Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  “Here, at the outset, a strange question arises: by what right, with what motive could anyone presume to dispute my right to dispose of my last fortnight? Whose business is it to judge? What is it to anyone that I should not only be condemned, but should conscientiously endure my sentence to the end? Can it really matter to anyone? From the ethical point of view? I quite understand that if, in the bloom of health and strength, I were to take my life, which might be ‘of use to my neighbour,’ and all the rest of it, morality might reproach me on traditional lines for disposing of my life without asking leave, or for some other reason of its own. But now, now that the term of my sentence has been pronounced? What moral obligation demands, not only your life, but the last gasp with which you give up your last atom of life, listening to words of comfort from the prince, whose Christian arguments are bound to bring him to the happy thought that it is really for the best that you should die. (Christians like him always do come to that idea. It’s their favourite tack.) And what does he want to bring in his ridiculous ‘trees of Pavlovsk’ for? To soften the last hours of my life? Don’t they understand, that the more I forget myself, the more I give myself up to the last semblance of life and love, with which they are trying to screen from me Meyer’s wall and all that is so openly and simply written on it, the more unhappy they make me? What use to me is your nature, your Pavlovsk park, your sunrises and sunsets, your blue sky, and your contented faces, when all this endless festival has begun by my being excluded from it? What is there for me in this beauty when, every minute, every second I am obliged, forced, to recognise that even the tiny fly, buzzing in the sunlight beside me, has its share in the banquet and the chorus, knows its place, loves it and is happy; and I alone am an outcast, and only my cowardice has made me refuse to realise it till now. Oh, I know how the prince and all of them would have liked, from principle and for the triumph of morality, to lead me on to singing Millevoix’ celebrated classical verse.

  Ah, puissent voir longtemps votre beaute sacree Tant d’amis sourds a mes adieux!

  Quits meurentpleins de jours, que leurmort soitpleuree,

  Qu’un ami leurferme les yeux! —

  instead of these ‘corrupting and wicked words.’ But believe me, believe me, simple-hearted souls, that those edifying lines, that academic benediction of the world in French verse, contains so much concealed bitterness, such irreconcilable malice, revelling in rhyme, that perhaps, even the poet himself was muddled and took that malice for tears of tenderness, and died in that faith; peace be to his ashes! Let me tell you, there is a limit of ignominy in the consciousness of one’s own nothingness and impotence beyond which a man cannot go, and beyond which he begins to feel immense satisfaction in his very degradation. . . . Oh, of course humility is a great force in that sense, I admit that — though not in the sense in which religion accepts humility as a force.

  “Religion! Eternal life I can admit, and perhaps I always have admitted it. Let consciousness, kindled by the will of a higher Power, have looked round upon the world and have said—’I am!’ and let it suddenly be doomed by that Power to annihilation, because it’s somehow necessary for some purpose — and even without explanation of the purpose — so be it, I admit it all, but again the eternal question: what need is there of my humility? Can’t I simply be devoured without being expected to praise what devours me? Can there really be Somebody up aloft who will be aggrieved by my not going on for a fortnight longer? I don’t believe it; and it’s a much more likely supposition that all that’s needed is my worthless life, the life of an atom, to complete some universal harmony; for some sort of plus and minus, for the sake of some sort of contrast, and so on, just as the life of millions of creatures is needed every day as a sacrifice, as, without their death, the rest of the world couldn’t go on (though that’s not a very grand idea in itself, I must observe). But so be it! I admit that otherwise, that is without the continual devouring of one another, it would have been impossible to arrange the world. I am even ready to admit that I can’t understand anything about that arrangement. But this I do know for certain: that if I have once been allowed to be conscious that ‘I am,’ it doesn’t matter to me that there are mistakes in the construction of the world, and that without them it can’t go on. Who will condemn me after that, and on what charge? Say what you like, it’s all impossible and unjust.

  “And yet, in spite of all my desire to do it, I could never conceive of there being no future life, no Providence. It seems most likely that they do exist, but that we don’t understand anything about the future life or its laws. But if this is so difficult and even impossible to understand, surely I shan’t be held responsible for not being able to comprehend the inconceivable. It’s true, they tell me, and the prince, of course, is with them there, that submissive faith is needed, that one must obey without reasoning, simply from piety, and that I shall certainly be rewarded in the next world for my humility.

