But though I said that,

But though I said that, I looked at him with love. We talked like two friends in the highest and fullest sense of the word. He had asked me to come here to make something clear to me, to tell me something, to justify himself; and yet everything was explained and justified before a word was said. Whatever I might hear from him now, the result was already attained, and we both knew that and were happy, and looked at each other knowing it. "It's not the death of that old man," he answered: "it's not his death alone, there is something else too, which has happened at the same time. . . . God bless this moment and our future for a long time to come! Let us talk, my dear boy. I keep wandering from the point and letting myself be drawn off. I want to speak about one thing, but I launch into a thousand side issues. It's always like that when the heart is full. . . . But let us talk; the time has come and I've been in love with you, boy, for ever so long . . ." He sank back in the armchair and looked at me once more. "How strange it is to hear that, how strange it is," I repeated in an ecstasy of delight. And then I remember there suddenly came into his face that habitual line, as it were, of sadness and mockery together, which I knew so well. He controlled himself and with a certain stiffness began. 2 "You see, Arkady, if I had asked you to come earlier what should I have said to you? That question is my whole answer." "You mean that now you are mother's husband, and my father, while then. . . . You did not know what to say to me before about the social position? Is that it?"