“She needs a husband!”
“Only God grant he’s not one like you, Ivan Fyodorych,” Lizaveta Prokofyevna would finally explode like a bomb, “not like you in his opinions and verdicts, Ivan Fyodorych; not such a boorish boor as you, Ivan Fyodorych …”
Ivan Fyodorovich would immediately run for his life, and Lizaveta Prokofyevna, after her explosion, would calm down. Naturally, towards evening that same day she would inevitably become extraordinarily attentive, quiet, affectionate, and respectful towards Ivan Fyodorovich, towards her “boorish boor” Ivan Fyodorovich, her kind, dear, and adored Ivan Fyodorovich, because all her life she had loved and had even been in love with her Ivan Fyodorovich, which Ivan Fyodorovich himself knew excellently well and for which he infinitely respected his Lizaveta Prokofyevna.
But her chief and constant torment was Aglaya.
“Exactly, exactly like me, my portrait in all respects,” Lizaveta Prokofyevna said to herself, “a willful, nasty little demon! Nihilistic, eccentric, crazy, wicked, wicked, wicked! Oh, Lord, how unhappy she’s going to be!”
But, as we have already said, the risen sun softened and brightened everything for a moment. There was nearly a month in Lizaveta Prokofyevna’s life when she rested completely from all her worries. On the occasion of Adelaida’s impending wedding there was also talk in society about Aglaya, while Aglaya everywhere bore herself so beautifully, so equably, so intelligently, so victoriously, a little proudly, but that was so becoming to her! She was so affectionate, so affable to her mother for the whole month! (“True, this Evgeny Pavlovich must still be very closely scrutinized, plumbed to the depths, and besides, Aglaya doesn’t seem to favor him much more than the others!”) All the same she had suddenly become such a nice girl—and how pretty she is, God, how pretty she is, and getting better day by day! And then …
And then that nasty little prince, that worthless little idiot, appeared and everything immediately got stirred up, everything in the house turned upside down!
What had happened, though?
For other people, probably, nothing would have happened. But this was what made Lizaveta Prokofyevna different, that in a combination and confusion of the most ordinary things, she always managed, through her ever-present worry, to discern something that inspired in her, sometimes to the point of morbidity, a most insecure, most inexplicable, and therefore most oppressive, fear. How must it have been for her now, when suddenly, through that whole muddle of ridiculous and groundless worries, there actually came a glimpse of something that indeed seemed important, something that indeed seemed worthy of alarms, doubts, and suspicions.
“And how dared they, how dared they write me that cursed anonymous letter about that creature being in touch with Aglaya?” Lizaveta Prokofyevna thought all the way, as she dragged the prince with her, and at home, when she sat him at the round table where the whole family was gathered. “How dared they even think of it? But I’d die of shame if I believed the smallest drop of it or showed the letter to Aglaya! Such mockery of us, the Epanchins! And all, all through Ivan Fyodorych, all through you, Ivan Fyodorych! Ah, why didn’t we move to Elagin: I told them we should move to Elagin! Maybe it was Varka who wrote the letter, I know, or maybe … it’s all, all Ivan Fyodorych’s fault! That creature pulled that stunt on him in memory of their former connections, to show him what a fool he is, just as she laughed at him before, the foolish man, and led him by the nose when he brought her those pearls … And in the end we’re mixed up in it all the same, your daughters are, Ivan Fyodorych, girls, young ladies, young ladies of the best society, marriageable; they were right there, stood there, heard everything, and also got mixed up in the story with the nasty boys, be glad that they were there as well and listening! I won’t forgive him, I won’t forgive that wretched princeling, I’ll never forgive him! And why has Aglaya been in hysterics for three days, why has she nearly quarreled with her sisters, even Alexandra, whose hands she always used to kiss like her mother’s—she respected her so much? Why has she been setting everyone riddles for three days? What has Gavrila Ivolgin got to do with it? Why did she take to praising Gavrila Ivolgin yesterday and today and then burst into tears? Why does that anonymous letter mention that cursed ‘poor knight,’ when she never even showed the prince’s letter to her sisters? And why … what, what made me go running to him like a singed cat and drag him here myself? Lord, I’ve lost my mind, what have I done now! To talk with a young man about my daughter’s secrets, and what’s more … what’s more, about secrets that all but concern him! Lord, it’s a good thing at least that he’s an idiot and … and … a friend of the house! Only, can it be that Aglaya got tempted by such a little freak? Lord, what drivel I’m spouting! Pah! We’re originals … they should put us all under glass and show us to people, me first, ten kopecks for admission. I won’t forgive you that, Ivan Fyodorych, I’ll never forgive you! And why doesn’t she give him a dressing-down now? She promised to give him a dressing-down and yet she doesn’t do it! There, there, she’s looking at him all eyes, says nothing, doesn’t go away, stays, and it was she who told him not to come … He sits there all pale. And that cursed, cursed babbler Evgeny Pavlych keeps up the whole conversation by himself! Look at him talking away, not letting anybody put a word in. I’d have learned everything, if only I could have turned it the right way …”
The prince indeed sat, all but pale, at the round table and, it seemed, was at one and the same time extremely frightened and, for moments, in an incomprehensible, exhilarating ecstasy. Oh, how afraid he was to look in that direction, into that corner from which two familiar dark eyes gazed intently at him, and at the same time how seized with happiness he was to be sitting among them again, to hear the familiar voice—after what she had written to him. “Lord, what will she say now!” He himself had not yet uttered a single word and listened tensely to the “talking-away” Evgeny Pavlovich, who was rarely in such a pleased and excited state of mind as now, that evening. The prince listened to him and for a long time hardly understood a single word. Except for Ivan Fyodorovich, who had not yet come from Petersburg, everyone was gathered. Prince Shch. was also there. It seemed they were going to go and listen to music a little later, before tea. The present conversation had evidently started before the prince’s arrival. Soon Kolya, appearing from somewhere, slipped on to the terrace. “So he’s received here as before,” the prince thought to himself.
