Текст книги "The Idiot"
Автор книги: Федор Достоевский
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"This is a madhouse!" Lizaveta Prokofyevna cried out.
"Of course, a house full of madmen!" Aglaya lost patience and
spoke sharply, but her words were drowned in the general noise; everyone was talking loudly, everyone was arguing, some disputing, some laughing. Ivan Fyodorovich Epanchin was in the utmost degree of indignation, and, with an air of offended dignity, was waiting for Lizaveta Prokofyevna. Lebedev's nephew put in a last little word:
"Yes, Prince, you must be given credit, you're so good at exploiting your . . . hm, sickness (to put it decently); you managed to offer your friendship and money in such a clever form that it is now quite impossible for a noble man to accept them. It's either all too innocent, or all too clever . . . you, however, know which."
"If you please, gentlemen," cried Gavrila Ardalionovich, who had meanwhile opened the envelope with the money, "there are not two hundred and fifty roubles here, but only a hundred. I say it, Prince, so that there will be no misunderstandings."
"Let it be, let it be," the prince waved his arms at Gavrila Ardalionovich.
"No, don't 'let it be'!" Lebedev's nephew immediately latched on to it. "Your 'let it be' is insulting to us, Prince. We're not hiding, we declare openly: yes, there's only a hundred roubles here, and not the whole two hundred and fifty, but isn't it all the same . . ."
"N-no, it's not all the same," Gavrila Ardalionovich managed to put in, with a look of naïve perplexity.
"Don't interrupt me, we're not such fools as you think, mister lawyer," Lebedev's nephew exclaimed with spiteful vexation. "Of course, a hundred roubles aren't two hundred and fifty, and it's not all the same, but what's important is the principle; it's the initiative that's important and the fact of the missing hundred and fifty roubles is merely a detail. What's important is that Burdovsky does not accept charity from you, Your Highness, that he throws it in your face, and in this sense a hundred is the same as two hundred and fifty. Burdovsky did not accept the ten thousand, you saw that; he wouldn't have brought the hundred roubles if he were dishonest! Those hundred and fifty roubles were Chebarov's expenses for traveling to see the prince. Sooner laugh at our clumsiness and our inexperience in handling the affair; you've already done all you could to make us look ridiculous; but do not dare to say we're dishonest. All of us together will pay the prince back these hundred and fifty roubles, my dear sir; we will pay it back even if it's rouble by rouble, and we will pay it back with interest. Burdovsky is poor, Burdovsky has no millions, and Chebarov presented the bill after
his trip. We hoped to win . . . Who would have acted differently in his place?"
"What do you mean who?" exclaimed Prince Shch.
"I'll go out of my mind here!" cried Lizaveta Prokofyevna.
"This reminds me," laughed Evgeny Pavlovich, who had long been standing and watching, "of a famous defense made recently by a lawyer, who, presenting poverty as an excuse for his client, who had murdered six people at one go in order to rob them, suddenly concluded along these lines: 'It is natural,' he says, 'that my client, out of poverty, should have taken it into his head to commit this murder of six people, and who in his place would not have taken it into his head?' Something along those lines, only very amusing."
"Enough!" Lizaveta Prokofyevna suddenly announced, almost trembling with wrath. "It's time to break off this galimatias! . . ."
She was in the most terrible agitation; she threw her head back menacingly and, with haughty, burning, and impatient defiance, passed her flashing gaze over the whole company, scarcely distinguishing at that moment her friends from her enemies. This was the point of a long-suppressed but finally unleashed wrath, when the main impulse is immediate battle, the immediate need to fall upon someone as soon as possible. Those who knew Lizaveta Prokofyevna sensed at once that something peculiar was happening with her. Ivan Fyodorovich said the next day to Prince Shch. that "it happens with her, but even with her it rarely happens to such a degree as yesterday, perhaps once in three years, but never more often! never more often!" he added in clarification.
