Текст книги "The Idiot"

Автор книги: Федор Достоевский

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"So you're also talking about a duel!" the prince suddenly burst out laughing, to the great astonishment of Keller. He laughed his head off. Keller, who had indeed been on pins and needles, waiting until he had the satisfaction of offering himself as a second, was almost offended, seeing how merrily the prince laughed.

"Nevertheless, Prince, you seized him by the arms. For a noble person, it's hard to suffer that in public."

"And he shoved me in the chest!" the prince exclaimed, laughing. "We have nothing to fight about! I'll apologize to him and that's that. But if it's a fight, it's a fight. Let him shoot; I even want it. Ha, ha! I know how to load a pistol now! Do you know how to load a pistol, Keller? First you have to buy powder, gunpowder, not damp and not the coarse kind used for cannons; and then you start by putting in some powder, you get felt from a door somewhere, and only then drop in the bullet, not the bullet before the powder, because it won't fire. Do you hear, Keller: because it won't fire. Ha, ha! Isn't that a splendid reason, friend Keller? Ah, Keller, you know, I'm going to embrace you and kiss you now. Ha, ha, ha! How was it that you so suddenly turned up in front of him today? Call on me sometime soon and we'll have champagne. We'll all get drunk! Do you know that I have twelve bottles of champagne in Lebedev's cellar? Lebedev offered it to me as a 'bargain' two days ago, the day after I moved to his place, so I bought it all! I'll get the whole company together! And you, are you going to sleep this night?"

"Like every other, Prince."

"Well, sweet dreams then! Ha, ha!"

The prince crossed the road and disappeared into the park, leaving the somewhat puzzled Keller pondering. He had never seen the prince in such a strange mood, and could not have imagined it till then.

"A fever, maybe, because he's a nervous man, and all this has affected him, but he certainly won't turn coward. His kind doesn't turn coward, by God!" Keller thought to himself. "Hm, champagne! Interesting news, by the way. Twelve bottles, sir, a tidy dozen; that's a decent stock. I'll bet Lebedev took it in pledge from somebody. Hm . . . he's a sweet enough fellow, though, this prince; I really like that sort; there's no time to waste, though, and ... if there's champagne, then this is the moment . . ."

That the prince was as if in a fever was certainly correct.

For a long time he wandered through the dark park and finally

"found himself" pacing along a certain alley. His consciousness retained the memory that he had already walked along that alley, from the bench to a certain old tree, tall and conspicuous, about a hundred steps, some thirty or forty times up and down. He would have been quite unable to remember what he had thought about during that whole hour, at least, in the park, even if he had wanted to. He caught himself, however, in a certain thought, which made him suddenly rock with laughter; though there was nothing to laugh at, he still wanted to laugh. He imagined that the supposition of a duel might not have been born in Keller's head alone, and that, therefore, the story about loading a pistol might not have been accidental . . . "Hah!" he stopped suddenly, as another idea dawned on him, "she came down to the terrace tonight when I was sitting in the corner, and was terribly surprised to find me there, and—laughed so . . . talked about tea; but at that time she already had this note in her hand, which means she must have known I was sitting on the terrace, so why was she surprised? Ha, ha, ha!"

He snatched the note from his pocket and kissed it, but at once stopped and pondered.

"How strange! How strange!" he said after a moment, even with a sort of sadness: he always felt sad at moments of great joy, he did not know why himself. He looked around intently and was surprised that he had come there. He was very tired, went over to the bench and sat down. It was extremely quiet all around. The music in the vauxhall was over. There was probably no one in the park now; it was certainly at least half-past eleven. The night was quiet, warm, bright—a Petersburg night at the beginning of the month of June—but in the thick, shady park, in the alley where he was, it was almost completely dark.

