Page 812 - the-idiot

know. You’ve done nothing but break a vase, and give us
all a fright.’
The prince listened, smiling.
‘Wasn’t it you,’ he said, suddenly turning to the old gen-
tleman, ‘who saved the student Porkunoff and a clerk called
Shoabrin from being sent to Siberia, two or three months
since?’
The old dignitary blushed a little, and murmured that
the prince had better not excite himself further.
‘And I have heard of YOU,’ continued the prince, address-
ing Ivan Petrovitch, ‘that when some of your villagers were
burned out you gave them wood to build up their houses
again, though they were no longer your serfs and had be-
haved badly towards you.’
‘Oh, come, come! You are exaggerating,’ said Ivan Petro-
vitch, beaming with satisfaction, all the same. He was right,
however, in this instance, for the report had reached the
prince’s ears in an incorrect form.
‘And you, princess,’ he went on, addressing Princess
Bielokonski, ‘was it not you who received me in Moscow,
six months since, as kindly as though I had been your own
son, in response to a letter from Lizabetha Prokofievna;
and gave me one piece of advice, again as to your own son,
which I shall never forget? Do you remember?’
‘What are you making such a fuss about?’ said the old
lady, with annoyance. ‘You are a good fellow, but very sil-
ly. One gives you a halfpenny, and you are as grateful as
though one had saved your life. You think this is praisewor-
thy on your part, but it is not —it is not, indeed.’

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