Текст книги "The Idiot"

Автор книги: Федор Достоевский

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"But in three days you'll come yourself and invite me . . . Well, aren't you ashamed? These are your best feelings, why be ashamed of them? You only torment yourself."

"I'll die before I ever invite you! I'll forget your name! I have forgotten it!"

She rushed for the door.

"I've already been forbidden to visit you anyway!" the prince called after her.

"Wha-a-at? Who has forbidden you?"

She instantly turned around, as if pricked by a needle. The prince hesitated before answering; he felt he had made an accidental but serious slip.

"Who forbade you?" Lizaveta Prokofyevna cried furiously.

"Aglaya Ivanovna did . . ."

"When? Well, spe-e-eak!!!"

"This morning she sent to tell me that I must never dare come to see you."

Lizaveta Prokofyevna stood like a post, but she was thinking it through.

"What did she send? Whom did she send? Through that brat? Verbally?" she suddenly exclaimed again.

"I received a note," said the prince.

"Where? Give it to me! At once!"

The prince thought for a moment, but nevertheless took from his waistcoat pocket a careless scrap of paper on which was written:

Prince Lev Nikolaevich!

If, after all that has happened, you intend to surprise me by visiting our dacha, then you may be assured that you will not find me among the delighted.

Aglaya Epanchin.

Lizaveta Prokofyevna thought for a moment; then she suddenly rushed to the prince, seized him by the arm, and dragged him with her.

"Now! Go! On purpose, now, this minute!" she cried out in a fit of extraordinary excitement and impatience.

"But you're subjecting me to . . ."

"To what? Innocent simpleton! As if he's not even a man! Well, now I'll see it all for myself, with my own eyes . . ."

"Let me at least take my hat . . ."

"Here's your wretched little hat, let's go! He couldn't even choose the fashion tastefully! . . . She did it . . . She did it after today's . . . it's delirium," Lizaveta Prokofyevna was muttering, dragging the prince with her and not letting go of his arm even for a moment. "Earlier today I defended you, I said aloud that you were a fool, because you didn't come . . . otherwise she wouldn't have written such a witless note! An improper note! Improper for a noble, educated, intelligent, intelligent girl! . . . Hm," she went on, "of course, she herself was vexed that you didn't come, only she didn't reckon that she ought not to write like that to an idiot, because he'd take it literally, which is what happened. What are you doing eavesdropping?" she cried, catching herself in a slip. "She needs a buffoon like you, it's long since she's seen one, that's why she wants you! And I'm glad, glad that she's now going to sharpen her teeth on you! You deserve it. And she knows how, oh, she does know how! ..."

PART THREE

I

They constantly complain that in our country there are no practical people; that of political people, for example, there are many; of generals there are also many; of various managers, however many you need, you can at once find any sort you like—but of practical people there are none. At least everybody complains that there are none. They say that on certain railway lines there are even no decent attendants; to set up a more or less passable administration for some steamship company is, they say, quite impossible. In one place you hear that on some newly opened line the trains collided or fell off a bridge; in another they write that a train nearly spent the winter in a snowy field: people went on a few hours' journey and got stuck for five days in the snow. In another they tell about many tons of goods rotting in one place for two or three months, waiting to be transported, and in yet another they claim (though this is even hard to believe) that an administrator, that is, some supervisor, when pestered by some merchant's agent about transporting his goods, instead of transporting the goods, administered one to the agent's teeth, and proceeded to explain his administrative act as the result of "hot temper." It seems there are so many offices in the government service that it is frightening to think of it; everybody has served, everybody is serving, everybody intends to serve—given such material, you wonder, how can they not make up some sort of decent administration for a steamship company?

To this an extremely simple reply is sometimes given—so simple that it is even hard to believe such an explanation. True, they say, in our country everybody has served or is serving, and for two hundred years now this has been going on in the best German fashion, from forefathers to great-grandchildren—but it is the serving people who are the most impractical, and it has gone so far that abstractness and lack of practical knowledge were regarded even among civil servants themselves, still recently, as almost the greatest virtues and recommendations. However, we are wrong to have begun talking about civil servants; in fact, we wanted to talk

about practical people. Here there is no doubt that timidity and a total lack of personal initiative have always been regarded among us as the chiefest and best sign of the practical man—and are so regarded even now. But why blame only ourselves—if this opinion can be considered an accusation? Lack of originality, everywhere, all over the world, from time immemorial, has always been considered the foremost quality and the best recommendation of the active, efficient and practical man, and at least ninety-nine out of a hundred people (at least that) have always held to that notion, and only perhaps one out of a hundred people has constantly looked and still looks at it differently.

