Page 65 - the-idiot

was very uncomfortable; having ‘funked’ once, he could
not totally regain his ease. He was afraid, he did not know
why, but he was simply afraid of Nastasia Philipovna. For
the first two years or so he had suspected that she wished to
marry him herself, and that only her vanity prevented her
telling him so. He thought that she wanted him to approach
her with a humble proposal from his own side, But to his
great, and not entirely pleasurable amazement, he discov-
ered that this was by no means the case, and that were he
to offer himself he would be refused. He could not under-
stand such a state of things, and was obliged to conclude
that it was pride, the pride of an injured and imaginative
woman, which had gone to such lengths that it preferred
to sit and nurse its contempt and hatred in solitude rather
than mount to heights of hitherto unattainable splendour.
To make matters worse, she was quite impervious to merce-
nary considerations, and could not be bribed in any way.
Finally, Totski took cunning means to try to break his
chains and be free. He tried to tempt her in various ways
to lose her heart; he invited princes, hussars, secretaries of
embassies, poets, novelists, even Socialists, to see her; but
not one of them all made the faintest impression upon Nas-
tasia. It was as though she had a pebble in place of a heart, as
though her feelings and affections were dried up and with-
ered for ever.
She lived almost entirely alone; she read, she studied, she
loved music. Her principal acquaintances were poor wom-
en of various grades, a couple of actresses, and the family
of a poor schoolteacher. Among these people she was much

The Idiot