‘I have heard many things of the kind about you …they delighted me… I have learned to hold you in the highest es-teem,’ continued Hippolyte.
His words seemed tinged with a kind of sarcastic mock-ery, yet he was extremely agitated, casting suspicious glances around him, growing confused, and constantly losing the thread of his ideas. All this, together with his consumptive appearance, and the frenzied expression of his blazing eyes, naturally attracted the attention of everyone present.
‘I might have been surprised (though I admit I know nothing of the world), not only that you should have stayed
on just now in the company of such people as myself and my friends, who are not of your class, but that you should let these … young ladies listen to such a scandalous affair, though no doubt novel-reading has taught them all there is to know. I may be mistaken; I hardly know what I am say-ing; but surely no one but you would have stayed to please a whippersnapper (yes, a whippersnapper; I admit it) to spend the evening and take part in everything—only to be ashamed of it tomorrow. (I know I express myself badly.) I admire and appreciate it all extremely, though the expres-sion on the face of his excellency, your husband, shows that he thinks it very improper. He-he!’ He burst out laughing, and was seized with a fit of coughing which lasted for two minutes and prevented him from speaking.
‘He has lost his breath now!’ said Lizabetha Prokofievna coldly, looking at him with more curiosity than pity: ‘Come, my dear boy, that is quite enough—let us make an end of this.’
Ivan Fedorovitch, now quite out of patience, interrupted suddenly. ‘Let me remark in my turn, sir,’ he said in tones of deep annoyance, ‘that my wife is here as the guest of Prince Lef Nicolaievitch, our friend and neighbour, and that in any case, young man, it is not for you to pass judgment on the conduct of Lizabetha Prokofievna, or to make remarks aloud in my presence concerning what feelings you think may be read in my face. Yes, my wife stayed here,’ continued the general, with increasing irritation, ‘more out of amaze-ment than anything else. Everyone can understand that a collection of such strange young men would attract the at-
tention of a person interested in contemporary life. I stayed myself, just as I sometimes stop to look on in the street when I see something that may be regarded as-as-as-”
‘As a curiosity,’ suggested Evgenie Pavlovitch, seeing his excellency involved in a comparison which he could not complete.
‘That is exactly the word I wanted,’ said the general with satisfaction—‘ a curiosity. However, the most astonishing and, if I may so express myself, the most painful, thing in this matter, is that you cannot even understand, young man, that Lizabetha Prokofievna, only stayed with you be-cause you are ill, —if you really are dying—moved by the pity awakened by your plaintive appeal, and that her name, character, and social position place her above all risk of contamination. Lizabetha Prokofievna!’ he continued, now crimson with rage, ‘if you are coming, we will say good-night to the prince, and—‘
‘Thank you for the lesson, general,’ said Hippolyte, with unexpected gravity, regarding him thoughtfully.
‘Two minutes more, if you please, dear Ivan Fedorovitch,’ said Lizabetha Prokofievna to her husband; ‘it seems to me that he is in a fever and delirious; you can see by his eyes what a state he is in; it is impossible to let him go back to Petersburg tonight. Can you put him up, Lef Nicolaievitch? I hope you are not bored, dear prince,’ she added suddenly to Prince S. ‘Alexandra, my dear, come here! Your hair is coming down.’
She arranged her daughter’s hair, which was not in the least disordered, and gave her a kiss. This was all that she
had called her for.
‘I thought you were capable of development,’ said Hip-polyte, coming out of his fit of abstraction. ‘Yes, that is what I meant to say,’ he added, with the satisfaction of one who suddenly remembers something he had forgotten. ‘Here is Burdovsky, sincerely anxious to protect his mother; is not that so? And he himself is the cause of her disgrace. The prince is anxious to help Burdovsky and offers him friend-ship and a large sum of money, in the sincerity of his heart. And here they stand like two sworn enemies—ha, ha, ha! You all hate Burdovsky because his behaviour with regard to his mother is shocking and repugnant to you; do you not? Is not that true? Is it not true? You all have a passion for beauty and distinction in outward forms; that is all you care for, isn’t it? I have suspected for a long time that you cared for nothing else! Well, let me tell you that perhaps there is not one of you who loved your mother as Burdo-vsky loved his. As to you, prince, I know that you have sent money secretly to Burdovsky’s mother through Gania. Well, I bet now,’ he continued with an hysterical laugh, ‘that Bur-dovsky will accuse you of indelicacy, and reproach you with a want of respect for his mother! Yes, that is quite certain! Ha, ha, ha!’
