Текст книги "The Idiot"

Автор книги: Федор Достоевский

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"So then," Ganya was seething in another corner, "it turns out, in your opinion, that the railways are cursed, that they're the bane of mankind, a plague that has fallen upon the earth to muddy the 'wellsprings of life'?" ¹⁰

Gavrila Ardalionovich was in a particularly agitated mood that evening, a merry, almost triumphant mood, as it seemed to the prince. He was, of course, joking with Lebedev, egging him on, but soon he became excited himself.

"Not the railways, no, sir!" Lebedev protested, beside himself and at the same time enjoying himself tremendously. "By themselves the railways won't muddy the wellsprings of life, but the thing as a whole is cursed, sir, all this mood of our last few centuries, as a general whole, scientific and practical, is maybe indeed cursed, sir."

"Certainly cursed or only maybe? It's important in this case," inquired Evgeny Pavlovich.

"Cursed, cursed, certainly cursed!" Lebedev confirmed with passion.

"Don't rush, Lebedev, you're much kinder in the mornings," Ptitsyn observed, smiling.

"But more candid in the evenings! More heartfelt and more candid in the evenings!" Lebedev turned to him heatedly. "More simple-hearted and more definite, more honest and more honorable, and though I expose myself to you in this way, I spit on it, sir. I challenge you all now, all you atheists: how are you going to save the world, and what is the normal path you've found for it– you men of science, industry, associations, salaries, and the rest? What is it? Credit? What is credit? What will credit lead you to?"

"Aren't you a curious one!" observed Evgeny Pavlovich.

"My opinion is that whoever isn't interested in such questions is a high-society chenapan,*sir!"

"At least it will lead to general solidarity and the balance of interests," observed Ptitsyn.

"And that's all, that's all! Without recognizing any moral foundations except the satisfaction of personal egoism and material necessity? Universal peace, universal happiness—from necessity! May I venture to ask if I understand you correctly, my dear sir?"

"But the universal necessity to live, eat, and drink, and the full, finally scientific, conviction that you will never satisfy that necessity without universal association and solidarity of interests is, it seems, a strong enough thought to serve as a foothold and a 'wellspring of life' for the future ages of mankind," observed the now seriously excited Ganya.

"The necessity to eat and drink, that is, the mere sense of self-preservation . . ."

"But isn't the sense of self-preservation enough? The sense of self-preservation is the normal law of mankind ..."

"Who told you that?" Evgeny Pavlovich cried suddenly. "A law it is, true, but no more normal than the law of destruction, and perhaps also of self-destruction. Can self-preservation be the only normal law of mankind?"

"Aha!" cried Ippolit, turning quickly to Evgeny Pavlovich and looking him over with wild curiosity; but seeing that the man was laughing, he laughed himself, nudged Kolya, who was standing

*Rascal or good-for-nothing.

beside him, and again asked him what time it was, even pulling Kolya's silver watch towards him and greedily looking at the dial. Then, as if forgetting everything, he stretched out on the sofa, put his hands behind his head, and began staring at the ceiling; half a minute later he was sitting at the table again, straight-backed and listening attentively to the babble of the thoroughly excited Lebedev.

"A perfidious and derisive thought, a goading thought," Lebedev eagerly picked up Evgeny Pavlovich's paradox, "a thought uttered with the purpose of inciting the adversaries to fight—but a correct thought! Because, worldly scoffer and cavalier that you are (though not without ability!), you don't know yourself to what degree your thought is a profound and correct thought! Yes, sir. The law of self-destruction and the law of self-preservation are equally strong in mankind! The devil rules equally over mankind until a limit in time still unknown to us. You laugh? You don't believe in the devil? Disbelief in the devil is a French notion, a frivolous notion. Do you know who the devil is? Do you know what his name is? And without even knowing his name, you laugh at his form, following Voltaire's example, ¹¹at his hoofs, his tail, and his horns, which you yourselves have invented; for the unclean spirit is a great and terrible spirit, and not with the hoofs and horns you have invented for him. But he's not the point now! . . ."

"How do you know he's not the point now?" Ippolit suddenly cried, and guffawed as if in a fit.

"A clever and suggestive thought!" Lebedev praised. "But, again, that's not the point, but the question is whether the 'wellsprings of life' have not weakened with the increase . . ."

"Of railroads?" cried Kolya.

