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"Be quiet, you can talk afterwards! What was the letter about? Why are you blushing?" The prince was silent. At last he spoke. "I don't understand your thoughts, Lizabetha Prokofievna; but I can see that the fact of my having written is for some reason repugnant to you. So saying, the prince repeated the letter almost word for word, as he had written it.
Of course, Lizabetha Prokofievna had foreseen it long before the rest; her "heart had been sore" for a long while, she declared, and it was now so sore that she appeared to be quite overwhelmed, and the very thought of the prince became distasteful to her. There was a question to be decided most important, but most difficult; so much so, that Mrs.
Aglaya was kissing her mother's lips and cheeks and hands; they were hugging each other in the most ardent way. "There, look at her now Ivan Fedorovitch! Here she is all of her! This is our REAL Aglaya at last!" said Lizabetha Prokofievna. Aglaya raised her happy, tearful face from her mother's breast, glanced at her father, and burst out laughing.
The general murmured a few polite words, and asked Lizabetha Prokofievna if she did not feel cold on the terrace. He very nearly asked Hippolyte how long he had been at the University, but stopped himself in time. Evgenie Pavlovitch and Prince S. suddenly grew extremely gay and amiable.
Lizabetha Prokofievna had liked it also, but was too preoccupied to take much notice. The prince remarked that Aglaya looked attentively at him two or three times, and seemed to be satisfied with his behaviour. Little by little he became very happy indeed.
She added that "she had no intentions as yet of replacing anybody's mistress." These words painfully impressed the whole party; but especially her parents. Lizabetha Prokofievna summoned a secret council of two, and insisted upon the general's demanding from the prince a full explanation of his relations with Nastasia Philipovna.
All had issued forth in obedience to the mandate; that is, the girls, mamma, and Prince S. Lizabetha Prokofievna went off in a direction exactly contrary to the usual one, and all understood very well what she was driving at, but held their peace, fearing to irritate the good lady. She, as though anxious to avoid any conversation, walked ahead, silent and alone.
Prince S. ran up to her and persuaded her, at last, to come home with them. Lizabetha Prokofievna saw that she returned in such a state of agitation that it was doubtful whether she had even heard their calls. But only a couple of minutes later, when they had reached the park, Aglaya suddenly remarked, in her usual calm, indifferent voice: "I wanted to see how the farce would end."
He is so pleased " He was about to add something else, but could not find the words. "There, he is feeling embarrassed; I expected as much," whispered Evgenie Pavlovitch suddenly in the prince's ear. "It is a bad sign; what do you think? Now, out of spite, he will come out with something so outrageous that even Lizabetha Prokofievna will not be able to stand it."
"Well, it's lucky she has happened upon an idiot, then, that's all I can say!" whispered Lizabetha Prokofievna, who was somewhat comforted, however, by her daughter's remark. The prince had heard himself referred to as "idiot," and had shuddered at the moment; but his shudder, it so happened, was not caused by the word applied to him.
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