Текст книги "The Idiot"
Автор книги: Федор Достоевский
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I do not remember for certain how long this went on; nor do I remember for certain whether I had moments of oblivion or not. Only, in the end Rogozhin got up, looked me over as slowly and attentively as before, when he came in, but stopped grinning and quietly, almost on tiptoe, went to the door, opened it, closed it, and was gone. I did not get out of bed; I don't remember how long I lay there thinking with open eyes; God knows what I was thinking about; I also don't remember how I became oblivious. The next morning I woke up when they knocked at my door, past nine o'clock. I had arranged it so that if I myself did not open the door by nine o'clock and call for tea to be served, Matryona herself should knock for me. When I opened the door to her, the thought
immediately occurred to me: how could he have come in if the door was locked? I made inquiries and became convinced that the real Rogozhin could not have come in, because all our doors are locked for the night.
This particular case, which I have described in such detail, was the reason why I became completely "resolved." Which means that what contributed to my definitive resolve was not logic, not logical conviction, but revulsion. It is impossible to remain in a life that assumes such strange, offensive forms. This apparition humiliated me. I am unable to submit to a dark power that assumes the shape of a tarantula. And it was only at twilight, when I finally sensed in myself the definitive moment of full resolution, that I felt better. That was only the first moment; for the second moment I went to Pavlovsk, but that has already been sufficiently explained.
VII
I had a small pocket pistol, I acquired it when I was still a child, at that ridiculous age when one suddenly begins to like stories about duels, about highway robberies, about how I, too, would be challenged to a duel, and how nobly I would stand facing the pistol. A month ago I examined it and prepared it. I found two bullets in the box with it, and enough powder in the powder horn for three shots. It is a trashy pistol, doesn't shoot straight, and is accurate only up to fifteen paces; but, of course, it would shove your skull sideways if you put it right to your temple.
I decided to die in Pavlovsk, at sunrise, and to do it in the park, so as not to trouble anyone in the dacha. My "Explanation" will sufficiently explain the whole matter to the police. Fanciers of psychology and those who feel the need can deduce whatever they like from it. However, I would not want this manuscript to be made public. I ask the prince to keep one copy for himself and to convey the other copy to Aglaya Ivanovna Epanchin. Such is my will. I bequeath my skeleton to the Medical Academy for the benefit of science.
I recognize no judges over me and know that I am now beyond all judicial power. Not long ago I was amused by a certain supposition: what if I should suddenly take it into my head now to kill whomever I like, even a dozen people at once, or to do something most terrible, that is simply considered the most terrible thing in
the world, what a quandary the court would find itself in before me, with my two– or three-week term and with torture and the rack abolished! I would die comfortably in their hospital, in warmth, and with an attentive doctor, and perhaps be much more comfortable and warm than in my own house. I don't understand why the same thought doesn't occur to people in the same situation as mine, if only as a joke? However, maybe it does occur to them; there are lots of merry people to be found among us, too.
But if I do not recognize any judgment over me, I know all the same that I will be judged, once I have become a deaf and speechless defendant. I do not want to go without leaving a word of reply—a free word, not a forced one—not to justify myself—oh, no! I have nothing to ask forgiveness for from anyone—but just because I myself want it so.
First of all, there is a strange thought here: who, in the name of what right, in the name of what motive, would now take it into his head to dispute my right to these two or three weeks of my term? What court has any business here? Who precisely needs that I should not only be sentenced, but should graciously keep to the term of my sentence? Can it really be that anyone needs that? For the sake of morality? If, in the bloom of health and strength, I were to make an attempt on my life, which "could be useful to my neighbor," and so on, then I could understand that morality might reproach me, out of old habit, for having dealt with my life arbitrarily, or whatever. But now, now, when the term of the sentence has been read out to me? What sort of morality needs, on top of your life, also your last gasp, with which you give up the last atom of life, listening to the consolations of the prince, who is bound to go as far in his Christian reasoning as the happy thought that, essentially, it's even better that you're dying. (Christians like him always get to that idea: it's their favorite hobbyhorse.) And what do they want to do with their ridiculous "Pavlovsk trees"? Sweeten the last hours of my life? Don't they understand that the more oblivious I become, the more I give myself up to that last phantom of life and love with which they want to screen my Meyer's wall from me, with all that is written on it so frankly and simple-heartedly, the more unhappy they will make me? What do I need your nature for, your Pavlovsk park, your sunrises and sunsets, your blue sky, and your all-contented faces, when this whole banquet, which has no end, began by counting me alone as superfluous? What do I care about all this beauty, when every minute, every second, I must
and am forced to know that even this tiny fly that is now buzzing near me in a ray of sunlight, even it participates in this banquet and chorus, knows its place, loves it, and is happy, while I alone am a castaway, and only in my pusillanimity did not want to understand it till now! Oh, don't I know how the prince and all of them would like to drive me to the point where, instead of all these "perfidious and spiteful" speeches, I would sing, out of good behavior and for the triumph of morality, the famous and classical strophe of Millevoye: 19
O, puissent voir votre beauté sacrée
Tant d'amis sourds à mes adieux!
