The prince thought he knew what Gania meant by "such a moment."

Hippolyte was not in the house. Lebedeff turned up late in the
afternoon; he had been asleep ever since his interview with the prince
in the morning. He was quite sober now, and cried with real sincerity
over the sick general--mourning for him as though he were his own
brother. He blamed himself aloud, but did not explain why. He repeated
over and over again to Nina Alexandrovna that he alone was to blame--no
one else--but that he had acted out of "pure amiable curiosity," and
that "the deceased," as he insisted upon calling the still living
general, had been the greatest of geniuses.

He laid much stress on the genius of the sufferer, as if this idea must
be one of immense solace in the present crisis.

Nina Alexandrovna--seeing his sincerity of feeling--said at last,
and without the faintest suspicion of reproach in her voice: "Come,
come--don't cry! God will forgive you!"

Lebedeff was so impressed by these words, and the tone in which
they were spoken, that he could not leave Nina Alexandrovna all the
evening--in fact, for several days. Till the general's death, indeed, he
spent almost all his time at his side.

Twice during the day a messenger came to Nina Alexandrovna from the
Epanchins to inquire after the invalid.

When--late in the evening--the prince made his appearance in Lizabetha
Prokofievna's drawing-room, he found it full of guests. Mrs. Epanchin
questioned him very fully about the general as soon as he appeared; and
when old Princess Bielokonski wished to know "who this general was, and
who was Nina Alexandrovna," she proceeded to explain in a manner which
pleased the prince very much.

He himself, when relating the circumstances of the general's illness to
Lizabetha Prokofievna, "spoke beautifully," as Aglaya's sisters declared
afterwards--"modestly, quietly, without gestures or too many words, and
with great dignity." He had entered the room with propriety and grace,
and he was perfectly dressed; he not only did not "fall down on the
slippery floor," as he had expressed it, but evidently made a very
favourable impression upon the assembled guests.

As for his own impression on entering the room and taking his seat,
he instantly remarked that the company was not in the least such
as Aglaya's words had led him to fear, and as he had dreamed of--in
nightmare form--all night.

This was the first time in his life that he had seen a