Inventors and geniuses, at the beginning of their careers (and very often at the end as well), have almost always been regarded in society as no more than fools—that is a most routine observation, well known to everyone. If, for instance, in the course of decades everyone dragged his money to the Lombard and piled up billions there at four percent, then, naturally, when the Lombards ceased to exist and everyone was left to his own initiative, the greater part of those millions ought certainly to have perished in stock-market fever and in the hands of swindlers—decency and decorum even demanded it. Precisely decorum; if decorous timidity and a decent lack of originality have constituted among us up to now, according to a generally accepted conviction, the inalienable quality of the sensible and respectable man, it would be all too unrespectable and even indecent to change quite so suddenly. What mother, for instance, tenderly loving her child, would not become frightened and sick with fear if her son or daughter went slightly off the rails: "No, better let him be happy and live in prosperity without originality," every mother thinks as she rocks her baby to sleep. And our nannies, rocking babies to sleep, from time immemorial have cooed and crooned: "You shall go all dressed in gold, you shall be a general bold!" And so, even among our nannies, the rank of general was considered the limit of Russian happiness and, therefore, was the most popular national ideal of beautiful, peaceful felicity. And, indeed, who among us, having done a mediocre job on his exams and served for thirty-five years, could not finally make a general of himself and squirrel away a certain sum with a Lombard? Thus the Russian man, almost without any effort, finally attained the title of a sensible and practical man. In essence, the only one among us who cannot make a general of himself is the original—in other words, the troublesome—man. Perhaps there is

some misunderstanding here, but, generally speaking, that seems to be so, and our society has been fully just in defining its ideal of the practical man. Nevertheless, we have still said much that is superfluous; we wanted, in fact, to say a few clarifying words about our acquaintances the Epanchins. These people, or at least the more reasoning members of the family, constantly suffered from one nearly general family quality, the direct opposite of those virtues we have discussed above. Without fully understanding the fact (because it is very difficult to understand), they occasionally suspected all the same that in their family somehow nothing went the way it did with everyone else. With everyone else things went smoothly, with them unevenly; everyone else rolled along the rails—they constantly went off the rails. Everyone else became constantly and decorously timid, but they did not. True, Lizaveta Prokofyevna could even become too frightened, but all the same this was not that decorous social timidity they longed for. However, perhaps only Lizaveta Prokofyevna was worried: the girls were still young—though very perspicacious and ironic folk—and the general, though he could perspicate (not without effort, however), in difficult cases only said "Hm!" and in the end placed all his hopes in Lizaveta Prokofyevna. Therefore the responsibility lay with her. And it was not, for instance, that the family was distinguished by some initiative of their own, or went off the rails by a conscious inclination for originality, which would have been quite improper. Oh, no! There was, in reality, nothing of the sort, that is, no consciously set goal, but all the same it came out in the end that the Epanchin family, though very respectable, was still not quite the way all respectable families in general ought to be. Recently Lizaveta Prokofyevna had begun to find only herself and her "unfortunate" character to blame for everything—which added to her suffering. She constantly scolded herself with being a "foolish, indecent eccentric" and suffered from insecurity, was continually at a loss, could not find her way out of some most ordinary concurrence of things, and constantly exaggerated her trouble.

We already mentioned at the beginning of our story that the Epanchins enjoyed universal and genuine respect. Even General Ivan Fyodorovich himself, a man of obscure origin, was received everywhere indisputably and with respect. And this respect he deserved, first, as a wealthy man and "not one of the least" and, second, as a fully respectable man, though none too bright. But a certain dullness of mind, it seems, is almost a necessary quality, if

