Page 713 - the-idiot

street on the way home, and embrace one another after it,
and don’t seem to part for a moment.’
When the prince pointed out that there was nothing new
about that, for that they had always behaved in this manner
together, Colia did not know what to say; in fact he could
not explain what it was that specially worried him, just now,
about his father.
On the morning following the bacchanalian songs and
quarrels recorded above, as the prince stepped out of the
house at about eleven o’clock, the general suddenly ap-
peared before him, much agitated.
‘I have long sought the honour and opportunity of meet-
ing you— much-esteemed Lef Nicolaievitch,’ he murmured,
pressing the prince’s hand very hard, almost painfully so;
‘long—very long.’
The prince begged him to step in and sit down.
‘No—I will not sit down,—I am keeping you, I see,—an-
other time!—I think I may be permitted to congratulate
you upon the realization of your heart’s best wishes, is it
not so?’
‘What best wishes?’
The prince blushed. He thought, as so many in his
position do, that nobody had seen, heard, noticed, or un-
derstood anything.
‘Oh—be easy, sir, be easy! I shall not wound your ten-
derest feelings. I’ve been through it all myself, and I know
well how unpleasant it is when an outsider sticks his nose in
where he is not wanted. I experience this every morning. I
came to speak to you about another matter, though, an im-

1 The Idiot