“No one,” says he.
“What do you mean—‘no one’!”
“Why should I?” says Nekhliudof.
“How so—why should you?”
“I have always lived thus. Why shouldn’t I continue to live the same way?”
“You don’t say so? Did you ever!”
And saying this, the prince burst into a peal of laughter, and the whiskered bárin also roared. They couldn’t get over it.
“What, never?” they asked.
“Never!”
They were dying with laughter. Of course I understood well enough what they were laughing at him for. I keep my eyes open. “What,” thinks I, “will come of it?”
“Come,” says the prince, “come right off.”
“No; not for anything,” was his answer.
“Now, that is absurd,” says the prince. “Come along!”
They went out.
They came back at one o’clock. They sat down to supper; quite a crowd of them were assembled. Some of our very best customers—Atánof, Prince Razin, Count Shustakh, Mirtsof. And all congratulate Nekhliudof, laughing as they do so. They call me in: I see that they are pretty jolly.