Fyodor Dostoevsky: The Idiot

PART III 10. CHAPTER X. (continued)

"N--no!"

"Half-past twelve. We are always in bed by one."

"I-I thought it was half-past nine!"

"Never mind!" she laughed, "but why didn't you come earlier? Perhaps you were expected!"

"I thought" he stammered, making for the door.

"Au revoir! I shall amuse them all with this story tomorrow!"

He walked along the road towards his own house. His heart was beating, his thoughts were confused, everything around seemed to be part of a dream.

And suddenly, just as twice already he had awaked from sleep with the same vision, that very apparition now seemed to rise up before him. The woman appeared to step out from the park, and stand in the path in front of him, as though she had been waiting for him there.

He shuddered and stopped; she seized his hand and pressed it frenziedly.

No, this was no apparition!

There she stood at last, face to face with him, for the first time since their parting.

She said something, but he looked silently back at her. His heart ached with anguish. Oh! never would he banish the recollection of this meeting with her, and he never remembered it but with the same pain and agony of mind.

She went on her knees before him--there in the open road--like a madwoman. He retreated a step, but she caught his hand and kissed it, and, just as in his dream, the tears were sparkling on her long, beautiful lashes.

"Get up!" he said, in a frightened whisper, raising her. "Get up at once!"

"Are you happy--are you happy?" she asked. "Say this one word. Are you happy now? Today, this moment? Have you just been with her? What did she say?"