Page 691 - the-idiot

‘No—nothing more than that. Why, they couldn’t under-
stand him themselves; and very likely didn’t tell me all.’
Gania seized his head with both hands and tottered to
the window; Varia sat down at the other window.
‘Funny girl, Aglaya,’ she observed, after a pause. ‘When
she left me she said, ‘Give my special and personal respects
to your parents; I shall certainly find an opportunity to see
your father one day,’ and so serious over it. She’s a strange
creature.’
‘Wasn’t she joking? She was speaking sarcastically!’ ‘Not
a bit of it; that’s just the strange part of it.’
‘Does she know about father, do you think—or not?’
‘That they do NOT know about it in the house is quite
certain, the rest of them, I mean; but you have given me an
idea. Aglaya perhaps knows. She alone, though, if anyone;
for the sisters were as astonished as I was to hear her speak
so seriously. If she knows, the prince must have told her.’
‘Oh! it’s not a great matter to guess who told her. A thief!
A thief in our family, and the head of the family, too!’
‘Oh! nonsense!’ cried Varia, angrily. ‘That was nothing
but a drunkard’s tale. Nonsense! Why, who invented the
whole thing— Lebedeff and the prince—a pretty pair! Both
were probably drunk.’
‘Father is a drunkard and a thief; I am a beggar, and the
husband of my sister is a usurer,’ continued Gania, bitterly.
‘There was a pretty list of advantages with which to enchant
the heart of Aglaya.’
‘That same husband of your sister, the usurer—‘
‘Feeds me? Go on. Don’t stand on ceremony, pray.’

0 The Idiot