Page 85 - the-idiot

that life may be grand enough even in a prison.’
‘I read that last most praiseworthy thought in my manual,
when I was twelve years old,’ said Aglaya.
‘All this is pure philosophy,’ said Adelaida. ‘You are a phi-
losopher, prince, and have come here to instruct us in your
views.’
‘Perhaps you are right,’ said the prince, smiling. ‘I think
I am a philosopher, perhaps, and who knows, perhaps I do
wish to teach my views of things to those I meet with?’
‘Your philosophy is rather like that of an old woman we
know, who is rich and yet does nothing but try how little
she can spend. She talks of nothing but money all day. Your
great philosophical idea of a grand life in a prison and your
four happy years in that Swiss village are like this, rather,’
said Aglaya.
‘As to life in a prison, of course there may be two opin-
ions,’ said the prince. ‘I once heard the story of a man who
lived twelve years in a prison—I heard it from the man him-
self. He was one of the persons under treatment with my
professor; he had fits, and attacks of melancholy, then he
would weep, and once he tried to commit suicide. HIS life
in prison was sad enough; his only acquaintances were spi-
ders and a tree that grew outside his grating-but I think I
had better tell you of another man I met last year. There
was a very strange feature in this case, strange because of
its extremely rare occurrence. This man had once been
brought to the scaffold in company with several others, and
had had the sentence of death by shooting passed upon him
for some political crime. Twenty minutes later he had been

The Idiot