Page 686 - the-idiot

more from him than he would ever be capable of giving.
However this may be, her manoeuvres were skilful enough.
For weeks at a time she would never mention Gania. Her
attitude was modest but dignified, and she was always ex-
tremely truthful and sincere. Examining the depths of her
conscience, she found nothing to reproach herself with,
and this still further strengthened her in her designs. But
Varvara Ardalionovna sometimes remarked that she felt
spiteful; that there was a good deal of vanity in her, perhaps
even of wounded vanity. She noticed this at certain times
more than at others, and especially after her visits to the
Epanchins.
Today, as I have said, she returned from their house with
a heavy feeling of dejection. There was a sensation of bitter-
ness, a sort of mocking contempt, mingled with it.
Arrived at her own house, Varia heard a considerable
commotion going on in the upper storey, and distinguished
the voices of her father and brother. On entering the salon
she found Gania pacing up and down at frantic speed, pale
with rage and almost tearing his hair. She frowned, and
subsided on to the sofa with a tired air, and without tak-
ing the trouble to remove her hat. She very well knew that if
she kept quiet and asked her brother nothing about his rea-
son for tearing up and down the room, his wrath would fall
upon her head. So she hastened to put the question:
‘The old story, eh?’
‘Old story? No! Heaven knows what’s up now—I don’t!
Father has simply gone mad; mother’s in floods of tears.
Upon my word, Varia, I must kick him out of the house;