Page 524 - the-idiot

his right hand tightly, but he said nothing.
‘My dear good Prince Lef Nicolaievitch,’ began the general
again, suddenly, ‘both I and Lizabetha Prokofievna—(who
has begun to respect you once more, and me through you,
goodness knows why!)— we both love you very sincerely,
and esteem you, in spite of any appearances to the contrary.
But you’ll admit what a riddle it must have been for us when
that calm, cold, little spitfire, Aglaya—(for she stood up to
her mother and answered her questions with inexpress-
ible contempt, and mine still more so, because, like a fool,
I thought it my duty to assert myself as head of the fam-
ily)—when Aglaya stood up of a sudden and informed us
that ‘that madwoman’ (strangely enough, she used exactly
the same expression as you did) ‘has taken it into her head
to marry me to Prince Lef Nicolaievitch, and therefore is
doing her best to choke Evgenie Pavlovitch off, and rid the
house of him.’ That’s what she said. She would not give the
slightest explanation; she burst out laughing, banged the
door, and went away. We all stood there with our mouths
open. Well, I was told afterwards of your little passage with
Aglaya this afternoon, and-and—dear prince—you are a
good, sensible fellow, don’t be angry if I speak out—she is
laughing at you, my boy! She is enjoying herself like a child,
at your expense, and therefore, since she is a child, don’t
be angry with her, and don’t think anything of it. I assure
you, she is simply making a fool of you, just as she does
with one and all of us out of pure lack of something better
to do. Well—good-bye! You know our feelings, don’t you—
our sincere feelings for yourself? They are unalterable, you