Текст книги "The Idiot"
Автор книги: Федор Достоевский
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already. I left a lot there, too much. It's all vanished. I sat on the train thinking: 'Now I'm going to be with people; maybe I don't know anything, but the new life has come.' I decided to do my duty honestly and firmly. Maybe it will be boring and painful for me to be with people. In the first place I decided to be polite and candid with everybody; no one can ask more of me. Maybe I'll be considered a child here, too—so be it! Everybody also considers me an idiot for some reason, and in fact I was once so ill that I was like an idiot; but what sort of idiot am I now, when I myself understand that I'm considered an idiot? I come in and think: 'They consider me an idiot, but I'm intelligent all the same, and they don't even suspect it . . .' I often have that thought. When I was in Berlin and received several little letters they had already managed to write to me, it was only then that I realized how much I loved them. Receiving the first letter was very hard! How sad they were as they saw me off! They began a month ahead: ' Léon s'en va, Léon s'en va pour toujours.'*Every evening we gathered by the waterfall as before and kept talking about our parting. Sometimes it was as joyful as before; only when we broke up for the night, they started hugging me tightly and warmly, which they never did before. Some came running to see me in secret from the rest, singly, only in order to hug me and kiss me alone, not in front of everybody. When I was setting out, all of them, the whole swarm, saw me off to the station. The railway station was about half a mile from the village. They tried to keep from crying, but many failed and cried loudly, especially the girls. We hurried so as not to be late, but one or another of the crowd would suddenly rush to me in the middle of the road, put his little arms around me, and kiss me, for which the whole crowd also had to stop; and though we were in a hurry, everybody stopped and waited for him to say good-bye to me. When I got on the train and it started off, they all shouted 'Hurrah!' to me and stood there for a long time, until the train was quite gone. I kept looking, too . . . Listen, when I came in here earlier and looked at your dear faces—I'm very attentive to faces now—and heard your first words, I felt light at heart for the first time since then. I thought maybe I really am one of the lucky ones: I know it's not easy to meet people you can love at once, yet I met you as soon as I got off the train. I know very well that it's shameful to talk about your feelings with everyone,
* Léon is going away, Léon is going away forever!
yet here I am talking with you, and with you I'm not ashamed. I'm unsociable and may not visit you for a long time. Don't take it as thinking ill: I'm not saying it because I don't value you, and you also mustn't think I've been offended in any way. You asked me about your faces and what I observe in them. I'll tell you with great pleasure. Yours, Adelaida Ivanovna, is a happy face, the most sympathetic of the three. Not only are you very pretty, but one looks at you and says: 'She has the face of a kind sister.' You approach things simply and cheerfully, but you are also quick to know hearts. That's what I think about your face. Yours, Alexandra Ivanovna, is also a beautiful and very sweet face, but you may have some secret sorrow; your soul is no doubt very kind, but you are not joyful. There is some special nuance in your face that reminds me of Holbein's Madonna in Dresden. 26Well, that's for your face– am I a good guesser? You yourselves consider me one. But about your face, Lizaveta Prokofyevna," he suddenly turned to Mrs. Epanchin, "about your face I not only think but I'm certain that you are a perfect child, in everything, in everything, in everything good and in everything bad, despite your age. You're not angry that I say it? You do know my regard for children? And don't think it's out of simplicity that I've just spoken so candidly about your faces; oh, no, not at all! Maybe I, too, have something in mind."
VII
When the prince fell silent, they all looked at him gaily, even Aglaya, but especially Lizaveta Prokofyevna.
"Quite an examination!" she cried. "So, my dear ladies, you thought you were going to patronize him like a poor little thing, and he barely deigned to accept you, and that with the reservation that he would come only rarely. We've been made fools of—Ivan Fyodorovich most of all—and I'm glad. Bravo, Prince, we were told earlier to put you through an examination. And what you said about my face is all completely true: I am a child, and I know it. I knew it even before you said it; you precisely expressed my own thought in a single word. I think your character is completely identical to mine, and I'm very glad; like two drops of water. Only you're a man and I'm a woman, and I've never been to Switzerland, that's all the difference."
"Don't be in a hurry, maman"cried Aglaya, "the prince said he
had something special in mind in all his confessions, and he wasn't simply saying it."
"Yes, oh, yes," the others laughed.
"Don't tease him, my dears, he may be cleverer than all three of you put together. You'll see. Only why have you said nothing about Aglaya, Prince? Aglaya's waiting, and I am, too."
"I can't say anything now. I'll say it later."
