Animal Review
Fanzine of Herbivorous Youth
by Fyodor D.

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[Aglaya Yepanchin, having rejected the idiot Prince Myshkin for beating her at cards, makes him the gift of a hedgehog.] Mrs. Yepanchin was completely stunned by this news. Not that it amounted to anything, but simply because she happened to be in that kind of mood. Her alarm was aroused to quite an acute degree, and chiefly about the hedgehog. What was the meaning of the hedgehog? What was their understanding about it? What mystery lay hidden in it? What sort of sign? What sort of message? ...

The prince, who had returned home ridiculed and banished by Aglaya, sat for half an hour in the blackest despair, when Kolya suddenly appeared with the hedgehog. At once the sky cleared; the prince looked as though he had risen from the dead; he questioned Kolya closely, hung on every word he uttered, asking him the same question over and over again, laughing like a child and again and again pressing the hands of the laughing boy who gazed at him with such bright eyes. It seemed clear that Aglaya forgave him and that he could go and see her again that very evening, adn was not only the most important thing for him -- it was everything.

"What children we still are, Kolya!" he cried at last ecstatically. "And -- how lovely it is that we are still children!"

"It simply means that she's in love with you, Prince, and that's all there is to it!" Kolya replied, impressively and with authority.

[The Prince returns to the Yepanchin home.] Aglaya came in, calmly and with an air of importance, bowed ceremoniously to the prince, and solemnly took up the most conspicuous position at the round table. She looked questioningly at the prince. They all realized that the moment had arrived when all their perplexities were to be removed.

"Did you get my hedgehog?" she asked firmly and almost crossly.

"I did," answered the prince, blushing and with a sinking heart.

"Will you kindly explain at once what you think about it? This is necessary for the peace of mind of Mother and the whole family."

[Aglaya then demands a marriage proposal from the prince as well as a financial report. Disappointed with the numbers, she flees the room.]

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