"Lev Nikolaich was Nikolai Andreich Pavlishchev's ward after his parents' death," he put in, having caught Ivan Petrovich's eye.
"De-light-ed," the man remarked, "and I even remember you. Earlier, when Ivan Fyodorych introduced us, I recognized you at once, even your face. You've really changed little externally, though I saw you as a child of about ten or eleven. Something in your features reminded me . . ."
"You saw me as a child?" the prince asked with a sort of extraordinary surprise.
"Oh, a very long time ago," Ivan Petrovich went on, "in Zlatoverkhovo, where you then lived with my cousins. I used to visit Zlatoverkhovo rather often—you don't remember me? Ve-ry possible that you don't. . . You had . . . some sort of illness then, so that I once even wondered about you . . ."
"I don't remember a thing!" the prince confirmed heatedly.
A few more words of explanation, extremely calm on Ivan Petrovich's part and surprisingly excited on the prince's, and it turned out that the two ladies, the old spinsters, relations of the late Pavlishchev, who lived on his estate in Zlatoverkhovo and who were entrusted with the prince's upbringing, were in turn Ivan Petrovich's cousins. Ivan Petrovich, like everyone else, could give almost no explanation of the reasons why Pavlishchev had been so taken up with the little prince, his ward. "I forgot to ask about it then," but all the same it turned out that he had an excellent memory, because he even remembered how strict the elder cousin, Marfa Nikitishna, had been with her little charge, "so that I even quarreled with her once over the system of education, because it was all birching and birching—for a sick child . . . you must agree ... it's . . ."—and, on the contrary, how affectionate the younger cousin, Natalya Nikitishna, had been with the poor boy . . . "The two of them," he explained further, "now live in ------- province (only I don't know if they're still alive), where Pavlishchev left them a quite, quite decent little estate. Marfa Nikitishna, I believe, wanted to enter a convent; though I won't insist on that; maybe I heard it about somebody else . . . yes, I heard it about a doctor's widow the other day . . ."
The prince listened to this with eyes shining with rapture and tenderness. He declared in his turn, with extraordinary ardor, that he would never forgive himself for not finding an opportunity, during those six months of traveling in the provinces, to locate and visit his former guardians. "He had wanted to go every day and kept being distracted by circumstances . . . but now he promised himself . . . without fail . . . even to------province ... So you know Natalia Nikitishna? What a beautiful, what a saintly soul! But Marfa Nikitishna, too . . . forgive me, but I believe you're mistaken about Marfa Nikitishna! She was strict, but ... it was impossible not to lose patience . . . with such an idiot as I was then (hee, hee!). For I was quite an idiot then, you wouldn't believe it
(ha, ha!). However . . . however, you saw me then and . . . How is it I don't remember you, pray tell? So you . . . ah, my God, so you're really Nikolai Andreich Pavlishchev's relation?"
"I as-sure you," Ivan Petrovich smiled, looking the prince over.
"Oh, I didn't say that because I . . . doubted . . . and, finally, how could one doubt it (heh, heh!) ... at least a little? That is, even a little!! (Heh, heh!) But what I mean is that the late Nikolai Andreich Pavlishchev was such an excellent man! A most magnanimous man, really, I assure you!"
It was not that the prince was breathless, but he was, so to speak, "choking from the goodness of his heart," as Adelaida put it the next morning in a conversation with her fiancé, Prince Shch.
"Ah, my God!" laughed Ivan Petrovich, "why can't I be the relation of a mag-na-nimous man?"
"Ah, my God!" cried the prince, embarrassed, hurrying, and becoming more and more enthusiastic. "I've . . . I've said something stupid again, but ... it had to be so, because I. ..I. ..I... though again that's not what I mean! And what am I now, pray tell, in view of such interests . . . of such enormous interests! And in comparison with such a magnanimous man—because, by God, he was a most magnanimous man, isn't it true? Isn't it true?"
The prince was even trembling all over. Why he suddenly became so agitated, why he became so emotionally ecstatic, for absolutely no reason, and, it seemed, out of all proportion with the subject of the conversation—it would be hard to tell. He was simply in that sort of mood and even all but felt at that moment the warmest and sincerest gratitude to someone for something— perhaps even to Ivan Petrovich, if not to all the guests in general. He became much too "happified." Ivan Petrovich finally began to look at him more attentively; the "dignitary," too, studied him very attentively. Belokonsky turned a wrathful gaze on the prince and pressed her lips. Prince N., Evgeny Pavlovich, Prince Shch., the girls—everybody broke off their conversation and listened. Aglaya seemed alarmed, and Lizaveta Prokofyevna was simply scared. They were strange, the daughters and their mama: they themselves thought it would be better for the prince to spend the evening in silence; but as soon as they saw him in a corner, completely alone and perfectly content with his lot, they at once became worried. Alexandra had been about to go over to him and lead him carefully across the whole room to join their company, that is, the company of Prince N., around Belokonsky.
But now that the prince had begun to speak, they became still more worried.
"He was a most excellent man, you're right about that," Ivan Petrovich said imposingly and now without a smile, "yes, yes . . . he was a wonderful man! Wonderful and worthy," he added after a pause. "Worthy, one might even say, of all respect," he added still more imposingly after a third pause, "and . . . and it's even very agreeable that you, for your part, show . . ."
"Was it with this Pavlishchev that some story happened ... a strange story . . . with the abbot . . . the abbot ... I forget which abbot, only everybody was talking about it then," the "dignitary" said, as if recollecting.
"With the abbot Gouraud, a Jesuit," Ivan Petrovich reminded him. "Yes, sir, that's our most excellent and worthy people for you! Because after all he was a man of good family, with a fortune, a gentleman-in-waiting, and if he . . . had continued in the service . . . And then suddenly he abandons his service and all in order to embrace Catholicism and become a Jesuit, and that almost openly, with a sort of ecstasy. Really, he died just in time . . . yes, everybody said so then . . ."
The prince was beside himself.
"Pavlishchev . . . Pavlishchev embraced Catholicism? That can't be!" he cried in horror.
"Well, 'that can't be,' " Ivan Petrovich maundered imposingly, "is saying too much, and you will agree yourself, my dear Prince . . . However, you value the deceased man so . . . indeed, the man was very kind, to which I ascribe, for the main part, the success of that trickster Gouraud. But just ask me, ask me, how much hustle and bustle I had afterwards over this affair . . . and precisely with that same Gouraud! Imagine," he suddenly turned to the little old man, "they even wanted to present claims for the inheritance, and I had to resort to the most energetic measures then ... to bring them to reason . . . because they're masters at it! As-ton-ishing! But, thank God, it happened in Moscow, I went straight to the count, and we . . . brought them to reason . . ."
"You wouldn't believe how you've upset and shocked me!" the prince cried again.
"I'm sorry; but, as a matter of fact, all this, essentially speaking, was trifles and would have ended in trifles, as always; I'm sure of it. Last summer," he again turned to the little old man, "they say Countess K. also joined some Catholic convent abroad; our people