Page 195 - the-idiot

If it were possible, if we only had a little money, we should
leave our respective families, and live together in a little
apartment of our own. It is our dream. But, do you know,
when I was talking over your affair with him, he was angry,
and said that anyone who did not call out a man who had
given him a blow was a coward. He is very irritable to-day,
and I left off arguing the matter with him. So Nastasia Phili-
povna has invited you to go and see her?’
‘To tell the truth, she has not.’
‘Then how do you come to be going there?’ cried Colia,
so much astonished that he stopped short in the middle of
the pavement. ‘And ... and are you going to her At Home in
that costume?’
‘I don’t know, really, whether I shall be allowed in at all.
If she will receive me, so much the better. If not, the matter
is ended. As to my clothes—what can I do?’
‘Are you going there for some particular reason, or only
as a way of getting into her society, and that of her friends?’
‘No, I have really an object in going ... That is, I am going
on business it is difficult to explain, but...’
‘Well, whether you go on business or not is your affair, I
do not want to know. The only important thing, in my eyes,
is that you should not be going there simply for the plea-
sure of spending your evening in such company—cocottes,
generals, usurers! If that were the case I should despise and
laugh at you. There are terribly few honest people here, and
hardly any whom one can respect, although people put
on airs—Varia especially! Have you noticed, prince, how
many adventurers there are nowadays? Especially here, in

1 The Idiot