"Why? She's noticeable, I believe?"
"Oh, yes, she's noticeable. You're an extraordinary beauty, Aglaya Ivanovna. You're so good-looking that one is afraid to look at you."
"That's all? And her qualities?" Mrs. Epanchin persisted.
"Beauty is difficult to judge; I'm not prepared yet. Beauty is a riddle."
"That means you've set Aglaya a riddle," said Adelaida. "Solve it, Aglaya. But she is good-looking, isn't she, Prince?"
"Extremely!" the prince replied warmly, with an enthusiastic glance at Aglaya. "Almost like Nastasya Filippovna, though her face is quite different ..."
They all exchanged astonished looks.
"Like who-o-om?" Mrs. Epanchin drew out. "Like Nastasya Filippovna? Where have you seen Nastasya Filippovna? What Nastasya Filippovna?"
"Gavrila Ardalionovich was just showing Ivan Fyodorovich her portrait."
"What? He brought Ivan Fyodorovich her portrait?"
"To show him. Today Nastasya Filippovna presented Gavrila Ardalionovich with her portrait, and he brought it to show."
"I want to see it!" Mrs. Epanchin heaved herself up. "Where is this portrait? If she gave it to him, he must have it, and, of course, he's still in the office! He always comes to work on Wednesdays and never leaves before four. Send for Gavrila Ardalionovich at once! No, I'm hardly dying to see him. Do me a favor, my dear Prince, go to the office, take the portrait from him, and bring it here. Tell him we want to look at it. Please."
"He's nice, but much too simple," said Adelaida, when the prince had gone.
"Yes, much too much," agreed Alexandra, "so that he's even slightly ridiculous."
It was as if neither had spoken her whole mind.
"However, with our faces he got out of it nicely," said Aglaya. "He flattered everyone, even maman."
"Don't be witty, please!" cried Mrs. Epanchin. "It was not he who flattered me, but I who was flattered."
"Do you think he was trying to get out of it?" asked Adelaida.
"I don't think he's so simple."
"Well, there she goes!" Mrs. Epanchin became angry. "And in my opinion you're even more ridiculous than he is. He's a bit simple, but he keeps his own counsel, in the most noble fashion, to be sure. Just as I do."
"Of course, it was bad of me to let on about the portrait," the prince reflected to himself on his way to the office, feeling some remorse. "But . . . maybe it's a good thing I let on ..." A strange idea was beginning to flash in his head, though not a very clear one as yet.
Gavrila Ardalionovich was still sitting in the office and was immersed in his papers. Evidently he did not get his salary from the joint-stock company for nothing. He became terribly embarrassed when the prince asked about the portrait and told him how they had found out about it.
"A-a-ah! Why did you have to blab!" he shouted in angry vexation. "You don't know anything . . . Idiot!" he muttered to himself.
"I'm sorry, I said it quite unthinkingly, just by the way. I said that Aglaya was almost as good-looking as Nastasya Filippovna."
Ganya asked for more detail. The prince complied. Ganya again gave him a mocking look.
"You do go on about Nastasya Filippovna . . ." he muttered, but lapsed into thought without finishing.
He was obviously alarmed. The prince reminded him about the portrait.
"Listen, Prince," Ganya said suddenly, as if an unexpected thought had dawned on him. "I have a huge request to make of you . . . But I really don't know . . ."
He became embarrassed and did not finish; he was venturing upon something and seemed to be struggling with himself. The prince waited silently. Ganya studied him once more with intent, searching eyes.
"Prince," he began again, "right now they're . . . owing to a completely strange circumstance . . . ridiculous . . . and for which I'm not to blame . . . well, in short, it's irrelevant—they're a bit angry with me in there, it seems, so for the time being I'd rather not go there without being sent for. I need terribly to talk with Aglaya Ivanovna now. I've written a few words just in case" (a
small, folded note appeared in his hand), "and I don't know how to deliver it. Would you take it upon yourself, Prince, to deliver it to Aglaya Ivanovna, right now, but only to Aglaya Ivanovna, that is, so that nobody sees—understand? It's not such a great secret, God knows, there's nothing to it, but . . . will you do it?"
"It's not altogether pleasant for me," said the prince.
"Ah, Prince, it's of the utmost necessity for me!" Ganya began to plead. "Maybe she'll answer . . . Believe me, only in the utmost, the very utmost case, would I turn to . . . Who else can I send it with? . . . It's very important. . . It's terribly important for me . . ."
