"This, this . . . could you have imagined anything like it, Lev Nikolaich?" the general cried out sharply, evidently not understanding himself what he wanted to say. "No, speaking seriously, seriously?"

"I see that Aglaya Ivanovna was making fun of me," the prince replied sadly.

"Wait, brother; I'll go, but you wait. . . because . . . you at least explain to me, Lev Nikolaich, you at least: how did all this happen and what does it all mean, so to speak, as a whole? You'll agree, brother, I am her father, I am after all her father, which is why I don't understand a thing; so you at least explain it."

"I love Aglaya Ivanovna; she knows that and . . . has known it, I think, for a long time."

The general heaved his shoulders.

"Strange, strange . . . and you love her very much?"

"Yes, very much."

"Strange, strange, I find it all. That is, it's such a surprise and a blow that . . . You see, my dear, I'm not referring to your fortune (though I did expect that you had a bit more), but ... for me, my daughter's happiness . . . finally ... are you able, so to speak, to make that . . . happiness? And . . . and . . . what is it, a joke or the truth on her side? Not on yours, that is, but on her side?"

From behind the door came the voice of Alexandra Ivanovna: they were calling the father.

"Wait, brother, wait! Wait and think it over, and I'll be . . ." he said in haste and almost fearfully rushed off to Alexandra's call.

He found his wife and daughter in each other's arms and flooding each other with their tears. These were tears of happiness, tenderness, and reconciliation. Aglaya kissed her mother's hands, cheeks, lips; the two clung warmly to each other.

"Well, there, look at her, Ivan Fyodorych, she's quite herself now!" said Lizaveta Prokofyevna.

Aglaya turned her happy and tear-bathed little face from her mother's bosom, looked at her father, laughed loudly, jumped over to him, embraced him tightly, and kissed him several times. Then she rushed to her mother again and buried her face completely in her bosom, so that no one could see her, and at once began weeping again. Lizaveta Prokofyevna covered her with the end of her shawl.

"Well, what is it, what is it you're doing to us, cruel girl that you are after that!" she said, but joyfully now, as if she suddenly could breathe more freely.

"Cruel! yes, cruel!" Aglaya suddenly picked up. "Rotten! Spoiled! Tell papa that. Ah, but he's here. Papa, are you here? Listen!" she laughed through her tears.

"My dearest, my idol!" the general, all beaming with happiness, kissed her hand. (Aglaya did not withdraw it.) "So it means that you love this . . . young man? ..."

"No, no, no! I can't bear . . . your young man, I can't bear him!" Aglaya suddenly boiled over and raised her head. "And if you dare once more, papa . . . I'm saying it to you seriously; do you hear: I'm saying it seriously!"

And she indeed said it seriously: she even turned all red and her eyes shone. Her father broke off and became frightened, but Lizaveta Prokofyevna made a sign to him behind Aglaya's back, and he understood that it meant: "Don't ask questions."

"If that is how you want it, my angel, it's as you will, he's waiting

there alone; shouldn't we delicately hint to him that he should leave?"

The general in turn winked at Lizaveta Prokofyevna.

"No, no, that's quite superfluous, especially if it's 'delicate.' Go out to him; I'll come out afterwards, right away. I want to ask forgiveness of this . . . young man, because I've hurt him."

"Very much so," Ivan Fyodorovich confirmed seriously.

"Well, so ... it will be better if you all stay here and I go alone first, and you follow me right away, that same second; that will be better."

She had already reached the door, but suddenly she came back.

"I'll burst out laughing! I'll die of laughter!" she announced ruefully.

But that same second she turned and ran to the prince.

"Well, what is it? What do you think?" Ivan Fyodorovich said hastily.

"I'm afraid even to say," Lizaveta Prokofyevna replied, also hastily, "but I think it's clear."

"I, too, think it's clear. Clear as day. She loves him."

"Not just loves him, she's in love with him!" Alexandra Ivanovna echoed. "Only I wonder what for?"

"God bless her, if such is her fate!" Lizaveta Prokofyevna piously crossed herself.

"It means it's fate," the general confirmed, "there's no escaping fate!"

And they all went to the drawing room, but there another surprise awaited them.

Aglaya not only did not burst out laughing, as she feared, when she walked up to the prince, but she said to him even almost timidly:

"Forgive a foolish, bad, spoiled girl" (she took his hand), "and be assured that we all have boundless respect for you. And if I dared to make a mockery of your beautiful . . . kind simple-heartedness, then forgive me as you would a child for a prank; forgive me that I insisted on an absurdity which, of course, cannot have the least consequences . . ."

Aglaya uttered these last words with special emphasis.

Father, mother, and sisters all arrived in the drawing room in time to see and hear everything, and they were all struck by the "absurdity which, of course, cannot have the least consequences,"

and still more by the serious air with which Aglaya spoke of this absurdity. They all exchanged questioning glances; but the prince, it seemed, did not understand these words and was in the highest degree of happiness.

"Why do you speak like that," he murmured, "why do you . . . ask . . . forgiveness . . ."

He was even going to say that he was unworthy of having anyone ask his forgiveness. Who knows, perhaps he did notice the meaning of the words about the "absurdity which cannot have the least consequences," but, as a strange man, he may even have been glad of those words. Unquestionably, for him the height of bliss was the fact alone that he could again visit Aglaya without hindrance, that he would be allowed to talk with her, sit with her, walk with her, and, who knows, perhaps that alone would have contented him for the rest of his life! (It was this contentment, it seems, that Lizaveta Prokofyevna was secretly afraid of; she had divined it; she secretly feared many things that she did not even know how to express.)

It is hard to describe how animated and encouraged the prince became that evening. He was so merry that one became merry just looking at him—so Aglaya's sisters put it afterwards. He talked a great deal, and that had not happened to him since the very morning, six months earlier, when he had first made the acquaintance of the Epanchins; on his return to Petersburg, he had been noticeably and intentionally silent, and very recently, in front of everyone, had let slip to Prince Shch. that he had to restrain himself and keep silent, because he had no right to humiliate a thought by stating it. He was almost the only one who spoke all that evening, telling many stories; he answered questions clearly, gladly, and in detail. However, nothing resembling polite conversation showed in his words. The thoughts were all quite serious, sometimes even quite abstruse. The prince even stated some of his own views, his own private observations, so that it would all even have been ridiculous, if it had not been so "well stated," as all the listeners agreed afterwards. Though the general loved serious topics of conversation, both he and Lizaveta Prokofyevna personally found that there was too much learning, so that by the end of the evening they even began to feel sad. However, in the end the prince went so far as to tell several very funny anecdotes, at which he was the first to laugh, so that the others laughed more at his joyful laughter than at the anecdotes themselves. As for Aglaya,