"Enough, Ivan Fyodorovich! Let me be!" exclaimed Lizaveta Prokofyevna. "Why do you offer me your arm now? You weren't able to take me away earlier; you're a husband, you're the head of the family; you should have led me out by the ear, fool that I am, if I didn't obey you and leave. You should have done it at least for your daughters' sake! But now we'll find our way without you, this is shame enough for a whole year . . . Wait, I still want to thank the prince! . . . Thank you, Prince, for the treat! Here I sat, listening to our young people . . . How base, how base! It's chaos, outrage, you don't even dream of such things! Are there many like them? . . . Silence, Aglaya! Silence, Alexandra! It's none of your business! . . . Don't fuss around me, Evgeny Pavlych, I'm tired of you! ... So you, my dearest, are asking their forgiveness," she picked up again, turning to the prince. "'I'm sorry,' you say, 'that
I dared to offer you capital' . . . and what are you laughing at, you little fanfaron!" she suddenly fell upon Lebedev's nephew. "'We refuse the capital,' he says, 'we demand, and do not ask!' As if he doesn't know that tomorrow this idiot will again drag himself to them offering his friendship and capital! Will you go? Will you go or not?"
"I will," said the prince in a quiet and humble voice.
"You've heard it! And that is what you were counting on," she turned to Doktorenko again. "The money's as good as in your pocket, that's why you're playing the fanfaron, blowing smoke in our eyes . . . No, my dear, find yourself some other fools, I can see through you ... I see your whole game!"
"Lizaveta Prokofyevna!" exclaimed the prince.
"Let's go home, Lizaveta Prokofyevna, it's high time, and we'll take the prince with us," Prince Shch., smiling, said as calmly as he could.
The girls stood to one side, almost frightened, and the general was frightened in earnest; the whole company was astonished. Some, those who stood a little further away, smiled slyly and exchanged whispers; Lebedev's face displayed the utmost degree of rapture.
"You can find outrage and chaos everywhere, ma'am," Lebedev's nephew said, though significantly puzzled.
"But not like that! Not like yours just now, dear boys, not like that!" Lizaveta Prokofyevna picked up gleefully, as if in hysterics. "Oh, do let me be," she shouted at those who were persuading her, "no, since even you yourself, Evgeny Pavlych, told us just now that even the defense lawyer himself said in court that there was nothing more natural than doing in six people out of poverty, then the last times have really come. I've never yet heard of such a thing. Now it's all clear to me! Wouldn't this tongue-tied one here put a knife in somebody?" (She pointed to Burdovsky, who was looking at her in extreme perplexity.) "I bet he would! Your money, your ten thousand, perhaps he won't take, perhaps in good conscience he won't, but he'll come in the night and put a knife in you, and take it from the strongbox. Take it in good conscience! He doesn't find it dishonest! It's 'a noble impulse of despair,' it's 'negation,' or devil knows what it is . . . Pah! Everything's inside out, everybody's topsy-turvy. A girl grows up at home, suddenly in the middle of the street she jumps into a droshky: 'Mummy dear, the other day I got married to somebody-or-other Karlych or Ivanych, good-
bye!' 39Is that a good way to behave, in your opinion? Is it natural, is it worthy of respect? The woman question? This boy here" (she pointed to Kolya), "even he insisted the other day that that is what the 'woman question' means. The mother may be a fool, but still you must treat her humanly! . . . And you, walking in earlier with your heads thrown back? 'Out of the way: we're coming. Give us all the rights, and don't you dare make a peep before us. Show us all respect, even such as doesn't exist, and we'll treat you worse than the lowest lackey!' They seek truth, they insist on their rights, yet they themselves slander him up and down like heathens in their article. 