Page 564 - the-idiot

going to read, Hippolyte? What is it?’
‘Yes, what is it?’ asked others. The packet sealed with red
wax seemed to attract everyone, as though it were a mag-
net.
‘I wrote this yesterday, myself, just after I saw you, prince,
and told you I would come down here. I wrote all day and
all night, and finished it this morning early. Afterwards I
had a dream.’
‘Hadn’t we better hear it tomorrow?’ asked the prince
timidly.
‘Tomorrow ‘there will be no more time!’’ laughed Hip-
polyte, hysterically. ‘You needn’t be afraid; I shall get
through the whole thing in forty minutes, at most an hour!
Look how interested everybody is! Everybody has drawn
near. Look! look at them all staring at my sealed packet! If
I hadn’t sealed it up it wouldn’t have been half so effective!
Ha, ha! that’s mystery, that is! Now then, gentlemen, shall
I break the seal or not? Say the word; it’s a mystery, I tell
you—a secret! Prince, you know who said there would be
‘no more time’? It was the great and powerful angel in the
Apocalypse.’
‘Better not read it now,’ said the prince, putting his hand
on the packet.
‘No, don’t read it!’ cried Evgenie suddenly. He appeared
so strangely disturbed that many of those present could not
help wondering.
‘Reading? None of your reading now!’ said somebody;
‘it’s suppertime.’ ‘What sort of an article is it? For a paper?
Probably it’s very dull,’ said another. But the prince’s timid