Page 764 - the-idiot

scarcely took her eyes off him.
‘She looked at him, and stared and stared, and hung
on every word he said,’ said Lizabetha afterwards, to her
husband, ‘and yet, tell her that she loves him, and she is fu-
rious!’
‘What’s to be done? It’s fate,’ said the general, shrugging
his shoulders, and, for a long while after, he continued to
repeat: ‘It’s fate, it’s fate!’
We may add that to a business man like General Epanchin
the present position of affairs was most unsatisfactory. He
hated the uncertainty in which they had been, perforce, left.
However, he decided to say no more about it, and merely to
look on, and take his time and tune from Lizabetha Proko-
fievna.
The happy state in which the family had spent the eve-
ning, as just recorded, was not of very long duration. Next
day Aglaya quarrelled with the prince again, and so she
continued to behave for the next few days. For whole hours
at a time she ridiculed and chaffed the wretched man, and
made him almost a laughingstock.
It is true that they used to sit in the little summer-house
together for an hour or two at a time, very often, but it was
observed that on these occasions the prince would read the
paper, or some book, aloud to Aglaya.
‘Do you know,’ Aglaya said to him once, interrupting the
reading, ‘I’ve remarked that you are dreadfully badly ed-
ucated. You never know anything thoroughly, if one asks
you; neither anyone’s name, nor dates, nor about treaties
and so on. It’s a great pity, you know!’