“I must own, Lebedyev, this distresses me. Then some one must have found it on the floor?”
“Or picked it out of my pocket! Two alternatives.”
“This distresses me very much, for who. . . . That’s the question!”
“Not a doubt of it. That is the great question; you find the very word, the very notion, with wonderful exactitude, and you define the position, most illustrious prince.”
“Ach, Lukyan Timofeyitch, give over scoffing, this.
“Scoffing!” cried Lebedyev, clasping his hands.
“Well, well, that’s all right. I’m not angry. It’s quite another matter. ... I’m afraid for people. Whom do you suspect?”
“A most difficult and complicated question! The servant I can’t suspect; she was sitting in the kitchen. Nor my own children either....”
“I should think not!”
“One of the visitors then.”
“But is that possible?”
“Utterly, and in the highest degree impossible, but so it must be. I’m prepared to admit, however, I’m convinced, indeed, that it is a case of theft; it could not have been committed in the evening when we were all together, but in the night or even in the morning by some one who passed the night here.”
“Ach, my God!”
“Burdovsky and Nikolay Ardalionovitch I naturally exclude; and they didn’t even come into my room.”
“I should think so! Even if thev had come! Who spent the night there?”
“Counting me, there were four of us in two adjoining rooms: the general, Keller, Mr. Ferdyshtchenko, and I. So it must have been one of us four!”
“Of the three, then. But which?”
“I counted myself for correctness and accuracy; but you will admit, prince, that I could hardly have robbed myself, though such cases do happen....”
“Ach, Lebedyev, how wearisome this is!” cried Myshkin. “Come to the point. Why do you drag it out?”
“So that leaves three, and first, Mr. Keller, an unsteady, drunken fellow, and in certain respects liberal, that is, as regards the pocket, but in other respects rather with chivalrous than liberal tendencies. He slept here in the sick man’s room, and only in the night came in here on the pretext of the bare floor being hard to sleep on.”
“You suspect him?”
“I did suspect him. When at eight o’clock I jumped up like a madman and struck myself on the forehead with my hands, I at once waked the general, who was sleeping the sleep of innocence. Taking into consideration the strange disappearance of Ferdyshtchenko, which of itself had aroused our suspicions, we both resolved to search Keller, who was lying sleeping like a top. We searched him thoroughly: he hadn’t a farthing in his pockets, and we couldn’t find one pocket without a hole in it. He’d a blue check cotton handkerchief in a disgusting condition; then a love-letter from a housemaid, threatening him and asking for money, and some bits of the article you heard. The general decided that he was innocent. To complete our investigation we waked the man himself by poking him violently. He could hardly understand what was the matter. He opened his mouth with a drunken air; the expression of his face was absurd and innocent, foolish even — it was not he!”
“Well, I am glad!” Myshkin sighed joyfully. “I was so afraid for him!”
“You were afraid? Then you had some grounds for it?” Lebedyev screwed up his eyes.
“Oh, no, I meant nothing,” faltered Myshkin. “I was very stupid to say I was afraid for him. Do me the favour, Lebedyev, not to repeat it to anyone....”
“Prince, prince! Your words are in my heart... at the bottom of my heart! It is a tomb! . . ,” said Lebedyev ecstatically, pressing his hat to his heart.
“Good, good. . . . Then it must have been Ferdyshtchenko? That is, I mean you suspect Ferdyshtchenko?”
“Who else?” Lebedyev articulated softly, looking intently at Myshkin.
“To be sure. . . . Who else is there ... but I mean again, what evidence is there?”
“There is evidence. First his disappearance at seven o’clock, or before seven in the morning.”
“I know; Kolya told me that he went in to him, and said that he was going to spend the day with. ... I forget with whom ... some friend of his.”
“Vilkin. So Nikolay Ardalionovitch has told you already?”
“He told me nothing about the theft.”
“He doesn’t know, for I’ve kept it secret for the time being. And so he went to Vilkin’s. It would seem there’s nothing strange in a drunken man’s going to see another drunken fellow like himself, even before daybreak, and without any reason. But here we have a clue: as he went he left the address . . . Now,
prince, follow up the question: why did he leave an address? Why did he purposely go out of his way to Nikolay Ardalionovitch to tell him, ‘I’m going to spend the day at Vilkin’s.’ Who would care to know that he was going away and to Vilkin’s? Why announce it? No, here we have the cunning, the cunning of a thief! It’s as much as to say, ‘I purposely don’t cover up my traces, so how can I be a thief? Would a thief leave word where he was going?’ It’s an excess of anxiety to avert suspicion, and to efface, so to say, his footprints in the sand. ... Do you understand me, honoured prince?”
