Page 512 - the-idiot

it through his arm, and quickly led her away. He appeared
to be terribly excited; he was trembling all over, and was as
pale as a corpse. As he carried Nastasia off, he turned and
grinned horribly in the officer’s face, and with low malice
observed:
‘Tfu! look what the fellow got! Look at the blood on his
cheek! Ha, ha!’
Recollecting himself, however, and seeing at a glance the
sort of people he had to deal with, the officer turned his back
on both his opponents, and courteously, but concealing his
face with his handkerchief, approached the prince, who was
now rising from the chair into which he had fallen.
‘Prince Muishkin, I believe? The gentleman to whom I
had the honour of being introduced?’
‘She is mad, insane—I assure you, she is mad,’ replied the
prince in trembling tones, holding out both his hands me-
chanically towards the officer.
‘I cannot boast of any such knowledge, of course, but I
wished to know your name.’
He bowed and retired without waiting for an answer.
Five seconds after the disappearance of the last actor in
this scene, the police arrived. The whole episode had not
lasted more than a couple of minutes. Some of the specta-
tors had risen from their places, and departed altogether;
some merely exchanged their seats for others a little further
off; some were delighted with the occurrence, and talked
and laughed over it for a long time.
In a word, the incident closed as such incidents do, and
the band began to play again. The prince walked away after

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