not of every active man, at least of every serious maker of money. Finally, the general had respectable manners, was modest, could keep his mouth shut and at the same time not let anyone step on his foot—and not only because of his generalship, but also as an honest and noble man. Most important of all, he was a man with powerful connections. As for Lizaveta Prokofyevna, she, as has been explained above, was of good family, though with us origin is not so highly regarded if it does not come with the necessary connections. But it turned out in the end that she also had connections; she was respected and, in the end, loved by such persons that, after them, naturally, everyone had to respect and receive her. There is no doubt that her family sufferings were groundless, had negligible cause, and were ridiculously exaggerated; but if you have a wart on your nose or forehead, it seems to you that all anyone in the world does and has ever done is to look at your wart, laugh at it, and denounce you for it, though for all that you may have discovered America. Nor is there any doubt that in society Lizaveta Prokofyevna was indeed considered an "eccentric"; but for all that she was indisputably respected; yet Lizaveta Prokofyevna began in the end not to believe that she was respected—that was her whole trouble. Looking at her daughters, she was tormented by the suspicion that she was continually hindering their careers in some way, that her character was ridiculous, indecent, and unbearable—for which, naturally, she continually accused her daughters and Ivan Fyodorovich, and spent whole days quarreling with them and at the same time loving them to distraction and almost to the point of passion.

Most of all she was tormented by the suspicion that her daughters were becoming the same sort of "eccentrics" as she, and that no such girls existed in the world, or ought to exist. "They're growing up into nihilists, that's what!" she constantly repeated to herself. Over the last year and especially most recently this sad thought had grown stronger and stronger in her. "First of all, why don't they get married?" she constantly asked herself. "So as to torment their mother—in that they see the whole purpose of their life, and that is so, of course, because there are all these new ideas, this whole cursed woman question! Didn't Aglaya decide half a year ago to cut off her magnificent hair? (Lord, even I never had such hair in my day!) She already had the scissors in her hand, I had to go on my knees and beg her! . . . Well, I suppose she did it out of wickedness, to torment her mother, because she's a wicked,

willful, spoiled girl, but above all wicked, wicked, wicked! But didn't this fat Alexandra also follow her to cut off that mop of hers, and not out of wickedness, not out of caprice, but sincerely, like a fool, because Aglaya convinced her that she'd sleep more peacefully and her head wouldn't ache? And they've had so many suitors—it's five years now—so many, so many! And really, there were some good, even some excellent people among them! What are they waiting for? Why don't they get married? Only so as to vex their mother—there's no other reason! None! None!"

Finally, the sun also rose for her maternal heart; at least one daughter, at least Adelaida, would finally be settled. "That's at least one off my back," Lizaveta Prokofyevna used to say, when she had to express herself aloud (to herself she expressed it much more tenderly). And how nicely, how decently the whole thing got done; even in society it was spoken of respectfully. A known man, a prince, with a fortune, a nice man, and on top of that one pleasing to her heart: what, it seemed, could be better? But she had feared less for Adelaida than for her other daughters even before, though the girl's artistic inclinations sometimes greatly troubled Lizaveta Prokofyevna's ceaselessly doubting heart. "But, then, she's of cheerful character and has much good sense to go with it—which means that the girl won't be lost," she used to comfort herself in the end. She feared most of all for Aglaya. Incidentally, with regard to the eldest, Alexandra, Lizaveta Prokofyevna did not know whether to fear for her or not. Sometimes it seemed to her that "the girl was completely lost"; twenty-five years old—meaning she would be left an old maid. And "with such beauty! ..." Lizaveta Prokofyevna even wept for her at night, while Alexandra Ivanovna spent those same nights sleeping the most peaceful sleep. "But what is she—a nihilist, or simply a fool?" That she was not a fool—of that, incidentally, Lizaveta Prokofyevna had no doubt: she had extreme respect for Alexandra Ivanovna's opinions and liked to consult her. But that she was a "wet hen"—of that there was no doubt: "So placid, there's no shaking her up!" However, "wet hens aren't placid either—pah! They've got me totally confused!" Lizaveta Prokofyevna had some inexplicable commiserating sympathy with Alexandra Ivanovna, more even than with Aglaya, who was her idol. But her acrimonious outbursts (in which her maternal care and sympathy chiefly expressed itself), her taunts, such names as "wet hen," only made Alexandra laugh. It would reach the point where the most trifling things would anger Lizaveta Prokofyevna terribly

