The Idiot (89 page)

‘Dead Souls!
Oh yes, dead ones! When you bury me, write on my grave: “Here lies a dead soul”! “Disgrace pursues me!” Who said that, Kolya?’

‘I don’t know, Papa.’

‘Yeropegov didn’t exist! Yeroshka Yeropegov!’ he exclaimed in a frenzy, coming to a standstill in the street. ‘And this from my son, my own son! Yeropegov, the man who was a brother to me for eleven months, for whom I fought a duel ... Prince Vygoretsky, our captain, said to him over a bottle: “Where did you get your St Anne’s,
¹⁴
Grisha, tell me that?” “On the battlefields of my fatherland, that’s where I got it!” I shouted: “Bravo, Grisha!” Well, then there was a duel, and then he married ... Marya Petrovna Su ... Sutugina and was killed on the battlefields ... The bullet bounced off the cross on my chest and straight into his forehead. “I shall never forget!” he cried and fell on the spot. I ... I served honourably, Kolya; I served nobly, but disgrace - “disgrace pursues me!” You and Nina will come to my graveside ... “Poor Nina!” That was what I used to call her, Kolya, a long time ago, back in the early days, and she loved me so ... Nina, Nina! What have I done to your fate? How can you love me, patient soul? Your mother has the soul of an angel, Kolya, do you hear, of an angel!’

‘I know that, Papa. My good Papa, let us go home to Mama! She was running after us! Well, why have you stopped? As if you didn’t understand ... Oh, why are you crying?’

Kolya himself was crying, and he kissed his father’s hands.

‘You’re kissing my hands, mine!’

‘Yes, yours, yours. Well, what’s so surprising? Oh, why are you bawling out in the street, yet you call yourself a general, a military man, oh, come along!’

‘God bless you, dear boy, for being respectful to a disgraceful — yes! A disgraceful old man, your father ... and may you have such a boy ...
le roi de Rome ...
Oh, “a curse, a curse upon this house”.’

‘But what’s going on here, really?’ Kolya suddenly began to fume. ‘What’s happened? Why don’t you want to go home now? Why have you lost your mind?’

‘I shall explain, I shall explain to you ... I’ll tell you everything; don’t shout, they’ll hear ...
le roi de Rome ...
Oh, I feel sick, I feel sad! “
Nurse, where is your grave?”
¹⁵
Who said that, Kolya?’

‘I don’t know, I don’t know who said it! Let’s go home right now, right now! I’ll beat Ganya black and blue if I have to ... where are you going now?’

But the general dragged him to the front steps of a nearby house.

‘What are you doing? These aren’t our front steps!’

The general sat down on the steps, still drawing Kolya towards him by the hand.

‘Bend down, bend down!’ he muttered, ‘I’ll tell you everything ... disgrace ... bend down ... your ear, your ear; I’ll tell it in your ear ...’

‘But what on earth?’ Kolya said, in terrible alarm, yet turning his ear all the same.

‘Le roi de Rome ...’
whispered the general, also apparently trembling all over.

‘What do you mean? ... Where do you get this
le roi de Rome
business from? ... What?’

‘I ... I ...’ the general began to whisper again, clutching the shoulder of ‘his boy’ tighter and tighter. ‘I ... want ... to tell you ... everything, Marya, Marya ... Petrovna Su-su-su ...’

Kolya tore himself free, seized the general by the shoulders and looked at him like one demented. The old man had gone purple, his lips turned blue, slight convulsions ran across his face. Suddenly he bent forward and began to subside gently on to Kolya’s arm.

‘A stroke!’ Kolya exclaimed to the whole street, having realized at last what was wrong.

If truth be known, Varvara Ardalionovna, in conversation with her brother, had slightly exaggerated the accuracy of her news about the prince’s proposal to Aglaya Yepanchina. Perhaps, like the shrewd woman she was, she had foreseen what was bound to happen in the near future; perhaps, upset by the way in which the dream had dispersed in smoke (a dream in which, however, she had not believed), she, being human, could not resist the satisfaction of pouring even more poison into her brother’s heart by exaggerating the calamity, even though she loved him sincerely and with compassion. But at any rate, she could not have received such accurate information from her friends, the Yepanchins; there were only hints, unspoken words, silences, enigmas. And, perhaps, Aglaya’s sisters had intentionally let something slip, in order to learn something from Varvara Ardalionovna themselves; and lastly, it might have been that they did not wish to deny themselves the female satisfaction of teasing their friend a little, even though she was a childhood friend: for they could not have failed to discern at least a small margin of her intentions.

On the other hand, the prince, though he was quite truthful in assuring Lebedev that he could tell him nothing and that nothing particular had happened to him, was also, perhaps, in error. Indeed, with all of them something very strange seemed to take place: nothing had happened, and yet at the same time it was as if a great deal had happened. It was this last that Varvara Ardalionovna, with her unerring feminine instinct, had guessed.