The Epanchins’ dacha was a luxurious place, in the style of a Swiss chalet, gracefully adorned on all sides with flowers and leaves. It was surrounded on all sides by a small but beautiful flower garden. Everyone was sitting on the terrace as at the prince’s; only the terrace was somewhat more spacious and decorated more smartly.
The theme of the conversation they were having seemed not to everyone’s liking; the conversation, as could be guessed, had begun as the result of an impatient argument, and, of course, everyone would have liked to change the subject, but Evgeny Pavlovich seemed to persist all the more and regardless of the impression; the prince’s arrival aroused him still more, as it were. Lizaveta Prokofyevna scowled, though she did not understand it all. Aglaya, who was sitting apart from everyone, almost in the corner, would not leave, listened, and remained stubbornly silent.
“Excuse me,” Evgeny Pavlovich protested hotly, “but I am not saying anything against liberalism. Liberalism is not a sin; it is a necessary part of the whole, which without it would fall apart or atrophy; liberalism has the same right to exist as the most well-mannered conservatism; what I am attacking is Russian liberalism, and I repeat again that I attack it essentially because a Russian liberal is not a Russian liberal, but is a non-Russian liberal. Give me a Russian liberal and I’ll kiss him at once right in front of you.”
“Provided he wants to kiss you,” said Alexandra Ivanovna, who was extraordinarily excited. Her cheeks even reddened more than usual.
“Just look,” Lizaveta Prokofyevna thought to herself, “she sleeps and eats and there’s no shaking
her up, and then suddenly once a year she goes and starts talking so that you can only spread your arms in wonder.”
The prince fleetingly noted that Alexandra Ivanovna seemed very displeased because Evgeny Pavlovich was talking too cheerfully, talking about a serious subject and as if excitedly, and at the same time as if he were joking.
“I was maintaining a moment ago, just before your arrival, Prince,” Evgeny Pavlovich went on, “that up to now our liberals have come from only two strata, the former landowners (abolished) and the seminarians.1 And as the two estates have finally turned into absolute castes, into something absolutely cut off from the nation, and the more so the further it goes, from generation to generation, it means that all they have done and are doing is absolutely not national …”
“How’s that? You mean all that’s been done—it’s all not Russian?” Prince Shch. objected.
“Not national; though it’s in Russian, it’s not national; our liberals aren’t national, our conservatives aren’t national, none of them … And you may be sure that our nation will recognize nothing of what’s been done by landowners and seminarians, either now or later …”
“That’s a good one! How can you maintain such a paradox, if it’s serious? I cannot allow such outbursts concerning Russian landowners, you’re a Russian landowner yourself,” Prince Shch. objected heatedly.
“But I’m not speaking of the Russian landowner in the sense in which you’re taking it. It’s a respectable estate, if only for the fact that I myself belong to it; especially now, when it has ceased to exist …”
“Can it be that there was nothing national in literature either?” Alexandra Ivanovna interrupted.
“I’m not an expert in literature, but Russian literature, in my opinion, is all non-Russian, except perhaps for Lomonosov, Pushkin, and Gogol.”2
“First, that’s not so little, and second, one of them is from the people and the other two are landowners,” laughed Adelaida.
“Quite right, but don’t be triumphant. Since up to now only those three of all Russian writers have each managed to say something that is actually his, his own, not borrowed from anyone, those same three thereby immediately became national. Whoever of the Russian people says, writes, or does something of his own, his own, inalienable and unborrowed, inevitably becomes national, even if he speaks Russian poorly. For me that is an axiom. But it wasn’t literature that we started talking about, we were talking about socialists, and the conversation started from them. Well, so I maintain that we don’t have a single Russian socialist; we don’t have and never had any, because all our socialists also come from the landowners or the seminarians. All our inveterate, much-advertised socialists, here as well as abroad, are nothing more than liberals who come from landowners from the time of serfdom. Why do you laugh? Give me their books, give me their tracts, their memoirs, and I undertake, without being a literary critic, to write a most persuasive literary critique, in which I shall make it clear as day that every page of their books, pamphlets, and memoirs has been written first of all by a former Russian landowner. Their spite, indignation, and wit are a landowner’s (even pre-Famusovian!3); their rapture, their tears—real, perhaps even genuine tears, but—they’re a landowner’s! A landowner’s or a seminarian’s … Again you laugh, and you’re laughing, too, Prince? You also disagree?”