Ganya was terribly afraid that the prince would not agree and kept peering into his eyes with cowardly entreaty.
"Very well, I'll deliver it."
"But only so that nobody notices," the now joyful Ganya pleaded. "And another thing, Prince, I'm relying on your word of honor, eh?"
"I won't show it to anybody," said the prince.
"The note isn't sealed, but . . ." the much too flustered Ganya let slip and stopped in embarrassment.
"Oh, I won't read it," the prince replied with perfect simplicity, took the portrait, and walked out of the office.
Ganya, left alone, clutched his head. "One word from her, and I . . . and I really may break it off! . . ."
He started pacing up and down the office, too excited and expectant to sit down to his papers again.
The prince pondered as he went; he was unpleasantly struck by the errand, and unpleasantly struck by the thought of Ganya's note to Aglaya. But two rooms away from the drawing room he suddenly stopped, seemed to remember something, looked around, went over to the window, closer to the light, and began to look at Nastasya Filippovna's portrait.
It was as if he wanted to unriddle something hidden in that face which had also struck him earlier. The earlier impression had scarcely left him, and now it was as if he were hastening to verify something. That face, extraordinary for its beauty and for something else, now struck him still more. There seemed to be a boundless pride and contempt, almost hatred, in that face, and at the same time something trusting, something surprisingly simple-hearted; the contrast even seemed to awaken some sort of compassion as one looked at those features. That dazzling beauty was even unbearable, the beauty of the pale face, the nearly hollow
cheeks and burning eyes—strange beauty! The prince gazed for a moment, then suddenly roused himself, looked around, hastily put the portrait to his lips and kissed it. When he entered the drawing room a minute later, his face was completely calm.
But as he was going into the dining room (one room away from the drawing room), in the doorway he almost ran into Aglaya, who was coming out. She was alone.
"Gavrila Ardalionovich asked me to give you this," said the prince, handing her the note.
Aglaya stopped, took the note, and looked at the prince somehow strangely. There was not the least embarrassment in her look, perhaps only a glimpse of a certain surprise, and even that seemed to refer only to the prince. With her look Aglaya seemed to demand an accounting from him—in what way had he ended up in this affair together with Ganya?—and to demand it calmly and haughtily. For two or three moments they stood facing each other; finally something mocking barely showed in her face; she smiled slightly and walked past him.
Mrs. Epanchin studied the portrait of Nastasya Filippovna for some time silently and with a certain tinge of scorn, holding it out in front of her at an extreme and ostentatious distance from her eyes.
"Yes, good-looking," she said at last, "even very. I've seen her twice, only from a distance. So that's the sort of beauty you appreciate?" she suddenly turned to the prince.
"Yes . . . that sort . . ." the prince replied with some effort.
"Meaning precisely that sort?"
"Precisely that sort."
"Why so?"
"There's so much suffering ... in that face . .." the prince said, as if inadvertently, as if he were talking to himself and not answering a question.
"You may be raving, however," Mrs. Epanchin decided, and with an arrogant gesture she flung the portrait down on the table.
Alexandra picked it up, Adelaida came over to her, and they both began to study it. Just then Aglaya came back to the drawing room.
"Such power!" Adelaida cried all at once, peering greedily at the portrait over her sister's shoulder.
"Where? What power?" Lizaveta Prokofyevna asked sharply.
"Such beauty has power," Adelaida said hotly. "You can overturn the world with such beauty."
She went pensively to her easel. Aglaya gave the portrait only a fleeting look, narrowed her eyes, thrust out her lower lip, and sat down to one side, her arms folded.
Mrs. Epanchin rang.
"Send Gavrila Ardalionovich here, he's in the office," she ordered the entering servant.
"Maman!"Alexandra exclaimed significantly.
"I want to say a couple of words to him—and enough!" Mrs. Epanchin snapped quickly, stopping the objection. She was visibly irritated. "You see, Prince, we now have all these secrets here. All these secrets! It's required, it's some sort of etiquette, a stupid thing. And that in a matter which requires the greatest openness, clarity, and honesty. Marriages are in the works, I don't like these marriages . . ."
"Maman,what are you saying?" Alexandra again tried to stop her.
"What's wrong, daughter dear? Do you like it yourself? And so what if the prince can hear, since we're friends. I am his, at least. God seeks people, good people, of course, he doesn't need the wicked and capricious—especially the capricious, who decide one thing today and say something else tomorrow. You understand, Alexandra Ivanovna? They say I'm odd, Prince, but I have discernment. Because the heart is the main thing, the rest is nonsense. Brains are also necessary, of course . . . maybe brains are the main thing. Don't smile, Aglaya, I'm not contradicting myself: a fool with a heart and no brains is as unhappy a fool as a fool with brains but no heart. An old truth. I am a fool with a heart but no brains, and you are a fool with brains but no heart; and we're both unhappy, and we both suffer."
