The Idiot

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

until eleven o’clock.

  “Yet I remember all he talked about, and every word we said, thoughwhenever my eyes closed for a moment I could picture nothing but theimage of Surikoff just in the act of finding a million roubles. He couldnot make up his mind what to do with the money, and tore his hair overit. He trembled with fear that somebody would rob him, and at lasthe decided to bury it in the ground. I persuaded him that, instead ofputting it all away uselessly underground, he had better melt it downand make a golden coffin out of it for his starved child, and then digup the little one and put her into the golden coffin. Surikoff acceptedthis suggestion, I thought, with tears of gratitude, and immediatelycommenced to carry out my design.

  “I thought I spat on the ground and left him in disgust. Colia toldme, when I quite recovered my senses, that I had not been asleep for amoment, but that I had spoken to him about Surikoff the whole while.

  “At moments I was in a state of dreadful weakness and misery, so thatColia was greatly disturbed when he left me.

  “When I arose to lock the door after him, I suddenly called to mind apicture I had noticed at Rogojin’s in one of his gloomiest rooms, overthe door. He had pointed it out to me himself as we walked past it, andI believe I must have stood a good five minutes in front of it. Therewas nothing artistic about it, but the picture made me feel strangelyuncomfortable. It represented Christ just taken down from the cross. Itseems to me that painters as a rule represent the Saviour, both on thecross and taken down from it, with great beauty still upon His face.This marvellous beauty they strive to preserve even in His moments ofdeepest agony and passion. But there was no such beauty in Rogojin’spicture. This was the presentment of a poor mangled body which hadevidently suffered unbearable anguish even before its crucifixion, fullof wounds and bruises, marks of the violence of soldiers and people, andof the bitterness of the moment when He had fallen with the cross--allthis combined with the anguish of the actual crucifixion.

  “The face was depicted as though still suffering; as though the body,only just dead, was still almost quivering with agony. The picture wasone of pure nature, for the face was not beautified by the artist, butwas left as it would naturally be, whosoever the sufferer, after suchanguish.

  “I know that the earliest Christian faith taught that the Savioursuffered actually and not figuratively, and that nature was allowed herown way even while His body was on the cross.

  “It is strange to look on this dreadful picture of the mangled corpseof the Saviour, and to put this question to oneself: ‘Supposing that thedisciples, the future apostles, the women who had followed Him and stoodby the cross, all of whom believed in and worshipped Him--supposingthat they saw this tortured body, this face so mangled and bleeding andbruised (and they _must_ have so seen it)--how could they have gazed uponthe dreadful sight and yet have believed that He would rise again?’

  “The thought steps in, whether one likes it or no, that death is soterrible and so powerful, that even He who conquered it in His miraclesduring life was unable to triumph over it at the last. He who calledto Lazarus, ‘Lazarus, come forth!’ and the dead man lived--He was nowHimself a prey to nature and death. Nature appears to one, looking atthis picture, as some huge, implacable, dumb monster; or still better--astranger simile--some enormous mechanical engine of modern days whichhas seized and crushed and swallowed up a great and invaluable Being,a Being worth nature and all her laws, worth the whole earth, which wasperhaps created merely for the sake of the advent of that Being.

  “This blind, dumb, implacable, eternal, unreasoning force is well shownin the picture, and the absolute subordination of all men and things toit is so well expressed that the idea unconsciously arises in the mindof anyone who looks at it. All those faithful people who were gazing atthe cross and its mutilated occupant must have suffered agony of mindthat evening; for they must have felt that all their hopes and almostall their faith had been shattered at a blow. They must have separatedin terror and dread that night, though each perhaps carried away withhim one great thought which was never eradicated from his mind for everafterwards. If this great Teacher of theirs could have seen Himselfafter the Crucifixion, how could He have consented to mount the Crossand to die as He did? This thought also comes into the mind of the manwho gazes at this picture. I thought of all this by snatches probablybetween my attacks of delirium--for an hour and a half or so beforeColia’s departure.

