Page 84 - the-idiot

‘Happy! you can be happy?’ cried Aglaya. ‘Then how can
you say you did not learn to see? I should think you could
teach us to see!’
‘Oh! DO teach us,’ laughed Adelaida.
‘Oh! I can’t do that,’ said the prince, laughing too. ‘I lived
almost all the while in one little Swiss village; what can I
teach you? At first I was only just not absolutely dull; then
my health began to improve—then every day became dear-
er and more precious to me, and the longer I stayed, the
dearer became the time to me; so much so that I could not
help observing it; but why this was so, it would be difficult
to say.’
‘So that you didn’t care to go away anywhere else?’
‘Well, at first I did; I was restless; I didn’t know however
I should manage to support life—you know there are such
moments, especially in solitude. There was a waterfall near
us, such a lovely thin streak of water, like a thread but white
and moving. It fell from a great height, but it looked quite
low, and it was half a mile away, though it did not seem
fifty paces. I loved to listen to it at night, but it was then
that I became so restless. Sometimes I went and climbed
the mountain and stood there in the midst of the tall pines,
all alone in the terrible silence, with our little village in the
distance, and the sky so blue, and the sun so bright, and
an old ruined castle on the mountain-side, far away. I used
to watch the line where earth and sky met, and longed to
go and seek there the key of all mysteries, thinking that I
might find there a new life, perhaps some great city where
life should be grander and richer—and then it struck me