  “We degrade God too much, ascribing to Him our ideas, in vexation at being unable to understand Him. But, again, if it’s impossible to understand Him,

  I repeat it’s hard to have to answer for what it is not given to man to understand. And, if it is so, how shall I be judged for being unable to understand the will and laws of Providence? No, we’d better leave religion on one side.

  “And I’ve said enough, indeed. When I reach these lines, the sun will, no doubt, be rising, and ‘resounding in the sky,’ and its vast immeasurable power will be shed upon the earth. So be it! I shall be looking straight at the source of power and life; I do not want this life! If I’d had the power not to be born, I would certainly not have accepted existence upon conditions that are such a mockery. But I still have power to die, though the days I give back are numbered. It’s no great power, it’s no great mutiny.

  “My last ‘Explanation’: I am dying, not because I am not equal to bearing these three weeks. Oh, I should have the strength, and, if I cared to, I should be comforted enough by the recognition of the wrong done me; but I’m not a French poet, and I do not care for such consolation. Finally, there’s temptation too. Nature has so limited any activity by its three weeks’ sentence, that perhaps suicide is the only action I still have time to beqin and end bv mv own will. And,

  perhaps I want to take advantage of the last possibility of action. A protest is sometimes no small action....”

  The “Explanation” was over. Ippolit at last stopped.

  There is, in extreme cases, a pitch of cynical frankness when a nervous man, exasperated, and beside himself, shrinks from nothing, and is readyfor any scandal, even glad of it. He falls upon people with a vague but firm determination to fling himself from a belfry a minute later, and so settle any difficulties that may arise. And the approaching physical exhaustion is usually the symptom of this condition. The extreme, almost unnatural tension which had kept Ippolit up till that moment had reached that fatal pitch. This eighteen-year-old boy, exhausted by illness, seemed as weak as a trembling leaf torn from a tree. But as soon as — for the first time in the course of the last hour — he looked round upon his audience, the most haughty, most disdainful and resentful repugnance was at once apparent in his eyes and his smile. He made haste with his challenge. But his listeners too were very indignant. They were all noisily and angrily getting up from the table. Weariness, wine, nervous strain increased the disorderliness and, as it were, foulness of the impression, if one may so express it.

  Suddenly Ippolit leapt up, as though he had been thrust from his seat,

  “The sun has risen,” he cried to Myshkin, seeing the treetops lighted up, and pointing to them as though to a marvel. “It has risen!”

  “Why, did you think it wasn’t going to rise?” observed Ferdyshtchenko.

  “It will be baking hot again, all day,” muttered Ganya, with careless annoyance, stretching and yawning, with his hat in his hands. “What if there’s a month of this drought! . . . Are we going or not, Ptitsyn?”

  Ippolit listened with an astonish
ment that approached stupefaction. He suddenly turned fearfully pale and began trembling all over.

  “You act your indifference very awkwardly to insult me,” he said, staring at Ganya. “You’re a cur!”

  “Well, that’s beyond anything, to let oneself go like that!” roared Ferdyshtchenko. “What phenomenal feebleness!”

  “He’s simplya fool,” said Ganya.

  Ippolit pulled himself together a little.

  “I understand, gentlemen,” he began, trembling as before, and stuttering at every word— “that I may deserve your personal resentment, and ... I’m sorry I’ve distressed you with these ravings (he pointed to the manuscript), or rather I’m sorry that I haven’t distressed you at all”... (he smiled stupidly). “Have I distressed you, Yevgeny Pavlovitch?” he darted across to him with the question. “Did I distress you or not, tell me?”

  “It was rather drawn out, still it was ...”

  “Speak out! Don’t tell lies for once in your life!” Ippolit insisted, trembling.

  “Oh! It’s absolutely nothing to me! I beg you to be so good as to leave me alone.”

  “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch turned awaydisdainfully.

  “Good-night, prince,” said Ptitsyn, going up to Myshkin.

