Page 861 - the-idiot

most comprehensible, that you, in your enthusiasm, should
plunge headlong into the first chance that came of publicly
airing your great idea that you, a prince, and a pure-living
man, did not consider a woman disgraced if the sin were
not her own, but that of a disgusting social libertine! Oh,
heavens! it’s comprehensible enough, my dear prince, but
that is not the question, unfortunately! The question is, was
there any reality and truth in your feelings? Was it nature,
or nothing but intellectual enthusiasm? What do you think
yourself? We are told, of course, that a far worse woman
was FORGIVEN, but we don’t find that she was told that
she had done well, or that she was worthy of honour and
respect! Did not your common-sense show you what was
the real state of the case, a few months later? The question
is now, not whether she is an innocent woman (I do not
insist one way or the other—I do not wish to); but can her
whole career justify such intolerable pride, such insolent,
rapacious egotism as she has shown? Forgive me, I am too
violent, perhaps, but—‘
‘Yes—I dare say it is all as you say; I dare say you are quite
right,’ muttered the prince once more. ‘She is very sensitive
and easily put out, of course; but still, she...’
‘She is worthy of sympathy? Is that what you wished to
say, my good fellow? But then, for the mere sake of vindi-
cating her worthiness of sympathy, you should not have
insulted and offended a noble and generous girl in her pres-
ence! This is a terrible exaggeration of sympathy! How can
you love a girl, and yet so humiliate her as to throw her over
for the sake of another woman, before the very eyes of that

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