Текст книги "The Idiot"

Автор книги: Федор Достоевский

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 51 страниц)

"Ah! Oh!" the clerk went all awry and was even trembling. "And the deceased would have hounded you into the next world for ten roubles, let alone ten thousand," he nodded to the prince. The

prince studied Rogozhin with curiosity; the man seemed still paler at that moment.

"Hounded!" Rogozhin repeated. "What do you know? He found out all about it at once," he continued to the prince, "and Zalyozhev also went blabbing to everybody he met. The old man took me and locked me upstairs, and admonished me for a whole hour. 'I'm just getting you prepared now,' he said. 'I'll come back later to say good night.' And what do you think? The old gray fellow went to Nastasya Filippovna, bowed to the ground before her, pleaded and wept. She finally brought the box and threw it at him: 'Here are your earrings for you, graybeard, and now they're worth ten times more to me, since Parfyon got them under such a menace. Give my regards to Parfyon Semyonych,' she says, 'and thank him for me.' Well, and meanwhile, with my mother's blessing, I got twenty roubles from Seryozhka Protushin and went by train to Pskov, and arrived there in a fever. The old women started reading prayers at me, and I sat there drunk, then went and spent my last money in the pot-houses, lay unconscious in the street all night, and by morning was delirious, and the dogs bit me all over during the night. I had a hard time recovering."

"Well, well, sir, now our Nastasya Filippovna's going to start singing!" the clerk tittered, rubbing his hands. "Now, my good sir, it's not just pendants! Now we'll produce such pendants . . ."

"If you say anything even once about Nastasya Filippovna, by God, I'll give you a whipping, even if you did go around with Likhachev!" cried Rogozhin, seizing him firmly by the arm.

"If you whip me, it means you don't reject me! Whip me! Do it and you put your mark on me . . . But here we are!"

Indeed, they were entering the station. Though Rogozhin said he had left secretly, there were several people waiting for him. They shouted and waved their hats.

"Hah, Zalyozhev's here, too!" Rogozhin muttered, looking at them with a triumphant and even as if spiteful smile, and he suddenly turned to the prince. "Prince, I don't know why I've come to love you. Maybe because I met you at such a moment, though I met him, too" (he pointed to Lebedev), "and don't love him. Come and see me, Prince. We'll take those wretched gaiters off you; I'll dress you in a top-notch marten coat; I'll have the best of tailcoats made for you, a white waistcoat, or whatever you like; I'll stuff your pockets with money, and . . . we'll go to see Nastasya Filippovna! Will you come or not?"

"Hearken, Prince Lev Nikolaevich!" Lebedev picked up imposingly and solemnly. "Ah, don't let it slip away! Don't let it slip away!"

Prince Myshkin rose a little, courteously offered Rogozhin his hand, and said affably:

"I'll come with the greatest pleasure, and I thank you very much for loving me. I may even come today, if I have time. Because, I'll tell you frankly, I like you very much, and I especially liked you when you were telling about the diamond pendants. Even before the pendants I liked you, despite your gloomy face. I also thank you for promising me the clothes and a fur coat, because in fact I'll need some clothes and a fur coat soon. And I have almost no money at the present moment."

"There'll be money towards evening—come!"

"There will be, there will be," the clerk picked up, "towards evening, before sundown, there will be."

"And are you a great fancier of the female sex, Prince? Tell me beforehand!"

"N-n-no! I'm . . . Maybe you don't know, but because of my inborn illness, I don't know women at all."

"Well, in that case," Rogozhin exclaimed, "you come out as a holy fool, Prince, and God loves your kind!"

"The Lord God loves your kind," the clerk picked up.

"And you come with me, pencil pusher," Rogozhin said to Lebedev, and they all got off the train.

Lebedev ended up with what he wanted. Soon the noisy band withdrew in the direction of Voznesensky Prospect. The prince had to turn towards Liteinaya Street. It was damp and wet; the prince inquired of passersby—to reach the end of his route he had to go some two miles, and he decided to hire a cab.