“I understand, I quite understand, but you know that’s not enough.”
“A second clue. The track turns out to be a false one, and the address given was not exact. An hour later, that is, at eight o’clock, I was knocking at Vilkin’s; he lives here in Fifth Street, and I know him too. There was no sign of Ferdyshtchenko, though I did get out of the servant who was stone deaf that some one really had knocked one hour before, and been pretty vigorous, too, so that he broke the bell. But the servant wouldn’t open the door, not wishing to wake Mr. Vilkin, and perhaps not anxious to qet up herself. It does happen so.”
“And is that all your evidence? It’s not much.”
“Prince, but who is there to suspect? Judge for yourself,” Lebedyev concluded, persuasively, and there was a gleam of something sly in his grin.
“You ought to search your rooms once more and look in every drawer,” Myshkin pronounced anxiously, after some pondering.
“I have searched them,” Lebedyev sighed, still more insinuating.
“H’m! . . . And what did you want to change that coat for?” cried Myshkin, thumping the table in vexation.
“That’s a question from an old-fashioned comedy. But, most kind prince, you take my misfortune too much to heart. I don’t deserve it. I mean I alone don’t deserve it; but you are worried about the criminal.... About that good-for-nothing Mr. Ferdystchenko?”
“Well, yes. You certainly have worried me,” Myshkin cut him short absently and with dissatisfaction. “So what do you intend to do ... if you are so convinced it is Ferdyshtchenko?”
“Prince, honoured prince, who else could it be?”
said Lebedyev, wriggling with growing persuasiveness. “You see, the lack of any other on whom to fix, and, so to say, the complete impossibility of suspecting anybody but Mr. Ferdyshtchenko, is, so to say, another piece of evidence, the third against Mr. Ferdyshtchenko. For, I ask again, who else could it be? “Vbu wouldn’t have me suspect Mr. Burdovsky, I suppose. He-he-he!”
“What nonsense!”
“Nor the general? He-he-he!”
“What folly!” Myshkin said, almost angrily, turning impatiently in his seat.
“Folly, and no mistake! He-he-he! And he amused me, too. I mean the general did! I went with him just now, while the track was fresh, to Vilkin’s .. . and you must note that the general was even more struck than I was when, first thing after finding out my loss, I waked him up. His face changed. He turned red and pale, and at last flew into violent and righteous indignation beyond anything I should have suspected of him. He is a most honourable man! He tells lies continually, from weakness, but he’s a man of the loftiest sentiments. A man, too, of no guile, who inspires the fullest confidence by his artlessness. I
have to
ld you already, honoured prince, that I’ve more than a weakness, I’ve an affection for him. He suddenly stopped in the middle of the street, unbuttoned his coat, uncovered his chest. ‘Search me!’ he said. ‘bu searched Keller. Why don’t you search me? That’s only justice!’ said he. And his arms and legs were trembling; he was quite pale; he looked so threatening. I laughed and said, ‘Listen, general, if anyone else had said such a thing about you, I’d have taken my head off with my own hands; I’d have put it on a big dish, and would have carried it myself to every one who doubted you: do you see this head? I would say. I’ll answer for him with this head, and not only so, but I’d go through fire for him. That’s what I’d do,’ said I. Then he threw his arms round me, there in the street, burst into tears, trembling, and squeezed me so tight that it made me cough. ‘You’re the only friend left me in my misfortunes,’ said he. He’s a man of feeling! Then, of course, he told me an anecdote on the spot, of how he had once been suspected of stealing five hundred thousand roubles in his youth, but that next day he had thrown himself into a house on fire, and had dragged out of the flames the count who had suspected him, and Nina Alexandrovna, who was a girl at the time. The count embraced him, and so his marriage followed with Nina Alexandrovna. And next day, in the ruins of the house, they found a box with the lost money in it. It was an iron box of English make, with a secret lock, and it had somehow got under the floor so that no one noticed it, and it was only found after the fire. A complete lie. But when he spoke of Nina Alexandrovna he positively blubbered. A most honourable lady, Nina Alexandrovna, though she is angry with me.”
