Page 313 - the-idiot

it would be the ruin of you. ‘Everybody knows what sort of
a woman I am,’ she says. She told me all this herself, to my
very face! She’s afraid of disgracing and ruining you, she
says, but it doesn’t matter about me. She can marry me all
right! Notice how much consideration she shows for me!’
‘But why did she run away to me, and then again from
me to—‘
‘From you to me? Ha, ha! that’s nothing! Why, she always
acts as though she were in a delirium now-a-days! Either
she says, ‘Come on, I’ll marry you! Let’s have the wed-
ding quickly!’ and fixes the day, and seems in a hurry for
it, and when it begins to come near she feels frightened; or
else some other idea gets into her head—goodness knows!
you’ve seen her—you know how she goes on— laughing and
crying and raving! There’s nothing extraordinary about her
having run away from you! She ran away because she found
out how dearly she loved you. She could not bear to be near
you. You said just now that I had found her at Moscow, when
she ran away from you. I didn’t do anything of the sort; she
came to me herself, straight from you. ‘Name the day—I’m
ready!’ she said. ‘Let’s have some champagne, and go and
hear the gipsies sing!’ I tell you she’d have thrown herself
into the water long ago if it were not for me! She doesn’t do
it because I am, perhaps, even more dreadful to her than the
water! She’s marrying me out of spite; if she marries me, I
tell you, it will be for spite!’
‘But how do you, how can you—‘ began the prince, gaz-
ing with dread and horror at Rogojin.
‘Why don’t you finish your sentence? Shall I tell you what

1 The Idiot