Текст книги "The Idiot"

Автор книги: Федор Достоевский

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This news, which reached all the Epanchins, was, as later events confirmed, perfectly accurate. Of course, it was strange that news of this sort could travel and become known so quickly; for instance, everything that had happened at Nastasya Filippovna's became known at the Epanchins' almost the next day and even in quite accurate detail. Concerning the news about Gavrila Ardalionovich, it might be supposed that it was brought to the Epanchins by Varvara Ardalionovna, who somehow suddenly appeared among the Epanchin girls and very soon was even on a very intimate footing with them, which for Lizaveta Prokofyevna was extremely surprising. But though Varvara Ardalionovna for some reason found it necessary to become so close with the Epanchins, she

surely would not have talked with them about her brother. She, too, was a very proud woman, in her own way, despite the fact that she had struck up a friendship there, where her brother had almost been thrown out. Before then, though she had been acquainted with the Epanchin girls, she had seen them rarely. Even now, however, she almost never appeared in the drawing room, and came in, or rather, dropped in, by the back door. Lizaveta Prokofyevna had never been disposed towards her, either before or now, though she greatly respected Nina Alexandrovna, Varvara Arda-lionovna's mother. She was astonished, became angry, ascribed the acquaintance with Varya to the capricious and power-loving character of her daughters, who "invent all kinds of things just to be contrary to her," yet Varvara Ardalionovna went on visiting them all the same, both before and after her marriage.

But a month passed after the prince's departure, and Mrs. Epanchin received a letter from the old Princess Belokonsky, who had left for Moscow some two weeks earlier to stay with her married elder daughter, and this letter produced a visible effect on her. Though she said nothing about what was in it either to her daughters or to Ivan Fyodorovich, the family noticed by many signs that she was somehow especially agitated, even excited. She kept starting somehow especially strange conversations with her daughters, and all on such extraordinary subjects; she obviously wanted to speak her mind, but for some reason she held back. The day she received the letter, she was nice to everyone, even kissed Aglaya and Adelaida, confessed something particular to them, but precisely what they could not tell. She suddenly became indulgent even to Ivan Fyodorovich, whom she had kept in disgrace for a whole month. Naturally, the next day she became extremely angry over her sentimentality of the day before and by dinnertime managed to quarrel with everyone, but towards evening the horizon cleared again. Generally, for the whole week she continued to be in very bright spirits, something that had not happened for a long time.

But after another week, another letter came from Princess Belokonsky, and this time Mrs. Epanchin decided to speak out. She solemnly announced that "old Belokonsky" (she never referred to the princess otherwise, when speaking in her absence) had told her some very comforting news about this . . . "odd bird, well, that is, about this prince!" The old woman had sought him out in Moscow, made inquiries about him, and learned something very good; the

prince had finally called on her in person and made an almost extraordinary impression on her. "That's clear from the fact that she invited him to come every day from one till two, and the man drags himself there every day, and she's still not sick of him," Mrs. Epanchin concluded, adding that through "the old woman" the prince was now received in two or three good houses. "It's good that he doesn't sit in his corner feeling bashful like a fool." The girls, to whom all this was imparted, noticed at once that their dear mama had concealed a great deal of her letter from them. They might have known it from Varvara Ardalionovna, who could and certainly did know everything that Ptitsyn knew about the prince and his stay in Moscow. And Ptitsyn might have been even better informed than anyone else. But he was a man of extreme reticence in business matters, though he certainly shared things with Varya. Mrs. Epanchin at once began to dislike Varvara Ardalionovna still more for it.

But be that as it may, the ice was broken, and it suddenly became possible to talk openly about the prince. Besides that, the extraordinary impression and the exceedingly great interest that the prince had aroused and left behind him in the Epanchins' house once more clearly showed itself. Mrs. Epanchin even marveled at the impression made on her daughters by the news from Moscow. And the daughters also marveled at their mother, who had so solemnly announced to them that it was "the chiefest feature of her life to be constantly mistaken about people," and at the same time had recommended the prince to the attention of the "powerful" old Princess Belokonsky in Moscow, having, of course, to beg for her attention in the name of Christ and God, because on certain occasions the "old woman" was hard to get going.

