Page 199 - the-idiot

XIII

HE prince was very nervous as he reached the outer door;
Tbut he did his best to encourage himself with the reflec-
tion that the worst thing that could happen to him would
be that he would not be received, or, perhaps, received, then
laughed at for coming.
But there was another question, which terrified him con-
siderably, and that was: what was he going to do when he
DID get in? And to this question he could fashion no satis-
factory reply.
If only he could find an opportunity of coming close up
to Nastasia Philipovna and saying to her: ‘Don’t ruin your-
self by marrying this man. He does not love you, he only
loves your money. He told me so himself, and so did Aglaya
Ivanovna, and I have come on purpose to warn you’—but
even that did not seem quite a legitimate or practicable
thing to do. Then, again, there was another delicate ques-
tion, to which he could not find an answer; dared not, in
fact, think of it; but at the very idea of which he trembled
and blushed. However, in spite of all his fears and heart-
quakings he went in, and asked for Nastasia Philipovna.
Nastasia occupied a medium-sized, but distinctly taste-
ful, flat, beautifully furnished and arranged. At one period
of these five years of Petersburg life, Totski had certainly
not spared his expenditure upon her. He had calculated

1 The Idiot