"Not of railway communications, my young but passionate adolescent, but of that whole tendency, of which railways may serve as an image, so to speak, an artistic expression. Hurrying, clanging, banging, and speeding, they say, for the happiness of mankind! 'It's getting much too noisy and industrial in mankind, there is too little spiritual peace,' complains a secluded thinker. 'Yes, but the banging of carts delivering bread for hungry mankind may be better than spiritual peace,' triumphantly replies another, a widely traveled thinker, and walks off vaingloriously. I, the vile Lebedev, do not believe in the carts that deliver bread to mankind! For carts that deliver bread to all mankind, without any moral foundations for their action, may quite cold-bloodedly exclude a

considerable part of mankind from enjoying what they deliver, as has already happened . . ."

"So carts may quite cold-bloodedly exclude?" someone picked up.

"As has already happened," Lebedev repeated, not deigning to notice the question. "There has already been Malthus, the friend of mankind. ¹²But a friend of mankind with shaky moral foundations is a cannibal of mankind, to say nothing of his vainglory; insult the vainglory of one of these numberless friends of mankind, and he is ready at once to set fire to the four corners of the world out of petty vengeance—the same, however, as any one of us, to speak fairly, as myself, the vilest of all, for I might be the first to bring wood and then run away. But again, that's not the point!"

"Then what is it, finally?"

"How tiresome!"

"The point is in the following anecdote from olden times, for it's necessary that I tell you this anecdote from olden times. In our day, in our fatherland, which I hope you love as much as I do, gentlemen, because for my part I'm even ready to spill all my blood . . ."

"Go on! Go on!"

"In our fatherland, as well as in Europe, mankind is visited by universal, ubiquitous, and terrible famines, by possible reckonings and as far as I can remember, not more often now than once in a quarter century, in other words, once every twenty-five years. I won't argue about the precise number, but comparatively quite rarely."

"Comparatively to what?"

"To the twelfth century and its neighboring centuries on either side. For at that time, as writers write and maintain, universal famines visited mankind once every two or three years at least, so that in such a state of affairs man even resorted to anthropophagy, though he kept it a secret. One of these parasites, approaching old age, announced on his own and without being forced, that in the course of a long and meager life he had personally killed and eaten in deepest secrecy sixty monks and several lay babies—about six, not more, that is, remarkably few compared with the quantity of clergy he had eaten. Of lay adults, as it turned out, he had never touched any with that purpose."

"That cannot be!" cried the chairman himself, the general, in an all but offended voice. "I often discuss and argue with him, always

about similar thoughts, gentlemen; but most often he produces such absurdities that one's ears fall off, not a groatsworth of plausibility!"

"General! Remember the siege of Kars, and you, gentlemen, should know that my anecdote is the naked truth. For my own part, I will observe that almost every actuality, though it has its immutable laws, is almost always incredible and implausible. And the more actual it is, the more implausible it sometimes seems."

"But how can one eat sixty monks?" they laughed all around.

"Though he didn't eat them all at once, which is obvious, but maybe over the course of fifteen or twenty years, which is quite understandable and natural ..."

"And natural?"

"And natural!" Lebedev snapped at them with pedantic persistence. "And besides all that, a Catholic monk is prying and curious by his very nature, and it's quite easy to lure him into a forest or some other secluded place and deal with him in the above-mentioned way—but all the same I don't deny that the quantity of persons eaten comes out as extraordinary, even to the point of intemperance."

"Maybe it's true, gentlemen," the prince suddenly observed.

Up to then he had listened silently to the arguers and had not entered the conversation; he had often laughed heartily following the general outbursts of laughter. It was obvious that he was terribly glad that it was so merry, so noisy; even that they were drinking so much. Perhaps he would not have said a word the whole evening, but suddenly he somehow decided to speak. He spoke with extreme seriousness, so that everyone suddenly turned to him with curiosity.