“You don’t know her, do you?”
“Scarcely at all, but I should be heartily glad to, if only to justify myself to her. Nina Alexandrovna has a grievance against me, pretending that I lead her spouse astray into drunkenness. But far from leading him astray, I restrain him. I perhaps entice him away from more pernicious society. Besides, he’s my friend and, I confess it to you, I won’t desert him now. In fact, it’s like this: where he goes there I go. For you can only manage him through his sensibility. He’s quite given up visiting his captain’s widow now, though he secretly longs for her, and even sometimes moans for her, especially in the morninq when he puts on his boots. I don’t know why it’s at that time. He’s no money, that’s the trouble, and there’s no going to see her without. Hasn’t he asked you for money, honoured prince?”
“No, he hasn’t.”
“He’s ashamed to. He did mean to. He owned to me, in fact, that he meant to trouble you, but he’s bashful, seeing you obliged him not long ago, and besides he thinks you wouldn’t give it him. He told me this as his friend.”
“But you don’t give him money?”
“Prince! Honoured prince! For that man I’d give not money, alone, but, so to say, my life. . . . But no, I don’t want to exaggerate, not my life, but if it were a case of fever, an abscess, or even a cough, I’d be ready to bear it for him, I really would. For I look upon him as a great, though fallen man! “Yes, indeed, not only money.”
“Then, you do give him money?”
“N-no; money I have not given him, and he knows himself that I won’t give it him. But that’s solely with a view to his elevation and reformation. Now he is insisting on coming to Petersburg with me. “You see,
I’m going to Petersburg to find Mr. Ferdyshtchenko while the tracks are fresh. For I know for a fact that he is there by now. My general is all eagerness, but I suspect that he’ll give me the slip in Petersburg to visit his widow. I’m letting him go on purpose, I must own, as we’ve agreed to go in different directions, as soon as we arrive, so as to catch Mr. Ferdyshtchenko more easily. So I shall let him go, and then fall on him all of a sudden, like snow on the head, at the widow’s — just to put him to shame, as a family man, and as a man, indeed, speaking generally.”
“Only don’t make a disturbance, Lebedyev. For goodness’ sake, don’t make a disturbance,” Myshkin said in an undertone with great uneasiness.
“Oh, no, simply to put him to shame and see what sort of a face he makes, for one can judge a great deal from the face, honoured prince, especially with a man like that! Ah, prince! Great as my own trouble is now, I cannot help thinking of him and the reformation of his morals. I have a great favour to ask of you, prince, and I must confess it was expressly for that I have come to you. You are familiar with their home, you have even lived with them; so, if you would decide to assist me, honoured prince, entirely for the sake of the general and his happiness....”
Lebedyev positively clasped his hands, as though in supplication.
“Assist you? Assist you how? Believe me, I am extremely anxious to understand you, Lebedyev.”
“It was entirely with that conviction I have come to you! We could act through Nina Alexandrovna, constantly watching over, and, so to speak, tracking his excellency in the bosom of his family. I don’t know them, unluckily. . . moreover, Nikolay Ardalionovitch adores you, so to speak, with every fibre of his youthful heart, he could help, perhaps....”
“No, to bring Nina Alexandrovna into this business . . . Heaven forbid! Nor Kolya either. . . . But perhaps I still fail to understand you, Lebedyev.”
“Why, there’s nothing to understand!” Lebedyev sprang up from his chair. “Sympathy, sympathy, and tenderness — that’s all the treatment our invalid requires. bu, prince, will allow me to think of him as an invalid?”
“Yes, it shows your delicacy and intelligence.”
“For the sake of clearness, I will explain to you by an example taken from my practice. You see the kind of man he is: his only weakness now is for that widow, who won’t let him come without money, and at whose house I mean to discover him to-day, for his own good; but supposing it were not only the captain’s widow, supposing he had committed an actual crime, or anyway a most dishonourable action (though of course he’s incapable of it), even then, I tell you, you could do anything with him simply by generous tenderness, so to speak, for he is the most sensitive of men! Believe me, he wouldn’t hold out for five days; he would speak out of himself; he would weep and confess, especially if one went to work cleverly, and in an honourable style, by means of his family’s vigilant watch, and yours, over his comings and goings. . . . Oh, most noble-hearted prince!” Lebedyev leapt up in a sort of exaltation. “Of course I’m not asserting that he. ... I am ready to shed my last drop of blood, so to speak, for him at this moment, though his incontinence and drunkenness and the captain’s widow, and all that, taken together, may lead him on to anything.”