Qu'ils meurent pleins de jours, que leur mort soit pleurée,
Qu'un ami leur ferme les yeux!*
But believe me, believe me, simple-hearted people, in this well-behaved strophe, in this academic blessing of the world in French verse, there is lodged so much hidden bile, so much implacable spite indulging itself in rhymes, that even the poet himself, perhaps, was duped and took this spite for tears of tenderness, and died with that—may he rest in peace! Know that there is a limit to disgrace in the consciousness of one's own nonentity and weakness, beyond which man cannot go and at which he begins to take a tremendous pleasure in the disgrace itself . . . Well, of course, humility is a tremendous force in this sense, I admit that—though not in the sense in which religion takes humility for a force.
Religion! I do admit eternal life and perhaps have always admitted it. Let consciousness be lit up by the will of a higher power, let it look at the world and say: "I am!" and let the higher power suddenly decree its annihilation, because for some reason—or even without explaining for what reason—that is needed: let it be so, I admit all that, but again comes the eternal question: why is my humility needed here? Isn't it possible simply to eat me, without demanding that I praise that which has eaten me? Can it be that someone there will indeed be offended that I don't want to wait for two weeks? I don't believe it; and it would be much more likely to suppose that my insignificant life, the life of an atom, was simply needed for the fulfillment of some universal harmony as a whole,
*O, may they behold your sacred beauty / So many friends deaf to my farewells! / May they die full of days, may their death be wept, / May a friend close their eyes!
for some plus and minus, for some sort of contrast, and so on and " so forth, just as daily sacrifice requires the lives of a multitude of beings, without whose death the rest of the world could not stand (though it must be noted that this is not a very magnanimous thought in itself). But so be it! I agree that it was quite impossible to arrange the world otherwise, that is, without the ceaseless devouring of each other; I even agree to admit that I understand nothing of this arrangement; but on the other hand, I know this for certain: if I have once been given the consciousness that "I am," what business is it of mine that the world has been arranged with mistakes and that otherwise it cannot stand? Who is going to judge me after that, and for what? Say what you will, all this is impossible and unjust.
And meanwhile, even in spite of all my desire, I could never imagine to myself that there is no future life and no providence. Most likely there is all that, but we don't understand anything about the future life and its laws. But if it is so difficult and even completely impossible to understand it, can it be that I will have to answer for being unable to comprehend the unknowable? True, they say, and the prince, of course, along with them, that it is here that obedience is necessary, that one must obey without reasoning, out of sheer good behavior, and that I am bound to be rewarded for my meekness in the other world. We abase providence too much by ascribing our own notions to it, being vexed that we can't understand it. But, again, if it's impossible to understand it, then, I repeat, it is hard to have to answer for something it is not given to man to understand. And if so, how are they going to judge me for being unable to understand the true will and laws of providence? No, we'd better leave religion alone.
But enough. When I get to these lines, the sun will probably already be risen and "resounding in the sky," and a tremendous, incalculable force will pour out on all that is under the sun. So be it! I will die looking straight into the wellspring of force and life, and I will not want this life! If it had been in my power not to be born, I probably would not have accepted existence on such derisive conditions. But I still have the power to die, though I'm giving back what's already numbered. No great power, no great rebellion either.
A last explanation: I am by no means dying because I cannot endure these three weeks; oh, I would have strength enough, and if I wanted to, I could be sufficiently comforted by the very
consciousness of the offense done to me; but I am not a French poet and do not want such comforting. Finally, there is the temptation: nature has so greatly limited my activity by her three-week sentence that suicide may be the only thing I still have time to begin and end of my own will. So, maybe I want to use my last opportunity of matter . . . doingsomething? A protest is sometimes no small
The "Explanation" was over; Ippolit finally stopped . . .