He caught his breath, and began to cough once more. ‘Come, that is enough! That is all now; you have no more
to say? Now go to bed; you are burning with fever,’ said Liz-abetha Prokofievna impatiently. Her anxious eyes had never left the invalid. ‘Good heavens, he is going to begin again!’
‘You are laughing, I think? Why do you keep laughing
at me?’ said Hippolyte irritably to Evgenie Pavlovitch, who certainly was laughing.
‘I only want to know, Mr. Hippolyte—excuse me, I forget your surname.’
‘Mr. Terentieff,’ said the prince.
‘Oh yes, Mr. Terentieff. Thank you prince. I heard it just now, but had forgotten it. I want to know, Mr. Terentieff, if what I have heard about you is true. It seems you are con-vinced that if you could speak to the people from a window for a quarter of an hour, you could make them all adopt your views and follow you?’
‘I may have said so,’ answered Hippolyte, as if trying to remember. ‘Yes, I certainly said so,’ he continued with sudden animation, fixing an unflinching glance on his questioner. ‘What of it?’
‘Nothing. I was only seeking further information, to put the finishing touch.’ Evgenie Pavlovitch was silent, but Hip-polyte kept his eyes fixed upon him, waiting impatiently for more.
‘Well, have you finished?’ said Lizabetha Prokofievna to Evgenie. ‘Make haste, sir; it is time he went to bed. Have you more to say?’ She was very angry.
‘Yes, I have a little more,’ said Evgenie Pavlovitch, with a smile. ‘It seems to me that all you and your friends have said, Mr. Terentieff, and all you have just put forward with such undeniable talent, may be summed up in the triumph of right above all, independent of everything else, to the exclusion of everything else; perhaps even before having discovered what constitutes the right. I may be mistaken?’
‘You are certainly mistaken; I do not even understand you. What else?’
Murmurs arose in the neighbourhood of Burdovsky and his companions; Lebedeff’s nephew protested under his breath.
‘I have nearly finished,’ replied Evgenie Pavlovitch.
‘I will only remark that from these premisses one could conclude that might is right—I mean the right of the clenched fist, and of personal inclination. Indeed, the world has often come to that conclusion. Prudhon upheld that might is right. In the American War some of the most ad-vanced Liberals took sides with the planters on the score that the blacks were an inferior race to the whites, and that might was the right of the white race.’
‘Well?’
‘You mean, no doubt, that you do not deny that might is right?’
‘What then?’
‘You are at least logical. I would only point out that from the right of might, to the right of tigers and crocodiles, or even Daniloff and Gorsky, is but a step.’
‘I know nothing about that; what else?’
Hippolyte was scarcely listening. He kept saying well?’ and ‘what else?’ mechanically, without the least curiosity, and by mere force of habit.
‘Why, nothing else; that is all.’
‘However, I bear you no grudge,’ said Hippolyte suddenly, and, hardly conscious of what he was doing, he held out his hand with a smile. The gesture took Evgenie Pavlovitch by
surprise, but with the utmost gravity he touched the hand that was offered him in token of forgiveness.
‘I can but thank you,’ he said, in a tone too respectful to be sincere, ‘for your kindness in letting me speak, for I have often noticed that our Liberals never allow other people to have an opinion of their own, and immediately answer their opponents with abuse, if they do not have recourse to argu-ments of a still more unpleasant nature.’
‘What you say is quite true,’ observed General Epanchin; then, clasping his hands behind his back, he returned to his place on the terrace steps, where he yawned with an air of boredom.
‘Come, sir, that will do; you weary me,’ said Lizabetha Prokofievna suddenly to Evgenie Pavlovitch.
Hippolyte rose all at once, looking troubled and almost frightened.
‘It is time for me to go,’ he said, glancing round in perplex-ity. ‘I have detained you… I wanted to tell you everything… I thought you all … for the last time … it was a whim…’
He evidently had sudden fits of returning animation, when he awoke from his semi-delirium; then, recovering full selfpossession for a few moments, he would speak, in disconnected phrases which had perhaps haunted him for a long while on
