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in business matters; you have done all you could already to
make us look ridiculous; but do not dare to call us dishon-
est. The four of us will club together every day to repay the
hundred and fifty roubles to the prince, if we have to pay
it in instalments of a rouble at a time, but we will repay it,
with interest. Burdovsky is poor, he has no millions. After
his journey to see the prince Tchebaroff sent in his bill. We
counted on winning... Who would not have done the same
in such a case?’
‘Who indeed?’ exclaimed Prince S.
‘I shall certainly go mad, if I stay here!’ cried Lizabetha
Prokofievna.
‘It reminds me,’ said Evgenie Pavlovitch, laughing, ‘of the
famous plea of a certain lawyer who lately defended a man
for murdering six people in order to rob them. He excused
his client on the score of poverty. ‘It is quite natural,’ he
said in conclusion, ‘considering the state of misery he was
in, that he should have thought of murdering these six peo-
ple; which of you, gentlemen, would not have done the same
in his place?’’
‘Enough,’ cried Lizabetha Prokofievna abruptly, trem-
bling with anger, ‘we have had enough of this balderdash!’
In a state of terrible excitement she threw back her head,
with flaming eyes, casting looks of contempt and defiance
upon the whole company, in which she could no longer dis-
tinguish friend from foe. She had restrained herself so long
that she felt forced to vent her rage on somebody. Those who
knew Lizabetha Prokofievna saw at once how it was with
her. ‘She flies into these rages sometimes,’ said Ivan Fedo-

10 The Idiot