Just how it came to pass, however, that everyone at the Yepanchins suddenly had the same unanimous thought that something of capital importance had happened to Aglaya, and that her fate was being decided - that is very difficult to set down in order. But no sooner had that thought flashed, instantly, to them all, than they all instantly maintained that they had long ago discerned it and foreseen it all; that it had all been clear ever since the ‘poor knight’, and even earlier, except that then they had as yet been unwilling to believe anything so absurd. This was what the sisters claimed; of course, Lizaveta Prokofyevna had also foreseen it all before anyone else, and for a long time her heart had ‘ached’, but now - whether that was so or not — the thought of the prince was suddenly something she could not abide, mostly for the reason that she was bewildered. There was a pressing question here that had to be resolved at once; however, not only was it impossible to resolve, but Lizaveta Prokofyevna could not even formulate it to herself quite clearly, no matter how she tried. The matter was a difficult one: was the prince a good thing or not? Was all this a good thing or not? If it was not (which was indubitably so), then why was it not? And if, perhaps, it was a good thing (which was also possible),
then again, why was it? The paterfamilias himself, Ivan Fyodorovich, was, of course, initially astonished, but later suddenly made the admission that after all, to be quite honest, he too had fancied something of the kind; it had seemed to recede, but then it had returned. He at once fell silent under the withering gaze of his spouse, but did so in the morning, and in the evening, alone with his spouse and compelled to speak again, suddenly and, as if with especial courage, expressed a few unexpected thoughts: ‘After all, really, what does it matter? ...’ (Silence.) ‘Of course, it’s all very strange, if it’s true, and I don’t dispute that, but...’ (Another silence.) ‘But on the other hand, if one looks at the matter directly, then the prince is, after all, quite honestly, a most splendid young fellow, and ... and, and — well, at last, our name, our family name, all this will have the appearance, as it were, of keeping up our family name, which has fallen, in the eyes of society, that is, if one looks at it from that point of view, because ... of course, society; society is society; but the prince is not without a fortune, though it’s not much of one. He has ... and ... and ...’ (Prolonged silence and decided anticlimax.) Having heard her husband out, Lizaveta Prokofyevna passed beyond endurance.

In her opinion, all that had happened was ‘unforgivable and even criminal nonsense, a fantastic tableau, stupid and preposterous!’ First of all there was the fact that ‘this wretched little prince was a sickly idiot, secondly, a fool with no knowledge of society and no place in it: to whom could one show him off, even were one to get him in? He was some kind of impossible democrat, didn’t even have a civil service rank, and ... and ... what would Belokonskaya say? And was this, was this the kind of husband we imagined and intended for Aglaya?’ The last argument was, of course, the main one. The mother’s heart trembled at this thought, was bathed in blood and tears, though at the same time something stirred within that heart, which suddenly said to her: ‘But why isn’t the prince the kind of man you want?’ Well, it was these objections of her own heart that were most troublesome of all for Lizaveta Prokofyevna.

For some reason, the sisters found the thought of the prince appealing; it did not even seem very strange to them; in a word, they might suddenly even have come over to his side completely. But they both decided to keep quiet. Once and for all, it was noticed in the household that the more stubborn and insistent Lizaveta Prokofyevna’s objections and rebuttals on any general and controversial point concerning the family became, the more this began to serve them all as a sign that perhaps she really agreed with them on that point. But Alexandra Ivanovna could not, in the end, remain completely silent. Having long acknowledged her as her adviser, the mother now kept constantly summoning her and demanding her opinions, and above all, her recollections, with phrases like: ‘How did all this happen? Why did no one see it? Why did no one say anything? What was the social standing of this wretched “poor knight”? Why was she alone, Lizaveta Prokofyevna, doomed to worry about them all, take note of everything, and foresee it, while everyone else merely twiddled their thumbs?” etcete
ra, etcetera. At first Alexandra Ivanovna was cautious, observing merely that her father’s ideas on the matter seemed rather close to the mark. That the choice of Prince Myshkin as the husband of one of the Yepanchin girls might seem very satisfactory in the eyes of society. Gradually, becoming more heated, she even added that the prince was not at all a ‘fool’ and had never been one, and with regard to his standing, then after all God only knew what would be the criterion of the social standing of a decent man with us in Russia in a few years’ time: obligatory success in the civil service, as previously, or something else? In response to all this the mother at once snapped that Alexandra was ‘a freethinker, and all this is that accursed woman question of theirs’. Half an hour later she set off for town, and from there to Kamenny Island, in order to catch Belokonskaya, who just so happened to be in St Petersburg at that time, though was soon to leave. Belokonskaya was Aglaya’s godmother.