If anyone had told him at that moment that he had fallen in love, that he was passionately in love, he would have rejected the idea with astonishment and perhaps even with indignation. And if anyone had added that Aglaya's note was a love letter, setting up a lovers' tryst, he would have burned with shame for that man and might have challenged him to a duel. All this was perfectly sincere, and he never once doubted it or allowed for the slightest "second" thought about the possibility of this girl loving him or even the possibility of him loving this girl. The possibility of loving him, "a man like him," he would have considered a monstrous thing. He vaguely thought that it was simply a prank on her part, if there

indeed was anything to it; but he was somehow all too indifferent to the prank itself and found it all too much in the order of things; he himself was concerned and preoccupied with something completely different. He fully believed the words that had escaped the agitated general earlier, that she was laughing at everyone and especially at him, the prince. He had not felt insulted by it in the least; in his opinion, it had to be so. The main thing for him was that tomorrow he would see her again, early in the morning, would sit beside her on the green bench, listen to how a pistol is loaded, and look at her. He needed nothing more. The question of what it was that she intended to tell him, and what the important matter was that concerned him directly, also flashed once or twice in his head. Besides, he had never doubted even for a minute the actual existence of this "important matter" for which he had been summoned, but he almost did not think of this important matter now, to the point that he even did not feel the slightest urge to think about it.

The crunch of quiet steps on the sand of the alley made him raise his head. A man, whose face it was difficult to make out in the darkness, came up to the bench and sat down beside him. The prince quickly moved close to him, almost touching him, and made out the pale face of Rogozhin.

"I just knew you'd be wandering about here somewhere, I didn't have to look long," Rogozhin muttered through his teeth.

It was the first time they had come together since their meeting in the corridor of the inn. Struck by Rogozhin's sudden appearance, the prince was unable to collect his thoughts for some time, and a painful sensation rose again in his heart. Rogozhin evidently understood the impression he had made; but though at first he kept getting confused, spoke as if with the air of a sort of studied casualness, it soon seemed to the prince that there was nothing studied in him and not even any particular embarrassment; if there was any awkwardness in his gestures and conversation, it was only on the outside; in his soul this man could not change.

"How . . . did you find me here?" asked the prince, in order to say something.

"I heard from Keller (I went by your place) that 'he went to the park.' Well, I thought, so there it is."

"There what is?" the prince anxiously picked up the escaped remark.

Rogozhin grinned, but gave no explanation.

"I got your letter, Lev Nikolaich; you don't need all that . . . what do you care! . . . And now I'm coming to you from her:she told me to be sure and invite you; she needs very much to tell you something. She asks you to come tonight."

"I'll come tomorrow. Right now I'm going home; will you . . . come with me?"

"Why? I've told you everything. Good-bye."

"You won't come?" the prince asked softly.

"You're a queer one, Lev Nikolaich, you really amaze me."

Rogozhin grinned sarcastically.

"Why? What makes you so spiteful towards me now?" the prince picked up sadly and ardently. "You know now that everything you were thinking was not true. I did think, however, that your spite towards me had still not gone away, and do you know why? Because you raised your hand against me, that's why your spite won't go away. I tell you that I remember only the Parfyon Rogozhin with whom I exchanged crosses that day as a brother; I wrote that to you in my letter yesterday, so that you'd forget to think about all that delirium and not start talking with me about it. Why are you backing away from me? Why are you hiding your hand from me? I tell you, I consider all that happened then as nothing but delirium: all that you went through that day I now know as well as I know my own self. What you were imagining did not and could not exist. Why, then, should our spite exist?"

"What spite could you have!" Rogozhin laughed again in response to the prince's ardent, unexpected speech. He was indeed standing back from him, two steps to the side, and hiding his hands.

"It's not a right thing for me to come to you at all now, Lev Nikolaich," he added in conclusion, slowly and sententiously.

"Do you really hate me so much?"

"I don't like you, Lev Nikolaich, so why should I come to you? Eh, Prince, you're just like some child, you want a toy, you've got to have it right now, but you don't understand what it's about. Everything you're saying now is just like what you wrote in your letter, and do you think I don't believe you? I believe every word of yours, and I know you've never deceived me and never will in the future; but I still don't like you. You write that you've forgotten everything and only remember your brother Rogozhin that you exchanged crosses with, and not the Rogozhin who raised a knife against you that time. But how should you know my feelings?"

(Rogozhin grinned again.) "Maybe I never once repented of it afterwards, and you've gone and sent me your brotherly forgiveness. Maybe that evening I was already thinking about something completely different, and ..."