'We demand, and do not ask, and you'll get no gratitude from us, because you do it for the satisfaction of your own conscience!' Nice morality! But if there'll be no gratitude from you, then the prince can also say in answer to you that he feels no gratitude towards Pavlishchev, because Pavlishchev did good for the satisfaction of his own conscience. And this gratitude towards Pavlishchev was the only thing you were counting on: he didn't borrow money from you, he doesn't owe you anything, what were you counting on if not gratitude? How, then, can you renounce it yourselves? Madmen! You acknowledge that society is savage and inhuman because it disgraces a seduced girl. But if you acknowledge that society is inhuman, it means you acknowledge that this girl has been hurt by this society. But if she's been hurt, why, then, do you yourselves bring her out in front of that same society in your newspapers and demand that it not hurt her? Mad! Vainglorious! They don't believe in God, they don't believe in Christ! You're so eaten up by vanity and pride that you'll end by eating each other, that I foretell to you. Isn't this havoc, isn't it chaos, isn't it an outrage? And after that this disgraceful creature goes asking their forgiveness! Are there many like you? What are you grinning at: that I've disgraced myself with you? Well, so I'm disgraced, there's no help for it now! . . . And take that grin off your face, you stinker!" (she suddenly fell on Ippolit). "He can barely breathe, yet he corrupts others. You've corrupted this boy for me" (she pointed to Kolya again). "He raves about you only, you teach him atheism, you don't believe in God, but you could do with a good whipping, my dear sir! Ah, I spit on you all! ... So you'll go to them, Prince Lev Nikolaevich, you'll go to them tomorrow?" she asked the prince again, almost breathless.
"I will."
"Then I don't want to know you!" She quickly turned to leave,
but suddenly turned back again. "And you'll go to this atheist?" she pointed to Ippolit. "Why are you grinning at me!" she exclaimed somehow unnaturally and suddenly rushed at Ippolit, unable to bear his sarcastic grin.
"Lizaveta Prokofyevna! Lizaveta Prokofyevna! Lizaveta Prokofyevna!" came from all sides at once.
"Maman,it's shameful!" Aglaya cried loudly.
"Don't worry, Aglaya Ivanovna," Ippolit replied calmly. Lizaveta Prokofyevna, who had run up to him, seized him and for some unknown reason held him tightly by the arm; she stood before him, her furious gaze as if riveted to him. "Don't worry, your mamanwill realize that one cannot fall upon a dying man . . . I'm prepared to explain why I laughed ... I'd be very glad to be permitted ..."
Here he suddenly began coughing terribly and for a whole minute could not calm the cough.
"He's dying, and he goes on orating!" exclaimed Lizaveta Prokofyevna, letting go of his arm and watching almost with horror as he wiped the blood from his lips. "What are you talking for! You should simply go to bed ..."
"So it will be," Ippolit replied quietly, hoarsely, and almost in a whisper. "As soon as I go home tonight, I'll lie down at once . . .
in two weeks I'll be dead, I know that . . . Last week –n 40told me himself. . . So, with your permission, I would like to say a couple of words to you in farewell."
"Are you out of your mind, or what? Nonsense! You must be treated, this is no time for talking! Go, go, lie down! . . ." Lizaveta Prokofyevna cried in fright.
"If I lie down, then I won't get up till I die," Ippolit smiled. "Yesterday I wanted to lie down like that and not get up till I die, but I decided to postpone it for two days, while I can still use my legs ... in order to come here with them today . . . only I'm very tired ..."
"Sit down, sit down, don't stand there! Here's a chair for you," Lizaveta Prokofyevna roused herself and moved a chair for him.
"Thank you," Ippolit continued quietly, "and you sit down opposite me, and we'll talk . . . we'll certainly talk, Lizaveta Prokofyevna, I insist on it now . . ." He smiled at her again. "Think of it, today I'm outside and with people for the last time, and in two weeks I'll probably be under the ground. So this will be a sort of farewell both to people and to nature. Though I'm not very
sentimental, you can imagine how glad I am that it all happened here in Pavlovsk: at least you can look at a tree in leaf."
"What's this talk now," Lizaveta Prokofyevna was becoming more and more frightened, "you're all feverish. You were just shrieking and squealing, and now you're out of breath, suffocating!"
