"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

somehow can't resist, once they give in to those . . . finaglers . . . especially abroad."

"It all comes, I think, from our . . . fatigue," the little old man mumbled with authority, "well, and the manner they have of preaching . . . elegant, their own . . . and they know how to frighten. In the year thirty-two they frightened me in Vienna, I can assure you; only I didn't give in, I fled from them, ha, ha!"

"I heard, my dear man, that you abandoned your post and fled from Vienna to Paris that time with the beautiful Countess Levitsky, and not from a Jesuit," Belokonsky suddenly put in.

"Well, but it was from a Jesuit, all the same it comes out that it was from a Jesuit!" the little old man picked up, laughing at the pleasant memory. "You seem to be very religious, something rarely to be met with nowadays in a young man," he benignly addressed Prince Lev Nikolaevich, who listened open-mouthed and was still shocked; the little old man obviously wanted to get to know the prince more closely; for some reason he had begun to interest him very much.

"Pavlishchev was a bright mind and a Christian, a true Christian," the prince suddenly said, "how could he submit to ... an unchristian faith? . . . Catholicism is the same as an unchristian faith!" he added suddenly, his eyes flashing and staring straight ahead, his gaze somehow taking in everyone at once.

"Well, that's too much," the little old man murmured and looked at Ivan Fyodorovich with astonishment.

"How is it that Catholicism is an unchristian religion?" Ivan Petrovich turned on his chair. "What is it, then?"

"An unchristian faith, first of all!" the prince began speaking again, in extreme agitation and much too sharply. "That's first, and second, Roman Catholicism is even worse than atheism itself, that's my opinion! Yes, that's my opinion! Atheism only preaches a zero, but Catholicism goes further: it preaches a distorted Christ, a Christ it has slandered and blasphemed, a counter Christ! It preaches the Antichrist, I swear to you, I assure you! That is my personal and longstanding conviction, and it has tormented me . . . Roman Catholicism believes that without universal state power the Church on earth cannot stand, and it shouts: Non possumus!*³³ In my opinion, Roman Catholicism is not even a faith, but decidedly the continuation of the Western Roman empire, and everything in

*We cannot!

it is subject to that idea, beginning with faith. The pope seized land, an earthly throne, and took up the sword; since then everything has gone on that way, only to the sword they added lies, trickery, deceit, fanaticism, superstition, villainy; they played upon the most holy, truthful, simple-hearted, ardent feelings of the people; they traded everything, everything, for money, for base earthly power. Isn't that the teaching of the Antichrist?! How could atheism not come out of them? Atheism came out of them, out of Roman Catholicism itself! Atheism began, before all else, with them themselves: could they believe in themselves? It grew stronger through repugnance against them; it is a product of their lies and spiritual impotence! Atheism! In Russia so far only exceptional classes of society do not believe, those who have lost their roots, as Evgeny Pavlovich put it so splendidly the other day; while there, in Europe, awful masses of the people themselves are beginning not to believe—formerly from darkness and deceit, but now from fanaticism, from hatred of the Church and of Christianity!"