Page 546 - the-idiot

‘Not a couple of hours,’ said Ptitsin, looking at his watch.
What’s the good of daylight now? One can read all night in
the open air without it,’ said someone.
‘The good of it! Well, I want just to see a ray of the sun,’
said Hippolyte. Can one drink to the sun’s health, do you
think, prince?’
‘Oh, I dare say one can; but you had better be calm and
lie down, Hippolyte—that’s much more important.
‘You are always preaching about resting; you are a regular
nurse to me, prince. As soon as the sun begins to ‘resound’
in the sky —what poet said that? ‘The sun resounded in the
sky.’ It is beautiful, though there’s no sense in it!—then we
will go to bed. Lebedeff, tell me, is the sun the source of
life? What does the source, or ‘spring,’ of life really mean in
the Apocalypse? You have heard of the ‘Star that is called
Wormwood,’ prince?’
‘I have heard that Lebedeff explains it as the railroads
that cover Europe like a net.’
Everybody laughed, and Lebedeff got up abruptly.
‘No! Allow me, that is not what we are discussing!’ he
cried, waving his hand to impose silence. ‘Allow me! With
these gentlemen ... all these gentlemen,’ he added, sudden-
ly addressing the prince, ‘on certain points ... that is ...’ He
thumped the table repeatedly, and the laughter increased.
Lebedeff was in his usual evening condition, and had just
ended a long and scientific argument, which had left him
excited and irritable. On such occasions he was apt to
evince a supreme contempt for his opponents.
‘It is not right! Half an hour ago, prince, it was agreed