II

General Epanchin lived in his own house off Liteinaya, towards the Cathedral of the Transfiguration. Besides this (excellent) house, five-sixths of which was rented out, General Epanchin owned another enormous house on Sadovaya Street, which also brought him a large income. Besides these two houses, he had quite a profitable and considerable estate just outside Petersburg; and there was also some factory in the Petersburg district. In the old days General Epanchin, as everyone knew, had

participated in tax farming. ¹¹Now he participated and had quite a considerable voice in several important joint-stock companies. He had the reputation of a man with big money, big doings, and big connections. He had managed to make himself absolutely necessary in certain quarters, his own department among others. And yet it was also known that Ivan Fyodorovich Epanchin was a man of no education and the son of a common soldier; this last, to be sure, could only do him credit, but the general, though an intelligent man, was also not without his little, quite forgivable weaknesses and disliked certain allusions. But he was unquestionably an intelligent and adroit man. He had a system, for instance, of not putting himself forward, of effacing himself wherever necessary, and many valued him precisely for his simplicity, precisely for always knowing his place. And yet, if these judges only knew what sometimes went on in the soul of Ivan Fyodorovich, who knew his place so well! Though he did indeed have practical sense, and experience in worldly matters, and certain very remarkable abilities, he liked to present himself more as the executor of someone else's idea than as being his own master, as a man "loyal without fawning," ¹²and– what does not happen nowadays?—even Russian and warmhearted. In this last respect several amusing misadventures even happened to him; but the general was never downcast, even at the most amusing misadventures; besides, luck was with him, even at cards, and he played for extremely high stakes, and not only did not want to conceal this little weakness of his for a bit of cardplaying, which came in handy for him so essentially and on many occasions, but even deliberately flaunted it. He belonged to a mixed society, though naturally of a "trumpish" sort. But everything was before him, there was time enough for everything, and everything would come in time and in due course. As for his years, General Epanchin was still, as they say, in the prime of life, that is, fifty-six and not a whit more, which in any case is a flourishing age, the age when truelife really begins. His health, his complexion, his strong though blackened teeth, his stocky, sturdy build, the preoccupied expression on his physiognomy at work in the morning, the merry one in the evening over cards or at his highness's– everything contributed to his present and future successes and strewed his excellency's path with roses.

The general had a flourishing family. True, here it was no longer all roses, but instead there were many things on which his excellency's chief hopes and aims had long begun to be seriously and

heartily concentrated. And what aim in life is more important or sacred than a parental aim? What can one fasten upon if not the family? The general's family consisted of a wife and three grownup daughters. Long ago, while still a lieutenant, the general had married a girl nearly his own age, who had neither beauty nor education, and who brought him only fifty souls—which, true, served as the foundation of his further fortune. But the general never murmured later against his early marriage, never regarded it as the infatuation of an improvident youth, and respected his wife so much, and sometimes feared her so much, that he even loved her. The general's wife was from the princely family of the Myshkins, a family which, while not brilliant, was quite old, and she quite respected herself for her origins. One of the influential persons of that time, one of those patrons for whom, incidentally, patronage costs nothing, consented to take an interest in the young princess's marriage. He opened the gate for the young officer and gave him a starting push, though he did not need a push but only a glance– it would not have been wasted! With a few exceptions, the couple lived the whole time of their long jubilee in accord. While still young, the general's wife, as a born princess and the last of the line, and perhaps through her own personal qualities, was able to find some very highly placed patronesses. Later on, with her husband's increasing wealth and significance in the service, she even began to feel somewhat at home in this high circle.

During these last years all three of the general's daughters– Alexandra, Adelaida, and Aglaya—grew up and matured. True, the three were only Epanchins, but they were of princely origin through their mother, with no little dowry, with a father who might later claim a very high post, and, which was also quite important, all three were remarkably good-looking, including the eldest, Alexandra, who was already over twenty-five. The middle one was twenty-three, and the youngest, Aglaya, had just turned twenty. This youngest was even quite a beauty and was beginning to attract great attention in society. But that was still not all: all three were distinguished by their cultivation, intelligence, and talent. It was known that they had a remarkable love for each other and stood up for each other. Mention was even made of some supposed sacrifices the elder two had made in favor of the common idol of the house– the youngest. In society they not only did not like putting themselves forward, but were even much too modest. No one could reproach them with haughtiness or presumption, and yet it was

known that they were proud and knew their own worth. The eldest was a musician, the middle one an excellent painter; but almost no one knew of that for many years and it was discovered only quite recently, and that by accident. In short, a great many laudable things were said about them. But there were also ill-wishers. With horror it was told how many books they had read. They were in no rush to get married; they did esteem a certain social circle, but not too highly. This was the more remarkable as everyone knew the tendency, character, aims, and wishes of their father.

