Page 499 - the-idiot

He seized her hands, and pressed them so hard that Ad-
elaida nearly cried out; he then gazed with delight into her
eyes, and raising her right hand to his lips with enthusiasm,
kissed it three times.
‘Come along,’ said Aglaya. ‘Prince, you must walk with
me. May he, mother? This young cavalier, who won’t have
me? You said you would NEVER have me, didn’t you,
prince? No-no, not like that; THAT’S not the way to give
your arm. Don’t you know how to give your arm to a lady
yet? There—so. Now, come along, you and I will lead the
way. Would you like to lead the way with me alone, tete-a-
tete?’
She went on talking and chatting without a pause, with
occasional little bursts of laughter between.
‘Thank God—thank God!’ said Lizabetha Prokofievna to
herself, without quite knowing why she felt so relieved.
‘What extraordinary people they are!’ thought Prince
S., for perhaps the hundredth time since he had entered
into intimate relations with the family; but—he liked these
‘extraordinary people,’ all the same. As for Prince Lef Nico-
laievitch himself, Prince S. did not seem quite to like him,
somehow. He was decidedly preoccupied and a little dis-
turbed as they all started off.
Evgenie Pavlovitch seemed to be in a lively humour. He
made Adelaida and Alexandra laugh all the way to the
Vauxhall; but they both laughed so very really and prompt-
ly that the worthy Evgenie began at last to suspect that they
were not listening to him at all.
At this idea, he burst out laughing all at once, in quite

The Idiot