But once the ice was broken and a fresh wind blew, the general also hastened to speak his mind. It turned out that he, too, was extraordinarily interested. He informed them, however, only of "the business side of the subject." It turned out that, in the interests of the prince, he had charged a couple of gentlemen, highly reliable and of a certain sort of influence in Moscow, to keep an eye on him and especially on his guide Salazkin. Everything that had been said about the inheritance, "about the fact of the inheritance, so to speak," turned out to be true, but the inheritance itself turned out in the end to be by no means as significant as had originally been spread about. The fortune was half entangled; there turned out to be debts; there turned out to be some sort of claimants, and the

prince, in spite of all guidance, behaved in a most unbusinesslike way, "Of course, God be with him": now that the "ice of silence" was broken, the general was glad to declare this "in all the sincerity" of his soul, because, "though the fellow's a bit like that," all the same he deserved it. But meanwhile, all the same, he had made some blunders here: for instance, some of the dead merchant's creditors had appeared, with disputable, worthless papers, and some, having heard about the prince, even came without any papers—and what then? The prince satisfied almost all of them, though his friends pointed out to him that all these petty folk and petty creditors were completely without rights; and he had only satisfied them because it actually turned out that a few of them had indeed suffered.

To this Mrs. Epanchin responded that Belokonsky had written something of the same sort to her and that "this is stupid, very stupid; but there's no curing a fool"—she added sharply, but one could see from her face how glad she was of what this "fool" had done. In conclusion to all this the general noticed that his wife was as concerned for the prince as if he were her own son and that she had also begun to be terribly affectionate to Aglaya; seeing which, Ivan Fyodorovich assumed a very businesslike air for a time.

But once again all this pleasant mood did not exist for long. Only two weeks went by and something suddenly changed again, Mrs. Epanchin scowled, and the general, after shrugging his shoulders a few times, again submitted to the "ice of silence." The thing was that just two weeks earlier he had received undercover information, brief and therefore not quite clear, but reliable, that Nastasya Filippovna, who had first disappeared in Moscow, had then been found in Moscow by Rogozhin, had then disappeared again somewhere and had again been found by him, had finally given him an almost certain promise that she would marry him. And now, only two weeks later, his excellency had suddenly received information that Nastasya Filippovna had run away for a third time, almost from the foot of the altar, and this time had disappeared somewhere in the provinces, and meanwhile Prince Myshkin had also vanished from Moscow, leaving Salazkin in charge of all his affairs, "together with her, or simply rushing after her, no one knows, but there's something in it," the general concluded. Lizaveta Prokofyevna, for her part, also received some unpleasant information. In the end, two months after the prince's departure, almost all the rumors about him in Petersburg had

definitively died out, and in the Epanchins' house the "ice of silence" was not broken again. Varvara Ardalionovna, however, still visited the girls.

To have done with all these rumors and reports, let us also add that a great many upheavals had taken place at the Epanchins' by spring, so that it was hard not to forget about the prince, who for his part never sent, and perhaps did not wish to send, any news of himself. Gradually, in the course of the winter, they finally decided to go abroad for the summer—that is, Lizaveta Prokofyevna and her daughters; the general, naturally, could not spend time on "empty entertainment." The decision was taken at the extreme and persistent urging of the girls, who had become completely convinced that their parents did not want to take them abroad because they were constantly concerned with getting them married and finding suitors for them. It may be that the parents also finally became convinced that suitors could be met abroad as well, and that one summer trip not only could not upset anything, but perhaps "might even contribute." Here it would be appropriate to mention that the intended marriage between Afanasy Ivanovich Totsky and the eldest Epanchin girl broke up altogether, and no formal proposal ever took place. It happened somehow by itself, without long discussions and without any family struggles. Since the time of the prince's departure, everything had suddenly quieted down on both sides. This circumstance was one of the causes of the then heavy mood in the Epanchin family, though Mrs. Epanchin said at the time that she would gladly "cross herself with both hands." The general, though in disgrace and aware that it was his own fault, pouted for a long time all the same; he was sorry to lose Afanasy Ivanovich: "such a fortune, and such a dexterous man!" Not long afterwards the general learned that Afanasy Ivanovich had been captivated by a traveling high-society Frenchwoman, a marquise and a légitimiste, ²that a marriage was to take place, after which Afanasy Ivanovich would be taken to Paris and then somewhere in Brittany. "Well, the Frenchwoman will be the end of him," the general decided.