"Forgot all about it!" the prince picked up. "What else! And I'll bet you went straight to the train that time, and here in Pavlovsk to the music, and watched and searched for her in the crowd just as you did today. Some surprise! But if you hadn't been in such a state then that you could only think of one particular thing, maybe you wouldn't have raised a knife at me. I had a presentiment that morning, as I looked at you; do you know how you were then? When we were exchanging crosses, this thought began to stir in me. Why did you take me to see the old woman then? Did you want to restrain your hand that way? But it can't be that you thought of it, you just sensed it, as I did . . . We sensed it word for word then. If you hadn't raised your hand against me (which God warded off), how would I come out before you now? Since I suspected you of it anyway, our sin is the same, word for word! (And don't make a wry face! Well, and what are you laughing for?) 'I've never repented!' But even if you wanted to, maybe you wouldn't be able to repent, because on top of it all you don't like me. And if I were as innocent as an angel before you, you still wouldn't be able to stand me, as long as you think it's not you but me that she loves. That's jealousy for you. Only I was thinking about it this week, Parfyon, and I'll tell you: do you know that she may now love you most of all, and so much, even, that the more she torments you, the more she loves you? She won't tell you that, but you must be able to see it. Why in the end is she going to marry you all the same? Someday she'll tell you herself. There are women who even want to be loved in that way, and that's precisely her character! And your character and your love had to strike her! Do you know that a woman is capable of torturing a man with her cruelties and mockeries, and will not feel remorse even once, because she thinks to herself each time she looks at you: 'Now I'll torture him to death, but later I'll make up for it with my love . . .'"

Rogozhin, having listened to the prince, burst out laughing.

"And have you happened upon such a woman yourself, Prince? I've heard a little something about you, if it's true!"

"What, what could you have heard?" the prince suddenly shook and stopped in extreme embarrassment.

Rogozhin went on laughing. He had listened to the prince not

without curiosity and perhaps not without pleasure; the prince's joyful and ardent enthusiasm greatly struck and encouraged him.

"I've not only heard it, but I see now that it's true," he added. "Well, when did you ever talk the way you do now? That kind of talk doesn't seem to come from you at all. If I hadn't heard as much about you, I wouldn't have come here; and to the park, at midnight, besides."

"I don't understand you at all, Parfyon Semyonych."

"She explained to me about you long ago, and now today I saw it myself, the way you were sitting at the music with the other one. She swore to me by God, yesterday and today, that you're in love like a tomcat with Aglaya Epanchin. It makes no difference to me, Prince, and it's none of my business: even if you don't love her anymore, she still loves you. You know, she absolutely wants you to marry that girl, she gave me her word on it, heh, heh! She says to me: 'Without that I won't marry you, they go to church, and we go to church.' What it's all about, I can't understand and never could: either she loves you no end, or . . . but if she loves you, why does she want you to marry another woman? She says: 'I want to see him happy'—so that means she loves you."

"I told you and wrote to you that she's . . . not in her right mind," said the prince, having listened to Rogozhin with suffering.

"Lord knows! You may be mistaken about that . . . anyhow, today she set the date for me, when I brought her home from the music: in three weeks, and maybe sooner, she says, we'll certainly get married; she swore to me, took down an icon, kissed it. So, Prince, now it's up to you, heh, heh!"

"That's all raving! What you're saying about me will never, never happen! I'll come to you tomorrow . . ."

"What kind of madwoman is she?" observed Rogozhin. "How is it she's in her right mind for everybody else, and for you alone she's crazy? How is it she writes letters there? If she's a madwoman, it would have been noticed there from her letters."

"What letters?" the prince asked in alarm.

"She writes there, to that one,and she reads them. Don't you know? Well, then you will; she's sure to show you herself."

"That's impossible to believe!" cried the prince.

"Eh, Lev Nikolaich, it must be you haven't gone very far down that path yet, as far as I can see, you're just at the beginning. Wait a while: you'll hire your own police, you'll keep watch yourself day and night, and know every step they make there, if only . . ."

"Drop it and never speak of it again!" cried the prince. "Listen, Parfyon, I was walking here just now before you came and suddenly began to laugh, I didn't know what about, but the reason was that I remembered that tomorrow, as if on purpose, is my birthday. It's nearly midnight now. Let's go and meet the day! I have some wine, we'll drink wine, you must wish me something I myself don't know how to wish for now, and it's precisely you who must wish it, and I'll wish you your fullest happiness. Or else give me back my cross! You didn't send it back to me the next day! You're wearing it? Wearing it even now?"

"I am," said Rogozhin.