There is in extreme cases that degree of ultimate cynical frankness, when a nervous man, irritated and beside himself, no longer fears anything and is ready for any scandal, even glad of it; he throws himself at people, having at the same time an unclear but firm goal of certainly leaping from a belfry a minute later and thus resolving at once all misunderstandings, in case they turn up along the way. An imminent exhaustion of physical strength is usually an indication of this state. The extreme, almost unnatural tension that had so far sustained Ippolit had reached that ultimate degree. In himself this eighteen-year-old boy, exhausted by illness, seemed as weak as a trembling leaf torn from a tree; but he no sooner looked around at his listeners—for the first time during the last hour—than the same haughty, almost contemptuous and offensive revulsion showed at once in his eyes and smile. He hurried with his defiance. But his listeners were also totally indignant. They were all getting up from the table with noise and vexation. Fatigue, wine, and tension had heightened the disorderliness and, as it were, the filth of the impressions, if it may be so expressed.
Suddenly Ippolit jumped quickly from his chair, as if torn from his place.
"The sun has risen!" he cried, seeing the glowing treetops and pointing them out to the prince like a miracle. "It's risen!" 20
"And did you think it wouldn't, or what?" observed Ferdyshchenko.
"Another whole day of torrid heat," Ganya muttered with careless vexation, hat in hand, stretching and yawning. "Well, there may be a month of drought like this! . . . Are we going or not, Ptitsyn?"
Ippolit listened with an astonishment that reached the point of stupefaction; suddenly he turned terribly pale and began to shake all over.
"You're very clumsily affecting your indifference in order to insult
me," he addressed Ganya, looking at him point-blank. "You're a scoundrel!"
"Well, devil knows, a man shouldn't unbutton himself like that!" shouted Ferdyshchenko. "What phenomenal weakness!"
"Simply a fool," said Ganya.
Ippolit restrained himself somewhat.
"I understand, gentlemen," he began, trembling and faltering at each word as before, "that I may deserve your personal vengeance and . . . I'm sorry that I wore you out with this raving" (he pointed to the manuscript), "though I'm sorry I didn't wear you out completely . . ." (he smiled stupidly). "Did I wear you out, Evgeny Pavlych?" he suddenly jumped over to him with the question. "Did I wear you out, or not? Speak!"
"It was a bit drawn out, but anyhow . . ."
"Say it all! Don't lie for at least once in your life!" Ippolit commanded, trembling.
"Oh, it decidedly makes no difference to me! Do me a favor, I beg you, leave me in peace," Evgeny Pavlovich squeamishly turned away.
"Good night, Prince," Ptitsyn went over to the prince.
"But he's going to shoot himself now, don't you see? Look at him!" cried Vera, and she rushed to Ippolit in extreme fright and even seized his hands. "He said he'd shoot himself at sunrise, don't you see?"
"He won't shoot himself!" several voices muttered gloatingly, Ganya's among them.
"Watch out, gentlemen!" Kolya cried, also seizing Ippolit by the hand. "Just look at him! Prince! Prince, don't you see?"
Vera, Kolya, Keller, and Burdovsky crowded around Ippolit; all four seized him with their hands.
"He has the right, the right! . . ." muttered Burdovsky, who nevertheless looked quite lost.
"Excuse me, Prince, what are your orders?" Lebedev went up to the prince, drunk and spiteful to the point of impudence.
"What orders?"
"No, sir; excuse me, sir; I'm the host, sir, though I do not wish to show a lack of respect for you. Let's grant that you, too, are the host, but I don't want any of that in my own house ... So there, sir."
"He won't shoot himself; it's a boyish prank," General Ivolgin cried unexpectedly with indignation and aplomb.
"Bravo, General!" Ferdyshchenko picked up.
"I know he won't shoot himself, General, my much-esteemed General, but all the same ... for I'm the host."
"Listen, Mr. Terentyev," Ptitsyn said suddenly, having taken leave of the prince and holding his hand out to Ippolit, "in your notebook I believe you mention your skeleton and bequeath it to the Academy? It's your skeleton, your very own, that is, your own bones, that you're bequeathing?"
"Yes, my own bones . . ."
"Aha. Because there might be a mistake: they say there already was such a case."
"Why do you tease him?" the prince cried suddenly.
"You've driven him to tears," added Ferdyshchenko.
But Ippolit was not crying at all. He tried to move from his place, but the four people standing around him suddenly all seized him by the arms. There was laughter.
"That's what he was getting at, that people should hold him by the arms; that's why he read his notebook," observed Rogozhin. "Good-bye, Prince. We've sat enough; my bones ache."
