Page 763 - the-idiot

He was so happy that ‘it made one feel happy to look at
him,’ as Aglaya’s sisters expressed it afterwards. He talked,
and told stories just as he had done once before, and never
since, namely on the very first morning of his acquaintance
with the Epanchins, six months ago. Since his return to Pe-
tersburg from Moscow, he had been remarkably silent, and
had told Prince S. on one occasion, before everyone, that he
did not think himself justified in degrading any thought by
his unworthy words.
But this evening he did nearly all the talking himself, and
told stories by the dozen, while he answered all questions
put to him clearly, gladly, and with any amount of detail.
There was nothing, however, of love-making in his talk.
His ideas were all of the most serious kind; some were even
mystical and profound.
He aired his own views on various matters, some of his
most private opinions and observations, many of which
would have seemed rather funny, so his hearers agreed af-
terwards, had they not been so well expressed.
The general liked serious subjects of conversation; but
both he and Lizabetha Prokofievna felt that they were hav-
ing a little too much of a good thing tonight, and as the
evening advanced, they both grew more or less melancholy;
but towards night, the prince fell to telling funny stories,
and was always the first to burst out laughing himself,
which he invariably did so joyously and simply that the rest
laughed just as much at him as at his stories.
As for Aglaya, she hardly said a word all the evening; but
she listened with all her ears to Lef Nicolaievitch’s talk, and

The Idiot