"Come on, then. I don't want to meet my new life without you, because my new life has begun! Don't you know, Parfyon, that my new life begins today?"

"Now I myself see and know that it's begun; and I'll report it to her.You're not yourself at all, Lev Nikolaich!"

IV

As he approached his dacha with Rogozhin, the prince noticed with extreme astonishment that a noisy and numerous society had gathered on his brightly lit terrace. The merry company was laughing, shouting; it seemed they were even arguing loudly; one would have suspected at first glance that they were having quite a joyful time of it. And indeed, going up onto the terrace, he saw that they were all drinking, and drinking champagne, and it seemed they had been at it for quite a while, so that many of the revelers had managed to become quite pleasantly animated. The guests were all acquaintances of the prince, but it was strange that they had all gathered at once, as if they had been invited, though the prince had not invited anyone, and he himself had only just chanced to remember about his birthday.

"You must have told somebody you'd stand them to champagne, so they came running," Rogozhin muttered, following the prince up onto the terrace. "That point we know; just whistle to them . . ." he added almost with spite, remembering, of course, his recent past.

They all met the prince with shouts and good wishes, and surrounded him. Some were very noisy, others much quieter, but they all hastened to congratulate him, having heard about his birthday,

and each one waited his turn. The prince found the presence of some persons curious, Burdovsky's, for instance; but the most astonishing thing was that amidst this company Evgeny Pavlovich suddenly turned up. The prince could hardly believe his eyes and was almost frightened when he saw him.

Meanwhile Lebedev, flushed and nearly ecstatic, ran up to him with explanations; he was rather well loaded.From his babble it turned out that they had all gathered quite naturally and even accidentally. First of all, towards evening, Ippolit had come and, feeling much better, had wanted to wait for the prince on the terrace. He had settled himself on the sofa; then Lebedev had come down to see him, and then his whole family, that is, his daughters and General Ivolgin. Burdovsky had come with Ippolit as his escort. Ganya and Ptitsyn, it seemed, had dropped in not long ago, while passing by (their appearance coincided with the incident in the vauxhall); then Keller had turned up, told them about the birthday, and asked for champagne. Evgeny Pavlovich had come only about half an hour ago. Kolya had also insisted with all his might on champagne and that a celebration be arranged. Lebedev readily served the wine.

"But my own, my own!" he babbled to the prince. "At my own expense, to glorify and celebrate, and there'll be food, a little snack, my daughter will see to that; but if you only knew, Prince, what a theme we've got going. Remember in Hamlet:'To be or not to be'? A modern theme, sir, modern! Questions and answers . . . And Mr. Terentyev is in the highest degree . . . unwilling to sleep! He had just a sip of champagne, a sip, nothing harmful . . . Come closer, Prince, and decide! Everybody's been waiting for you, everybody's only been waiting for your happy wit . . ."

The prince noticed the sweet, tender eyes of Vera Lebedev, who was also hurriedly making her way to him through the crowd. He reached past them all and gave her his hand first; she blushed with pleasure and wished him "a happy life starting this very day."Then she rushed off to the kitchen; she was preparing the snack there; but before the prince's arrival—the moment she could tear herself away from her work—she would come to the terrace and listen as hard as she could to the heated arguments constantly going on among the tipsy guests about things that were most abstract and strange to her. Her younger sister, the one who opened her mouth, fell asleep on a trunk in the next room, but the boy, Lebedev's son, stood beside Kolya and Ippolit, and the very look on his animated

face showed that he was prepared to stand there in the same spot, relishing and listening, for another ten hours on end.

"I've been especially waiting for you, and I'm terribly glad you've come so happy," Ippolit said, when the prince went over to shake hands with him immediately after Vera.

"And how do you know that I'm 'so happy'?"

"By the look on your face. Greet the gentlemen, and then quickly come to sit with us. I've been waiting especially for you," he added, significantly stressing the fact that he had been waiting. To the prince's remark that it might be bad for him to stay up so late, he replied that he was surprised at his wanting to die three days ago and that he had never felt better than that evening.

Burdovsky jumped up and murmured that he had come "just so . . . ," that he was with Ippolit "as an escort," and that he was also glad; that he had "written nonsense" in his letter, and that now he was "simply glad . . ." He did not finish, pressed the prince's hand firmly, and sat down on a chair.