  “But he’s going to shoot himself directly! What are you thinking of? Look at him,” cried Vera, and she flew to Ippolit in great alarm; she even clutched at his arms. “Why, he said he would shoot himself at sunrise! What are you about!”

  “He won’t shoot himself!” several voices, among them Ganya’s, muttered malignantly.

  “Gentlemen, take care!” cried Kolya, and he, too, caught at Ippolit’s arm. “Only look at him. Prince, prince, what are you thinking of?”

  Ippolit was surrounded by Vera, Kolya, Keller and Burdovsky. They all caught hold of him.

  “He has the right ... the right . . .” Burdovsky murmured, though he, too, seemed quite beside himself.

  “Excuse me, prince, what arrangements do you propose to make?” said Lebedyev, going up to Myshkin. He was drunk and so enraged that he was insolent.

  “What arrangements?”

  “No, sir; excuse me; I’m the master of the house, though I don’t wish to be lacking in respect to you. . . . Granting that you are master here too, still I don’t care in my own house....”

  “He won’t shoot himself! The wretched boy is fooling!” General Ivolgin cried unexpectedly, with indignation and aplomb.

  “Bravo, general!” Ferdyshtchenko applauded.

  “I know he won’t shoot himself, qeneral, honoured general, but all the same ... seeing I’m master of the house.”

  “Listen, I say. Mr. Terentyev,” said Ptitsyn suddenly, holding out his hand to Ippolit, after saying good-bye to Myshkin. “I believe you speak in your manuscript of your skeleton and leave it to the Academy? You mean your own skeleton, your bones you mean, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, my bones....”

  “That’s all right then. I asked for fear there should be a mistake; I’ve been told there was such a case.”

  “How can you tease him?” cried Myshkin suddenly.

  “You’ve made him cry,” added Ferdyshtchenko.

  But Ippolit was not crying. He tried to move from his place, but the four standing about him seized his hands at once. There was a sound of laughter.

  “That’s what he’s been after, that they should hold his hands; that’s what he read his confession for,” observed Rogozhin. “Good-bye, prince. Ech, we’ve been sitting too long — my bones ache.”

  “If you really did mean to shoot yourself, Terentyev,” laughed “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch— “after such compliments, if I were you, I should make a point of not doing it, to tease them.”

  “They’re awfully eager to see me shoot myself!” cried Ippolit, flying out at his words.

  He spoke as though he were attacking some one. “They’re annoyed that they won’t see it.”

  “So you think they won’t see it? I’m not egging you on; quite the contrary; I think it’s very likely you will shoot yourself. The great thing is not to lose your temper. . ,” said “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch in a patronizing drawl.

  “I only see now that I made a fearful mistake in reading them my ‘Explanation,’” said Ippolit, looking at Yevgeny Pavlovitch with a sudden trustfulness, as though asking the confidential advice of a friend.

  “It’s an absurd position, but... I really don’t know what to advise you,” answered “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch, smiling.

  Ippolit bent a stern, persistent gaze at him, and did not answer. It might have been supposed that he was unconscious at some moments.

  “No, excuse me, it’s a strange way of doing things,” said Lebedyev. ‘“I’ll shoot myself in the park,’” says he, ‘“so as not to upset anyone.’ That’s his notion, that he won’t upset anyone if he goes down three steps a few feet into the park.”

  “Gentlemen ..,” began Myshkin.

  “No, allow me, honoured prince,” Lebedyev interrupted, furiously, “as you can see for yourself that it’s not a joke, and as half your guests at least are of the same opinion, and are convinced that, after what he has said, he will feel bound in honour to shoot himself, I, as master of the house, and as a witness of it, call upon you to assist me!”

  “What’s to be done, Lebedyev? I am ready to assist you.”

  “I’ll tell you what. In the first place he must give up the pistol he boasted about before us all, and all the ammunition too. If he gives it up, I consent to let him stay the night in this house, in consideration of his invalid state, under my own supervision, of course. But to-morrow he must certainly go about his business. Excuse me, prince! If he won’t give up his weapon, I shall at once take hold of him, I on one side, the general on the other, and send at once to inform the police; and then the affair can be left for the police to deal with. Mr. Ferdyshtchenko, as a friend, will go for them.”

