Page 553 - the-idiot

The president joined in the general outcry.
‘That’s impossible!’ said he in an aggrieved tone. ‘I am of-
ten discussing subjects of this nature with him, gentlemen,
but for the most part he talks nonsense enough to make one
deaf: this story has no pretence of being true.’
‘General, remember the siege of Kars! And you, gentle-
men, I assure you my anecdote is the naked truth. I may
remark that reality, although it is governed by invariable
law, has at times a resemblance to falsehood. In fact, the
truer a thing is the less true it sounds.’
‘But could anyone possibly eat sixty monks?’ objected the
scoffing listeners.
‘It is quite clear that he did not eat them all at once, but
in a space of fifteen or twenty years: from that point of view
the thing is comprehensible and natural...’
‘Natural?’
‘And natural,’ repeated Lebedeff with pedantic obstinacy.
‘Besides, a Catholic monk is by nature excessively curious;
it would be quite easy therefore to entice him into a wood,
or some secret place, on false pretences, and there to deal
with him as said. But I do not dispute in the least that the
number of persons consumed appears to denote a spice of
greediness.’
‘It is perhaps true, gentlemen,’ said the prince, quietly.
He had been listening in silence up to that moment without
taking part in the conversation, but laughing heartily with
the others from time to time. Evidently he was delighted to
see that everybody was amused, that everybody was talking
at once, and even that everybody was drinking. It seemed

The Idiot