Page 823 - the-idiot

shall now consider my mother as entirely my responsibility;
though she may be safe enough with Varia. Still, meat and
drink is not everything.’
He jumped up and hurried off, remembering sudden-
ly that he was wanted at his father’s bedside; but before he
went out of the room he inquired hastily after the prince’s
health, and receiving the latter’s reply, added:
‘Isn’t there something else, prince? I heard yesterday, but
I have no right to talk about this... If you ever want a true
friend and servant—neither you nor I are so very happy, are
we? —come to me. I won’t ask you questions, though.’
He ran off and left the prince more dejected than ever.
Everyone seemed to be speaking prophetically, hinting
at some misfortune or sorrow to come; they had all looked
at him as though they knew something which he did not
know. Lebedeff had asked questions, Colia had hinted, and
Vera had shed tears. What was it?
At last, with a sigh of annoyance, he said to himself that
it was nothing but his own cursed sickly suspicion. His face
lighted up with joy when, at about two o’clock, he espied the
Epanchins coming along to pay him a short visit, ‘just for a
minute.’ They really had only come for a minute.
Lizabetha Prokofievna had announced, directly after
lunch, that they would all take a walk together. The in-
formation was given in the form of a command, without
explanation, drily and abruptly. All had issued forth in
obedience to the mandate; that is, the girls, mamma, and
Prince S. Lizabetha Prokofievna went off in a direction ex-
actly contrary to the usual one, and all understood very well

The Idiot