Page 481 - the-idiot

lighted to change it; but Evgenie would not stop holding
forth, and the prince’s arrival seemed to spur him on to still
further oratorical efforts.
Lizabetha Prokofievna frowned, but had not as yet
grasped the subject, which seemed to have arisen out of a
heated argument. Aglaya sat apart, almost in the corner, lis-
tening in stubborn silence.
‘Excuse me,’ continued Evgenie Pavlovitch hotly, ‘I don’t
say a word against liberalism. Liberalism is not a sin, it is a
necessary part of a great whole, which whole would collapse
and fall to pieces without it. Liberalism has just as much
right to exist as has the most moral conservatism; but I am
attacking RUSSIAN liberalism; and I attack it for the sim-
ple reason that a Russian liberal is not a Russian liberal, he
is a non-Russian liberal. Show me a real Russian liberal, and
I’ll kiss him before you all, with pleasure.’
‘If he cared to kiss you, that is,’ said Alexandra, whose
cheeks were red with irritation and excitement.
‘Look at that, now,’ thought the mother to herself, ‘she
does nothing but sleep and eat for a year at a time, and then
suddenly flies out in the most incomprehensible way!’
The prince observed that Alexandra appeared to be an-
gry with Evgenie, because he spoke on a serious subject in a
frivolous manner, pretending to be in earnest, but with an
under-current of irony.
‘I was saying just now, before you came in, prince, that
there has been nothing national up to now, about our lib-
eralism, and nothing the liberals do, or have done, is in the
least degree national. They are drawn from two classes only,

0 The Idiot