and put her beside herself. Alexandra Ivanovna liked, for instance, to sleep long hours and usually had many dreams; but her dreams were always distinguished by a sort of extraordinary emptiness and innocence—suitable for a seven-year-old child; and so even this innocence of her dreams began for some reason to annoy her mother. Once Alexandra Ivanovna saw nine hens in a dream, and this caused a formal quarrel between her and her mother—why?– it is difficult to explain. Once, and only once, she managed to have a dream about something that seemed original—she dreamed of a monk, alone, in some dark room, which she was afraid to enter. The dream was at once conveyed triumphantly to Lizaveta Prokofyevna by her two laughing sisters; but the mother again became angry and called all three of them fools. "Hm! She's placid as a fool, and really a perfect 'wet hen,' there's no shaking her up, yet she's sad, there are times when she looks so sad. What, what is she grieving about?" Sometimes she put this question to Ivan Fyodorovich, hysterically, as was usual with her, threateningly, expecting an immediate answer. Ivan Fyodorovich would hem, frown, shrug his shoulders, and, spreading his arms, finally decide:

"She needs a husband!"

"Only God grant he's not one like you, Ivan Fyodorych," Lizaveta Prokofyevna would finally explode like a bomb, "not like you in his opinions and verdicts, Ivan Fyodorych; not such a boorish boor as you, Ivan Fyodorych . . ."

Ivan Fyodorovich would immediately run for his life, and Lizaveta Prokofyevna, after her explosion,would calm down. Naturally, towards evening that same day she would inevitably become extraordinarily attentive, quiet, affectionate, and respectful towards Ivan Fyodorovich, towards her "boorish boor" Ivan Fyodorovich, her kind, dear, and adored Ivan Fyodorovich, because all her life she had loved and had even been in love with her Ivan Fyodorovich, which Ivan Fyodorovich himself knew excellently well and for which he infinitely respected his Lizaveta Prokofyevna.

But her chief and constant torment was Aglaya.

"Exactly, exactly like me, my portrait in all respects," Lizaveta Prokofyevna said to herself, "a willful, nasty little demon! Nihilistic, eccentric, crazy, wicked, wicked, wicked! Oh, Lord, how unhappy she's going to be!"

But, as we have already said, the risen sun softened and brightened everything for a moment. There was nearly a month in Lizaveta Prokofyevna's life when she rested completely from all

her worries. On the occasion of Adelaida's impending wedding there was also talk in society about Aglaya, while Aglaya everywhere bore herself so beautifully, so equably, so intelligently, so victoriously, a little proudly, but that was so becoming to her! She was so affectionate, so affable to her mother for the whole month! ("True, this Evgeny Pavlovich must still be very closely scrutinized, plumbed to the depths, and besides, Aglaya doesn't seem to favor him much more than the others!") All the same she had suddenly become such a nice girl—and how pretty she is, God, how pretty she is, and getting better day by day! And then . . .

And then that nasty little prince, that worthless little idiot, appeared and everything immediately got stirred up, everything in the house turned upside down!

What had happened, though?

For other people, probably, nothing would have happened. But this was what made Lizaveta Prokofyevna different, that in a combination and confusion of the most ordinary things, she always managed, through her ever-present worry, to discern something that inspired in her, sometimes to the point of morbidity, a most insecure, most inexplicable, and therefore most oppressive, fear. How must it have been for her now, when suddenly, through that whole muddle of ridiculous and groundless worries, there actually came a glimpse of something that indeed seemed important, something that indeed seemed worthy of alarms, doubts, and suspicions.

"And how dared they, how dared they write me that cursed anonymous letter about that creaturebeing in touch with Aglaya?" Lizaveta Prokofyevna thought all the way, as she dragged the prince with her, and at home, when she sat him at the round table where the whole family was gathered. "How dared they even think of it? But I'd die of shame if I believed the smallest drop of it or showed the letter to Aglaya! Such mockery of us, the Epanchins! And all, all through Ivan Fyodorych, all through you, Ivan Fyodorych! Ah, why didn't we move to Elagin: I told them we should move to Elagin! Maybe it was Varka who wrote the letter, I know, or maybe . . . it's all, all Ivan Fyodorych's fault! That creaturepulled that stunt on him in memory of their former connections, to show him what a fool he is, just as she laughed at him before, the foolish man, and led him by the nose when he brought her those pearls . .. And in the end we're mixed up in it all the same, your daughters are, Ivan Fyodorych, girls, young ladies, young ladies of the best society, marriageable; they were right there, stood there, heard

