Page 826 - the-idiot

learned nothing else, he became more and more agitated.
Left alone, he lay down on the sofa, and began to think.
‘Perhaps,’ he thought, ‘someone is to be with them until
nine tonight and she is afraid that I may come and make a
fool of myself again, in public.’ So he spent his time longing
for the evening and looking at his watch. But the clearing-
up of the mystery came long before the evening, and came
in the form of a new and agonizing riddle.
Half an hour after the Epanchins had gone, Hippolyte
arrived, so tired that, almost unconscious, he sank into a
chair, and broke into such a fit of coughing that he could
not stop. He coughed till the blood came. His eyes glittered,
and two red spots on his cheeks grew brighter and bright-
er. The prince murmured something to him, but Hippolyte
only signed that he must be left alone for a while, and sat
silent. At last he came to himself.
‘I am off,’ he said, hoarsely, and with difficulty.
‘Shall I see you home?’ asked the prince, rising from his
seat, but suddenly stopping short as he remembered Aglaya’s
prohibition against leaving the house. Hippolyte laughed.
‘I don’t mean that I am going to leave your house,’ he
continued, still gasping and coughing. ‘On the contrary, I
thought it absolutely necessary to come and see you; oth-
erwise I should not have troubled you. I am off there, you
know, and this time I believe, seriously, that I am off! It’s
all over. I did not come here for sympathy, believe me. I lay
down this morning at ten o’clock with the intention of not
rising again before that time; but I thought it over and rose
just once more in order to come here; from which you may