It was already around eleven o'clock when the prince rang at the general's apartment. The general lived on the second floor and occupied lodgings which, though as modest as possible, were still proportionate to his significance. A liveried servant opened the door for the prince, and he had to spend a long time talking with this man, who from the start looked suspiciously at him and his bundle. Finally, to his repeated and precise statement that he was indeed Prince Myshkin and that he absolutely had to see the general on urgent business, the perplexed servant sent him to another small anteroom, just before the reception room by the office, and handed him over to another man, who was on duty in this anteroom in the mornings and announced visitors to the general. This other man wore a tailcoat, was over forty, and had a preoccupied physiognomy, and was the special office attendant and announcer to his excellency, owing to which he was conscious of his worth.

"Wait in the reception room, and leave your bundle here," he said, sitting down unhurriedly and importantly in his armchair and glancing with stern astonishment at the prince, who had settled down right next to him in a chair, his bundle in his hands.

"If I may," said the prince, "I'd rather wait here with you. What am I going to do in there by myself?"

"You oughtn't to stay in the anteroom, being a visitor, that is to say, a guest. Do you wish to see the general in person?"

The lackey obviously could not reconcile himself to the thought of admitting such a visitor, and decided to ask again.

"Yes, I have business . . ." the prince began.

"I am not asking you precisely what business—my business is simply to announce you. And without the secretary, as I said, I am not going to announce you."

The man's suspiciousness seemed to be increasing more and more; the prince was too far from fitting into the category of everyday visitors, and though the general had rather often, if not

daily, at a certain hour, to receive sometimes even the most varied sorts of visitors, especially on business,still, in spite of habit and his rather broad instructions, the valet was in great doubt; the secretary's mediation was necessary for the announcement.

"But are you really . . . from abroad?" he finally asked somehow involuntarily—and became confused; perhaps he had wanted to ask: "But are you really Prince Myshkin?"

"Yes, I just got off the train. It seems to me you wanted to ask if I'm really Prince Myshkin, but did not ask out of politeness."

"Hm . . ." the astonished lackey grunted.

"I assure you, I am not lying to you, and you won't have to answer for me. And as for why I've come looking like this and with this bundle, there's nothing surprising about it: my present circumstances are not very pretty."

"Hm. That's not what I'm afraid of, you see. It's my duty to announce you, and the secretary will come out, unless you . . . But that's just it, that unless. You're not going to petition the general on account of your poverty, if I may be so bold?"

"Oh, no, you may be completely assured about that. I have other business."

"Forgive me, but I asked by the look of you. Wait for the secretary; the general is busy with the colonel right now, and afterwards comes the secretary . . . of the company."

"In that case, if I'll have a long wait, let me ask you: is there someplace where I can smoke here? I have a pipe and tobacco with me."

"Smo-o-oke?" The valet raised his eyes to him with scornful perplexity, as if still not believing his ears. "Smoke? No, you can't smoke here, and moreover you should be ashamed of having such thoughts. Hah . . . very odd, sir!"

"Oh, I wasn't asking about this room. I know. I'd have gone wherever you told me, because I've got the habit, and I haven't smoked for three hours now. However, as you please, and, you know, there's a saying: when in Rome . . ."

"Well, how am I going to announce the likes of you?" the valet muttered almost inadvertently. "First of all, you oughtn't to be here at all, but in the reception room, because you're in the line of a visitor, that is to say, a guest, and I'm answerable . . . What is it, do you plan on living with us or something?" he added, casting another sidelong glance at the prince's bundle, which obviously kept bothering him.

"No, I don't think so. Even if they invite me, I won't stay. I've come simply to get acquainted, that's all."