everything, and also got mixed up in the story with the nasty boys, be glad that they were there as well and listening! I won't forgive him, I won't forgive that wretched princeling, I'll never forgive him! And why has Aglaya been in hysterics for three days, why has she nearly quarreled with her sisters, even Alexandra, whose hands she always used to kiss like her mother's—she respected her so much? Why has she been setting everyone riddles for three days? What has Gavrila Ivolgin got to do with it? Why did she take to praising Gavrila Ivolgin yesterday and today and then burst into tears? Why does that anonymous letter mention that cursed 'poor knight,' when she never even showed the prince's letter to her sisters? And why . . . what, what made me go running to him like a singed cat and drag him here myself? Lord, I've lost my mind, what have I done now! To talk with a young man about my daughter's secrets, and what's more . . . what's more, about secrets that all but concern him! Lord, it's a good thing at least that he's an idiot and . . . and ... a friend of the house! Only, can it be that Aglaya got tempted by such a little freak? Lord, what drivel I'm spouting! Pah! We're originals . . . they should put us all under glass and show us to people, me first, ten kopecks for admission. I won't forgive you that, Ivan Fyodorych, I'll never forgive you! And why doesn't she give him a dressing-down now? She promised to give him a dressing-down and yet she doesn't do it! There, there, she's looking at him all eyes, says nothing, doesn't go away, stays, and it was she who told him not to come . . . He sits there all pale. And that cursed, cursed babbler Evgeny Pavlych keeps up the whole conversation by himself! Look at him talking away, not letting anybody put a word in. I'd have learned everything, if only I could have turned it the right way . . ."

The prince indeed sat, all but pale, at the round table and, it seemed, was at one and the same time extremely frightened and, for moments, in an incomprehensible, exhilarating ecstasy. Oh, how afraid he was to look in that direction, into that corner from which two familiar dark eyes gazed intently at him, and at the same time how seized with happiness he was to be sitting among them again, to hear the familiar voice—after what she had written to him. "Lord, what will she say now!" He himself had not yet uttered a single word and listened tensely to the "talking-away" Evgeny Pavlovich, who was rarely in such a pleased and excited state of mind as now, that evening. The prince listened to him and for a long time hardly understood a single word. Except for Ivan

Fyodorovich, who had not yet come from Petersburg, everyone was gathered. Prince Shch. was also there. It seemed they were going to go and listen to music a little later, before tea. The present conversation had evidently started before the prince's arrival. Soon Kolya, appearing from somewhere, slipped on to the terrace. "So he's received here as before," the prince thought to himself.

The Epanchins' dacha was a luxurious place, in the style of a Swiss chalet, gracefully adorned on all sides with flowers and leaves. It was surrounded on all sides by a small but beautiful flower garden. Everyone was sitting on the terrace as at the prince's; only the terrace was somewhat more spacious and decorated more smartly.

The theme of the conversation they were having seemed not to everyone's liking; the conversation, as could be guessed, had begun as the result of an impatient argument, and, of course, everyone would have liked to change the subject, but Evgeny Pavlovich seemed to persist all the more and regardless of the impression; the prince's arrival aroused him still more, as it were. Lizaveta Prokofyevna scowled, though she did not understand it all. Aglaya, who was sitting apart from everyone, almost in the corner, would not leave, listened, and remained stubbornly silent.

"Excuse me," Evgeny Pavlovich protested hotly, "but I am not saying anything against liberalism. Liberalism is not a sin; it is a necessary part of the whole, which without it would fall apart or atrophy; liberalism has the same right to exist as the most well-mannered conservatism; what I am attacking is Russian liberalism, and I repeat again that I attack it essentially because a Russian liberal is not a Russianliberal, but is a non-Russianliberal. Give me a Russian liberal and I'll kiss him at once right in front of you."

"Provided he wants to kiss you," said Alexandra Ivanovna, who was extraordinarily excited. Her cheeks even reddened more than usual.

"Just look," Lizaveta Prokofyevna thought to herself, "she sleeps and eats and there's no shaking her up, and then suddenly once a year she goes and starts talking so that you can only spread your arms in wonder."