"If you actually intended to shoot yourself, Terentyev," laughed Evgeny Pavlovich, "then if I were in your place, after such compliments, I would deliberately not shoot myself, so as to tease them."
"They want terribly to see how I shoot myself!" Ippolit reared up at him.
He spoke as if he were attacking him.
"They're vexed that they won't see it."
"So you, too, think they won't see it?"
"I'm not egging you on; on the contrary, I think it's quite possible that you will shoot yourself. Above all, don't get angry . . ." Evgeny Pavlovich drawled, drawing the words out patronizingly.
"Only now do I see that I made a terrible mistake in reading them this notebook!" said Ippolit, looking at Evgeny Pavlovich with such an unexpectedly trusting air as if he were asking friendly advice from a friend.
"The situation is ridiculous, but. . . really, I don't know what toadvise you," Evgeny Pavlovich replied, smiling.
Ippolit sternly looked at him point-blank, not tearing his eyes away, and said nothing. One might have thought he was totally oblivious at moments.
"No, excuse me, sir, look at the way he does it, sir," said Lebedev.
"'I'll shoot myself,' he says, 'in the park, so as not to trouble anybody'! So he thinks he won't trouble anybody if he goes three steps down into the garden."
"Gentlemen . . ." the prince began.
"No, sir, excuse me, sir, my much-esteemed Prince," Lebedev latched on furiously, "since you yourself are pleased to see that this is not a joke and since at least half of your guests are of the same opinion and are sure that now, after the words that have been spoken here, he certainly must shoot himself out of honor, then I, being the host, announce in front of witnesses that I am asking you to be of assistance!"
"What needs to be done, Lebedev? I'm ready to assist you."
"Here's what: first of all, he should immediately hand over his pistol, which he boasted about to us, with all the accessories. If he hands it over, then I agree to allow him to spend this one night in this house, in view of his ill condition, and, of course, under supervision on my part. But tomorrow let him go without fail wherever he likes—forgive me, Prince! If he doesn't hand over his weapon, then I at once, immediately, seize him by one arm, the general by the other, and also at once send somebody to notify the police, and then the matter passes over to the police for consideration, sir. Mr. Ferdyshchenko will go, sir, being an acquaintance."
Noise broke out; Lebedev was excited and already overstepping the limits; Ferdyshchenko was preparing to go to the police; Ganya furiously insisted that no one was going to shoot himself. Evgeny Pavlovich was silent.
"Prince, have you ever leaped from a belfry?" Ippolit suddenly whispered to him.
"N-no . . ." the prince answered naively.
"Do you really think I didn't foresee all this hatred?" Ippolit whispered again, flashing his eyes, and looking at the prince as if he indeed expected an answer from him. "Enough!" he cried suddenly to the whole public. "I'm to blame . . . most of all! Lebedev, here's the key" (he took out his wallet and from it a steel ring with three or four little keys on it), "this one, the next to last . . . Kolya will show you . . . Kolya! Where's Kolya?" he cried, looking at Kolya and not seeing him, "yes . . . he'll show you; he and I packed my bag yesterday. Take him, Kolya; in the prince's study, under the table . . . my bag . . . with this key, at the bottom, in the little box . . . my pistol and the powder horn. He packed it himself yesterday, Mr. Lebedev, he'll show you; so long as you give me back the pistol
early tomorrow, when I go to Petersburg. Do you hear? I'm doing it for the prince, not for you."
"Well, that's better!" Lebedev snatched the key and, smiling venomously, ran to the other room.
Kolya stopped, was about to say something, but Lebedev pulled him after him.
Ippolit was looking at the laughing guests. The prince noticed that his teeth were chattering as if in a most violent chill.
"What scoundrels they all are!" Ippolit again whispered frenziedly to the prince. When he spoke to the prince, he kept leaning towards him and whispering.
"Let them be; you're very weak ..."
"One moment, one moment . . . I'll go in a moment."
He suddenly embraced the prince.
"Maybe you find me crazy?" He looked at him, laughing strangely.
"No, but you ..."
"One moment, one moment, be quiet; don't say anything; stand there ... I want to look in your eyes . . . Stand like that, let me look. Let me say good-bye to Man."
He stood and looked at the prince motionlessly and silently for about ten seconds, very pale, his temples moist with sweat, and somehow clutching at the prince strangely with his hand, as if afraid to let him go.
"Ippolit, Ippolit, what's the matter?" cried the prince.
