"It seems you're running off at the mouth again, Ferdyshchenko," the general boiled over.
"What's that to you, Your Excellency?" Ferdyshchenko picked up. He was counting on being able to pick it up and embroider on it still more. "Don't worry, Your Excellency, I know my place: if I said you and I were the Lion and the Ass from Krylov's fable, I was, of course, taking the Ass's role on myself, and you, Your Excellency, are the Lion, as it says in Krylov's fable:
The mighty Lion, terror of the forest, In old age saw his strength begin to fail.
And I, Your Excellency, am the Ass."
"With that last bit I agree," the general imprudently let slip.
All this was, of course, crude and deliberately affected, but there was a general agreement that Ferdyshchenko was allowed to play the role of buffoon.
"But I'm kept and let in here," Ferdyshchenko once exclaimed, "only so that I can talk precisely in this spirit. I mean, is it really possible to receive somebody like me? I do understand that. I mean, is it possible to sit me, such a Ferdyshchenko, next to a refined gentleman like Afanasy Ivanovich? We're left willy-nilly with only one explanation: they do it precisely because it's impossible to imagine."
But though it was crude, all the same it could be biting, sometimes even very much so, and that, it seems, was what Nastasya Filippovna liked. Those who wished absolutely to call on her had no choice but to put up with Ferdyshchenko. It may be that he had guessed the whole truth in supposing that the reason he was received was that from the first his presence had become impossible for Totsky. Ganya, for his part, had endured a whole infinity of torments from him, and in that sense Ferdyshchenko had managed to be very useful to Nastasya Filippovna.
"And I'll have the prince start by singing a fashionable romance," Ferdyshchenko concluded, watching out for what Nastasya Filippovna would say.
"I think not, Ferdyshchenko, and please don't get excited," she observed drily.
"Ahh! If he's under special patronage, then I, too, will ease up .. ."
But Nastasya Filippovna rose without listening and went herself to meet her guest.
"I regretted," she said, appearing suddenly before the prince, "that earlier today, being in a flurry, I forgot to invite you here, and I'm very glad that you have now given me the chance to thank you and to praise you for your determination."
Saying this, she peered intently at the prince, trying at least somehow to interpret his action to herself.
The prince might have made some reply to her amiable words, but he was so dazzled and struck that he could not even get a word out. Nastasya Filippovna noticed it with pleasure. This evening she was in full array and made an extraordinary impression. She took him by the arm and brought him to her guests. Just before entering the reception room, the prince suddenly stopped and, with extraordinary excitement, hurriedly whispered to her:
"Everything in you is perfection . . . even the fact that you're so thin and pale . . . one has no wish to imagine you otherwise ... I wanted so much to come to you . . . I . . . forgive me ..."
"Don't ask forgiveness," Nastasya Filippovna laughed. "That will ruin all the strangeness and originality. And it's true, then, what they say about you, that you're a strange man. So you consider me perfection, do you?"
"I do."
"Though you're a master at guessing, you're nevertheless mistaken. I'll remind you of it tonight . . ."
She introduced the prince to the guests, the majority of whom
already knew him. Totsky at once said something amiable. Everyone seemed to cheer up a little, everyone immediately began talking and laughing. Nastasya Filippovna sat the prince down beside her.
"But anyhow, what's so astonishing in the prince's appearance?" Ferdyshchenko shouted louder than everyone else. "The matter's clear, it speaks for itself!"
"The matter's all too clear and speaks all too much for itself," the silent Ganya suddenly picked up. "I've been observing the prince almost uninterruptedly today, from the moment he first looked at Nastasya Filippovna's portrait on Ivan Fyodorovich's desk this morning. I remember very well that already this morning I thought of something which I'm now perfectly convinced of, and which, let it be said in passing, the prince himself has confessed to me."
Ganya uttered this whole phrase very gravely, without the slightest jocularity, even gloomily, which seemed somewhat strange.
"I didn't make any confessions to you," the prince replied, blushing, "I merely answered your question."
"Bravo, bravo!" cried Ferdyshchenko. "At least it's candid—both clever and candid!"
Everyone laughed loudly.
"Don't shout, Ferdyshchenko," Ptitsyn observed to him disgustedly in a half-whisper.
"I didn't expect such prouesse*from you, Prince," said Ivan Fyodorovich. "Do you know what sort of man that suits? And I considered you a philosopher! Oh, the quiet one!"
"And judging by the way the prince blushes at an innocent joke like an innocent young girl, I conclude that, like a noble youth, he is nurturing the most praiseworthy intentions in his heart," the toothless and hitherto perfectly silent seventy-year-old schoolteacher, whom no one would have expected to make a peep all evening, suddenly said, or, better, maundered. Everyone laughed still more. The little old man, probably thinking they were laughing at his witticism, looked at them all and started laughing all the harder, which brought on so terrible a fit of coughing that Nastasya Filippovna, who for some reason was extremely fond of all such original little old men and women, and even of holy fools, at once began making a fuss over him, kissed him on both cheeks, and
*Prowess.
ordered more tea for him. When the maid came in, she asked for her mantilla, which she wrapped around herself, and told her to put more wood on the fire. Asked what time it was, the maid said it was already half-past ten.
"Ladies and gentlemen, would you care for champagne?" Nastasya Filippovna suddenly invited. "I have it ready. Maybe it will make you merrier. Please don't stand on ceremony."
The invitation to drink, especially in such naïve terms, seemed very strange coming from Nastasya Filippovna. Everyone knew the extraordinary decorum of her previous parties. Generally, the evening was growing merrier, but not in the usual way. The wine, however, was not refused, first, by the general himself, second, by the sprightly lady, the little old man, Ferdyshchenko, and the rest after him. Totsky also took his glass, hoping to harmonize the new tone that was setting in, possibly giving it the character of a charming joke. Ganya alone drank nothing. In the strange, sometimes very abrupt and quick outbursts of Nastasya Filippovna, who also took wine and announced that she would drink three glasses that evening, in her hysterical and pointless laughter, which alternated suddenly with a silent and even sullen pensiveness, it was hard to make anything out. Some suspected she was in a fever; they finally began to notice that she seemed to be waiting for something, glanced frequently at her watch, was growing impatient, distracted.
"You seem to have a little fever?" asked the sprightly lady.
"A big one even, not a little one—that's why I've wrapped myself in a mantilla," replied Nastasya Filippovna, who indeed had turned paler and at moments seemed to suppress a violent shiver.
They all started and stirred.
"Shouldn't we allow our hostess some rest?" Totsky suggested, glancing at Ivan Fyodorovich.
"Certainly not, gentlemen! I precisely ask you to stay. Your presence is particularly necessary for me tonight," Nastasya Filippovna suddenly said insistently and significantly. And as almost all the guests now knew that a very important decision was to be announced that evening, these words seemed extremely weighty. Totsky and the general exchanged glances once again; Ganya stirred convulsively.