Page 748 - the-idiot

‘Old Bielokonski”listened to all the fevered and despair-
ing lamentations of Lizabetha Prokofievna without the
least emotion; the tears of this sorrowful mother did not
evoke answering sighs— in fact, she laughed at her. She was
a dreadful old despot, this princess; she could not allow
equality in anything, not even in friendship of the old-
est standing, and she insisted on treating Mrs. Epanchin
as her protegee, as she had been thirty-five years ago. She
could never put up with the independence and energy of
Lizabetha’s character. She observed that, as usual, the whole
family had gone much too far ahead, and had converted a
fly into an elephant; that, so far as she had heard their sto-
ry, she was persuaded that nothing of any seriousness had
occurred; that it would surely be better to wait until some-
thing DID happen; that the prince, in her opinion, was a
very decent young fellow, though perhaps a little eccentric,
through illness, and not quite as weighty in the world as
one could wish. The worst feature was, she said, Nastasia
Philipovna.
Lizabetha Prokofievna well understood that the old
lady was angry at the failure of Evgenie Pavlovitch—her
own recommendation. She returned home to Pavlofsk in a
worse humour than when she left, and of course everybody
in the house suffered. She pitched into everyone, because,
she declared, they had ‘gone mad.’ Why were things al-
ways mismanaged in her house? Why had everybody been
in such a frantic hurry in this matter? So far as she could
see, nothing whatever had happened. Surely they had better
wait and see what was to happen, instead of making moun-