"I'll rest presently. Why do you want to deny me my last wish? . . . You know . . . I've long been dreaming of somehow getting to know you, Lizaveta Prokofyevna; I've heard a lot about you . . . from Kolya; he's almost the only one who hasn't abandoned me . . . You're an original woman, an eccentric woman, now I've seen it myself. . . you know, I even loved you a little."
"Lord, and I was really about to hit him."
"It was Aglaya Ivanovna who held you back. I'm not mistaken? This is your daughter Aglaya Ivanovna? She's so pretty that I guessed it was her at first sight earlier, though I'd never seen her before. Grant me at least to look at a beautiful girl for the last time in my life," Ippolit smiled a sort of awkward, crooked smile. "The prince is here, and your husband, and the whole company. Why would you deny me my last wish?"
"A chair!" cried Lizaveta Prokofyevna, but she seized one herself and sat down facing Ippolit. "Kolya," she ordered, "go with him at once, take him home, and tomorrow I myself will be sure to . . ."
"If you'll permit me, I'd like to ask the prince for a cup of tea . . . I'm very tired. You know, Lizaveta Prokofyevna, it seems you wanted to take the prince home with you for tea; stay here instead, we can spend some time together, and the prince will surely give us all tea. Excuse me for giving orders like that. . . But I know you, you're kind, so is the prince . . . we're all so kind it's comical . . ."
The prince got into a flutter, Lebedev rushed headlong out of the room, and Vera ran after him.
"That's true, too," Mrs. Epanchin decided abruptly. "Talk, then, only more softly, and don't get carried away. You've made me all pitiful. . . Prince! You're not worthy of my having tea with you, but so be it, I'm staying, though I ask nobody's forgiveness! Nobody's! Nonsense! . . . Forgive me, though, if I scolded you, Prince– though only if you want to. Though I'm not keeping anybody," she suddenly turned to her husband and daughters with a look of extraordinary wrath, as if it were they who were terribly guilty before her for something, "I can find my way home by myself. . ."
But they did not let her finish. They all came and eagerly gathered around her. The prince at once began begging everyone
to stay for tea and apologized for not having thought of it till then. Even the general was so amiable as to mutter something reassuring and amiably ask Lizaveta Prokofyevna whether it was not, after all, too cool for her on the terrace. He even all but asked Ippolit how long he had been studying at the university, but he did not ask. Evgeny Pavlovich and Prince Shch. suddenly became extremely amiable and merry; the faces of Adelaida and Alexandra, through their continuing astonishment, even expressed pleasure; in short, everyone was obviously glad that Lizaveta Prokofyevna's crisis was over. Only Aglaya was sullen and silently sat down a little way off. The rest of the company also stayed; no one wanted to leave, not even General Ivolgin, to whom Lebedev, however, whispered something in passing, probably something not entirely pleasant, because the general at once effaced himself somewhere in a corner. The prince also went and invited Burdovsky and his company, not leaving anyone out. They muttered with a strained air that they would wait for Ippolit, and withdrew at once to the furthest corner of the terrace, where they all sat down side by side again. Lebedev had probably had tea prepared for himself long ago, because it appeared at once. The clock struck eleven.
X
Ippolit moistened his lips with the cup of tea Vera Lebedev served him, set the cup down on the table, and suddenly, as if abashed, looked around almost in embarrassment.
"Look, Lizaveta Prokofyevna, these cups," he was hurrying somehow strangely, "these china cups, and fine china by the look of it, Lebedev always keeps locked up in a glass case; he never serves them . . . the usual thing, they came with his wife's dowry . . . the usual thing with them . . . and now he's served them, in your honor, naturally, he's so glad . . ."
He wanted to add something more, but found no words.
"He got embarrassed, just as I expected," Evgeny Pavlovich suddenly whispered in the prince's ear. "That's dangerous, eh? The surest sign that now, out of spite, he'll pull off something so eccentric that even Lizaveta Prokofyevna may not be able to sit it out."