"How's that? To get acquainted?" the valet asked in surprise and with trebled suspiciousness. "How is it you said first that you were here on business?"

"Oh, it's almost not on business! That is, if you like, there is one piece of business, just to ask advice, but it's mainly to introduce myself, because I'm Prince Myshkin, and the general's wife is also the last Princess Myshkin, and except for the two of us, there are no more Myshkins."

"So you're also a relation?" the now all but frightened lackey fluttered himself up.

"That's not quite so either. However, if we stretch it, of course, we're related, but so distantly it's really impossible to work out. I once wrote a letter to the general's wife from abroad, but she didn't answer me. All the same, I thought I should get in touch on my return. I'm telling you all this now so that you won't have doubts, because I can see you're still worried: announce that Prince Myshkin is here, and the announcement itself will contain the reason for my visit. If they receive me—good; if not—that also may be very good. Though I don't think they can notreceive me: the general's wife will certainly want to see the eldest and sole representative of her family, and she values her origins very much, as I've heard specifically about her."

It would seem that the prince's conversation was the most simple; but the simpler it was, the more absurd it became in the present case, and the experienced valet could not help feeling something that was perfectly proper between servant and servant, but perfectly improper between a guest and a servant.And since servantsare much more intelligent than their masters commonly think, it occurred to the valet that there was one of two things here: either the prince was some sort of moocher and had certainly come to beg for money, or the prince was simply a little fool and had no ambitions, because a clever prince with ambitions would not have sat in the anteroom and discussed his affairs with a lackey, and therefore, in one case or the other, might he not be held answerable?

"But all the same you ought to go to the reception room," he observed as insistently as possible.

"I'd be sitting there and wouldn't have told you all that," the prince laughed merrily, "which means you'd still be looking at my

cloak and bundle and worrying. And now maybe you don't need to wait for the secretary, but can go and announce me yourself."

"I can't announce a visitor like you without the secretary, and besides, the general gave me a specific order earlier not to bother him for anyone while he was with the colonel, but Gavrila Ardalionych can go in without being announced."

"A clerk?"

"Gavrila Ardalionych? No. He works for the Company on his own. You can at least put your bundle down here."

"I already thought of that. With your permission. And, you know, I'll take the cloak off, too."

"Of course, you can't go and see him in your cloak."

The prince stood up, hastily took off his cloak, and remained in a rather decent and smartly tailored, though shabby, jacket. A steel chain hung across his waistcoat. The chain turned out to be attached to a silver Swiss watch.

Though the prince was a little fool—the lackey had already decided that—all the same the general's valet finally found it unsuitable to continue his conversation with the visitor, despite the fact that for some reason he liked the prince, in his own way, of course. But from another point of view, he provoked in him a decided and crude indignation.

"And when does the general's wife receive?" asked the prince, sitting down in his former place.

"That's none of my business, sir. She receives at various times, depending on the person. She'd receive the dressmaker even at eleven o'clock. Gavrila Ardalionych is also admitted earlier than others, even for an early lunch."

"Here it's warmer inside in winter than it is abroad," the prince observed, "but there it's warmer outside than here, while a Russian can't even live in their houses in winter unless he's used to it."

"They don't heat them?"

"No, and the houses are also built differently—the stoves and windows, that is."

"Hm! Have you been traveling long?"

"Four years. Though I sat in the same place almost the whole time, in the country."

"You're unaccustomed to things here?"

"That's true, too. Would you believe, I marvel at myself that I haven't forgotten how to speak Russian. Here I'm talking to you now and thinking to myself: 'I speak well enough after all.' That

may be why I'm talking so much. Really, since yesterday all I've wanted to do is speak Russian."

"Hm! Heh! And did you live in Petersburg before?" (Try as he might, the lackey could not help keeping up such a courteous and polite conversation.)

"In Petersburg? Hardly at all, just in passing. And before I didn't know anything here, but now I've heard so much is new that they say anyone who knew it has to learn to know it all over again. There's a lot of talk about the courts." ¹³

"Hm! . . . The courts. The courts, it's true, there's the courts. And do the courts there judge more fairly or not?"

