Page 283 - the-idiot

my bed, you know. He is mad with suspicion, and sees a
thief in every corner. He runs about all night long; he was
up at least seven times last night, to satisfy himself that the
windows and doors were barred, and to peep into the oven.
That man who appears in court for scoundrels, rushes in
here in the night and prays, lying prostrate, banging his
head on the ground by the half-hour—and for whom do you
think he prays? Who are the sinners figuring in his drunk-
en petitions? I have heard him with my own ears praying for
the repose of the soul of the Countess du Barry! Colia heard
it too. He is as mad as a March hare!’
‘You hear how he slanders me, prince,’ said Lebedeff, al-
most beside himself with rage. ‘I may be a drunkard, an
evil-doer, a thief, but at least I can say one thing for my-
self. He does not know—how should he, mocker that he
is?—that when he came into the world it was I who washed
him, and dressed him in his swathing-bands, for my sister
Anisia had lost her husband, and was in great poverty. I was
very little better off than she, but I sat up night after night
with her, and nursed both mother and child; I used to go
downstairs and steal wood for them from the house-por-
ter. How often did I sing him to sleep when I was half dead
with hunger! In short, I was more than a father to him, and
now—now he jeers at me! Even if I did cross myself, and
pray for the repose of the soul of the Comtesse du Barry,
what does it matter? Three days ago, for the first time in
my life, I read her biography in an historical dictionary. Do
you know who she was? You there!’ addressing his nephew.
‘Speak! do you know?’

The Idiot