“In such a cause I am always ready to assist,” said Mvshkin, qettinq up. “Onlv, I confess, Lebedvev, I am dreadfully uneasy; tell me, do you still. ... In one word you say yourself that you suspect Mr. Ferdyshtchenko.”
“Why, who else? Who else, true-hearted prince?” Again Lebedyev clasped his hands ingratiatingly, with a sugary smile.
Myshkin frowned and got up from his place.
“Look here, Lukyan Timofeyitch, a mistake here would be a dreadful thing. This Ferdyshtchenko. ... I should not like to speak ill of him. . . . This Ferdyshtchenko . . . well, who knows, perhaps it is he! ... I mean to say that perhaps he really is more capable of it than ... anyone else.”
Lebedyev opened his eyes and pricked up his ears.
“You see,” said Myshkin, stumbling and frowning more and more, as he walked up and down the verandah, trying not to look at Lebedyev— “I was given to understand. ... I was told about Mr. Ferdyshtchenko that he was a man before whom one must be careful not to say anything ... too much — you understand? I say this to show that perhaps he really is more capable of it than anyone else ... so as not to make a mistake, that’s the great thing — do you understand?”
“Who told you that about Mr. Ferdyshtchenko?” Lebedyev caught him up instantly.
“Oh, it was whispered to me. I don’t believe it myself, though. ... I’m awfully vexed to be obliged to tell you. ... I assure you I don’t believe it myself . . . it’s some n
onsense.... Foo! how stupid I’ve been!”
“You see, prince,” Lebedyev was positively quivering all over, “this is important. This is extremely important now. I don’t mean as to Mr. Ferdyshtchenko, but as to the way this information reached you” — saying this Lebedyev ran backwards and forwards after Myshkin, trying to keep step with him— “I’ve something to tell you now, prince: just now, when I was going with the general to Vilkin’s, after he told me about the fire, he was boiling over, of course, with anger, and suddenly began dropping the same hint to me about Mr. Ferdyshtchenko, but so strangely and incoherently that I couldn’t help asking him some questions, and in the end I was fully convinced that all the whole thing was solely an inspiration of his excellency’s, solely arising, so to speak, from his generous heart. For he lies entirely because he can’t restrain his sentimentality. Now, kindly consider this: if he told a lie, and I’m sure he did, how could you have heard of it? It was the inspiration of the moment, you understand, prince — so who could have told you? That’s important, that... . That’s very important, and ... so to say....”
“Kolya told me it just now, and he was told it this morning by his father whom he met at six o’clock — between six and seven — in the passage, when he came out for something.”
And Myshkin told the story in detail.
“Ah, well, that’s what’s called a clue.” Lebedyev laughed noiselessly, rubbing his hands. “Just as I thought! That means that his excellency waked from his sleep of innocence at six o’clock, expressly to go and wake his darling son and warn him of the great danger of associating with Mr. Ferdyshtchenko. What a dangerous man Mr. Ferdyshtchenko must be! And what parental solicitude on the part of his excellency!”
“Listen, Lebedyev,” Myshkin was utterly confused, “listen, keep quiet about it! Don’t make an uproar! I beg you, Lebedyev, I entreat you. In that case I swear I’ll help you, but on condition that nobody, nobody knows!”
“Rest assured, most noble-hearted, most sincere and generous prince,” cried Lebedyev in perfect exaltation— “rest assured that all this will be buried in my loyal heart. I’d give every drop of my blood. . . . Illustrious prince, I’m a poor creature in soul and spirit, but ask any poor creature, any scoundrel even, which he’d rather have to do with, a scoundrel like himself, or a noble-hearted man like you, most true-hearted prince, he’ll answer that he prefers the noble-hearted man, and that’s the triumph of virtue! Good-bye honoured prince! Treading softly . . . treading softly, and ... hand in hand.”
Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky Page 319