14

‘I’ve no wit, Nastasya Filippovna, that’s why I chatter so much!’ cried Ferdischenko as he commenced his story. ‘If I had as much wit as Afanasy Ivanovich or Ivan Petrovich, I’d have just sat here today and not said a word, like Afanasy...

13

As he went up the steps, the prince was much troubled and tried his best to cheer himself: ‘The worst they can do’, he reasoned, ‘is to turn me away and think ill of me, or perhaps let me in and laugh at me...

11

The prince left the drawing-room and shut himself in his own room. Kolya at once came running in to soothe him. By now the poor boy couldn’t keep away from him, it seemed. ‘You were right to come away’, he said. ‘Now there’ll be a...

5

Madame Yepanchina was jealous of her lineage. Her feelings may well be imagined on learning, bluntly and without preparation, that this Prince Myshkin, the last of her line and a man of whom she had already heard something, was no more than...

1

At around nine in the morning towards the end of a thawing November, the Warsaw train was approaching Petersburg at full steam. The weather was so dank and misty that it was a long time getting light; anything beyond a dozen yards to left...

11

An hour later he was already in Petersburg, and was ringing at Rogozhin’s house some time after nine. He went in by the main entrance, and for a long time no one opened the door. At length the door of Rogozhin’s old mother opened...

7

While he was lost in the delightful contemplation of Aglaya chatting gaily to Prince N and Radomsky, all of a sudden the middle-aged anglophile nobleman, who had been entertaining the dignitary in another corner of the room and relating something to him in a...

6

Vera Ardalionovna had been perfectly correct in what she had told her brother about the evening gathering at the Yepanchins’ villa, where Princess Belokonskaya was expected; the guests were indeed expected that evening; but again she had put it rather more strongly than was...

2

Five days had passed since Ippolit had moved into Ptitsyn’s house. It happened naturally somehow, without too many words or any disagreement between him and the prince; not only had they not quarrelled, but to all appearances they had parted friends. Gavrila Ardalionovich, so...

5

Ippolit, who had dropped off to sleep on the sofa towards the end of Lebedev’s oration, now suddenly awoke as if somebody had nudged him in the ribs; he shivered, half-raised himself, looked about him, and went pale; he gazed around half-fearfully, but his...