  “Can there be an appearance of that which has no form? And yet it seemedto me, at certain moments, that I beheld in some strange and impossibleform, that dark, dumb, irresistibly powerful, eternal force.

  “I thought someone led me by the hand and showed me, by the light ofa candle, a huge, loathsome insect, which he assured me was that veryforce, that very almighty, dumb, irresistible Power, and laughed atthe indignation with which I received this information. In my room theyalways light the little lamp before my icon for the night; it gives afeeble flicker of light, but it is strong enough to see by dimly, andif you sit just under it you can even read by it. I think it was abouttwelve or a little past that night. I had not slept a wink, and waslying with my eyes wide open, when suddenly the door opened, and in cameRogojin.

  “He entered, and shut the door behind him. Then he silently gazed at meand went quickly to the corner of the room where the lamp was burningand sat down underneath it.

  “I was much surprised, and looked at him expectantly.

  “Rogojin only leaned his elbow on the table and silently stared at me.So passed two or three minutes, and I recollect that his silence hurtand offended me very much. Why did he not speak?

  “That his arrival at this time of night struck me as more or lessstrange may possibly be the case; but I remember I was by no meansamazed at it. On the contrary, though I had not actually told him mythought in the morning, yet I know he understood it; and this thoughtwas of such a character that it would not be anything very remarkable,if one were to come for further talk about it at any hour of night,however late.

  “I thought he must have come for this purpose.

  “In the morning we had parted not the best of friends; I remember helooked at me with disagreeable sarcasm once or twice; and this same lookI observed in his eyes now--which was the cause of the annoyance I felt.

  “I did not for a moment suspect that I was delirious and that thisRogojin was but the result of fever and excitement. I had not theslightest idea of such a theory at first.

  “Meanwhile he continued to sit and stare jeeringly at me.

  “I angrily turned round in bed and made up my mind that I would not saya word unless he did; so I rested silently on my pillow determined toremain dumb, if it were to last till morning. I felt resolved that heshould speak first. Probably twenty minutes or so passed in this way.Suddenly the idea struck me--what if this is an apparition and notRogojin himself?

  “Neither during my illness nor at any previous time had I ever seen anapparition;--but I had always thought, both when I was a little boy, andeven now, that if I were to see one I should die on the spot--though Idon’t believe in ghosts. And yet _now_, when the idea struck me that thiswas a ghost and not Rogojin at all, I was not in the least alarmed.Nay--the thought actually irritated me. Strangely enough, the decisionof the question as to whether this were a ghost or Rogojin did not, forsome reason or other, interest me nearly so much as it ought to havedone;--I think I began to muse about something altogether different. Forinstance, I began to wonder why Rogojin, who had been in dressing-gownand slippers when I saw him at home, had now put on a dress-coat andwhite waistcoat and tie? I also thought to myself, I remember--‘ifthis is a ghost, and I am not afraid of it, why don’t I approach it andverify my suspicions? Perhaps I am afraid--’ And no sooner did this lastidea enter my head than an icy blast blew over me; I felt a chill downmy backbone and my knees shook.

  “At this very moment, as though divining my thoughts, Rogojin raised hishead from his arm and began to part his lips as though he were going tolaugh--but he continued to stare
at me as persistently as before.

  “I felt so furious with him at this moment that I longed to rush athim; but as I had sworn that he should speak first, I continued to liestill--and the more willingly, as I was still by no means satisfied asto whether it really was Rogojin or not.

  “I cannot remember how long this lasted; I cannot recollect, either,whether consciousness forsook me at intervals, or not. But at lastRogojin rose, staring at me as intently as ever, but not smiling anylonger,--and walking very softly, almost on tip-toes, to the door, heopened it, went out, and shut it behind him.

  “I did not rise from my bed, and I don’t know how long I lay with myeyes open, thinking. I don’t know what I thought about, nor how I fellasleep or became insensible; but I awoke next morning after nine o’clockwhen they knocked at my door. My general orders are that if I don’t openthe door and call, by nine o’clock, Matreona is to come and bring mytea. When I now opened the door to her, the thought suddenly struckme--how could he have come in, since the door was locked? I