talents are dried
up? Could dead men and women have treated me so kindly as you have all
been treating me to-day? Is there not material for the future in all
this--for hope? Can such people fail to UNDERSTAND? Can such men fall
away from reality?"

"Once more let us beg you to be calm, my dear boy. We'll talk of all
this another time--I shall do so with the greatest pleasure, for one,"
said the old dignitary, with a smile.

Ivan Petrovitch grunted and twisted round in his chair. General Epanchin
moved nervously. The latter's chief had started a conversation with the
wife of the dignitary, and took no notice whatever of the prince, but
the old lady very often glanced at him, and listened to what he was
saying.

"No, I had better speak," continued the prince, with a new outburst
of feverish emotion, and turning towards the old man with an air of
confidential trustfulness. "Yesterday, Aglaya Ivanovna forbade me
to talk, and even specified the particular subjects I must not touch
upon--she knows well enough that I am odd when I get upon these matters.
I am nearly twenty-seven years old, and yet I know I am little better
than a child. I have no right to express my ideas, and said so long ago.
Only in Moscow, with Rogojin, did I ever speak absolutely freely! He and
I read Pushkin together--all his works. Rogojin knew nothing of Pushkin,
had not even heard his name. I am always afraid of spoiling a great
Thought or Idea by my absurd manner. I have no eloquence, I know. I
always make the wrong gestures--inappropriate gestures--and therefore
I degrade the Thought, and raise a laugh instead of doing my subject
justice. I have no sense of proportion either, and that is the chief
thing. I know it would be much better if I were always to sit still and
say nothing. When I do so, I appear to be quite a sensible sort of a
person, and what's more, I think about things. But now I must speak; it
is better that I should. I began to speak because you looked so kindly
at me; you have such a beautiful face. I promised Aglaya Ivanovna
yesterday that I would not speak all the evening."

"Really?" said the old man, smiling.

"But, at times, I can't help thinking that I am wrong in feeling so
about it, you know. Sincerity is more important than elocution, isn't
it?"

"Sometimes."

"I want to explain all to you--everything--everything! I know you think
me Utopian, don't you--an idealist? Oh, no! I'm not, indeed--my ideas
are all so simp