But the Epanchins were preparing to leave by summer. And suddenly a circumstance occurred which again changed everything in a new way, and the trip was again postponed, to the greatest joy of the general and his wife. A certain prince arrived in Petersburg from Moscow, Prince Shch., a well-known man, incidentally, and known from a quite, quite good point. He was one of those people,

or, one might even say, activists of recent times, honest, modest, who sincerely and consciously wish to be useful, are always working, and are distinguished by this rare and happy quality of always finding work. Without putting himself forward, avoiding the bitterness and idle talk of parties, not counting himself among the foremost, the prince nevertheless had a quite substantial understanding of much that was happening in recent times. Formerly he had been in government service, then he began to participate in zemstvo ³activity. Besides that, he was a useful corresponding member of several Russian learned societies. Together with an engineer acquaintance, he contributed, by gathering information and research, to correcting the planned itinerary of one of the most important railways. He was about thirty-five years old. He was a man "of the highest society" and, besides that, had a fortune that was "good, serious, incontestable," as the general put it, having met and become acquainted with the prince on the occasion of some rather serious business at the office of the count, his superior. The prince, out of some special curiosity, never avoided making the acquaintance of Russia's "businesspeople." It so happened that the prince also became acquainted with the general's family. Adelaida Ivanovna, the middle sister, made a very strong impression on him. By spring the prince had proposed. Adelaida liked him very much, and so did Lizaveta Prokofyevna. The general was very glad. Needless to say, the trip was postponed. A spring wedding was planned.

The trip, however, might have taken place by the middle or the end of summer, if only in the form of a one– or two-month excursion of Lizaveta Prokofyevna and her two remaining daughters, in order to dispel the sadness of Adelaida's leaving them. But again something new happened: at the end of spring (Adelaida's wedding had been delayed somewhat and was postponed till the middle of summer) Prince Shch. introduced into the Epanchins' house a distant relation of his, with whom, however, he was rather well acquainted. This was a certain Evgeny Pavlovich R., still a young man, about twenty-eight, an imperial aide-de-camp, strikingly handsome, "of a noble family," a witty, brilliant "new" man, "exceedingly educated," and—somehow much too fabulously wealthy. With regard to this last point the general was always careful. He made inquiries: "There is actually something of the sort—though, in any case, it must be verified." This young and "promising" imperial aide-de-camp was given a strong boost by

the opinion of the old Princess Belokonsky from Moscow. In one respect only was his reputation somewhat ticklish: there had been several liaisons and, as it was maintained, "victories" over certain unfortunate hearts. Having seen Aglaya, he became extraordinarily sedentary in the Epanchins' house. True, nothing had been said yet, nor had any allusions been made, but all the same the parents thought that there was no need even to think about a trip abroad that summer. Aglaya herself was perhaps of a different opinion.

This happened just before our hero's second appearance on the scene of our story. By that time, judging from appearances, poor Prince Myshkin had been totally forgotten in Petersburg. If he had suddenly appeared now among those who had known him, it would have been as if he had dropped from the moon. And yet we still have one more fact to report, and with that we shall end our introduction.

Kolya Ivolgin, on the prince's departure, at first went on with his former life, that is, went to school, visited his friend Ippolit, looked after the general, and helped Varya around the house, that is, ran errands for her. But the tenants quickly vanished: Ferdy-shchenko moved somewhere three days after the adventure at Nastasya Filippovna's and quite soon disappeared, so that even all rumors about him died out; he was said to be drinking somewhere, but nothing was certain. The prince left for Moscow; that was the end of the tenants. Afterwards, when Varya was already married, Nina Alexandrovna and Ganya moved with her to Ptitsyn's, in the Ismailovsky quarter; as for General Ivolgin, a quite unforeseen circumstance occurred with him at almost that same time: he went to debtors' prison. He was dispatched there by his lady friend, the captain's widow, on the strength of documents he had given her at various times, worth about two thousand. All this came as a total surprise to him, and the poor general was "decidedly the victim of his boundless faith in the nobility of the human heart, broadly speaking." Having adopted the soothing habit of signing vouchers and promissory notes, he never supposed the possibility of their effect, at least at some point, always thinking it was just so.It turned to be not so. "Trust people after that, show them your noble trustfulness!" he exclaimed ruefully, sitting with his new friends in Tarasov House ⁴over a bottle of wine and telling them anecdotes about the siege of Kars and a resurrected soldier. His life there, however, was excellent. Ptitsyn and Varya used to say it was the right place for him; Ganya agreed completely. Only poor Nina

