Page 833 - the-idiot

gentleman or the finest lady in the world will skip out! When
the moment comes, and there’s nothing else to be done—
our young lady will go to Nastasia Philipovna’s! Don’t they
let the young ladies out of the house alone, then?’
‘I didn’t mean that exactly.’
‘If you didn’t mean that, then she has only to go down the
steps and walk off, and she need never come back unless she
chooses: Ships are burned behind one sometimes, and one
doesn’t care to return whence one came. Life need not con-
sist only of lunches, and dinners, and Prince S’s. It strikes
me you take Aglaya Ivanovna for some conventional board-
ing-school girl. I said so to her, and she quite agreed with
me. Wait till seven or eight o’clock. In your place I would
send someone there to keep watch, so as to seize the exact
moment when she steps out of the house. Send Colia. He’ll
play the spy with pleasure—for you at least. Ha, ha, ha!’
Hippolyte went out.
There was no reason for the prince to set anyone to watch,
even if he had been capable of such a thing. Aglaya’s com-
mand that he should stay at home all day seemed almost
explained now. Perhaps she meant to call for him, herself,
or it might be, of course, that she was anxious to make sure
of his not coming there, and therefore bade him remain at
home. His head whirled; the whole room seemed to be turn-
ing round. He lay down on the sofa, and closed his eyes.
One way or the other the question was to be decided at
last— finally.
Oh, no, he did not think of Aglaya as a boarding-school
miss, or a young lady of the conventional type! He had long

The Idiot