But next such a hullabaloo broke out that my memory has not retained it all, for a great many woke up at once: an official woke up, one of our state councillors, and started in with the general right there and then about a projected subcommission in the ministry of———affairs and about a probable reshuffling of official posts attendant upon the subcommission, which the general found quite, quite amusing. I confess, I myself learned many new things, so that I marveled at the ways in which administrative news can sometimes be learned in this capital. Then some engineer half awoke, but for a long time he went on muttering complete nonsense, so that our people didn’t even bother with him, but left him to lie it out for a while. Finally, the noble lady buried in the morning under a catafalque displayed signs of sepulchral inspiration. Lebezyatnikov (for the fawning court councillor I hated, the one placed next to General Pervoedov, turned out to be named Lebezyatnikov) fussed a lot, surprised at them all waking up so quickly this time. I confess that I, too, was surprised; however, some of the ones that woke up had been buried two days before, for instance, one very young girl, about sixteen years old, who kept giggling—vilely and carnivorously giggling.

“Your Excellency, the privy councillor Tarasevich is waking up!” Lebezyatnikov announced suddenly in great haste.

“Ah, what’s this?” the suddenly awakened privy councillor maundered squeamishly and in a lisping voice. The sound of his voice had something capriciously peremptory about it. I listened with curiosity, for in recent days I had heard something about this Tarasevich—tempting and alarming in the highest degree.

“It’s me, Your Excellency, so far it’s just me, sir.”

“What is your request and what is it you want?”

“Only to inquire after Your Excellency’s health; being unaccustomed, everybody feels sort of cramped here at first, sir… General Pervoedov wishes to have the honor of making Your Excellency’s acquaintance and hopes…”

“Never heard of him.”

“Good gracious, Your Excellency, General Pervoedov, Vassily Vassilievich…”

“You are General Pervoedov?”

“No, Your Excellency, I’m merely Court Councillor Lebezyatnikov, at your service, sir, but General Pervoedov…”

“Nonsense! And I beg you to leave me in peace.”

“Leave off,” General Pervoedov himself finally put a dignified stop to the vile haste of his sepulchral client.

“He’s not awake yet, Your Excellency, you must keep that in view, sir; it’s from not being accustomed: he’ll wake up and then take it differently, sir…”

“Leave off,” the general repeated.

“Vassily Vassilievich! Hey there, Your Excellency!” an entirely new voice suddenly shouted loudly and eagerly right next to Avdotya Ignatievna—a gentlemanly and brash voice with a fashionably weary articulation and an impudent scansion. “I’ve been observing the lot of you for two hours already; I’ve been lying here for three days; remember me, Vassily Vassilievich? Klinevich—we used to meet at the Volokonskys’, where I don’t know why but you, too, were admitted.”

“Well, Count Pyotr Petrovich… but can it be that you, too… and so young… I am sorry!”

“I’m sorry myself, only it’s all the same to me, and I want to get the most I can from everywhere. And it’s not count, it’s baron, just plain baron. We’re some mangy little barons, from lackey ancestry, and I don’t even know why—spit on it. I’m just a blackguard from pseudo-high-society and considered a ‘sweet polisson.’¹³ My father was some sort of little general, and my mother was once received en haut lie.¹⁴ Ziefel the Yid and I passed fifty thousand in false banknotes last year, but I denounced him, and Yulka Charpentier de Lusignan¹⁵ took all the money with her to Bordeaux. And, imagine, I was already quite engaged—the Shchevalevsky girl, three months shy of sixteen, still in boarding school, comes with ninety thousand in dowry. Avdotya Ignatievna, remember how you corrupted me fifteen years ago, when I was just a fourteen-year-old page?…”

“Ah, it’s you, you blackguard! Well, at least God sent you, otherwise here it’s…”

“You shouldn’t have suspected your negotiant neighbor of smelling bad… I just kept quiet and laughed. It’s from me; they even buried me in a nailed coffin.”

“Ah, nasty man! Only I’m glad even so; you wouldn’t believe, Klinevich, you wouldn’t believe what a dearth of life and wit there is here.”

“Yes, yes, but I intend to start something original here. Your Excellency—not you, Pervoedov—Your Excellency, the other one, Mr. Tarasevich, the privy councillor! Answer me! It’s Klinevich, the one who took you to Mademoiselle Furie last lent, do you hear me?”

“I hear you, Klinevich, and I’m very glad, and believe me…”

“I don’t believe a groat’s worth, and spit on it. I’d simply like to kiss you, dear old boy, but I can’t, thank God. Do you know, gentlemen, what this grand-père pulled off? He died two or three days ago and, can you imagine, left a whole four hundred thousand missing from the treasury? The fund was intended for widows and orphans, and for some reason he alone was in charge of it, so that in the end he wasn’t audited for about eight years. I can picture what long faces they’ve all got there now and how they’ll remember him! A delectable thought, isn’t it? All last year I kept being surprised at how such a seventy-year-old codger, podagric and chiragric, could have preserved so much strength for depravity, and—and now here’s the answer! Those widows and orphans—oh, the mere thought of them must have inflamed him!… I knew about it for a long time, I was the only one, Charpentier told me, and the moment I found out, right then, during Holy Week, I pressed him in a friendly way: ‘Hand me over twenty-five thousand or else you’ll be audited tomorrow.’ And, imagine, he came up with only thirteen thousand then, so it seems very opportune that he died now. Grand-père, grand-père, do you hear me?”

“Cher Klinevich, I quite agree with you, and you needn’t… go into such detail. There’s so much suffering and torment in life, and so little reward… I wished finally to have some peace, and, as far as I can see, I hope even here to extract all…”

“I’ll bet he’s already sniffed out about Katie Berestov!”

“What?… What Katie?” the old man’s voice trembled carnivorously.

“Aha, what Katie? Here, to the left, five steps from me, ten from you. It’s the fifth day she’s been here, and if you knew, grand-père, what a little hellcat she is… from a good family, educated, and—a monster, a monster to the last degree! I never showed her to anybody there, I alone knew… Katie, answer me!”

“Hee, hee, hee!” answered the cracked sound of a girl’s voice, but one could hear something like the prick of a needle in it. “Hee, hee, hee!”

“Is… she… blond?” the grand-père babbled, faltering, in three gasps.

“Hee, hee, hee!”

“I… I’ve long dreamed,” the old man babbled breathlessly, “a lovely dream about a little blonde… fifteen or so… and precisely in such a situation…”

“Ah, abominable!” Avdotya Ignatievna exclaimed.

“Enough!” Klinevich decided. “I see the material is excellent. We’ll immediately set things up here in the best possible way. Above all so as to spend the rest of our time merrily; but what sort of time? Hey, you, the official or whatever, Lebezyatnikov, I’ve heard they call you that!”

“Lebezyatnikov, court councillor, Semyon Evseych, at your service, and very, very, very gladly.”

“Spit on your gladly, only you seem to know everything here. Tell me, first of all (I’ve been wondering since yesterday), how is it that we can speak here? We’re dead and yet we can speak; we also move, as it were, and yet we don’t speak or move? What’s the trick?”

“If you wish, Baron, this can better be explained to you by Platon Nikolaevich.”