Alexandrovna wept bitterly on the quiet (which even surprised her household) and, though eternally ill, dragged herself as often as she could to see her husband in Tarasov House.

But since the "incident with the general," as Kolya put it, or, more broadly, since his sister's marriage, Kolya had gotten completely out of hand, so much so that lately he even rarely came to spend the night with the family. According to rumor, he had made many new acquaintances; besides that, he had become all too well known in the debtors' prison. Nina Alexandrovna could not do without him there; and at home now no one pestered him even out of curiosity. Varya, who had treated him so sternly before, did not subject him now to the least inquiry about his wanderings; and Ganya, to the great astonishment of the household, talked and even got together with him occasionally on perfectly friendly terms, despite all his hypochondria, something that had never happened before, because the twenty-seven-year-old Ganya, naturally, had never paid the slightest friendly attention to his fifteen-year-old brother, had treated him rudely, had demanded that the whole household treat him with sternness only, and had constantly threatened to "go for his ears," which drove Kolya "beyond the final limits of human patience." One might have thought that Kolya was now sometimes even necessary to Ganya. He had been very struck that Ganya had returned the money then; he was prepared to forgive him a lot for that.

Three months went by after the prince's departure, and the Ivolgin family heard that Kolya had suddenly become acquainted with the Epanchins and was received very nicely by the girls. Varya soon learned of it; Kolya, incidentally, had become acquainted not through Varya but "on his own." The Epanchins gradually grew to love him. At first the general's wife was very displeased with him, but soon she began to treat him kindly "for his candor and for the fact that he doesn't flatter." That Kolya did not flatter was perfectly right; he managed to put himself on a completely equal and independent footing with them, though he did sometimes read books or newspapers to Mrs. Epanchin—but he had always been obliging. A couple of times, however, he quarreled bitterly with Lizaveta Prokofyevna, told her that she was a despot and that he would not set foot in the house again. The first time was over the "woman question," the second time over what season of the year was best for catching siskins. Incredible as it might seem, on the third day after the quarrel, Mrs. Epanchin sent him a footman with a note

asking him to come without fail; Kolya did not put on airs and went at once. Only Aglaya was constantly ill-disposed towards him for some reason and treated him haughtily. Yet it was her that he was to surprise somewhat. Once—it was during Holy Week ⁵– finding a moment when they were alone, Kolya handed Aglaya a letter, adding only that he had been told to give it to her alone. Aglaya gave the "presumptuous brat" a terrible look, but Kolya did not wait and left. She opened the note and read:

Once you honored me with your confidence. It may be that you have completely forgotten me now. How is it that I am writing to you? I do not know; but I have an irrepressible desire to remind you of myself, and you precisely. Many's the time I have needed all three of you very much, but of all three I could see only you. I need you, I need you very much. I have nothing to write to you about myself, I have nothing to tell you about. That is not what I wanted; I wish terribly much that you should be happy. Are you happy? That is the only thing I wanted to tell you.

Your brother, Pr. L. Myshkin.

Having read this brief and rather muddle-headed note, Aglaya suddenly flushed all over and became pensive. It would be hard for us to convey the course of her thoughts. Among other things, she asked herself: "Should I show it to anyone?" She felt somehow ashamed. She ended, however, by smiling a mocking and strange smile and dropping the letter into her desk drawer. The next day she took it out again and put it into a thick, sturdily bound book (as she always did with her papers, so as to find them quickly when she needed them). And only a week later did she happen to notice what book it was. It was Don Quixote de La Mancha.Aglaya laughed terribly—no one knew why.

