Page 638 - the-idiot

‘He burned his hand!’
‘Yes, believe it or not! It’s all the same to me!’
The prince sat silent once more. Aglaya did not seem to
be joking; she was too angry for that.
‘What! he brought a candle with him to this place? That
is, if the episode happened here; otherwise I can’t ‘
‘Yes, a candle! What’s there improbable about that?’
‘A whole one, and in a candlestick?’
‘Yes—no-half a candle—an end, you know—no, it was
a whole candle; it’s all the same. Be quiet, can’t you! He
brought a box of matches too, if you like, and then light-
ed the candle and held his finger in it for half an hour and
more!—There! Can’t that be?’
‘I saw him yesterday, and his fingers were all right!’
Aglaya suddenly burst out laughing, as simply as a child.
‘Do you know why I have just told you these lies?’ She
appealed to the prince, of a sudden, with the most child-
like candour, and with the laugh still trembling on her lips.
‘Because when one tells a lie, if one insists on something
unusual and eccentric— something too ‘out of the way’’ for
anything, you know—the more impossible the thing is, the
more plausible does the lie sound. I’ve noticed this. But I
managed it badly; I didn’t know how to work it.’ She sud-
denly frowned again at this point as though at some sudden
unpleasant recollection.
‘If’—she began, looking seriously and even sadly at him—
‘if when I read you all that about the ‘poor knight,’ I wished
to-to praise you for one thing—I also wished to show you
that I knew all—and did not approve of your conduct.’