"One moment . . . enough . . . I'll lie down. I'll drink one gulp , to the sun's health ... I want to, I want to, let me be!"
He quickly snatched a glass from the table, tore from the spot, and an instant later was on the steps of the terrace. The prince was about to run after him, but it so happened that, as if on purpose, at that same moment Evgeny Pavlovich held out his hand to say good-bye. A second passed, and suddenly a general cry arose on the terrace. Then came a moment of extreme disarray.
Here is what happened:
Having gone right to the steps of the terrace, Ippolit stopped, holding the glass in his left hand, his right hand thrust into the right side pocket of his coat. Keller insisted later that Ippolit had kept that hand in his right pocket before as well, while he was talking with the prince and clutching at his shoulder and collar with his left hand, and this right hand in the pocket, Keller insisted, had supposedly aroused a first suspicion in him. Be that as it may, a
certain uneasiness made him also run after Ippolit. But he, too, was late. He saw only how something suddenly flashed in Ippolit's right hand, and in that same second the small pocket pistol was pressed to his temple. Keller rushed to seize his hand, but in that same second Ippolit pulled the trigger. The sharp, dry click of the trigger rang out, but no shot followed. As Keller put his arms around Ippolit, the latter collapsed as if unconscious, perhaps indeed imagining that he was killed. The pistol was already in Keller's hand. Ippolit was picked up, a chair was brought, he was seated, and everyone crowded around, everyone shouted, everyone asked questions. Everyone had heard the click of the trigger and now saw the man alive, not even scratched. Ippolit himself sat, not understanding what was happening, and looked at everyone around him with senseless eyes. Lebedev and Kolya came running at that moment.
"A misfire?" some asked.
"Maybe it's not loaded?" others tried to guess.
"It is loaded!" Keller announced, examining the pistol, "but. . ."
"A misfire, then?"
"There wasn't any cap," Keller declared.
It is hard to describe the pitiful scene that followed. The initial and general alarm quickly gave way to laughter; some even guffawed, finding a malicious pleasure in it. Ippolit sobbed as if in hysterics, wrung his hands, rushed to everyone, even to Ferdyshchenko, seized him with both hands, and swore to him that he had forgotten, "had forgotten quite by chance and not on purpose" to put a cap in, that "the caps are all here in his waistcoat pocket, about ten of them" (he showed them to everyone around him), that he had not put one in earlier for fear it might accidentally go off in his pocket, that he had reckoned he would always have time to put one in when necessary, and had suddenly forgotten. He rushed to the prince, to Evgeny Pavlovich, he implored Keller to give him the pistol, so that he could prove it to them all right then, that "his honor, honor" . . . that he was now "dishonored forever! ..."
In the end he really fell unconscious. They carried him to the prince's study, and Lebedev, completely sobered, immediately sent for the doctor and stayed at the sick boy's bedside, along with his daughter, his son, Burdovsky, and the general. When the unconscious Ippolit was taken out, Keller stepped to the middle of the room and announced for everyone to hear, distinctly and emphasizing each word, in decided inspiration:
"Gentlemen, if any of you doubts once more, aloud, in my presence, whether the cap was forgotten on purpose, and begins to maintain that the unfortunate young man was only putting on a show—that person will have to deal with me."
No one answered him. The guests finally left in a crowd and hurriedly. Ptitsyn, Ganya, and Rogozhin went off together.
The prince was very surprised that Evgeny Pavlovich had changed his mind and was leaving without having a talk with him.
"Didn't you want to talk to me once everyone was gone?" he asked him.
"So I did," said Evgeny Pavlovich, suddenly sitting down on a chair and sitting the prince down next to him, "but for the time being I've changed my mind. I'll confess to you that I'm somewhat perplexed, and you are, too. My thoughts are confused; besides, the matter I wanted to talk over with you is all too important for me, and for you, too. You see, Prince, I would like at least once in my life to do a completely honest deed, that is, completely without second thoughts, but I think that right now, at this moment, I'm not quite capable of a completely honest deed, and perhaps you're not either . . . so . . . and . . . well, we'll talk later. Perhaps the matter will gain in clarity, both for me and for you, if we wait those three days which I shall now be spending in Petersburg."
Here he got up from his chair again, which made it strange that he had sat down at all. It also seemed to the prince that Evgeny Pavlovich was displeased and irritated and looked about hostilely, and his gaze was not at all what it had been yesterday.
"By the way, are you going to the sufferer now?"
"Yes . . . I'm afraid," said the prince.
