Page 613 - the-idiot

‘What are you thinking of? Don’t go, he’ll blow his brains
out in a minute!’ cried Vera Lebedeff, rushing up to Hip-
polyte and catching hold of his hands in a torment of alarm.
‘What are you thinking of? He said he would blow his brains
out at sunrise.’
‘Oh, he won’t shoot himself!’ cried several voices, sarcas-
tically.
‘Gentlemen, you’d better look out,’ cried Colia, also seiz-
ing Hippolyte by the hand. ‘Just look at him! Prince, what
are you thinking of?’ Vera and Colia, and Keller, and Bur-
dovsky were all crowding round Hippolyte now and holding
him down.
‘He has the right—the right—‘-murmured Burdovsky.
‘Excuse me, prince, but what are your arrangements?’ asked
Lebedeff, tipsy and exasperated, going up to Muishkin.
‘What do you mean by ‘arrangements’?’
‘No, no, excuse me! I’m master of this house, though I do
not wish to lack respect towards you. You are master of the
house too, in a way; but I can’t allow this sort of thing—‘
‘He won’t shoot himself; the boy is only playing the fool,’
said General Ivolgin, suddenly and unexpectedly, with in-
dignation.
‘I know he won’t, I know he won’t, general; but I—I’m
master here!’
‘Listen, Mr. Terentieff,’ said Ptitsin, who had bidden the
prince good-night, and was now holding out his hand to
Hippolyte; ‘I think you remark in that manuscript of yours,
that you bequeath your skeleton to the Academy. Are you
referring to your own skeleton—I mean, your very bones?’

1 The Idiot