!"
"And where is the letter now?"
"Still here with me, sir."
And he handed the prince the note from Aglaya to Gavrila Ardalionovich, which the latter triumphantly showed to his sister that same morning, two hours later.
"This letter cannot remain with you."
"For you, for you! I brought it for you, sir," Lebedev picked up hotly. "Now I'm yours again, entirely, from head to heart, your servant, sir, after a fleeting betrayal, sir! Punish my heart, spare my beard, as Thomas Morus 30said ... in England and in Great
Britain, sir.
Mea culpa, mea culpa*
31
"This letter must be sent at once," the prince bustled, "I'll deliver it."
"But wouldn't it be better, wouldn't it be better, my most well-mannered Prince, wouldn't it be better, sir . . . sort of, sir!"
Lebedev made a strange, ingratiating grimace; he suddenly fidgeted terribly in his chair, as if he had suddenly been pricked by a needle, and, winking slyly, gestured and indicated something with his hands.
"What do you mean?" the prince asked menacingly.
"Open it beforehand, sir!" he whispered ingratiatingly and as if confidentially.
The prince jumped up in such fury that Lebedev was about to run away, but having reached the door, he stopped, waiting to see if he would be pardoned.
"Eh, Lebedev! Is it possible, is it possible to reach such mean disorder as you have?" the prince cried ruefully. Lebedev's features brightened.
"I'm mean, mean!" he approached at once, with tears, beating his breast.
"That's loathsome!"
"Precisely loathsome, sir. That's the word, sir!"
"And what is this way you have ... of acting so strangely? You're . . . simply a spy! Why did you write an anonymous letter and trouble . . . that most noble and kind woman? Why, finally, does Aglaya Ivanovna have no right to correspond with whomever she likes? Why did you go there today, to make a complaint? What did you hope to gain? What moved you to turn informer?"
"Only pleasant curiosity and ... an obligingly noble soul, yes, sir!" Lebedev murmured. "But now I'm all yours, all yours again! You can hang me!"
"Did you go to Lizaveta Prokofyevna's the way you are now?" the prince inquired with repugnance.
"No, sir . . . fresher . . . and even more decent, sir; it was after my humiliation that I achieved . . . this look, sir."
"Very well, leave me."
However, this request had to be repeated several times before the visitor finally decided to leave. Having already opened the door,
*It is my fault, it is my fault.
he came back again, tiptoed to the middle of the room, and again began to make signs with his hands, showing how to open a letter; he did not dare to put this advice into words; then he went out, smiling quietly and sweetly.
All this was extremely painful to hear. One chief and extraordinary fact stood out amidst it alclass="underline" that Aglaya was in great anxiety, in great indecision, in great torment for some reason ("from jealousy," the prince whispered to himself). It was also clear, of course, that unkind people were confusing her, and it was all the more strange that she trusted them so much. Of course, some special plans were ripening in that inexperienced but hot and proud little head, ruinous plans, perhaps . . . and like nothing else. The prince was extremely alarmed and in his confusion did not know what to decide. He absolutely had to prevent something, he could feel it. Once again he looked at the address on the sealed letter: oh, there was no doubt or anxiety for him here, because he trusted her; something else troubled him in this letter: he did not trust Gavrila Ardalionovich. And, nevertheless, he decided to give him the letter himself, personally, and had already left the house in order to do so, but on his way he changed his mind. As if on purpose, almost at Ptitsyn's house, the prince ran into Kolya and charged him with putting the letter into his brother's hands, as if directly from Aglaya Ivanovna herself. Kolya asked no questions and delivered it, so that Ganya never even imagined the letter had gone through so many stations. On returning home, the prince asked to see Vera Lukyanovna, told her as much as was necessary, and calmed her down, because she had been searching for the letter and weeping all the while. She was horrified when she learned that her father had taken the letter. (The prince later learned from her that she had secretly served Rogozhin and Aglaya Ivanovna more than once; it had never occurred to her that it might be something harmful to the prince . . .)
And the prince finally became so upset that when, two hours later, a messenger came running to him from Kolya with news of his father's illness, he could scarely understand at first what it was all about. But this same incident restored him, because it distracted him greatly. He stayed at Nina Alexandrovna's (where, of course, the sick man had been transported) almost till evening. He was of almost no use, but there are people whom, for some reason, it is pleasant to see around one at certain difficult moments. Kolya was terribly struck, wept hysterically, but nevertheless ran errands
all the time: ran to fetch a doctor and found three, ran to the pharmacy, to the barber. 32The general was revived, but he did not come to his senses; as the doctors put it, "in any case the patient is in danger." Varya and Nina Alexandrovna never left the sick man's side; Ganya was confused and shaken, but did not want to go upstairs and was even afraid to see the sick man; he wrung his hands and in an incoherent conversation with the prince managed to say, "just look, such a misfortune, and, as if on purpose, at such a time!" The prince thought he understood precisely what time he was talking about. The prince found that Ippolit was no longer in Ptitsyn's house. Towards evening Lebedev, who had slept uninterruptedly since their morning "talk," came running. He was almost sober now and wept real tears over the sick man, as if over his own brother. He loudly blamed himself, though without explaining what for, and pestered Nina Alexandrovna, assuring her every moment that "he, he himself was the cause, and no one but he . . . solely out of pleasant curiosity . . . and that the 'deceased' " (as he stubbornly called the still-living general for some reason) "was even a man of great genius!" He insisted especially seriously on his genius, as if some extraordinary benefit could be derived from it at that moment. Nina Alexandrovna, seeing his genuine tears, finally said to him, without any reproach and even almost with tenderness: "Well, God be with you, don't weep now, God will forgive you!" Lebedev was so struck by these words and their tone that he would not leave Nina Alexandrovna's side all evening (and in all the following days, till the general's death, he stayed in their house almost from morning till night). Twice in the course of the day a messenger came to Nina Alexandrovna from Lizaveta Prokofyevna to ask after the sick man's health. When, at nine o'clock that evening, the prince appeared in the Epanchins' drawing room, which was already filled with guests, Lizaveta Prokofyevna at once began questioning him about the sick man, with sympathy and in detail, and responded gravely to Belokonsky's question: "Who is this sick man and who is Nina Alexandrovna?" The prince liked that very much. He himself, in talking with Lizaveta Prokofyevna, spoke "beautifully," as Aglaya's sisters explained afterwards: "modestly, softly, without unnecessary words, without gestures, with dignity; he entered beautifully, was excellently dressed," and not only did not "trip on the smooth floor," but obviously even made a pleasant impression on everyone.