Page 550 - the-idiot

laugh himself, nudged Colia, who was sitting beside him,
with his elbow, and again asked what time it was. He even
pulled Colia’s silver watch out of his hand, and looked at it
eagerly. Then, as if he had forgotten everything, he stretched
himself out on the sofa, put his hands behind his head, and
looked up at the sky. After a minute or two he got up and
came back to the table to listen to Lebedeff’s outpourings,
as the latter passionately commentated on Evgenie Pavlov-
itch’s paradox.
‘That is an artful and traitorous idea. A smart notion,’ vo-
ciferated the clerk, ‘thrown out as an apple of discord. But
it is just. You are a scoffer, a man of the world, a cavalry
officer, and, though not without brains, you do not real-
ize how profound is your thought, nor how true. Yes, the
laws of selfpreservation and of self-destruction are equal-
ly powerful in this world. The devil will hold his empire
over humanity until a limit of time which is still unknown.
You laugh? You do not believe in the devil? Scepticism as
to the devil is a French idea, and it is also a frivolous idea.
Do you know who the devil is? Do you know his name? Al-
though you don’t know his name you make a mockery of
his form, following the example of Voltaire. You sneer at his
hoofs, at his tail, at his horns—all of them the produce of
your imagination! In reality the devil is a great and terrible
spirit, with neither hoofs, nor tail, nor horns; it is you who
have endowed him with these attributes! But ... he is not the
question just now!’
‘How do you know he is not the question now?’ cried
Hippolyte, laughing hysterically.