Page 581 - the-idiot

VI

WILL not deceive you. ‘Reality’ got me so entrapped in
t
‘I s meshes now and again during the past six months,
i
that I forgot my ‘sentence’ (or perhaps I did not wish to
think of it), and actually busied myself with affairs.
‘A word as to my circumstances. When, eight months
since, I became very ill, I threw up all my old connections
and dropped all my old companions. As I was always a
gloomy, morose sort of individual, my friends easily for-
got me; of course, they would have forgotten me all the
same, without that excuse. My position at home was soli-
tary enough. Five months ago I separated myself entirely
from the family, and no one dared enter my room except at
stated times, to clean and tidy it, and so on, and to bring me
my meals. My mother dared not disobey me; she kept the
children quiet, for my sake, and beat them if they dared to
make any noise and disturb me. I so often complained of
them that I should think they must be very fond, indeed, of
me by this time. I think I must have tormented ‘my faithful
Colia’ (as I called him) a good deal too. He tormented me of
late; I could see that he always bore my tempers as though
he had determined to ‘spare the poor invalid.’ This annoyed
me, naturally. He seemed to have taken it into his head to
imitate the prince in Christian meekness! Surikoff, who
lived above us, annoyed me, too. He was so miserably poor,

0 The Idiot