"What are you so unhappy about, maman?"Adelaida, who alone of the whole company seemed not to have lost her cheerful disposition, could not help asking.
"First of all, about my learned daughters," Mrs. Epanchin snapped, "and since that is enough in itself, there's no point in expatiating on the rest. There's been enough verbosity. We'll see how the two of you (I don't count Aglaya), with your brains and verbosity, are going to find your way and whether you, my much esteemed Alexandra Ivanovna, are going to be happy with your honorable gentleman . . . Ah! ..." she exclaimed, seeing the entering Ganya. "Here comes one more matrimony. How do you do!" she responded to Ganya's bow without inviting him to sit down. "Are you embarking upon matrimony?"
"Matrimony?... How? ... What matrimony? ..." Gavrila Ardalionovich murmured in stupefaction. He was terribly bewildered.
"Are you getting married, I'm asking, if you like that phrasing better?"
"N-no . . . I'm . . . n-not," Gavrila Ardalionovich lied, and a flush of shame spread over his face. He glanced fleetingly at Aglaya, who was sitting to one side, and quickly looked away. Aglaya was looking at him coldly, intently, calmly, not taking her eyes off him, and observing his confusion.
"No? Did you say no?" the implacable Lizaveta Prokofyevna persistently interrogated him. "Enough! I'll remember that today, Wednesday afternoon, you said 'No' to my question. Is today Wednesday?"
"I think so, maman,"replied Adelaida.
"They never know what day it is. What's the date?"
"The twenty-seventh," replied Ganya.
"The twenty-seventh? That's good, for certain considerations. Good-bye. I suppose you have many things to do, and for me it's time to dress and be on my way. Take your portrait. Give my respects to the unfortunate Nina Alexandrovna. Good-bye, Prince, my dear boy! Come more often, and I'll be sure to call on old Belokonsky and tell her about you. And listen, my dear: I believe God brought you to Petersburg from Switzerland precisely for me. Maybe you'll have other things to do, but it was mainly for me. That's precisely how God reckoned. Good-bye, my dears. Alexandra, stop by for a minute."
Mrs. Epanchin left. Ganya, overturned, confused, spiteful, took the portrait from the table and turned to the prince with a crooked smile:
"Prince, I'm going home now. If you haven't changed your intention of living with us, I'll take you there, since you don't know the address."
"Wait, Prince," said Aglaya, suddenly getting up from her chair, "you still have to write something in my album. Papa said you're a calligrapher. I'll bring it to you right now . . ."
And she left.
"Good-bye, Prince, I'm going, too," said Adelaida.
She firmly shook the prince's hand, smiled at him affably and tenderly, and left. She did not look at Ganya.
"It was you," Ganya rasped, suddenly falling upon the prince once everyone had gone, "you blabbed to them that I'm getting
married!" he muttered in a quick half whisper, with a furious face, flashing his eyes spitefully. "You shameless babbler!"
"I assure you that you are mistaken," the prince replied calmly and politely, "I didn't even know you were getting married."
"You heard Ivan Fyodorovich say earlier that everything would be decided tonight at Nastasya Filippovna's, and you told it to them! You're lying! How could they have found out? Devil take it, who could have told them besides you? Didn't the old lady hint to me?"
"You ought to know better who told them, if you really think she was hinting to you. I didn't say a word about it."
"Did you deliver my note? Any answer?" Ganya interrupted him with feverish impatience. But at that very moment Aglaya came back, and the prince had no time to reply.
"Here, Prince," said Aglaya, putting her album on the little table. "Choose a page and write something for me. Here's a pen, a new one. Does it matter if it's steel? I've heard calligraphers don't write with steel pens."
Talking with the prince, she seemed not to notice that Ganya was right there. But while the prince was testing the pen, selecting a page, and preparing himself, Ganya went over to the fireplace where Aglaya was standing, to the right of the prince, and in a trembling, faltering voice said almost in her ear:
"One word, only one word from you—and I'm saved."