The prince looked at him questioningly.
"You're not afraid of eccentricity?" Evgeny Pavlovich added. "I'm not either, I even wish for it; in fact, all I want is that our dear
Lizaveta Prokofyevna be punished, and that without fail, today, right now; I don't want to leave without that. You seem to be feverish?"
"Later, don't interfere. Yes, I'm unwell," the prince replied distractedly and even impatiently. He had heard his name, Ippolit was speaking about him.
"You don't believe it?" Ippolit laughed hysterically. "That's as it should be, but the prince will believe it from the first and won't be the least surprised."
"Do you hear, Prince?" Lizaveta Prokofyevna turned to him. "Do you hear?"
There was laughter all around. Lebedev fussily thrust himself forward and squirmed right in front of Lizaveta Prokofyevna.
"He says that this clown here, your landlord . . . corrected the article for that gentleman, the one that was just read about you."
The prince looked at Lebedev in surprise.
"Why are you silent?" Lizaveta Prokofyevna even stamped her foot.
"Well," the prince murmured, continuing to scrutinize Lebedev, "I can already see that he did."
"Is it true?" Lizaveta Prokofyevna quickly turned to Lebedev.
"The real truth, Your Excellency!" Lebedev replied firmly and unshakeably, placing his hand on his heart.
"It's as if he's boasting!" she all but jumped in her chair.
"I'm mean, mean!" Lebedev murmured, beginning to beat his breast and bowing his head lower and lower.
"What do I care if you're mean! He thinks he can say 'I'm mean' and wriggle out of it. Aren't you ashamed, Prince, to keep company with such wretched little people, I say it again? I'll never forgive you!
"The prince will forgive me!" Lebedev said with conviction and affection.
"Solely out of nobility," Keller, suddenly jumping over to them, began loudly and resoundingly, addressing Lizaveta Prokofyevna directly, "solely out of nobility, ma'am, and so as not to give away a compromised friend, did I conceal the fact of the correcting earlier, though he suggested chucking us down the stairs, as you heard yourself. So as to reestablish the truth, I confess that I actually did turn to him, for six roubles, though not at all for the style, but, essentially, as a competent person, to find out the facts, which for the most part were unknown to me. About his gaiters,
about his appetite at the Swiss professor's, about the fifty roubles instead of two hundred and fifty, in short, that whole grouping, all belongs to him, for six roubles, but the style wasn't corrected."
"I must observe," Lebedev interrupted him with feverish impatience and in a sort of creeping voice, while the laughter spread more and more, "that I corrected only the first half of the article, but since we disagreed in the middle and quarreled over an idea, I left the second half of the article uncorrected, sir, so all that's illiterate there (and it is illiterate!) can't be ascribed to me, sir . . ."
"See what he's fussing about!" cried Lizaveta Prokofyevna.
"If I may ask," Evgeny Pavlovich turned to Keller, "when was the article corrected?"
"Yesterday morning," Keller reported, "we had a meeting, promising on our word of honor to keep the secret on both sides."
"That was when he was crawling before you and assuring you of his devotion! Ah, wretched little people! I don't need your Pushkin, and your daughter needn't come to see me!"
Lizaveta Prokofyevna was about to get up, but suddenly turned irritably to the laughing Ippolit:
"What is it, my dear, have you decided to make me a laughingstock here?"
"God save us," Ippolit smiled crookedly, "but I'm struck most of all by your extreme eccentricity, Lizaveta Prokofyevna; I confess, I deliberately slipped that in about Lebedev, I knew how it would affect you, affect you alone, because the prince really will forgive him and probably already has . . . maybe has even already found an excuse in his mind—is it so, Prince, am I right?"
He was breathless, his strange excitement was growing with every word.
"Well? . . ." Lizaveta Prokofyevna said wrathfully, surprised at his tone. "Well?"
