Page 619 - the-idiot

It would be difficult to describe the pitiable scene that
now followed. The first sensation of alarm soon gave place
to amusement; some burst out laughing loud and hearti-
ly, and seemed to find a malicious satisfaction in the joke.
Poor Hippolyte sobbed hysterically; he wrung his hands;
he approached everyone in turn—even Ferdishenko—and
took them by both hands, and swore solemnly that he had
forgotten—absolutely forgotten— ‘accidentally, and not
on purpose,’—to put a cap in—that he ‘had ten of them, at
least, in his pocket.’ He pulled them out and showed them
to everyone; he protested that he had not liked to put one in
beforehand for fear of an accidental explosion in his pock-
et. That he had thought he would have lots of time to put
it in afterwards—when required—and, that, in the heat of
the moment, he had forgotten all about it. He threw himself
upon the prince, then on Evgenie Pavlovitch. He entreat-
ed Keller to give him back the pistol, and he’d soon show
them all that ‘his honour—his honour,’—but he was ‘dis-
honoured, now, for ever!’
He fell senseless at last—and was carried into the prince’s
study.
Lebedeff, now quite sobered down, sent for a doctor; and
he and his daughter, with Burdovsky and General Ivolgin,
remained by the sick man’s couch.
When he was carried away unconscious, Keller stood in
the middle of the room, and made the following declaration
to the company in general, in a loud tone of voice, with em-
phasis upon each word.
‘Gentlemen, if any one of you casts any doubt again, be-

1 The Idiot