The Idiot : Original Text

Towards the end of November, during a thaw, at nine o'clock one morning, a train on theWarsaw and Petersburg railway was approaching the latter city at full speed.

The morningwas so damp and misty that it was only with great difficulty that the day succeeded inbreaking; and it was impossible to distinguish anything more than a few yards away fromthe carriage windows.Some of the passengers by this particular train were returning from abroad; but thethird-class carriages were the best filled, chiefly with insignificant persons of variousoccupations and degrees, picked up at the different stations nearer town.

All of themseemed weary, and most of them had sleepy eyes and a shivering expression, while theircomplexions generally appeared to have taken on the colour of the fog outside.When day dawned, two passengers in one of the third-class carriages found themselvesopposite each other.

Both were young fellows, both were rather poorly dressed, both hadremarkable faces, and both were evidently anxious to start a conversation.

If they had butknown why, at this particular moment, they were both remarkable persons, they wouldundoubtedly have wondered at the strange chance which had set them down opposite toone another in a third-class carriage of the Warsaw Railway Company