The prince fleetingly noted that Alexandra Ivanovna seemed very displeased because Evgeny Pavlovich was talking too cheerfully, talking about a serious subject and as if excitedly, and at the same time as if he were joking.

"I was maintaining a moment ago, just before your arrival,

Prince," Evgeny Pavlovich went on, "that up to now our liberals have come from only two strata, the former landowners (abolished) and the seminarians. ¹And as the two estates have finally turned into absolute castes, into something absolutely cut off from the nation, and the more so the further it goes, from generation to generation, it means that all they have done and are doing is absolutely not national . . ."

"How's that? You mean all that's been done—it's all not Russian?" Prince Shch. objected.

"Not national; though it's in Russian, it's not national; our liberals aren't national, our conservatives aren't national, none of them . . . And you may be sure that our nation will recognize nothing of what's been done by landowners and seminarians, either now or later . . ."

"That's a good one! How can you maintain such a paradox, if it's serious? I cannot allow such outbursts concerning Russian landowners, you're a Russian landowner yourself," Prince Shch. objected heatedly.

"But I'm not speaking of the Russian landowner in the sense in which you're taking it. It's a respectable estate, if only for the fact that I myself belong to it; especially now, when it has ceased to exist ..."

"Can it be that there was nothing national in literature either?" Alexandra Ivanovna interrupted.

"I'm not an expert in literature, but Russian literature, in my opinion, is all non-Russian, except perhaps for Lomonosov, Pushkin, and Gogol." ²

"First, that's not so little, and second, one of them is from the people and the other two are landowners," laughed Adelaida.

"Quite right, but don't be triumphant. Since up to now only those three of all Russian writers have each managed to say something that is actually his,his own, not borrowed from anyone, those same three thereby immediately became national. Whoever of the Russian people says, writes, or does something of his own, his own,inalienable and unborrowed, inevitably becomes national, even if he speaks Russian poorly. For me that is an axiom. But it wasn't literature that we started talking about, we were talking about socialists, and the conversation started from them. Well, so I maintain that we don't have a single Russian socialist; we don't have and never had any, because all our socialists also come from the landowners or the seminarians. All our inveterate, much-advertised

socialists, here as well as abroad, are nothing more than liberals who come from landowners from the time of serfdom. Why do you laugh? Give me their books, give me their tracts, their memoirs, and I undertake, without being a literary critic, to write a most persuasive literary critique, in which I shall make it clear as day that every page of their books, pamphlets, and memoirs has been written first of all by a former Russian landowner. Their spite, indignation, and wit are a landowner's (even pre-Famusovian! ³); their rapture, their tears—real, perhaps even genuine tears, but– they're a landowner's! A landowner's or a seminarian's . . . Again you laugh, and you're laughing, too, Prince? You also disagree?"

Indeed, they were all laughing, and the prince smiled, too.

"I can't say so directly yet whether I agree or disagree," the prince said, suddenly ceasing to smile and giving a start, like a caught schoolboy, "but I can assure you that I'm listening to you with extreme pleasure ..."

He was all but breathless as he said this, and a cold sweat even broke out on his forehead. These were the first words he had uttered since he sat down. He was about to try looking around, but did not dare; Evgeny Pavlovich caught his movement and smiled.

"I'll tell you one fact, ladies and gentlemen," he went on in the same tone, that is, with extraordinary enthusiasm and warmth and at the same time almost laughing, perhaps at his own words, "a fact, the observation and even the discovery of which I have the honor of ascribing to myself, and even to myself alone; at least it has not been spoken of or written about anywhere. This fact expresses the whole essence of Russian liberalism of the sort I'm talking about. First of all, what is liberalism, generally speaking, if not an attack (whether reasonable or mistaken is another question) on the existing order of things? Isn't that so? Well, so my fact consists in this, that Russian liberalism is not an attack on the existing order of things, but is an attack on the very essence of our things, on the things themselves and not merely on their order, not on Russian order, but on Russia itself. My liberal has reached the point where he denies Russia itself, that is, he hates and beats his own mother. Every unfortunate and unsuccessful Russian fact evokes laughter in him and all but delight. He hates Russian customs, Russian history, everything. If there's any vindication for him, it is perhaps only that he doesn't understand what he's doing and takes his hatred of Russia for the most fruitful liberalism (oh,