but suddenly turned back again. "And you'll go to this atheist?" she pointed to Ippolit. "Why are you grinning at me!" she exclaimed somehow unnaturally and suddenly rushed at Ippolit, unable to bear his sarcastic grin.

"Lizaveta Prokofyevna! Lizaveta Prokofyevna! Lizaveta Prokofyevna!" came from all sides at once.

"Maman, it's shameful!" Aglaya cried loudly.

"Don't worry, Aglaya Ivanovna," Ippolit replied calmly. Lizaveta Prokofyevna, who had run up to him, seized him and for some unknown reason held him tightly by the arm; she stood before him, her furious gaze as if riveted to him. "Don't worry, your maman will realize that one cannot fall upon a dying man . . . I'm prepared to explain why I laughed ... I'd be very glad to be permitted ..."

Here he suddenly began coughing terribly and for a whole minute could not calm the cough.

"He's dying, and he goes on orating!" exclaimed Lizaveta Prokofyevna, letting go of his arm and watching almost with horror as he wiped the blood from his lips. "What are you talking for! You should simply go to bed ..."

"So it will be," Ippolit replied quietly, hoarsely, and almost in a whisper. "As soon as I go home tonight, I'll lie down at once . . .

in two weeks I'll be dead, I know that . . . Last week -------n⁴⁰ told me himself. . . So, with your permission, I would like to say a couple of words to you in farewell."

"Are you out of your mind, or what? Nonsense! You must be treated, this is no time for talking! Go, go, lie down! . . ." Lizaveta Prokofyevna cried in fright.

"If I lie down, then I won't get up till I die," Ippolit smiled. "Yesterday I wanted to lie down like that and not get up till I die, but I decided to postpone it for two days, while I can still use my legs ... in order to come here with them today . . . only I'm very tired ..."

"Sit down, sit down, don't stand there! Here's a chair for you," Lizaveta Prokofyevna roused herself and moved a chair for him.

"Thank you," Ippolit continued quietly, "and you sit down opposite me, and we'll talk . . . we'll certainly talk, Lizaveta Prokofyevna, I insist on it now . . ." He smiled at her again. "Think of it, today I'm outside and with people for the last time, and in two weeks I'll probably be under the ground. So this will be a sort of farewell both to people and to nature. Though I'm not very

sentimental, you can imagine how glad I am that it all happened here in Pavlovsk: at least you can look at a tree in leaf."

"What's this talk now," Lizaveta Prokofyevna was becoming more and more frightened, "you're all feverish. You were just shrieking and squealing, and now you're out of breath, suffocating!"

"I'll rest presently. Why do you want to deny me my last wish? . . . You know . . . I've long been dreaming of somehow getting to know you, Lizaveta Prokofyevna; I've heard a lot about you . . . from Kolya; he's almost the only one who hasn't abandoned me . . . You're an original woman, an eccentric woman, now I've seen it myself. . . you know, I even loved you a little."

"Lord, and I was really about to hit him."

"It was Aglaya Ivanovna who held you back. I'm not mistaken? This is your daughter Aglaya Ivanovna? She's so pretty that I guessed it was her at first sight earlier, though I'd never seen her before. Grant me at least to look at a beautiful girl for the last time in my life," Ippolit smiled a sort of awkward, crooked smile. "The prince is here, and your husband, and the whole company. Why would you deny me my last wish?"

"A chair!" cried Lizaveta Prokofyevna, but she seized one herself and sat down facing Ippolit. "Kolya," she ordered, "go with him at once, take him home, and tomorrow I myself will be sure to . . ."

"If you'll permit me, I'd like to ask the prince for a cup of tea . . . I'm very tired. You know, Lizaveta Prokofyevna, it seems you wanted to take the prince home with you for tea; stay here instead, we can spend some time together, and the prince will surely give us all tea. Excuse me for giving orders like that. . . But I know you, you're kind, so is the prince . . . we're all so kind it's comical . . ."

The prince got into a flutter, Lebedev rushed headlong out of the room, and Vera ran after him.

"That's true, too," Mrs. Epanchin decided abruptly. "Talk, then, only more softly, and don't get carried away. You've made me all pitiful. . . Prince! You're not worthy of my having tea with you, but so be it, I'm staying, though I ask nobody's forgiveness! Nobody's! Nonsense! . . . Forgive me, though, if I scolded you, Prince— though only if you want to. Though I'm not keeping anybody," she suddenly turned to her husband and daughters with a look of extraordinary wrath, as if it were they who were terribly guilty before her for something, "I can find my way home by myself. . ."

But they did not let her finish. They all came and eagerly gathered around her. The prince at once began begging everyone

to stay for tea and apologized for not having thought of it till then. Even the general was so amiable as to mutter something reassuring and amiably ask Lizaveta Prokofyevna whether it was not, after all, too cool for her on the terrace. He even all but asked Ippolit how long he had been studying at the university, but he did not ask. Evgeny Pavlovich and Prince Shch. suddenly became extremely amiable and merry; the faces of Adelaida and Alexandra, through their continuing astonishment, even expressed pleasure; in short, everyone was obviously glad that Lizaveta Prokofyevna's crisis was over. Only Aglaya was sullen and silently sat down a little way off. The rest of the company also stayed; no one wanted to leave, not even General Ivolgin, to whom Lebedev, however, whispered something in passing, probably something not entirely pleasant, because the general at once effaced himself somewhere in a corner. The prince also went and invited Burdovsky and his company, not leaving anyone out. They muttered with a strained air that they would wait for Ippolit, and withdrew at once to the furthest corner of the terrace, where they all sat down side by side again. Lebedev had probably had tea prepared for himself long ago, because it appeared at once. The clock struck eleven.

X

Ippolit moistened his lips with the cup of tea Vera Lebedev served him, set the cup down on the table, and suddenly, as if abashed, looked around almost in embarrassment.

"Look, Lizaveta Prokofyevna, these cups," he was hurrying somehow strangely, "these china cups, and fine china by the look of it, Lebedev always keeps locked up in a glass case; he never serves them . . . the usual thing, they came with his wife's dowry . . . the usual thing with them . . . and now he's served them, in your honor, naturally, he's so glad . . ."

He wanted to add something more, but found no words.

"He got embarrassed, just as I expected," Evgeny Pavlovich suddenly whispered in the prince's ear. "That's dangerous, eh? The surest sign that now, out of spite, he'll pull off something so eccentric that even Lizaveta Prokofyevna may not be able to sit it out."

The prince looked at him questioningly.

"You're not afraid of eccentricity?" Evgeny Pavlovich added. "I'm not either, I even wish for it; in fact, all I want is that our dear

Lizaveta Prokofyevna be punished, and that without fail, today, right now; I don't want to leave without that. You seem to be feverish?"