Page 720 - the-idiot

Timofeyovitch! What are you up to? I can’t make you out!
The money, the money, sir! The four hundred roubles that
you lost that day. You came and told me about it one morn-
ing, and then went off to Petersburg. There, NOW do you
understand?’
‘Oh—h—h! You mean the four hundred roubles!’ said
Lebedeff, dragging the words out, just as though it had only
just dawned upon him what the prince was talking about.
‘Thanks very much, prince, for your kind interest—you do
me too much honour. I found the money, long ago!’
‘You found it? Thank God for that!’
‘Your exclamation proves the generous sympathy of your
nature, prince; for four hundred roubles—to a struggling
family man like myself—is no small matter!’
‘I didn’t mean that; at least, of course, I’m glad for your
sake, too,’ added the prince, correcting himself, ‘ but—how
did you find it?’
‘Very simply indeed! I found it under the chair upon
which my coat had hung; so that it is clear the purse simply
fell out of the pocket and on to the floor!’
‘Under the chair? Impossible! Why, you told me yourself
that you had searched every corner of the room? How could
you not have looked in the most likely place of all?’
‘Of course I looked there,—of course I did! Very much so!
I looked and scrambled about, and felt for it, and wouldn’t
believe it was not there, and looked again and again. It is al-
ways so in such cases. One longs and expects to find a lost
article; one sees it is not there, and the place is as hare as
one’s palm; and yet one returns and looks again and again,

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