"I don't know. I've heard a lot of good about ours. Then, again, we have no capital punishment." ¹⁴

"And they have it there?"

"Yes. I saw it in France, in Lyons. Schneider took me there with him."

"By hanging?"

"No, in France they always cut their heads off."

"And what, do they scream?"

"Hardly! It's instantaneous. The man is laid down, and a broad knife drops, it's a special machine called the guillotine, heavy, powerful... The head bounces off before you can blink an eye. The preparations are the bad part. When they read out the sentence, get everything ready, tie him up, lead him to the scaffold, then it's terrible! People gather, even women, though they don't like it when women watch."

"It's not their business."

"Of course not! Of course not! Such suffering! . . . The criminal was an intelligent man, fearless, strong, mature, his name was Legros. And I tell you, believe it or not, he wept as he climbed the scaffold, he was white as paper. Is it possible? Isn't it terrible? Do people weep from fear? I never thought it was possible for a man who has never wept, for a man of forty-five, not a child, to weep from fear! What happens at that moment with the soul, what convulsions is it driven to? It's an outrage on the soul, and nothing more! It's said, 'Do not kill.' So he killed, and then they kill him? No, that's impossible. I saw it a month ago, and it's as if it were still there before my eyes. I've dreamed about it five times."

The prince even grew animated as he spoke, a slight flush came to his pale face, though his speech was as quiet as before. The valet watched him with sympathetic interest and seemed unwilling to

tear himself away; perhaps he, too, was a man with imagination and an inclination to thinking.

"It's a good thing there's not much suffering," he observed, "when the head flies off."

"You know what?" the prince picked up hotly. "You've just observed that, and everybody makes the same observation as you, and this machine, the guillotine, was invented for that. But a thought occurred to me then: what if it's even worse? To you it seems ridiculous, to you it seems wild, but with some imagination even a thought like that can pop into your head. Think: if there's torture, for instance, then there's suffering, wounds, bodily pain, and it means that all that distracts you from inner torment, so that you only suffer from the wounds until you die. And yet the chief, the strongest pain may not be in the wounds, but in knowing for certain that in an hour, then in ten minutes, then in half a minute, then now, this second—your soul will fly out of your body and you'll no longer be a man, and it's for certain—the main thing is that it's for certain.When you put your head under that knife and hear it come screeching down on you, that one quarter of a second is the most horrible of all. Do you know that this isn't my fantasy, but that many people have said so? I believe it so much that I'll tell you my opinion outright. To kill for killing is an immeasurably greater punishment than the crime itself. To be killed by legal sentence is immeasurably more terrible than to be killed by robbers. A man killed by robbers, stabbed at night, in the forest or however, certainly still hopes he'll be saved till the very last minute. There have been examples when a man's throat has already been cut, and he still hopes, or flees, or pleads. But here all this last hope, which makes it ten times easier to die, is taken away for certain;here there's the sentence, and the whole torment lies in the certainty that there's no escape, and there's no greater torment in the world than that. Take a soldier, put him right in front of a cannon during a battle, and shoot at him, and he'll still keep hoping, but read that same soldier a sentence for certain,and he'll lose his mind or start weeping. Who ever said human nature could bear it without going mad? Why such an ugly, vain, unnecessary violation? Maybe there's a man who has had the sentence read to him, has been allowed to suffer, and has then been told, 'Go, you're forgiven.' That man might be able to tell us something. Christ spoke of this suffering and horror. No, you can't treat a man like that!" ¹⁵

The valet, though of course he could not have expressed it all

like the prince, nevertheless understood, if not all, at least the main thing, as could be seen by his softened expression.

"If you have such a wish to smoke," he said, "it might be possible, if you do it quickly. Because he may ask for you suddenly, and you won't be here. There, under the stairway, you see, there's a door. As you go through the door, there's a little room to the right: you can smoke there, only open the vent window, because it's against the rules . . ."

But the prince had no time to go and smoke. A young man suddenly came into the anteroom with papers in his hands. The valet began to help him out of his fur coat. The young man cocked an eye at the prince.

