The laughter increased; tears welled up in the prince's eyes; he could not believe it and was enchanted.
"Of course, it was a beautiful vase. I remember it being here for all of fifteen years, yes . . . fifteen . . ." Ivan Petrovich began.
"Well, it's no disaster! A man, too, comes to an end, and this was just a clay pot!" Lizaveta Prokofyevna said loudly. "You're not so frightened, are you, Lev Nikolaich?" she added even with fear. "Enough, dear boy, enough; you really frighten me."
"And you forgive me for everything?For everythingbesides the vase?" the prince suddenly began to get up from his place, but the little old man at once pulled him down again by the hand. He did not want to let him go.
"C'est très curieux, et c est très sérieux!"*
"So I didn't offend any of you? You wouldn't believe how happy that thought makes me; but so it should be! How could I have offended anyone here? I'd offend you again by thinking so."
"Calm yourself, my friend, that is an exaggeration. And you generally have no reason to thank us so much; it's a beautiful feeling, but it's exaggerated."
"I'm not thanking you, I simply . . . admire you, I'm happy looking at you; perhaps I'm speaking foolishly, but I—I need to speak, I need to explain . . . even if only out of respect for myself."
Everything in him was impulsive, vague, and feverish; it may well be that the words he spoke were often not the ones he wanted to say. By his gaze he seemed to be asking: may I speak to you? His gaze fell on Belokonsky.
"Never mind, dear boy, go on, go on, only don't get out of breath," she observed. "You started breathlessly earlier and see what it led to; but don't be afraid to speak: these gentlemen have seen queerer than you, they won't be surprised, and God knows you're not all that clever, you simply broke a vase and frightened us."
Smiling, the prince listened to her.
*It's very curious, and very serious!
"Wasn't it you," he suddenly turned to the little old man, "wasn't it you who saved the student Podkumov and the clerk Shvabrin from being exiled three months ago?"
The little old man even blushed slightly and murmured that he ought to calm down.
"Wasn't it you I heard about," he turned to Ivan Petrovich at once,
"who gave free timber to your burned-out peasants in -------province, though they were already emancipated and had caused you trouble?"
"Well, that's an ex-ag-ger-ation," murmured Ivan Petrovich, though assuming a look of pleased dignity; but this time he was perfectly right that it was "an exaggeration": it was merely a false rumor that had reached the prince.
"And you, Princess," he suddenly turned to Belokonsky with a bright smile, "didn't you receive me six months ago in Moscow like your own son, following a letter from Lizaveta Prokofyevna, and give me, as if I were indeed your own son, some advice which I will never forget? Do you remember?"
"Why get so worked up?" Belokonsky responded vexedly. "You're a kind man, but a ridiculous one: someone gives you two cents, and you thank them as if they'd saved your life. You think it's praiseworthy, but it's disgusting."
She was getting quite angry, but suddenly burst out laughing, and this time it was kindly laughter. Lizaveta Prokofyevna's face also lit up; Ivan Fyodorovich brightened, too.
"I told you that Lev Nikolaich is a man ... a man ... in short, if only he didn't become breathless, as the princess observed . . ." the general murmured in joyful rapture, repeating Belokonsky's words, which had struck him.
Aglaya alone was somehow sad; but her face still burned, perhaps with indignation.
"He really is very nice," the little old man again murmured to Ivan Petrovich.
"I came here with pain in my heart," the prince went on, with a somehow ever-increasing perturbation, speaking faster and faster, more strangely and animatedly, "I ... I was afraid of you, afraid of myself as well. Most of all of myself. Returning here to Petersburg, I promised myself to be sure and see our foremost people, the elders, the ancient stock, to whom I myself belong, among whom I am one of the first by birth. For I am now sitting with princes like myself, am I not? I wanted to know you, that was necessary; very, very necessary! I've always heard so much more
bad than good about you, about the pettiness and exclusiveness of your interests, about your backwardness, your shallow education, your ridiculous habits—oh, so much has been written and said about you! It was with curiosity that I came here today, with perturbation: I had to see for myself and become personally convinced: is it actually so that this whole upper stratum of the Russian people is good for nothing, has outlived its time, has exhausted its ancient life, and is only capable of dying out, but in a petty, envious struggle with people ... of the future, hindering them, not noticing that it is dying itself? Before, too, I never fully believed this opinion, because we've never had any higher estate, except perhaps at court, according to the uniform, or ... by chance, and now it has quite vanished, isn't it so, isn't it so?"
"Well, no, that's not so at all," Ivan Petrovich laughed sarcastically.
"Well, he's yammering away again!" Belokonsky could not help saying.
"Laissez-le dire,*he's even trembling all over," the little old man warned again in a half whisper.
The prince was decidedly beside himself.
"And what then? I saw gracious, simple-hearted, intelligent people; I saw an old man who was gentle and heard out a boy like me; I see people capable of understanding and forgiveness, people who are Russian and kind, people almost as kind and cordial as I met there, almost no worse. You can judge how joyfully surprised I was! Oh, allow me to speak this out! I had heard a lot and believed very much myself that in society everything is a manner, everything is a decrepit form, while the essence is exhausted; but I can see for myself now that among us that cannot be; anywhere else, but not among us. Can it be that you are all now Jesuits and swindlers? I heard Prince N. tell a story tonight: wasn't it all artless, inspired humor, wasn't it genuinely good-natured? Can such words come from the lips of a . . . dead man, with a dried-up heart and talent? Could dead people have treated me the way you have treated me? Is this not material . . . for the future, for hopes? Can such people fail to understand and lag behind?"
"Once more I beg you, calm yourself, my dear, we'll come back to it all another time, and it will be my pleasure . . ." the "dignitary" smiled.
*Let him speak.
Ivan Petrovich grunted and shifted in his chair; Ivan Fyodorovich stirred; the general-superior was talking with the dignitary's wife, no longer paying the slightest attention to the prince; but the dignitary's wife kept listening and glancing at him.
"No, you know, it's better that I talk!" the prince went on with a new feverish impulse, addressing the little old man somehow especially trustfully and even confidentially. "Yesterday Aglaya Ivanovna forbade me to talk, and even mentioned the topics I shouldn't talk about; she knows I'm ridiculous at them. I'm going on twenty-seven, but I know I'm like a child. I don't have the right to express my thoughts, I said so long ago; I only spoke candidly in Moscow, with Rogozhin . . . He and I read Pushkin together, we read all of him; he knew nothing, not even Pushkin's name . . . I'm always afraid of compromising the thought and the main ideaby my ridiculous look. I lack the gesture. My gesture is always the opposite, and that provokes laughter and humiliates the idea. I have no sense of measure either, and that's the main thing; that's even the most main thing ... I know it's better for me to sit and be silent. When I persist in being silent, I even seem very reasonable, and what's more I can think things over. But now it's better that I speak. I started speaking because you looked at me so wonderfully; you have a wonderful face! Yesterday I gave Aglaya Ivanovna my word that I'd keep silent all evening."