After everyone else, the prince went over to Evgeny Pavlovich. The latter immediately took him by the arm.

"I have only a couple of words to say to you," he whispered in a low voice, "and about an extremely important circumstance. Let's step aside for a moment."

"A couple of words," another voice whispered into the prince's other ear, and another hand took him by the arm from the other side. The prince was surprised to see a terribly disheveled, flushed, winking and laughing face, in which he instantly recognized Ferdyshchenko, who had appeared from God knows where.

"Remember Ferdyshchenko?" the man asked.

"Where did you come from?" cried the prince.

"He repents!" cried Keller, running up. "He was hiding, he didn't want to come out to you, he was hiding there in the corner, he repents, Prince, he feels guilty."

"But of what, of what?"

"It was I who met him, Prince, I met him just now and brought him along; he's a rare one among my friends; but he repents."

"I'm very glad, gentlemen. Go and sit there with everyone, I'll be back presently." The prince finally got rid of them and hurried to Evgeny Pavlovich.

"It's amusing here," Evgeny Pavlovich observed, "and it was with pleasure that I waited half an hour for you. The thing is, my most gentle Lev Nikolaevich, that I've settled everything with

Kurmyshev and have come to put you at ease; there's nothing to worry about, he took the matter very, very reasonably, the more so because, in my opinion, it was sooner his fault."

"What Kurmyshev?"

"The one you seized by the arms today . . . He was so infuriated that he wanted to send someone to you tomorrow for explanations."

"Come, come, what nonsense!"

"Naturally it's nonsense and would probably have ended in nonsense; but these people . . ."

"Perhaps you've come for something else, Evgeny Pavlovich?"

"Oh, naturally there's something else," the man laughed. "Tomorrow at daybreak, my dear Prince, I'm going to Petersburg on this unfortunate business (I mean, about my uncle). Imagine to yourself: it's all true and everybody already knows it except me. I was so struck that I haven't had time to go there(to the Epanchins'); I won't see them tomorrow either, because I'll be in Petersburg, you understand? I may not be back for three days—in short, my affairs are in poor shape. Though the matter is not of infinite importance, I reasoned that I ought to have a most candid talk with you about certain things, and without losing time, that is, before my departure. I'll sit here now and wait, if you tell me to, till the company disperses; besides, I have nothing else to do with myself: I'm so agitated that I won't be able to sleep. Finally, though it's shameless and improper to pursue a person so directly, I'll tell you directly: I've come to seek your friendship, my dear Prince. You are a most incomparable man, that is, you don't lie at every step, and maybe not at all, and there's one matter in which I need a friend and an advisor, because I now decidedly find myself among the unfortunate . . ."

He laughed again.

"The trouble is," the prince reflected for a moment, "that you want to wait till they disperse, but God knows when that will be. Wouldn't it be better to go down to the park now? They'll wait, really; I'll apologize."

"No, no, I have my reasons for not arousing the suspicion that we are having an urgent conversation with some purpose; there are people here who are very interested in our relations—don't you know that, Prince? And it will be much better if they see that they are the most friendly relations, and not merely urgent ones—you understand? They'll leave in a couple of hours; I'll take about twenty minutes of your time—maybe half an hour . . ."

"You're most welcome, please stay. I'm very glad even without explanations; and thank you very much for your kind words about our friendly relations. You must forgive me for being absentminded tonight; you know, I simply cannot be attentive at the moment."

"I see, I see," Evgeny Pavlovich murmured with a slight smile. He laughed very easily that evening.

"What do you see?" the prince roused himself up.

"And don't you suspect, dear Prince," Evgeny Pavlovich went on smiling, without answering the direct question, "don't you suspect that I've simply come to hoodwink you and, incidentally, to worm something out of you, eh?"

"There's no doubt at all that you've come to worm something out of me," the prince finally laughed, too, "and it may even be that you've decided to deceive me a bit. But so what? I'm not afraid of you; what's more, it somehow makes no difference to me now, can you believe that? And . . . and . . . and since I'm convinced before all that you are still an excellent person, we may indeed end by becoming friends. I like you very much, Evgeny Pavlych; in my opinion, you're ... a very, very decent man!"

"Well, in any case it's very nice dealing with you, even in whatever it may be," Evgeny Pavlovich concluded. "Come, I'll drink a glass to your health; I'm terribly pleased to have joined you here. Ah!" he suddenly stopped, "has this gentleman Ippolit come to live with you?"

"Yes."

"He's not going to die at once, I suppose?"

"Why?"

"No, nothing; I spent half an hour with him here . . ."

All this time Ippolit was waiting for the prince and constantly glancing at him and Evgeny Pavlovich, while they stood aside talking. He became feverishly animated as they approached the table. He was restless and agitated; sweat broke out on his forehead. His eyes, along with a sort of roving, continual restlessness, also showed a certain vague impatience; his gaze moved aimlessly from object to object, from person to person. Though up to then he had taken great part in the general noisy conversation, his animation was only feverish; he paid no attention to the conversation itself; his arguments were incoherent, ironic, and carelessly paradoxical; he did not finish and dropped something he himself had begun saying a moment earlier with feverish ardor. The prince learned with surprise and regret that he had been allowed, unhindered, to

drink two full glasses of champagne that evening, and that the glass he had started on, which stood before him, was already the third. But he learned it only later; at the present moment he was not very observant.

"You know, I'm terribly glad that precisely today is your birthday!" cried Ippolit.

"Why?"

"You'll see. Sit down quickly. First of all, because all these . . . your people have gathered. I reckoned there would be people; for the first time in my life my reckoning came out right! Too bad I didn't know about your birthday, or I'd have come with a present . . . Ha, ha! Maybe I did come with a present! Is it long before daylight?"

"It's less than two hours till dawn," Ptitsyn said, looking at his watch.

"Who needs the dawn, if you can read outside as it is?" someone observed.

"It's because I need to see the rim of the sun. Can one drink the sun's health, Prince, what do you think?"

Ippolit asked abruptly, addressing everyone without ceremony, as if he were in command, but he seemed not to notice it himself.

"Perhaps so; only you ought to calm down, eh, Ippolit?"

"You're always talking about sleep; you're my nanny, Prince! As soon as the sun appears and 'resounds' in the sky (who said that in a poem: 'the sun resounded in the sky'? ⁸It's meaningless, but good!)—we'll go to bed. Lebedev! Is the sun the wellspring of life? What are the 'wellsprings of life' in the Apocalypse? Have you heard of 'the star Wormwood,' ⁹Prince?"

"I've heard that Lebedev thinks this 'star Wormwood' is the network of railways spread over Europe."

"No, excuse me, sir, that's not it, sir!" Lebedev cried, jumping up and waving his arms, as if wishing to stop the general laughter that was beginning. "Excuse me, sir! With these gentlemen ... all these gentlemen," he suddenly turned to the prince, "in certain points, it's like this, sir . . ." and he unceremoniously rapped the table twice, which increased the laughter still more.

Lebedev, though in his usual "evening" state, was much too agitated and irritated this time by the preceding long "learned" argument, and on such occasions his attitude towards his opponents was one of boundless and highly candid contempt.

"That's not it, sir! Half an hour ago, Prince, we made an

agreement not to interrupt; not to laugh while someone is talking; to allow him to say everything freely, and then let the atheists object if they want to; we made the general our chairman, so we did, sir! Or else what, sir? Or else anybody can get thrown off, even with the highest idea, sir, even with the deepest idea . . ."

"Well, speak, speak: nobody's throwing you off!" voices rang out.

"Speak, but not through your hat."

"What is this 'star Wormwood'?" somebody asked.

"I have no idea!" General Ivolgin answered, taking his recently appointed place as chairman with an air of importance.

"I have a remarkable fondness for all these arguments and irritations, Prince—learned ones, naturally," murmured Keller, meanwhile stirring on his chair in decided rapture and impatience, "learned and political ones," he turned suddenly and unexpectedly to Evgeny Pavlovich, who was sitting almost next to him. "You know, I'm terribly fond of reading about the English Parliaments in the newspapers, that is, not in the sense of what they discuss (I'm no politician, you know), but of the way they discuss things together, and behave, so to speak, like politicians: 'the noble viscount sitting opposite me,' 'the noble earl, who shares my thinking,' 'my noble opponent, who has astonished Europe with his proposal,' that is, all those little expressions, all that parliamentarianism of a free nation—that's what our sort finds attractive! I'm captivated, Prince. I've always been an artist in the depths of my soul, I swear to you, Evgeny Pavlych."