prince. He whispered
to Lebedeff that this was the first time he had ever heard a Russian
funeral service since he was a little boy. Observing that he was looking
about him uneasily, Lebedeff asked him whom he was seeking.

"Nothing. I only thought I--"

"Is it Rogojin?"

"Why--is he here?"

"Yes, he's in church."

"I thought I caught sight of his eyes!" muttered the prince, in
confusion. "But what of it!--Why is he here? Was he asked?"

"Oh, dear, no! Why, they don't even know him! Anyone can come in, you
know. Why do you look so amazed? I often meet him; I've seen him at
least four times, here at Pavlofsk, within the last week."

"I haven't seen him once--since that day!" the prince murmured.

As Nastasia Philipovna had not said a word about having met Rogojin
since "that day," the prince concluded that the latter had his own
reasons for wishing to keep out of sight. All the day of the funeral our
hero, was in a deeply thoughtful state, while Nastasia Philipovna was
particularly merry, both in the daytime and in the evening.

Colia had made it up with the prince before his father's death, and it
was he who urged him to make use of Keller and Burdovsky, promising
to answer himself for the former's behaviour. Nina Alexandrovna and
Lebedeff tried to persuade him to have the wedding in St. Petersburg,
instead of in the public fashion contemplated, down here at Pavlofsk
in the height of the season. But the prince only said that Nastasia
Philipovna desired to have it so, though he saw well enough what
prompted their arguments.

The next day Keller came to visit the prince. He was in a high state of
delight with the post of honour assigned to him at the wedding.

Before entering he stopped on the threshold, raised his hand as if
making a solemn vow, and cried:

"I won't drink!"

Then he went up to the prince, seized both his hands, shook them warmly,
and declared that he had at first felt hostile towards the project of
this marriage, and had openly said so in the billiard-rooms, but that
the reason simply was that, with the impatience of a friend, he had
hoped to see the prince marry at least a Princess de Rohan or de Chabot;
but that now he saw that the prince's way of thinking was ten times more
noble than that of "all the rest put together." For he desired neither
pomp nor wealth nor honour, but only the truth! The sympathies of
exalted personages were well known, and the prince was too highly
placed by