Page 204 - the-idiot

Petrovitch Ptitsin says. (Of course he never does so him-
self.) Excellency, no doubt you recollect Kryloff’s fable, ‘The
Lion and the Ass’? Well now, that’s you and I. That fable was
written precisely for us.’
‘You seem to be talking nonsense again, Ferdishenko,’
growled the general.
‘What is the matter, excellency? I know how to keep my
place. When I said just now that we, you and I, were the lion
and the ass of Kryloff’s fable, of course it is understood that
I take the role of the ass. Your excellency is the lion of which
the fable remarks:
‘A mighty lion, terror of the woods, Was shorn of his
great prowess by old age.’
And I, your excellency, am the ass.’
‘I am of your opinion on that last point,’ said Ivan Fedo-
rovitch, with ill-concealed irritation.
All this was no doubt extremely coarse, and moreover it
was premeditated, but after all Ferdishenko had persuaded
everyone to accept him as a buffoon.
‘If I am admitted and tolerated here,’ he had said one day,
‘it is simply because I talk in this way. How can anyone pos-
sibly receive such a man as I am? I quite understand. Now,
could I, a Ferdishenko, be allowed to sit shoulder to shoul-
der with a clever man like Afanasy Ivanovitch? There is one
explanation, only one. I am given the position because it is
so entirely inconceivable!’
But these vulgarities seemed to please Nastasia Philipov-
na, although too often they were both rude and offensive.
Those who wished to go to her house were forced to put up

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