‘Old woman’ Belokonskaya listened to all Lizaveta Prokofyevna’s fevered and despairing confessions and was in no way touched by the bewildered mother of the family, even gave her a mocking look. She was a dreadful despot; in friendship, even the oldest, she could not endure equality, and looked upon Lizaveta Prokofyevna decidedly as her protegée, just as she had done thirty-five years earlier, and could on no account be reconciled with the abruptness and independence of her character. She observed, among other things, that they had all been behaving as they usually did ‘over there, running too far ahead of themselves and making a mountain out of a molehill’; that no matter how closely she listened, she could not be persuaded that anything serious had really happened to them; that it might be better to wait until something came of it; that the prince, in her opinion, was a decent young man, though an invalid, eccentric and of far too low a social class. Worst of all, he was openly keeping a mistress. Lizaveta Prokofyevna realized only too well that Belokonskaya was somewhat angry about Yevgeny Pavlovich’s lack of success, as it had been she who recommended him. She returned home to Pavlovsk in an even greater state of irritation than the one in which she had left, and everyone immediately received a piece of her mind, mainly because they had ‘lost their senses’, that absolutely no one conducted their affairs in such a way, only them: ‘Why were you in such a hurry? What happened? No matter how hard I look, I can on no account conclude that anything has really happened at all! Just wait until it does! Ivan Fyodorovich may fancy anything he pleases, but one shouldn’t make mountains out of molehills,’ etcetera, etcetera.

So it turned out that what they needed to do was calm themselves, look on the matter coolly, and wait. But alas, the calm did not last even ten minutes. The first blow was coolly inflicted by the news of what had happened during the mother’s absence on Kamenny Island. (Lizaveta Prokofyevna’s journey had taken place on the morning after the prince had arrived at nearly one hour after midnight instead of just after nine.) To t
heir mother’s impatient questioning the sisters replied in great detail, telling her that, in the first place, ‘it seemed that nothing had happened in her absence’, that the prince had arrived, that Aglaya did not appear for a long time, and when she finally did, after nearly half an hour, she at once suggested to him that they play a game of chess; that the prince did not even know how to play chess, and Aglaya had immediately beaten him; had become very gleeful and put the prince dreadfully to shame for his inability to play, so that he made a sorry sight. Then she suggested that they play a game of cards - ‘fools’. But here quite the reverse transpired; the prince turned out to be as good at ‘fools’ as a professor, playing masterfully; Aglaya even cheated, exchanging cards and stealing tricks from him before his very eyes, yet each time he left her a ‘fool’; some five times in succession. Aglaya flew into a dreadful rage and even quite forgot herself; said such hurtful and insolent things to the prince that he even stopped laughing and turned quite pale when she told him at last that she would not set foot in this room while he was sitting there, and that it was downright shameless on his part to come visiting them, especially at night, almost at one in the morning,
after all that had happened.
Then she slammed the door and went out. The prince went away as from a funeral, in spite of all their comforting words. Suddenly, a quarter of an hour later, Aglaya came running downstairs to the terrace with such haste that she had not even dried her eyes, which were full of tears; she had run down because Kolya had arrived with a hedgehog. They all began to examine the hedgehog; to their questions Kolya explained that the hedgehog was not his, and that he was passing with his companion, another gymnasium student, Kostya Lebedev, who had remained out on the street and was too shy to come in, as he was carrying an axe; that they had bought both hedgehog and axe from a passing muzhik. The muzhik had sold them the hedgehog and taken fifty copecks for it, but as for the axe, they had persuaded him to sell it, as it was a chance for him to do so, and it was a very good axe. At this point Aglaya suddenly began to insist in no uncertain terms that Kolya sell her the hedgehog at once, got quite beside herself, and even called Kolya ‘dear’. For a long time Kolya resisted, but then at last gave in and summoned Kostya Lebedev, who really did come in with the axe and was very embarrassed. But then it suddenly turned out that the hedgehog was not theirs at all, but belonged to a third boy, Petrov, who had given them both money to buy Schlosser’s
History
¹
from a fourth boy, who, being in need of money, was selling it at a low price; that they had gone there to buy Schlosser’s
History,
but had not been able to resist the temptation and had bought the hedgehog, so that consequently both hedgehog and axe belonged to the third boy, to whom they were now taking them instead of Schlosser’s
History.
But Aglaya was being so insistent that in the end they decided to sell her the hedgehog. As soon as Aglaya got the hedgehog, she at once put it, with Kolya’s help, into a wicker basket, covered it with a napkin and began to ask Kolya to take it at once, without delay, to the prince, on her behalf, asking him to accept it as ‘a token of her deepest respect’. Kolya agreed, with delight, and promised that he would deliver it, but at once began to ply her with questions in return: ‘What does a present of a hedgehog mean?’ Aglaya replied to him that it was none of his business. He retorted that he was convinced there was an allegory in it. Aglaya got angry and snapped at him that he was an urchin, and nothing more. Kolya at once replied to her that were it not for the fact that he respected the woman in her and, over and above that, his own convictions, he would have shown her directly that he knew how to reply to an insult like that. In the end, however, Kolya went off enthusiastically to deliver the hedgehog, with Kostya Lebedev running after him; Aglaya could not restrain herself, and, when she saw that Kolya was swinging the basket about too much, shouted after him from the veranda: ‘Please, Kolya, don’t drop it, dear!’ – every bit as though she had not just been scolding him; Kolya stopped and also, with the greatest of willingness, shouted, as though he had not been scolding her: ‘No, I shan’t drop it, Aglaya Ivanovna. You may put your mind quite at ease!’ – and ran off again at full tilt. After that, Aglaya burst into hilarious laughter, ran back to her room extremely pleased with herself, and spent all the rest of the day in a very cheerful mood.