  An uproar followed. Lebedyev was excited, and threw aside all restraint. Ferdyshtchenko prepared to go for the police. Ganya insisted frantically that no one meant to shoot himself. Yevgeny Pavlovitch said nothing.

  “Prince, have you ever jumped from a belfry?” Ippolit whispered to him, suddenly.

  “N-no,” answered Myshkin, naively.

  “Did you imagine that I did not foresee all this hatred!” Ippolit whispered again, looking at Myshkin with flashing eyes, as though he really expected an answer from him.

  “Enough!” he cried, suddenly, to the whole party. “It’s my fault . . . more than anyone’s. Lebedyev, here’s the keys (he took out his purse and from it a steel ring with three or four keys upon it). “Here, the last but one. . . . Kolya will show you. . . . Kolya, where is Kolya?” cried he, looking at Kolya, and not seeing him. “fes . . . he’ll show you. He packed my bag with me, yesterday. Take him, Kolya. In the prince’s study, under the table ... is my bag . . . with this key ... at the bottom in a little box ... my pistol and powder-horn. He packed it himself, Mr. Lebedvev; he’ll show vou. But on condition that to-

  morrow, early, when I start for Petersburg, you’ll give me back my pistol. Do you hear? I do it for the prince, not for you.”

  “Well, that’s better,” said Lebedyev, snatching at the key; and, laughing viciously, he ran into the next room.

  Kolya would have remained, he tried to say something, but Lebedyev drew him away.

  Ippolit looked at the laughing revellers. Myshkin noticed that his teeth were chattering, as though he were in a terrible chill.

  “What wretches they all are!” Ippolit whispered to Myshkin, in a frenzy.

  When he spoke to Myshkin, he bent right over and whispered to him.

  “Leave them. You’re very weak....”

  “In a minute, in a minute. ... I’m going in a minute.”

  Suddenly he put his arms round Myshkin.

  “You think I am mad perhaps?” He looked at him strangely, laughing.

  “No, but you....”

  “In a minute, in a minute, be qu
iet; don’t say anything, stand still. I want to look you in the eyes. ... Stand like that, and let me look. I say good-bye to man.”

  He stood and looked fixedly at Myshkin for ten seconds without speaking. Very pale, his hair soaked with sweat, he caught somehow strangely at Myshkin’s hand with his as though afraid to let him go.

  “Ippolit, Ippolit, what is the matter with you?” cried Myshkin.

  “Directly.... Enough.... I’m going to bed. I’ll have one drink to greet the sun. ... I want to, I want to . . . let me be.”

  He quickly caught up a glass from the table, sprang up from his seat, and in one instant he was at the verandah steps. Myshkin was about to run after him, but it happened, as though by design, that, at that moment “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch held out his hand to say good-bye to him. One second after, there was a general outcry on the verandah. Then followed a minute of extreme consternation.

  This was what had happened. On reaching the verandah steps, Ippolit had stopped short, with his left hand holding the glass and his right hand in his coat pocket. Keller afterwards declared that Ippolit had that hand in his righthand pocket before, while he was talking to Myshkin, and clutching at his shoulder and his collar with his left hand, and that right hand in his pocket, so Keller declared, had first raised a faint suspicion in him. However that may have been, some uneasiness made him run after Ippolit. But he was too late. He only saw something suddenly shining in Ippolit’s right hand, and at the same second, a little pocket pistol was against his temple. Keller rushed to seize his hand, but, at that second, Ippolit pressed the trigger. There was the sound of the sharp, short click of the trigger, but no shot followed. When Keller seized Ippolit, the young man fell into his arms, apparently unconscious, perhaps really imagining that he was killed. The pistol was already in Keller’s hand. Ippolit was held up, a chair was brought. They sat him down on it, and all crowded round, shouting and asking questions. All had heard the click of the trigger, and saw the man alive without a scratch. Ippolit himself sat, not understanding what was going on, staring blankly at all around him. Lebedyev and Kolya ran up at that instant.