Page 423 - the-idiot

ing protestations of devotion! Oh, the mean wretches! I will
have nothing to do with your Pushkin, and your daughter
shall not set foot in my house!’
Lizabetha Prokofievna was about to rise, when she saw
Hippolyte laughing, and turned upon him with irritation.
‘Well, sir, I suppose you wanted to make me look ridicu-
lous?’
‘Heaven forbid!’ he answered, with a forced smile. ‘But I
am more than ever struck by your eccentricity, Lizabetha
Prokofievna. I admit that I told you of Lebedeff’s duplic-
ity, on purpose. I knew the effect it would have on you,—on
you alone, for the prince will forgive him. He has probably
forgiven him already, and is racking his brains to find some
excuse for him—is not that the truth, prince?’
He gasped as he spoke, and his strange agitation seemed
to increase.
‘Well?’ said Mrs. Epanchin angrily, surprised at his tone;
‘well, what more?’
‘I have heard many things of the kind about you ...they
delighted me... I have learned to hold you in the highest es-
teem,’ continued Hippolyte.
His words seemed tinged with a kind of sarcastic mock-
ery, yet he was extremely agitated, casting suspicious glances
around him, growing confused, and constantly losing the
thread of his ideas. All this, together with his consumptive
appearance, and the frenzied expression of his blazing eyes,
naturally attracted the attention of everyone present.
‘I might have been surprised (though I admit I know
nothing of the world), not only that you should have stayed

The Idiot