"Essentially, gentlemen, what I want to say is that there were such frequent famines back then. I've heard about it, too, though I have a poor knowledge of history. But it seems it must have been so. When I found myself in the Swiss mountains, I was terribly astonished by the ruins of the ancient knightly castles, built on the sides of the mountains, on steep cliffs, and at least half a mile straight up (meaning several miles by little paths). We know what a castle is: it's a whole mountain of stones. Terrible, impossible labor! And, of course, they were built by all those poor people, the vassals. Besides that, they had to pay all sorts of taxes and support the clergy. How could they feed themselves and work the land? There were few of them then, they must have been terribly starved, and there may have been literally nothing to eat. I even used to

think sometimes: how is it that these people did not cease altogether then and that nothing happened to them, how could they hold out and endure? Lebedev is undoubtedly right that there were cannibals, and perhaps a great many of them; only what I don't know is why precisely he mixed monks into it and what does he mean to say by that?"

"Probably that in the twelfth century only monks could be eaten, because only monks were fat," observed Gavrila Ardalionovich.

"A most splendid and correct thought!" cried Lebedev. "For he never even touched a layman. Not a single layman to sixty head of clergy, and this is a horrible thought, a historical thought, a statistical thought, finally, and it is from such facts that the knowing man constructs history; for it is asserted with numerical exactitude that the clergy lived at least sixty times more happily and freely than the rest of mankind at that time. And were, perhaps, at least sixty times fatter than the rest of mankind . . ."

"An exaggeration, an exaggeration, Lebedev!" they guffawed all around.

"I agree that it's a historical thought, but what are you getting at?" the prince went on asking. (He spoke with such seriousness and such an absence of any joking or mockery of Lebedev, whom everyone laughed at, that his tone, amidst the general tone of the whole company, involuntarily became comical; a little more and they would have started making fun of him as well, but he did not notice it.)

"Don't you see he's crazy, Prince?" Evgeny Pavlovich leaned towards him. "I was told here earlier that he went crazy over being a lawyer and making speeches, and that he wants to pass an examination. I'm expecting an excellent parody."

"I'm getting at a tremendous conclusion," Lebedev meanwhile thundered. "But first of all let us analyze the psychological and juridical condition of the criminal. We see that the criminal, or, so to speak, my client, despite all the impossibility of finding other eatables, shows more than once, in the course of his peculiar career, a desire to repent, and avoids clergymen. We see it clearly from the facts: it is mentioned that he did, after all, eat five or six babies—a comparatively insignificant number, but portentous in another respect. It is obvious that, suffering from terrible remorse (for my client is a religious and conscientious man, as I shall prove), and in order to diminish his sin as far as possible, six times, by way of experiment, he changed monastic food for lay food. That it was

by way of experiment is, again, unquestionable; for if it was only for gastronomic variety, the number six would be too insignificant: why only six and not thirty? (I'm considering a fifty-fifty proportion.) But if it was only an experiment, only out of despair before the fear of blaspheming and insulting the Church, then the number six becomes all too comprehensible; for six experiments, to satisfy the remorse of conscience, are quite sufficient, because the experiments could not have been successful. And, first of all, in my opinion, a baby is too small, that is, not of large size, so that for a given period of time he would need three or five times the number of lay babies as of clergymen, so that the sin, while diminishing on the one hand, would in the final end be increased on the other, if not in quality, then in quantity. In reasoning this way, gentlemen, I am, of course, descending into the heart of the twelfth-century criminal. For my own part, as a nineteenth-century man, I might have reasoned differently, of which I inform you, so there's no need to go grinning at me, gentlemen, and for you, General, it is quite unsuitable. Second, a baby, in my personal opinion, is not nourishing, is perhaps even too sweet and cloying, so that, while not satisfying the need, it leaves one with nothing but remorse of conscience. Now for the conclusion, the finale, gentlemen, the finale which contains the answer to one of the greatest questions of that time and ours! The criminal ends by going and denouncing himself to the clergy, and surrenders to the hands of the authorities. One may ask, what tortures did he face, considering the time, what wheels, fires, and flames? Who prompted him to go and denounce himself? Why not simply stop at the number sixty, keeping your secret till your last breath? Why not simply give up monks and live in penitence as a recluse? Why, finally, not become a monk himself? Now here is the answer! It means there was something stronger than fire and flame and even than a twenty-year habit! It means there was a thought stronger than all calamities, crop failures, torture, plague, leprosy, and all that hell, which mankind would have been unable to endure without that thought which binds men together, guides their hearts, and makes fruitful the wellsprings of the life of thought! Show me something resembling such a force in our age of crime and railways . . . that is, I should have said: our age of steam and railways, but I say: in our age of crime and railways, because I'm drunk, but just! Show me a thought binding present-day mankind together that is half as strong as in those centuries. And dare to say, finally, that the wellsprings of life have

not weakened, have not turned muddy under this 'star,' under this network that ensnares people. And don't try to frighten me with your prosperity, your wealth, the rarity of famines, and the speed of communication! There is greater wealth, but less force; the binding idea is gone; everything has turned soft, everything is overstewed, everyone is overstewed! We're all, all, all overstewed! . . . But enough, that's not the point now; the point is, shouldn't we give orders, my highly esteemed Prince, about the little snack prepared for our guests?"

