Page 289 - the-idiot

‘Oh no! Certainly not! ‘I am free,’ she says; you know how
she insists on that point. ‘I am entirely free.’ She repeats it
over and over again. She is living in Petersburgskaia, with
my sisterin-law, as I told you in my letter.’
‘She is there at this moment?’
‘Yes, unless she has gone to Pavlofsk: the fine weather
may have tempted her, perhaps, into the country, with Dar-
ia Alexeyevna. ‘I am quite free,’ she says. Only yesterday she
boasted of her freedom to Nicolai Ardalionovitch—a bad
sign,’ added Lebedeff, smiling.
‘Colia goes to see her often, does he not?’
‘He is a strange boy, thoughtless, and inclined to be in-
discreet.’
‘Is it long since you saw her?’
‘I go to see her every day, every day.’
‘Then you were there yesterday?’
‘N-no: I have not been these three last days.’
‘It is a pity you have taken too much wine, Lebedeff I
want to ask you something ... but…’
‘All right! all right! I am not drunk,’ replied the clerk,
preparing to listen.
‘Tell me, how was she when you left her?’
‘She is a woman who is seeking. .. ‘
‘Seeking?’
‘She seems always to be searching about, as if she had lost
something. The mere idea of her coming marriage disgusts
her; she looks on it as an insult. She cares as much for HIM
as for a piece of orange-peel—not more. Yet I am much mis-
taken if she does not look on him with fear and trembling.

The Idiot