Page 523 - the-idiot

with excitement, ‘maybe I have been letting the cat out of
the bag too freely with you, if so, it is because you are—that
sort of man, you know! Perhaps you have some special in-
formation?’
‘I know nothing about Evgenie Pavlovitch!’ said the
prince.
‘Nor do I! They always try to bury me underground when
there’s anything going on; they don’t seem to reflect that
it is unpleasant to a man to be treated so! I won’t stand it!
We have just had a terrible scene!—mind, I speak to you as
I would to my own son! Aglaya laughs at her mother. Her
sisters guessed about Evgenie having proposed and been re-
jected, and told Lizabetha.
‘I tell you, my dear fellow, Aglaya is such an extraor-
dinary, such a self-willed, fantastical little creature, you
wouldn’t believe it! Every high quality, every brilliant trait
of heart and mind, are to be found in her, and, with it all,
so much caprice and mockery, such wild fancies—indeed,
a little devil! She has just been laughing at her mother to
her very face, and at her sisters, and at Prince S., and every-
body—and of course she always laughs at me! You know I
love the child—I love her even when she laughs at me, and
I believe the wild little creature has a special fondness for
me for that very reason. She is fonder of me than any of the
others. I dare swear she has had a good laugh at YOU before
now! You were having a quiet talk just now, I observed, after
all the thunder and lightning upstairs. She was sitting with
you just as though there had been no row at all.’
The prince blushed painfully in the darkness, and closed

The Idiot