Lebedev, who had almost driven some of his listeners to real indignation (the bottles, it should be noted, did not cease to be uncorked all the while), immediately won over all his opponents by unexpectedly concluding his speech with a little snack. He himself called such a conclusion a "clever, advocatory rounding off of the case." Merry laughter arose again, the guests became animated; they all got up from the table to stretch and stroll about the terrace. Only Keller remained displeased with Lebedev's speech and was in extreme agitation.

"The man attacks enlightenment, preaches rabid twelfth-century fanaticism, clowns, and even without any innocence of heart: how did he pay for this house, may I ask?" he said aloud, stopping all and sundry.

"I've seen a real interpreter of the Apocalypse," the general said in another corner to other listeners, among them Ptitsyn, whom he seized by a button, "the late Grigory Semyonovich Burmistrov: he burned through your heart, so to speak. First, he put on his spectacles, opened a big old book bound in black leather, well, and a gray beard along with it, two medals for his donations. He'd begin sternly and severely, generals bowed down to him, and ladies swooned—well, and this one ends with a snack. I've never seen the like!"

Ptitsyn listened to the general, smiled, and seemed about to take his hat, but could not quite make up his mind or else kept forgetting his intention. Ganya, before the moment when they all got up from the table, had suddenly stopped drinking and pushed his glass away; something dark had passed over his face. When they got up from the table, he went over to Rogozhin and sat down next to him. One might have thought they were on the most friendly terms. Rogozhin, who at first also made as if to leave quietly several times, now sat motionless, his head bowed, and also seemed to have forgotten that he wanted to leave. He did not drink a single

drop of wine all evening and was very pensive; only from time to time he raised his eyes and looked them all over. Now one might have thought he was waiting there for something extremely important for him and was resolved not to leave till the time came.

The prince drank only two or three glasses and was merely merry. Getting up from the table, he met Evgeny Pavlovich's gaze, remembered about their forthcoming talk, and smiled affably. Evgeny Pavlovich nodded to him and suddenly pointed to Ippolit, whom he was observing intently at that moment. Ippolit was asleep, stretched out on the sofa.

"Tell me, Prince, why has this boy foisted himself on you?" he said suddenly, with such obvious vexation and even spite that the prince was surprised. "I'll bet he's got something wicked in mind!"

"I've noticed," said the prince, "or at least it seems to me, that he interests you very much today, Evgeny Pavlych. Is it true?"

"And add that in my circumstances I have a lot to think about, so that I'm surprised myself that I've been unable to tear myself away from that repulsive physiognomy all evening!"

"He has a handsome face . . ."

"There, there, look!" cried Evgeny Pavlovich, pulling the prince's arm. "There! . . ."

The prince again looked Evgeny Pavlovich over with surprise.

V

Ippolit, who towards the end of Lebedev's dissertation had suddenly fallen asleep on the sofa, now suddenly woke up, as if someone had nudged him in the side, gave a start, sat up, looked around, and turned pale; he looked around even in a sort of fright; but horror almost showed in his face when he recalled and understood everything.

"What, they're going home? Is it over? Is it all over? Has the sun risen?" he asked in alarm, seizing the prince's hand. "What time is it? For God's sake, what time? I've overslept. Did I sleep long?" he added with an almost desperate look, as if he had slept through something on which at least his whole destiny depended.

"You slept for seven or eight minutes," Evgeny Pavlovich replied.

Ippolit looked at him greedily and pondered for a few moments.

"Ah . . . that's all! So, I . . ."

And he drew his breath deeply and greedily, as if throwing off

an immense burden. He finally realized that nothing was "over," that it was not dawn yet, that the guests had gotten up from the table only to have a snack, and that the only thing that was over was Lebedev's babble. He smiled, and a consumptive flush in the form of two bright spots played on his cheeks.