The prince turned quickly and looked at the two. There was genuine despair in Ganya's face; it seemed he had uttered these words somehow without thinking, as if headlong. Aglaya looked at him for a few seconds with exactly the same calm astonishment as she had looked at the prince earlier, and it seemed that this calm astonishment of hers, this perplexity, as if she totally failed to understand what had been said to her, was more terrible for Ganya at that moment than the strongest contempt.
"What am I to write?" asked the prince.
"I'll dictate to you right now," said Aglaya, turning to him. "Are you ready? Write: 'I don't negotiate.' Now put the day and the month. Show me."
The prince handed her the album.
"Excellent! You've written it amazingly well; you have a wonderful hand! Thank you. Good-bye, Prince . . . Wait," she added, as if suddenly remembering something. "Come, I want to give you something as a memento."
The prince followed her; but having entered the dining room, Aglaya stopped.
"Read this," she said, handing him Ganya's note.
The prince took the note and looked at Aglaya in perplexity.
"I know you haven't read it and you cannot be in this man's confidence. Read it, I want you to."
The note had obviously been written in haste.
Today my fate will be decided, you know in what manner. Today I will have to give my word irrevocably. I have no right to your sympathy, I dare not have any hopes; but you once uttered a word, just one word, and that word lit up the whole dark night of my life and became a beacon for me. Say another such word to me now—and you will save me from disaster! Only say to me: break it all off,and I will break it all off today. Oh, what will it cost you to say it! I am asking for this word only as a sign of your sympathy and compassion for me—only, only! And nothing more, nothing.I dare not think of any hope, because I am not worthy of it. But after your word I will accept my poverty again, I will joyfully endure my desperate situation. I will meet the struggle, I will be glad of it, I will resurrect in it with new strength!
Send me this word of compassion (of compassion only,I swear to you!). Do not be angry at the boldness of a desperate man, at a drowning man, for daring to make a last effort to save himself from disaster.
"This man assures me," Aglaya said sharply, when the prince had finished reading, "that the words break it all offwill not compromise me or commit me in any way, and, as you see, he gives me a written guarantee of it by this very note. See how naively he hastened to underline certain words and how crudely his secret thought shows through. He knows, however, that if he broke it all off, but by himself, alone, not waiting for a word from me, and even not telling me about it, without any hope in me, I would then change my feelings for him and would probably become his friend. He knows that for certain! But his soul is dirty: he knows and yet hesitates; he knows and still asks for a guarantee. He's unable to make a decision on faith. Instead of a hundred thousand, he wants me to give him hope in me. As for the previous word he talks about in his letter and which supposedly lit up his whole life, there he's lying brazenly. I simply felt sorry for him once. But he's bold
and shameless: the thought of a possible hope immediately flashed in him; I realized it at once. After that he began trying to trap me; he does it still. But enough. Take the note and give it back to him, right now, when you've left our house, naturally, not before."
"And what shall I tell him in reply?"
"Nothing, of course. That's the best reply. So you intend to live in his house?"
"Ivan Fyodorovich himself recommended it to me earlier," said the prince.
"Beware of him, I'm warning you; he won't forgive you for giving him back the note."
Aglaya pressed the prince's hand lightly and left. Her face was serious and frowning, she did not even smile as she nodded goodbye to the prince.
"One moment, I'll just fetch my bundle," the prince said to Ganya, "and we can go."
Ganya stamped his foot in impatience. His face even darkened with rage. Finally the two men went outside, the prince carrying his bundle.
"The reply? The reply?" Ganya fell upon him. "What did she say to you? Did you give her the letter?"
The prince silently handed him his note. Ganya was dumbfounded.
"What? My note?" he cried. "He didn't give it to her! Oh, I should have guessed! Oh, cur-r-rse it ... I see why she didn't understand anything just now! But why, why, why didn't you give it to her, oh, cur-r-rse it . . ."
"Excuse me, but, on the contrary, I managed to deliver your note at once, the moment you gave it to me and exactly as you asked me to. It ended up with me again, because Aglaya Ivanovna gave it back to me just now."
"When? When?"
"As soon as I finished writing in the album and she asked me to go with her. (Didn't you hear?) We went to the dining room, she gave me the note, told me to read it, and then told me to give it back to you."
"To re-e-ead it!" Ganya shouted almost at the top of his lungs. "To read it! You read it?"
And he again stood petrified in the middle of the sidewalk, so astonished that he even opened his mouth wide.
"Yes, I read it just now."
"And she, she herself gave it to you to read? She herself?"
"She herself, and, believe me, I wouldn't have read it without her invitation."
Ganya was silent for a moment, making painful efforts to figure something out, but suddenly he exclaimed:
"That can't be! She couldn't have told you to read it. You're lying! You read it yourself!"
"I'm telling you the truth," the prince replied in the same completely imperturbable tone, "and, believe me, I'm very sorry that it makes such an unpleasant impression on you."
"But, you wretch, did she at least say anything as she did it? Did she respond in any way?"
"Yes, of course."
"Speak then, speak—ah, the devil! . . ."
And Ganya stamped his right foot, shod in a galosh, twice on the sidewalk.
"As soon as I finished reading it, she told me that you were trying to trap her; that you wished to compromise her, in order to obtain some hope from her and then, on the basis of that hope, to break without losses from the other hope for a hundred thousand. That if you had done it without negotiating with her, had broken it off by yourself without asking her for a guarantee beforehand, she might perhaps have become your friend. That's all, I think. Ah, one more thing: when I had already taken the note and asked what the reply would be, she said that no reply would be the best reply—I think that was it; forgive me if I've forgotten her exact expression, but I'm conveying it as I understood it myself."
Boundless spite came over Ganya, and his rage exploded without restraint.
"Ahh! So that's how it is!" he rasped. "She throws my notes out the window! Ahh! She doesn't negotiate—then I will! We'll see! There's a lot about me ... we'll see!... I'll tie them in little knots!..."
He grimaced, turned pale, frothed, shook his fist. They went a few steps like that. He was not embarrassed in the least by the prince's presence, as if he were alone in his room, because he regarded him as nothing in the highest degree. But he suddenly realized something and came to his senses.
"How did it happen," he suddenly turned to the prince, "how did it happen that you"—"an idiot!" he added to himself—"have suddenly been taken into such confidence, after being acquainted for two hours? How is it?"
With all his torments he only lacked envy. It suddenly stung him to the very heart.
"I'm unable to explain it to you," replied the prince.
Ganya looked at him spitefully:
"Was it her confidence she wanted to give you when she called you to the dining room? Wasn't she going to give you something?"
"I can't understand it in any other way than precisely that."
"But why, devil take it! What did you do there? What was it they liked? Listen," he was fussing with all his might (just then everything in him was somehow scattered and seething in disorder, so that he was unable to collect his thoughts), "listen, can't you somehow recall and put in order precisely what you were talking about, all the words, from the very beginning? Didn't you notice anything, can't you recall?"
"Oh, I recall very well," the prince replied. "From the very beginning, when I went in and was introduced, we started talking about Switzerland."
"Well, to hell with Switzerland!"
"Then about capital punishment ..."
"About capital punishment?"
"Yes, apropos of something . . . then I told them how I'd lived there for three years, and also the story of a poor village girl . . ."
"To hell with the poor village girl! Go on!" Ganya tore ahead impatiently.
"Then how Schneider gave me his opinion of my character and urged me ..."
"Blast Schneider and spit on his opinion! Go on!"
"Then, apropos of something, I started talking about faces– that is, about facial expressions, and I said that Aglaya Ivanovna was almost as good-looking as Nastasya Filippovna. It was here that I let slip about the portrait ..."
"But you didn't repeat, you surely didn't repeat everything you'd heard earlier in the office? Did you? Did you?"
"I tell you again that I didn't."
"Then how the devil . . . Bah! Maybe Aglaya showed the note to the old lady?"
"About that I can fully guarantee you that she did not show it to her. I was there all the while; and she also didn't have time."
"Or maybe you didn't notice something . . . Oh! cur-r-rsed idiot," he exclaimed, now completely beside himself, "he can't even tell anything!"
Once he began to swear and met no resistance, Ganya gradually lost all restraint, as always happens with certain people. A little more and he might have started spitting, so enraged he was. But, precisely because of that rage, he was blind; otherwise he would long since have paid attention to the fact that this "idiot," whom he mistreated so, was sometimes capable of understanding everything all too quickly and subtly, and of giving an extremely satisfactory account of it. But suddenly something unexpected happened.
"I must point out to you, Gavrila Ardalionovich," the prince suddenly said, "that formerly I was indeed unwell, so that in fact I was almost an idiot; but I have been well for a long time now, and therefore I find it somewhat unpleasant when I'm called an idiot to my face. Though you might be excused, considering your misfortunes, in your vexation you have even abused me a couple of times. I dislike that very much, especially the way you do it, suddenly, from the start. And since we're now standing at an intersection, it might be better if we parted: you go home to the right, and I'll go left. I have twenty-five roubles, and I'm sure I'll find furnished rooms."