Nor did anyone know whether she showed her acquisition to any of her sisters.

But as she was reading this letter, the thought suddenly crossed her mind: could it be that the prince had chosen this presumptuous little brat and show-off as his correspondent and, for all she knew, his only correspondent in Petersburg? And, though with a look of extraordinary disdain, all the same she put Kolya to the question. But the "brat," ordinarily touchy, this time did not pay the slightest attention to the disdain; he explained to Aglaya quite briefly and rather drily that he had given the prince his permanent address,

just in case, before the prince left Petersburg, and had offered to be of service, that this was the first errand he had been entrusted with and the first note he had received, and in proof of his words he produced the letter he had himself received. Aglaya read it without any qualms. The letter to Kolya read:

Dear Kolya, be so good as to convey the enclosed and sealed note to Aglaya Ivanovna. Be well.

Lovingly yours, Pr. L. Myshkin.

"All the same, it's ridiculous to confide in such a pipsqueak," Aglaya said touchily, handing Kolya's note back, and she scornfully walked past him.

Now that Kolya could not bear: he had asked Ganya, purposely for that occasion, without explaining the reason why, to let him wear his still quite new green scarf. He was bitterly offended.

II

It was the first days of June, and the weather in Petersburg had been unusually fine for a whole week. The Epanchins had their own wealthy dacha in Pavlovsk. ⁶Lizaveta Prokofyevna suddenly roused herself and went into action: before not quite two days of bustling were over, they moved.

A day or two after the Epanchins moved to the country, Prince Lev Nikolaevich Myshkin arrived from Moscow on the morning train. No one met him at the station; but as he was getting off the train, the prince suddenly thought he caught the gaze of two strange, burning eyes in the crowd surrounding the arriving people. When he looked more attentively, he could no longer see them. Of course, he had only imagined it; but it left an unpleasant impression. Besides, the prince was sad and pensive to begin with and seemed preoccupied with something.

The cabby brought him to a hotel not far from Liteinaya Street. It was a wretched little hotel. The prince took two small rooms, dark and poorly furnished, washed, dressed, asked for nothing, and left hastily, as if afraid of wasting time or of not finding someone at home.

If anyone who had known him six months ago, when he first came to Petersburg, had looked at him now, he might have

concluded that his appearance had changed greatly for the better. But that was hardly so. There was merely a complete change in his clothes: they were all different, made in Moscow, and by a good tailor; but there was a flaw in them as well: they were much too fashionably made (as always with conscientious but not very talented tailors), and moreover for a man not the least bit interested in fashion, so that, taking a close look at the prince, someone much given to laughter might have found good reason to smile. But people laugh at all sorts of things.

The prince took a cab and went to Peski. On one of the Rozhdestvensky streets he soon located a rather small wooden house. To his surprise, this house turned out to be attractive, clean, very well kept, with a front garden in which flowers were growing. The windows facing the street were open and from them came the sound of shrill, ceaseless talking, almost shouting, as if someone was reading aloud or even delivering a speech; the voice was interrupted now and then by the laughter of several resounding voices. The prince entered the yard, went up the front steps, and asked for Mr. Lebedev.

"Mister's in there," the cook replied, opening the door, her sleeves rolled up to the elbows, jabbing her finger towards the "drawing room."

In this drawing room, the walls of which were covered with blue wallpaper, and which was decorated neatly and with some pretense—that is, with a round table and a sofa, a bronze clock under a glass bell, a narrow mirror between the two windows, and a very old crystal chandelier, not big, suspended from the ceiling on a bronze chain—in the middle of the room stood Mr. Lebedev himself, his back turned to the entering prince, in a waistcoat but with nothing over it, summer-fashion, beating himself on the breast and delivering a bitter harangue on some subject. The listeners were: a boy of about fifteen with a rather merry and far from stupid face and with a book in his hand, a young girl of about twenty dressed in mourning and with a nursing baby in her arms, a thirteen-year-old girl, also in mourning, who was laughing loudly and opening her mouth terribly widely as she did so, and, finally, an extremely strange listener, a fellow of about twenty, lying on the sofa, rather handsome, dark, with long, thick hair, big, dark eyes, and a small pretense to side-whiskers and a little beard. This listener, it seemed, often interrupted and argued with the haranguing Lebedev; that was probably what made the rest of the audience laugh.

