Page 913 - the-idiot

that in time the impulsive young girl would let herself be
guided by his reason and experience. Besides, the recent
events that had befallen her family had given Adelaida
much to think about, especially the sad experiences of her
younger sister. Within six months, everything that the fam-
ily had dreaded from the marriage with the Polish count
had come to pass. He turned out to be neither count nor ex-
ile—at least, in the political sense of the word—but had had
to leave his native land owing to some rather dubious affair
of the past. It was his noble patriotism, of which he made
a great display, that had rendered him so interesting in
Aglaya’s eyes. She was so fascinated that, even before mar-
rying him, she joined a committee that had been organized
abroad to work for the restoration of Poland; and further,
she visited the confessional of a celebrated Jesuit priest, who
made an absolute fanatic of her. The supposed fortune of
the count had dwindled to a mere nothing, although he had
given almost irrefutable evidence of its existence to Liza-
betha Prokofievna and Prince S.
Besides this, before they had been married half a year,
the count and his friend the priest managed to bring about
a quarrel between Aglaya and her family, so that it was now
several months since they had seen her. In a word, there was
a great deal to say; but Mrs. Epanchin, and her daughters,
and even Prince S., were still so much distressed by Aglaya’s
latest infatuations and adventures, that they did hot care to
talk of them, though they must have known that Evgenie
knew much of the story already.
Poor Lizabetha Prokofievna was most anxious to get

1 The Idiot