"Don't be afraid; he'll probably live another six weeks and may even recover here. But the best thing would be to send him away tomorrow."
"Maybe I really forced his hand by . . . not saying anything; maybe he thought that I, too, doubted that he would shoot himself? What do you think, Evgeny Pavlych?"
"No, no. It's too kind of you to be still worried. I've heard of it, but I've never seen in real life how a man can purposely shoot himself in order to be praised, or out of spite at not being praised. Above all, this sincerity of weakness is not to be believed! But you should still send him away tomorrow."
"You think he'll shoot himself again?"
"No, he won't shoot himself now. But you should beware of these homegrown Lacenaires 21of ours! I repeat to you that crime is all too common a resort for such giftless, impatient, and greedy nonentities."
"Is he a Lacenaire?"
"The essence is the same, though the line may be different. You'll see whether this gentleman isn't capable of doing in a dozen souls merely for a joke,' just as he read earlier in his 'Explanation.' Now those words won't let me sleep."
"Perhaps you're worrying too much."
"You're amazing, Prince. Don't you believe he's capable nowof killing a dozen souls?"
"I'm afraid to answer you; it's all very strange, but . . ."
"Well, as you wish, as you wish!" Evgeny Pavlovich concluded irritably. "Besides, you're such a brave man; only don't get yourself included in that dozen."
"Most likely he won't kill anybody," said the prince, looking pensively at Evgeny Pavlovich.
The man laughed maliciously.
"Good-bye, it's time to go! And did you notice that he bequeathed a copy of his 'Confession' to Aglaya Ivanovna?"
"Yes, I did and . . . I'm thinking about it."
"Do so, in case of those dozen souls," Evgeny Pavlovich laughed again and left.
An hour later, already past three o'clock, the prince went down into the park. He had tried to fall asleep at home, but could not, because of the violent beating of his heart. At home, however, everything was settled and peaceful, as far as possible; the sick boy had fallen asleep, and the doctor had come and had declared that there was no special danger. Lebedev, Kolya, and Burdovsky lay down in the sick boy's room to take turns watching over him; there was therefore nothing to fear.
But the prince's uneasiness was growing minute by minute. He wandered through the park, absentmindedly looking around, and stopped in surprise when he came to the green in front of the vauxhall and saw a row of empty benches and music stands for the orchestra. The place struck him and for some reason seemed terribly ugly. He turned back and straight down the path he had taken to the vauxhall the day before with the Epanchins, which brought him to the green bench appointed to him for the meeting, sat down on it, and suddenly laughed out loud, which at once
made him terribly indignant. His anguish continued; he would have liked to go away somewhere . . . He did not know where. Above him in the tree a little bird was singing, and he started searching for it with his eyes among the leaves; suddenly the bird flew away from the tree, and at that moment for some reason he recalled the "little fly" in a "hot ray of sunlight," of which Ippolit had written that even this fly "knows its place and participates in the general chorus, and he alone was a castaway." This phrase had struck him earlier, and he remembered it now. A long-forgotten memory stirred in him and suddenly became clear all at once.
It was in Switzerland, during the first year of his treatment, even during the first months. He was still quite like an idiot then, could not even speak properly, and sometimes did not understand what was required of him. Once he went into the mountains on a clear, sunny day, and wandered about for a long time with a tormenting thought that refused to take shape. Before him was the shining sky, below him the lake, around him the horizon, bright and infinite, as if it went on forever. For a long time he looked and suffered. He remembered now how he had stretched out his arms to that bright, infinite blue and wept. What had tormented him was that he was a total stranger to it all. What was this banquet, what was this great everlasting feast, to which he had long been drawn, always, ever since childhood, and which he could never join? Every morning the same bright sun rises; every morning there is a rainbow over the waterfall; every evening the highest snowcapped mountain, there, far away, at the edge of the sky, burns with a crimson flame; every "little fly that buzzes near him in a hot ray of sunlight participates in this whole chorus: knows its place, loves it, and is happy"; every little blade of grass grows and is happy! And everything has its path, and everything knows its path, goes with a song and comes back with a song; only he knows nothing, understands nothing, neither people nor sounds, a stranger to everything and a castaway. Oh, of course, he could not speak then with these words and give voice to his question; he suffered blankly and mutely; but now it seemed to him that he had said it all then, all those same words, and that Ippolit had taken the words about the "little fly" from him, from his own words and tears of that time. He was sure of it, and for some reason his heart throbbed at this thought . . .