"So you've been counting the minutes while I slept, Evgeny Pavlych," he picked up mockingly. "You haven't torn yourself away from me all evening, I saw . . . Ah! Rogozhin! I just saw him in a dream," he whispered to the prince, frowning and nodding towards Rogozhin, who was sitting by the table. "Ah, yes," he again skipped on suddenly, "where is the orator, where is Lebedev? So Lebedev's finished? What was he talking about? Is it true, Prince, that you once said 'beauty' would save the world? Gentlemen," he cried loudly to them all, "the prince insists that beauty will save the world! And I insist that he has such playful thoughts because he's in love now. Gentlemen, the prince is in love; as soon as he came in today, I was convinced of it. Don't blush, Prince, or I'll feel sorry for you. What beauty will save the world? Kolya told me what you said . . . Are you a zealous Christian? Kolya says you call yourself a Christian."

The prince studied him attentively and did not answer.

"You don't answer me? Maybe you think I love you very much?" Ippolit suddenly added, as if breaking off.

"No, I don't think so. I know you don't love me."

"What? Even after yesterday? Wasn't I sincere with you yesterday?"

"Yesterday, too, I knew you didn't love me."

"Because I envy you, envy you, is that it? You've always thought so and you think so now, but . . . but why am I telling you that? I want more champagne; pour me some, Keller."

"You shouldn't drink more, Ippolit, I won't let you . . ."

And the prince moved the glass away from him.

"In fact. . ." he agreed at once, as if pondering, "they might say . . . ah, what the devil do I care what they say! Isn't it true, isn't it true? Let them talk afterwards, right, Prince? As if it's any of our business what happens afterwards! . . .Anyhow, I'm still not quite awake. I had a terrible dream. I've just remembered it ... I don't wish you such dreams, Prince, though maybe I actually don't love you. Anyhow, if you don't love someone, why wish him ill, isn't it true? See how I keep asking, asking all the time! Give me your hand; I'll press it firmly, like this . . . You do still give me your

hand, though? Does that mean you know I'm sincere? . . . Maybe I won't drink anymore. What time is it? Never mind, though, I know what time it is. The hour has come! It's just the right time. What, they've put out the food in the corner? So this table is free? Excellent! Gentlemen, I . . . however, these gentlemen are not all listening . ., I intend to read an article, Prince; food is, of course, more interesting, but . . ."

And suddenly, quite unexpectedly, he pulled from his upper side pocket a big, official-sized envelope, sealed with a big red seal. He placed it on the table in front of him.

This unexpectedness had an effect on the company, which was unprepared for it, or, better, was prepared,but not for that. Evgeny Pavlovich even jumped in his chair; Ganya quickly moved to the table; Rogozhin did the same, but with a sort of gruff vexation, as if he knew what it was about. Lebedev, who happened to be near by, came closer with his curious little eyes and gazed at the envelope, trying to guess what it was about.

"What have you got there?" the prince asked uneasily.

"With the first little rim of the sun, I'll lie down, Prince, I told you that; on my word of honor: you'll see!" cried Ippolit. "But . . . but . . . can you possibly think I'm not capable of opening this envelope?" he added, passing his gaze over them all with a sort of defiance, and as if addressing them all indiscriminately. The prince noticed that he was trembling all over.

"None of us thinks that," the prince answered for everyone, "and why do you think that anyone has such an idea, and what. . . what has given you this strange idea of reading? What is it you've got there, Ippolit?"

"What is it? Has something happened to him again?" they asked all around. Everyone came closer, some still eating; the envelope with the red seal attracted them all like a magnet.

"I wrote it myself yesterday, right after I gave you my word that I'd come and live with you, Prince. I spent all day yesterday writing it, then last night, and finished it this morning. Last night, towards morning, I had a dream ..."

"Wouldn't it be better tomorrow?" the prince interrupted timidly.

"Tomorrow 'there will be no more time!'" ¹³Ippolit chuckled hysterically. "Don't worry, however, I can read it through in forty minutes . . . well, in an hour . . . And you can see how interested everyone is; everyone came over; everyone is looking at my seal; if I hadn't sealed the article in an envelope, there would have been

no effect! Ha, ha! That's what mysteriousness means! Shall I open it, gentlemen, or not?" he cried, laughing his strange laugh and flashing his eyes. "A mystery! A mystery! And do you remember, Prince, who it was who announced that 'there will be no more time'? A huge and powerful angel in the Apocalypse announces it."

