Page 83 - the-idiot

terested to hear how people go mad and get well again, and
that sort of thing. Especially when it happens suddenly.’
‘Quite so, quite so!’ cried Mrs. Epanchin, delighted. ‘I see
you CAN be sensible now and then, Alexandra. You were
speaking of Switzerland, prince?’
‘Yes. We came to Lucerne, and I was taken out in a boat.
I felt how lovely it was, but the loveliness weighed upon me
somehow or other, and made me feel melancholy.’
‘Why?’ asked Alexandra.
‘I don’t know; I always feel like that when I look at the
beauties of nature for the first time; but then, I was ill at that
time, of course!’
‘Oh, but I should like to see it!’ said Adelaida; ‘and I don’t
know WHEN we shall ever go abroad. I’ve been two years
looking out for a good subject for a picture. I’ve done all I
know. ‘The North and South I know by heart,’ as our poet
observes. Do help me to a subject, prince.’
‘Oh, but I know nothing about painting. It seems to me
one only has to look, and paint what one sees.’
‘But I don’t know HOW to see!’
‘Nonsense, what rubbish you talk!’ the mother struck in.
‘Not know how to see! Open your eyes and look! If you can’t
see here, you won’t see abroad either. Tell us what you saw
yourself, prince!’
‘Yes, that’s better,’ said Adelaida; ‘the prince learned to
see abroad.’
‘Oh, I hardly know! You see, I only went to restore my
health. I don’t know whether I learned to see, exactly. I was
very happy, however, nearly all the time.’

The Idiot