Page 275 - the-idiot

garden, full of flowers. The windows looking on the street
were open, and the sound of a voice, reading aloud or mak-
ing a speech, came through them. It rose at times to a shout,
and was interrupted occasionally by bursts of laughter.
Prince Muishkin entered the court-yard, and ascended
the steps. A cook with her sleeves turned up to the elbows
opened the door. The visitor asked if Mr. Lebedeff were at
home.
‘He is in there,’ said she, pointing to the salon.
The room had a blue wall-paper, and was well, almost
pretentiously, furnished, with its round table, its divan, and
its bronze clock under a glass shade. There was a narrow
pierglass against the wall, and a chandelier adorned with
lustres hung by a bronze chain from the ceiling.
When the prince entered, Lebedeff was standing in the
middle of the room, his back to the door. He was in his shirt-
sleeves, on account of the extreme heat, and he seemed to
have just reached the peroration of his speech, and was im-
pressively beating his breast.
His audience consisted of a youth of about fifteen years of
age with a clever face, who had a book in his hand, though
he was not reading; a young lady of twenty, in deep mourn-
ing, stood near him with an infant in her arms; another girl
of thirteen, also in black, was laughing loudly, her mouth
wide open; and on the sofa lay a handsome young man, with
black hair and eyes, and a suspicion of beard and whiskers.
He frequently interrupted the speaker and argued with him,
to the great delight of the others.
‘Lukian Timofeyovitch! Lukian Timofeyovitch! Here’s

The Idiot