"Better not read it!" Evgeny Pavlovich suddenly exclaimed, but with an air of uneasiness so unexpected in him that many found it strange.

"Don't read it!" the prince, too, cried, putting his hand on the envelope.

"What's this about reading? Right now we're eating," somebody observed.

"An article? For a magazine, or what?" inquired another.

"Maybe it's boring?" added a third.

"What have you got?" inquired the rest. But the prince's frightened gesture seemed to frighten Ippolit himself.

"So ... I shouldn't read it?" he whispered somehow fearfully to the prince, with a crooked smile on his blue lips. "I shouldn't read it?" he murmured, passing his gaze over all the public, all the eyes and faces, and as if again snatching at everything with his former, almost aggressive expansiveness. "Are you . . . afraid?" he turned to the prince again.

"Of what?" the latter asked, changing countenance more and more.

"Does anybody have a twenty-kopeck piece?" Ippolit suddenly jumped up from his chair as if he had been pulled from it. "A coin of any kind?"

"Here!" Lebedev offered at once; the thought flashed in him that the sick Ippolit had gone crazy.

"Vera Lukyanovna!" Ippolit hastily invited, "take it and toss it on the table: heads or tails? Heads I read!"

Vera looked fearfully at the coin, at Ippolit, then at her father, and, somehow awkwardly, her head thrown back, as if convinced that she herself should not look at the coin, tossed it on the table. It came up heads.

"I read!" whispered Ippolit, as if crushed by the decision of fate; he could not have turned more pale if a death sentence had been read to him. "But anyhow," he suddenly gave a start after pausing half a minute, "what is it? Have I just cast the die?" and with the same aggressive frankness he looked at everyone around him. "But this is an astonishing psychological feature!" he suddenly cried,

turning to the prince in genuine amazement. "This . . . this is an inconceivable feature, Prince!" he confirmed, growing animated and as if coming to his senses. "Write this down, Prince, remember it, I believe you collect materials about capital punishment ... so I was told, ha, ha! Oh, God, what senseless absurdity!" He sat down on the sofa, leaned both elbows on the table, and clutched his head with his hands. "It's even shameful! . . . The devil I care if it's shameful," he raised his head almost at once. "Gentlemen! Gentlemen, I am opening the envelope," he announced with a sort of unexpected resolve, "I . . . however, I'm not forcing you to listen! . . ."

His hands trembling with excitement, he opened the envelope, took out several sheets of paper covered with small writing, placed them in front of him, and began smoothing them out.

"But what is it? What have you got there? What are you going to read?" some muttered gloomily; others kept silent. But they all sat down and watched curiously. Perhaps they indeed expected something extraordinary. Vera gripped her father's chair and all but wept from fear; Kolya was almost as frightened. Lebedev, who had already settled down, suddenly got up, seized the candles, and moved them closer to Ippolit, so that there would be enough light to read by.

"Gentlemen, you . . . you'll presently see what it is," Ippolit added for some reason and suddenly began his reading: " 'A Necessary Explanation'! Epigraph: Après moi le deluge* . . .Pah, devil take it!" he cried as if burned. "Could I have seriously set down such a stupid epigraph? . . . Listen, gentlemen! ... I assure you that in the final end this may all be the most terrible trifles! It's just some of my thoughts ... If you think it's . . . something mysterious or . . . forbidden ... in short . . ."

"Read without any prefaces," Ganya interrupted.

"He's dodging!" somebody added.

"Too much talk," put in Rogozhin, who had been silent the whole time.

Ippolit suddenly looked at him, and when their eyes met, Rogozhin grinned bitterly and sarcastically, and slowly pronounced some strange words:

"That's not how the thing should be handled, man, that's not . . ."

* After me the great flood.

What Rogozhin meant to say, no one, of course, understood, but his words made a rather strange impression on them all; it was as if they had all brushed up against a common thought. But the impression these words made on Ippolit was terrible; he trembled so much that the prince reached out to support him, and he would probably have cried out, if his voice had not suddenly failed him. For a whole minute he was unable to utter a word and, breathing heavily, stared at Rogozhin. At last, breathlessly and with great effort he spoke: