The Idiot (Vintage Classics) by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky [Dostoevsky, Fyodor]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Fiction, Classics
ISBN: 9780375702242
Google: reB7DSiMaTQC
Amazon: 1420930591
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 1915-01-01T12:00:00+00:00

XII

IT WAS SEVEN O’CLOCK in the evening; the prince was about to go to the park. Suddenly Lizaveta Prokofyevna came to him on the terrace alone.

“First, don’t you dare think,” she began, “that I’ve come to ask your forgiveness. Nonsense! You’re to blame all around.”

The prince was silent.

“Are you to blame or not?”

“As much as you are. However, neither I, nor you, neither of us is to blame for anything deliberate. Two days ago I thought I was to blame, but now I’ve decided that it’s not so.”

“So that’s how you are! Well, all right; listen then and sit down, because I have no intention of standing.”

They both sat down.

“Second: not a word about those spiteful brats! I’ll sit and talk with you for ten minutes; I’ve come to you with an inquiry (and you thought for God knows what?), and if you utter so much as a single word about those impudent brats, I’ll get up and leave, and break with you altogether.”

“Very well,” replied the prince.

“Kindly allow me to ask you: about two and a half months ago, around Eastertime, did you send Aglaya a letter?”

“Y-yes.”

“With what purpose? What was in the letter? Show me the letter!”

Lizaveta Prokofyevna’s eyes were burning, she was almost shaking with impatience.

“I don’t have the letter,” the prince was terribly surprised and grew timid. “If it still exists, Aglaya Ivanovna has it.”

“Don’t dodge! What did you write about?”

“I’m not dodging, and I’m not afraid of anything. I see no reason why I shouldn’t write …”

“Quiet! You can talk later. What was in the letter? Why are you blushing?”

The prince reflected.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking, Lizaveta Prokofyevna. I can only see that you dislike this letter very much. You must agree that I could refuse to answer such a question; but in order to show you that I have no fear of this letter, and do not regret having written it, and am by no means blushing at it” (the prince blushed nearly twice as much as before), “I’ll recite the letter for you, because I believe I know it by heart.”

Having said this, the prince recited the letter almost word for word as it was written.

“Sheer galimatias! What might this nonsense mean, in your opinion?” Lizaveta Prokofyevna said sharply, listening to the letter with extraordinary attention.

“I don’t quite know myself; I know that my feeling was sincere. I had moments of full life there and the greatest hopes.”

“What hopes?”

“It’s hard to explain, but they were not the hopes you may be thinking of now … well, they were hopes for the future and joy that there I might not be a stranger, a foreigner. I suddenly liked my native land very much. One sunny morning I took up a pen and wrote a letter to her; why to her—I don’t know. Sometimes one wants to have a friend nearby; I, too, evidently wanted to have a friend …” the prince added after a pause.

“Are you in love, or what?”

“N-no. I … I wrote as to a sister; I signed it as a brother.

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