Page 397 - the-idiot

‘What, only ten thousand!’ cried Hippolyte.
‘Well, prince, your arithmetic is not up to much, or else
you are mighty clever at it, though you affect the air of a
simpleton,’ said Lebedeff’s nephew.
‘I will not accept ten thousand roubles,’ said Burdovsky.
‘Accept, Antip,’ whispered the boxer eagerly, leaning past
the back of Hippolyte’s chair to give his friend this piece of
advice. ‘Take it for the present; we can see about more later
on.’
‘Look here, Mr. Muishkin,’ shouted Hippolyte, ‘please
understand that we are not fools, nor idiots, as your guests
seem to imagine; these ladies who look upon us with such
scorn, and especially this fine gentleman’ (pointing to Evg-
enie Pavlovitch) ‘whom I have not the honour of knowing,
though I think I have heard some talk about him—‘
‘Really, really, gentlemen,’ cried the prince in great agita-
tion, ‘you are misunderstanding me again. In the first place,
Mr. Keller, you have greatly overestimated my fortune in
your article. I am far from being a millionaire. I have bare-
ly a tenth of what you suppose. Secondly, my treatment in
Switzerland was very far from costing tens of thousands of
roubles. Schneider received six hundred roubles a year, and
he was only paid for the first three years. As to the pretty
governesses whom Pavlicheff is supposed to have brought
from Paris, they only exist in Mr. Keller’s imagination; it is
another calumny. According to my calculations, the sum
spent on me was very considerably under ten thousand
roubles, but I decided on that sum, and you must admit
that in paying a debt I could not offer Mr. Burdovsky more,

The Idiot