"Lukyan Timofeich, hey, Lukyan Timofeich! No, really! Look here! . . . Well, drat you all!"

And the cook left, waving her arms and getting so angry that she even became all red.

Lebedev turned around and, seeing the prince, stood for a time as if thunderstruck, then rushed to him with an obsequious smile, but froze again on the way, nevertheless having uttered:

"Il-il-illustrious Prince!"

But suddenly, as if still unable to recover his countenance, he turned around and, for no reason at all, first fell upon the girl in mourning with the baby in her arms, so that she even recoiled a little from the unexpectedness of it, then immediately abandoned her and fell upon the thirteen-year-old girl, who hovered in the doorway to the other room and went on smiling with the remnants of her recent laughter. She could not bear his shouting and immediately darted off to the kitchen; Lebedev even stamped his feet behind her, for greater intimidation, but, meeting the prince's eyes, staring in bewilderment, said by way of explanation:

"For . . . respectfulness, heh, heh, heh!"

"There's no need for all this . . ." the prince tried to begin.

"At once, at once, at once . . . like lightning!"

And Lebedev quickly vanished from the room. The prince looked in surprise at the young girl, at the boy, at the one lying on the sofa; they were all laughing. The prince laughed, too.

"He went to put on his tailcoat," said the boy.

"This is all so vexing," the prince began, "and I'd have thought . . . tell me, is he . . ."

"Drunk, you think?" cried the voice from the sofa. "Stone sober! Maybe three or four glasses, well, or make it five, but that's just for discipline."

The prince was about to address the voice from the sofa, but the young girl began to speak and, with a most candid look on her pretty face, said:

"He never drinks much in the mornings; if you've come on business, talk to him now. It's the right time. When he comes home in the evening, he's drunk; and now he mostly weeps at night and reads aloud to us from the Holy Scriptures, because our mother died five weeks ago."

"He ran away because he probably had a hard time answering you," the young man laughed from the sofa. "I'll bet he's about to dupe you and is thinking it over right now."

"Just five weeks! Just five weeks!" Lebedev picked up, coming back in wearing his tailcoat, blinking his eyes and pulling a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his tears. "Orphans!"

"Why have you come out all in holes?" said the young girl. "You've got a brand-new frock coat lying there behind the door, didn't you see it?"

"Quiet, you fidget!" Lebedev shouted at her. "Ah, you!" he began to stamp his feet at her. But this time she only laughed.

"Don't try to frighten me, I'm not Tanya, I won't run away. But you may wake up Lyubochka, and she'll get into a fit . . . what's all this shouting!"

"No, no, no! Bite your tongue . . ." Lebedev suddenly became terribly frightened and, rushing to the baby asleep in his daughter's arms, with a frightened look made a cross over it several times. "Lord save us, Lord protect us! This is my own nursing baby, my daughter Lyubov," he turned to the prince, "born in the most lawful wedlock of the newly departed Elena, my wife, who died in childbed. And this wee thing is my daughter Vera, in mourning . . . And this, this, oh, this . . ."

"Why do you stop short?" cried the young man. "Go on, don't be embarrassed."

"Your Highness!" Lebedev suddenly exclaimed in a sort of transport, "have you been following the murder of the Zhemarin family ⁷in the newspapers?"

"I have," the prince said in some surprise.

"Well, this is the true murderer of the Zhemarin family, the man himself!"

"What do you mean?" said the prince.

"That is, allegorically speaking, the future second murderer of the future second Zhemarin family, if one turns up. He's headed for that ..."

Everybody laughed. It occurred to the prince that Lebedev might indeed be squirming and clowning only because, anticipating his questions, he did not know how to answer them and was gaining time.

"He's a rebel! A conspirator!" Lebedev shouted, as if no longer able to control himself. "Well, and can I, do I have the right to regard such a slanderer, such a harlot, one might say, and monster, as my own nephew, the only son of my late sister Anisya?"