"About you I've already heard a lot, in that same vein . . . with great gladness . . . have learned to have the highest respect for you," Ippolit went on.
He was saying one thing, but as if he wanted to say something quite different with the same words. He spoke with a shade of mockery and at the same time was disproportionately agitated, looked around suspiciously, was evidently confused and at a loss for every word, all of which, together with his consumptive look and strange, glittering, and as if frenzied gaze, involuntarily continued to draw people's attention to him.
"I'd be quite surprised, however, not knowing society (I admit it), that you not only remained in the company of our people tonight, which is quite unsuitable for you, but that you also kept these . . . girls here to listen to a scandalous affair, though they've already read it all in novels. However, I may not know . . . because I get confused, but, in any case, who except you would have stayed ... at the request of a boy (yes, a boy, again I admit it) to spend an evening with him and take . . . part in everything and ... so as ... to be ashamed the next day ... (I agree, however, that I'm not putting it right), I praise all that highly and deeply respect it, though by the mere look of his excellency your husband one can see how unpleasant it all is for him . . . heh, hee!" he tittered, quite confused, and suddenly went into such a fit of coughing that for some two minutes he was unable to go on.
"He even choked!" Lizaveta Prokofyevna said coldly and sharply, studying him with stern curiosity. "Well, dear boy, enough of you. It's time to go!"
"And allow me, my dear sir, for my part, to point out to you," Ivan Fyodorovich, having lost all patience, suddenly said vexedly, "that my wife is here visiting Prince Lev Nikolaevich, our mutual friend and neighbor, and that in any case it is not for you, young man, to judge Lizaveta Prokofyevna's actions, nor to refer aloud and in my teeth to what is written on my face. No, sir. And if my wife stayed here," he went on, growing more and more vexed with every word, "it was sooner out of amazement, sir, and an understandable contemporary curiosity to see some strange young people. And I myself stayed, as I stop sometimes in the street when I see something that can be looked upon as ... as ... as .. ."
"As a rarity," prompted Evgeny Pavlovich.
"Excellent and right," rejoiced his excellency, who had become a bit muddled in his comparison, "precisely as a rarity. But in any case, for me what is most amazing and even chagrining, if it may be put that way grammatically, is that you, young man, were not even able to understand that Lizaveta Prokofyevna stayed with you now because you are ill—if you are indeed dying—out of compassion, so to speak, on account of your pathetic words, sir, and that no sort of mud can cling to her name, qualities, and importance . . . Lizaveta Prokofyevna!" the flushed general concluded, "if you want to go, let us take leave of our good prince . . ."
"Thank you for the lesson, General," Ippolit interrupted gravely and unexpectedly, looking at him pensively.
"Let's go, maman,how long must this continue!" Aglaya said impatiently and wrathfully, getting up from her chair.
"Two more minutes, my dear Ivan Fyodorovich, if you permit," Lizaveta Prokofyevna turned to her husband with dignity, "it seems to me that he's all feverish and simply raving; I'm convinced by his eyes; he cannot be left like this. Lev Nikolaevich! May he spend the night here, so that they won't have to drag him to Petersburg tonight? Cher prince,are you bored?" she suddenly turned to Prince Shch. for some reason. "Come here, Alexandra, your hair needs putting right, my dear."
She put right her hair, which did not need putting right, and kissed her; that was all she had called her for.
"I considered you capable of development . . ." Ippolit spoke again, coming out of his pensiveness. "Yes! this is what I wanted to say." He was glad, as if he had suddenly remembered: "Burdovsky here sincerely wants to protect his mother, isn't that so? And it turns out that he disgraces her. The prince here wants to help Burdovsky, offers him, with purity of heart, his tender friendship and his capital, and is maybe the only one among you all who does not feel loathing for him, and here they stand facing each other like real enemies . . . Ha, ha, ha! You all hate Burdovsky, because in your opinion his attitude towards his mother is not beautiful and graceful—right? right? right? And you're all terribly fond of the beauty and gracefulness of forms, you stand on that alone, isn't it so? (I've long suspected it was on that alone!) Well, know, then, that maybe not one of you has loved his mother as Burdovsky has! You, Prince, I know, sent money to Burdovsky's mother on the quiet, through Ganechka, and I'll bet—hee, hee, hee!" (he giggled hysterically), "I'll bet that Burdovsky himself will now accuse you of indelicacy of form and disrespect for his mother, by God, he will, ha, ha, ha!"
