Page 846 - the-idiot

what you promised me?’ Heavens! what a fool I have been
to humiliate myself before them! Why, prince, you yourself
gave me your word that you would marry me whatever hap-
pened, and would never abandon me. You said you loved
me and would forgive me all, and—and resp—yes, you
even said that! I only ran away from you in order to set you
free, and now I don’t care to let you go again. Why does she
treat me so— so shamefully? I am not a loose woman—ask
Rogojin there! He’ll tell you. Will you go again now that
she has insulted me, before your eyes, too; turn away from
me and lead her away, arm-in-arm? May you be accursed
too, for you were the only one I trusted among them all! Go
away, Rogojin, I don’t want you,’ she continued, blind with
fury, and forcing the words out with dry lips and distorted
features, evidently not believing a single word of her own
tirade, but, at the same time, doing her utmost to prolong
the moment of self-deception.
The outburst was so terribly violent that the prince
thought it would have killed her.
‘There he is!’ she shrieked again, pointing to the prince
and addressing Aglaya. ‘There he is! and if he does not ap-
proach me at once and take ME and throw you over, then
have him for your own—I give him up to you! I don’t want
him!’
Both she and Aglaya stood and waited as though in ex-
pectation, and both looked at the prince like madwomen.
But he, perhaps, did not understand the full force of this
challenge; in fact, it is certain he did not. All he could see
was the poor despairing face which, as he had said to Agla-