"Gavrila Ardalionych," the valet began confidentially and almost familiarly, "this gentleman here presents himself as Prince Myshkin and the lady's relation, come by train from abroad with a bundle in his hands, only . . ."

The prince did not hear the rest, because the valet started whispering. Gavrila Ardalionovich listened attentively and kept glancing at the prince with great curiosity. Finally he stopped listening and approached him impatiently.

"You are Prince Myshkin?" he asked extremely amiably and politely. He was a very handsome young man, also of about twenty-eight, a trim blond, of above average height, with a small imperial, and an intelligent and very handsome face. Only his smile, for all its amiability, was somewhat too subtle; it revealed his somewhat too pearly and even teeth; his gaze, for all its cheerfulness and ostensible simple-heartedness, was somewhat too intent and searching.

"When he's alone he probably doesn't look that way, and maybe never laughs," the prince somehow felt.

The prince explained all he could, hurriedly, almost in the same way as he had explained to the valet earlier, and to Rogozhin earlier still. Gavrila Ardalionovich meanwhile seemed to be recalling something.

"Was it you," he asked, "who sent a letter to Elizaveta Prokofyevna about a year ago, from Switzerland, I believe?"

"Exactly so."

"In that case they know you here and certainly remember. You wish to see his excellency? I'll announce you presently . . . He'll be free presently. Only you . . . you must kindly wait in the reception room . . . Why is the gentleman here?" he sternly addressed the valet.

"I tell you, he didn't want to . . ."

At that moment the door of the office suddenly opened and some military man with a portfolio in his hand came through it, speaking loudly and bowing his way out.

"Are you there, Ganya?" a voice called from the office. "Come in, please!"

Gavrila Ardalionovich nodded to the prince and hastily went into the office.

About two minutes later the door opened again and the affable voice of Gavrila Ardalionovich rang out:

"Please come in, Prince!"

III

General Ivan Fyodorovich Epanchin was standing in the middle of his office, looking with extreme curiosity at the entering prince, and even took two steps towards him. The prince approached and introduced himself.

"So, sir," replied the general, "what can I do for you?"

"I don't have any pressing business; my purpose was simply to make your acquaintance. I wouldn't want to disturb you, since I don't know anything about your day or your arrangements . . . But I just got off the train . . . I've come from Switzerland . . ."

The general was about to smile, but thought better of it and stopped; then he thought more, narrowed his eyes, looked his guest over once again from head to foot, after which he quickly motioned him to a chair, sat down himself somewhat obliquely, and turned to the prince in impatient expectation. Ganya stood in the corner of the office, by the desk, sorting papers.

"In fact, I have little time for making acquaintances," said the general, "but since you, of course, have some purpose of your own . . ."

"I did anticipate," the prince interrupted, "that you would not fail to see some special purpose in my visit. But, by God, apart from the pleasure of making your acquaintance, I have no particular purpose at all."

"For me, too, of course, it is certainly an extreme pleasure, but amusement isn't all, you know, one sometimes happens to be busy . . . Besides, so far I'm unable to see between us any common . . . any, so to speak, reason . . ."

"There's no reason, indisputably, and, of course, very little in common. Because if I am Prince Myshkin and your spouse is from our family, that, naturally, is no reason. I understand that very well. But nevertheless, my whole pretext consists only in that. I haven't been in Russia for four years or so; and what was I when I left– all but out of my mind! I knew nothing then, and know still less now. I'm in need of good people; there's even one piece of business I have, and I don't know who to turn to. When I was in Berlin, I thought: 'They're almost my relations, I'll start with them; we might be useful to each other—they to me, and I to them—if they're good people.' And I'd heard you were good people."

"Much obliged, sir," the general was surprised. "Allow me to inquire where you're staying."

"I'm not staying anywhere yet."

"So you came to me straight from the train? And . . . with your luggage?"

"All the luggage I have is a little bundle of linen, and nothing else; I usually carry it with me. I'll have time to take a room in the evening."

"Then you still intend to take a room?"

"Oh, yes, of course."

"Judging by your words, I was of a mind that you had come straight to me."

"That could be, but not otherwise than by your invitation. Though, I confess, I wouldn't stay even then, not that there's any reason, but just ... by character."