Page 855 - the-idiot

recent dismissal; but through Varia he was refused a sight
of Aglaya here also. The end of the episode was that when
Aglaya saw her mother and sisters crying over her and not
uttering a word of reproach, she had flung herself into their
arms and gone straight home with them.
It was said that Gania managed to make a fool of him-
self even on this occasion; for, finding himself alone with
Aglaya for a minute or two when Varia had gone to the Ep-
anchins’, he had thought it a fitting opportunity to make a
declaration of his love, and on hearing this Aglaya, in spite
of her state of mind at the time, had suddenly burst out
laughing, and had put a strange question to him. She asked
him whether he would consent to hold his finger to a lighted
candle in proof of his devotion! Gania—it was said—looked
so comically bewildered that Aglaya had almost laughed
herself into hysterics, and had rushed out of the room and
upstairs,—where her parents had found her.
Hippolyte told the prince this last story, sending for him
on purpose. When Muishkin heard about the candle and
Gania’s finger he had laughed so that he had quite aston-
ished Hippolyte,—and then shuddered and burst into tears.
The prince’s condition during those days was strange and
perturbed. Hippolyte plainly declared that he thought he
was out of his mind;—this, however, was hardly to be re-
lied upon.
Offering all these facts to our readers and refusing to ex-
plain them, we do not for a moment desire to justify our
hero’s conduct. On the contrary, we are quite prepared to feel
our share of the indignation which his behaviour aroused

The Idiot