Page 127 - the-idiot

thing? There must be SOME answer from her!’
‘Yes, of course, she did say something!’
‘Out with it then, damn it! Out with it at once!’ and Ga-
nia stamped his foot twice on the pavement.
‘As soon as I had finished reading it, she told me that
you were fishing for her; that you wished to compromise
her so far as to receive some hopes from her, trusting to
which hopes you might break with the prospect of receiving
a hundred thousand roubles. She said that if you had done
this without bargaining with her, if you had broken with
the money prospects without trying to force a guarantee
out of her first, she might have been your friend. That’s all,
I think. Oh no, when I asked her what I was to say, as I took
the letter, she replied that ‘no answer is the best answer.’ I
think that was it. Forgive me if I do not use her exact ex-
pressions. I tell you the sense as I understood it myself.’
Ungovernable rage and madness took entire possession
of Gania, and his fury burst out without the least attempt
at restraint.
‘Oh! that’s it, is it!’ he yelled. ‘She throws my letters out of
the window, does she! Oh! and she does not condescend to
bargain, while I DO, eh? We shall see, we shall see! I shall
pay her out for this.’
He twisted himself about with rage, and grew paler and
paler; he shook his fist. So the pair walked along a few steps.
Gania did not stand on ceremony with the prince; he be-
haved just as though he were alone in his room. He clearly
counted the latter as a nonentity. But suddenly he seemed to
have an idea, and recollected himself.

1 The Idiot