"Oh! it was the Kolpakoff business, and of course he would have been acquitted."
"Yes? Do you know that for a fact?" asked the prince, whose curiosity was aroused by the general's words.
"I should think so indeed!" cried the latter. "The courtmartial came to no decision. It was a mysterious, an impossible business, one might say! Captain Larionoff, commander of the company, had died; his command was handed over to the prince for the moment. Very well. This soldier, Kolpakoff, stole some leather from one of his comrades, intending to sell it, and spent the money on drink. Well! The princeyou understand that what follows took place in the presence of the sergeantmajor, and a corporalthe prince rated Kolpakoff soundly, and threatened to have him flogged. Well, Kolpakoff went back to the barracks, lay down on a camp bedstead, and in a quarter of an hour was dead: you quite understand? It was, as I said, a strange, almost impossible, affair. In due course Kolpakoff was buried; the prince wrote his report, the deceased's name was removed from the roll. All as it should be, is it not? But exactly three months later at the inspection of the brigade, the man Kolpakoff was found in the third company of the second battalion of infantry, Novozemlianski division, just as if nothing had happened!"
"What?" said the prince, much astonished.
"It did not occurit's a mistake!" said Nina Alexandrovna quickly, looking, at the prince rather anxiously. "Mon mari se trompe," she added, speaking in French.
"My dear, 'se trompe' is easily said. Do you remember any case at all like it? Everybody was at their wits' end. I should be the first to say 'qu'on se trompe,' but unfortunately I was an eyewitness, and was also on the commission of inquiry. Everything proved that it was really he, the very same soldier Kolpakoff who had been given the usual military funeral to the sound of the drum. It is of course a most curious casenearly an impossible one. I recognize thatbut"
"Father, your dinner is ready," said Varvara at this point, putting her head in at the door.
"Very glad, I'm particularly hungry. Yes, yes, a strange coincidencealmost a psychological"
"Your soup'll be cold; do come."
"Coming, coming," said the general. "Son of my old friend" he was heard muttering as he went down the passage.
"You will have to excuse very much in my husband, if you stay with us," said Nina Alexandrovna; "but he will not disturb you often. He dines alone. Everyone has his little peculiarities, you know, and some people perhaps have more than those who are most pointed at and laughed at. One thing I must beg of youif my husband applies to you for payment for board and lodging, tell him that you have already paid me. Of course anything paid by you to the general would be as fully settled as if paid to me, so far as you are concerned; but I wish it to be so, if you please, for convenience' sake. What is it, Varia?"
Varia had quietly entered the room, and was holding out the portrait of Nastasia Philipovna to her mother.
Nina Alexandrovna started, and examined the photograph intently, gazing at it long and sadly. At last she looked up inquiringly at Varia.
"It's a present from herself to him," said Varia; "the question is to be finally decided this evening."
"This evening!" repeated her mother in a tone of despair, but softly, as though to herself. "Then it's all settled, of course, and there's no hope left to us. She has anticipated her answer by the present of her portrait. Did he show it you himself?" she added, in some surprise.
"You know we have hardly spoken to each other for a whole month. Ptitsin told me all about it; and the photo was lying under the table, and I picked it up."
"Prince," asked Nina Alexandrovna, "I wanted to inquire whether you have known my son long? I think he said that you had only arrived today from somewhere."
The prince gave a short narrative of what we have heard before, leaving out the greater part. The two ladies listened intently.
"I did not ask about Gania out of curiosity," said the elder, at last. "I wish to know how much you know about him, because he said just now that we need not stand on ceremony with you. What, exactly, does that mean?"
At this moment Gania and Ptitsin entered the room together, and Nina Alexandrovna immediately became silent again. The prince remained seated next to her, but Varia moved to the other end of the room; the portrait of Nastasia Philipovna remained lying as before on the worktable. Gania observed it there, and with a frown of annoyance snatched it up and threw it across to his writingtable, which stood at the other end of the room.
"Is it today, Gania?" asked Nina Alexandrovna, at last.
"Is what today?" cried the former. Then suddenly recollecting himself, he turned sharply on the prince. "Oh," he growled, "I see, you are here, that explains it! Is it a disease, or what, that you can't hold your tongue? Look here, understand once for all, prince"
"I am to blame in this, Ganiano one else," said Ptitsin.
Gania glanced inquiringly at the speaker.