Page 747 - the-idiot

Alexandra, however, found it difficult to keep absolute si-
lence on the subject. Long since holding, as she did, the post
of ‘confidential adviser to mamma,’ she was now perpetu-
ally called in council, and asked her opinion, and especially
her assistance, in order to recollect ‘how on earth all this
happened?’ Why did no one see it? Why did no one say any-
thing about it? What did all that wretched ‘poor knight’
joke mean? Why was she, Lizabetha Prokofievna, driven to
think, and foresee, and worry for everybody, while they all
sucked their thumbs, and counted the crows in the garden,
and did nothing? At first, Alexandra had been very careful,
and had merely replied that perhaps her father’s remark was
not so far out: that, in the eyes of the world, probably the
choice of the prince as a husband for one of the Epanchin
girls would be considered a very wise one. Warming up,
however, she added that the prince was by no means a fool,
and never had been; and that as to ‘place in the world,’ no
one knew what the position of a respectable person in Rus-
sia would imply in a few years—whether it would depend
on successes in the government service, on the old system,
or what.
To all this her mother replied that Alexandra was a free-
thinker, and that all this was due to that ‘cursed woman’s
rights question.’
Half an hour after this conversation, she went off to town,
and thence to the Kammenny Ostrof, [“Stone Island,’ a sub-
urb and park of St. Petersburg] to see Princess Bielokonski,
who had just arrived from Moscow on a short visit. The
princess was Aglaya’s godmother.

The Idiot