Here he again lost his breath and began to cough.
"Well, is that all? Is that all now, have you said it all? Well, go to bed now, you have a fever," Lizaveta Prokofyevna interrupted impatiently, not taking her worried eyes off him. "Ah, Lord! He's still talking!"
"It seems you're laughing? Why must you keep laughing at me? I've noticed that you keep laughing at me," he suddenly turned anxiously and irritably to Evgeny Pavlovich; the latter was indeed laughing.
"I merely want to ask you, Mr. . . . Ippolit . . . sorry, I've forgotten your last name."
"Mr. Terentyev," said the prince.
"Yes, Terentyev, thank you, Prince, it was mentioned earlier, but it slipped my mind ... I wanted to ask you, Mr. Terentyev, is it true what I've heard, that you are of the opinion that you need only talk to the people through the window for a quarter of an hour, and they will at once agree with you in everything and follow you at once?"
"I may very well have said it . . ." Ippolit replied, as if trying to recall something. "Certainly I said it!" he suddenly added, becoming animated again and looking firmly at Evgeny Pavlovich. "And what of it?"
"Precisely nothing; merely for my own information, to add it all up."
Evgeny Pavlovich fell silent, but Ippolit went on looking at him in impatient expectation.
"Well, are you finished, or what?" Lizaveta Prokofyevna turned to Evgeny Pavlovich. "Finish quickly, dear boy, it's time he went to bed. Or don't you know how?" (She was terribly vexed.)
"I wouldn't mind adding," Evgeny Pavlovich went on with a smile, "that everything I've heard from your comrades, Mr. Terentyev, and everything you've just explained, and with such unquestionable talent, boils down, in my opinion, to the theory of the triumph of rights, before all, and beyond all, and even to the exclusion of all else, and perhaps even before analyzing what makes up these rights. Perhaps I'm mistaken?"
"Of course you're mistaken, and I don't even understand you . . . go on."
There was also a murmur in the corner. Lebedev's nephew muttered something in a half-whisper.
"There's not much more," Evgeny Pavlovich went on. "I merely wanted to observe that from this case it's possible to jump over directly to the right of force, that is, to the right of the singular fist and personal wanting, as, incidentally, has happened very often in this world. Proudhon stopped at the right of force. 41In the American war, many of the most progressive liberals declared themselves on the side of the plantation owners, in this sense, that Negroes are Negroes, inferior to the white race, and consequently the right of force belongs to the whites ..."
"Well?"
"So you don't deny the right of force?"
"Go on."
"You're consistent, then. I only wanted to observe that from the right of force to the right of tigers and crocodiles and even to Danilov and Gorsky is not a long step."
"I don't know; go on."
Ippolit was barely listening to Evgeny Pavlovich, and even if he said "well" and "go on" to him, it seemed to be more from an old, adopted habit of conversation, and not out of attention and curiosity.
"There's nothing more . . . that's all."
"Incidentally, I'm not angry with you," Ippolit suddenly concluded quite unexpectedly and, hardly with full consciousness, held out his hand, even with a smile. Evgeny Pavlovich was surprised at first, but touched the hand held out to him with a most serious air, as though receiving forgiveness.
"I cannot help adding," he said in the same ambiguously respectful tone, "my gratitude to you for the attention with which you have allowed me to speak, because it has been my oft-repeated observation that our liberal has never yet been able to allow anyone to have his own convictions and not reply at once to his opponent with abuse or even worse ..."
