Page 357 - the-idiot

the benefit of this moment will be lost!’ said the prince, as
the boy was hurrying out of the room.
‘Quite true! Much better to go in half an hour or so said
Mrs. Epanchin.
‘That’s what comes of telling the truth for once in one’s
life!’ said Lebedeff. ‘It reduced him to tears.’
‘Come, come! the less YOU say about it the better—to
judge from all I have heard about you!’ replied Mrs. Ep-
anchin.
The prince took the first opportunity of informing the
Epanchin ladies that he had intended to pay them a visit
that day, if they had not themselves come this afternoon,
and Lizabetha Prokofievna replied that she hoped he would
still do so.
By this time some of the visitors had disappeared.
Ptitsin had tactfully retreated to Lebedeff’s wing; and
Gania soon followed him.
The latter had behaved modestly, but with dignity, on this
occasion of his first meeting with the Epanchins since the
rupture. Twice Mrs. Epanchin had deliberately examined
him from head to foot; but he had stood fire without flinch-
ing. He was certainly much changed, as anyone could see
who had not met him for some time; and this fact seemed
to afford Aglaya a good deal of satisfaction.
‘That was Gavrila Ardalionovitch, who just went out,
wasn’t it?’ she asked suddenly, interrupting somebody else’s
conversation to make the remark.
‘Yes, it was,’ said the prince.
‘I hardly knew him; he is much changed, and for the bet-

The Idiot