Indeed, they were all laughing, and the prince smiled, too.
“I can’t say so directly yet whether I agree or disagree,” the prince said, suddenly ceasing to smile and giving a start, like a caught schoolboy, “but I can assure you that I’m listening to you with extreme pleasure …”
He was all but breathless as he said this, and a cold sweat even broke out on his forehead. These were the first words he had uttered since he sat down. He was about to try looking around, but did not dare; Evgeny Pavlovich caught his movement and smiled.
“I’ll tell you one fact, ladies and gentlemen,” he went on in the same tone, that is, with extraordinary enthusiasm and warmth and at the same time almost laughing, perhaps at his own words, “a fact, the observation and even the discovery of which I have the honor of ascribing to myself, and even to myself alone; at least it has not been spoken of or written about anywhere. This fact expresses the whole essence of Russian liberalism of the sort I’m talking about. First of all, what is liberalism, generally speaking, if not an attack (whether reasonable or mistaken is another question) on the existing order of things? Isn’t that so? Well, so my fact consists in this, that Russian liberalism is not an attack on the existing order of things, but is an attack on the very essence of our things, on the things themselves and not merely on their order, not on Russian order, but on Russia itself. My liberal has reached the point where he denies Russia itself, that is, he hates and beats his own mother. Every unfortunate and unsuccessful Russian fact evokes laughter in him and all but delight. He hates Russian customs, Russian history, everything. If there’s any vindication for him, it is perhaps only that he doesn’t understand what he’s doing and takes his hatred of Russia for the most fruitful liberalism (oh, among us you will often meet a liberal whom all the rest applaud and who perhaps is in essence the most absurd, the most obtuse and dangerous conservative, without knowing it himself!). Some of our liberals, still not long ago, took this hatred of Russia for all but a genuine love of the fatherland and boasted of seeing better than others what it should consist of; but by now they’ve become more candid, and have even begun to be ashamed of the words ‘love of the fatherland,’ have even banished and removed the very notion as harmful and worthless. That is a true fact, I’ll stand behind it and … some day the truth had to be spoken out fully, simply, and candidly; but at the same time it is a fact such as has never been or occurred anywhere, in all the ages, among any people, and therefore it is an accidental fact and may go away, I agree. There could be no such liberal anywhere as would hate his own fatherland. How, then, can all this be explained in our country? In the same way as before—that the Russian liberal is so far not a Russian liberal; there’s no other way, in my opinion.”
“I take all you’ve said as a joke, Evgeny Pavlych,” Prince Shch. objected seriously.
“I haven’t seen all the liberals and will not venture to judge,” said Alexandra Ivanovna, “but I have listened to your thought with indignation: you’ve taken a particular case and made it a general rule, and that means slander.”
“A particular case? Ahh! The word has been spoken,” Evgeny Pavlovich picked up. “What do you think, Prince, is it a particular case or not?”
“I also must say that I’ve seen little of and have spent little time … with liberals,” said the prince, “but it seems to me that you may be somewhat right and that the Russian liberalism you spoke of is indeed partly inclined to hate Russia itself and not only its order of things. Of course, that’s only in part … of course, it wouldn’t be fair to say of all …”
He faltered and did not finish. Despite all his agitation, he was extremely interested in the conversation. There was a special feature in the prince, consisting of the extraordinary naïvety of the attention with which he always listened to something that interested him, and of the replies he gave when he was addressed with questions about it. His face and even the attitude of his body somehow reflected this naïvety, this faith, suspecting neither mockery nor humor. But although Evgeny Pavlovich had long been addressing him not otherwise than with a certain peculiar smile, now, at the prince’s response, he looked at him somehow very seriously, as if he had never expected such a response from him.
“So … that’s strange, though, on your part,” he said, “and you really have answered me seriously, Prince?”
“Why, weren’t you asking seriously?” the other retorted in surprise.
Everyone laughed.
“Trust him,” said Adelaida, “Evgeny Pavlych always makes fools of everyone! If you only knew what stories he tells sometimes in the most serious way!”
“In my opinion, this is a pai
nful conversation, and should never have been started at all,” Alexandra observed sharply. “We wanted to go for a walk …”
“Let’s go, it’s a lovely evening!” cried Evgeny Pavlovich. “But, to prove to you that this time I was speaking quite seriously, and, above all, to prove it to the prince (I’m extremely interested in you, Prince, and I swear to you that I’m not at all such an empty man as I must certainly seem—though, in fact, I am an empty man!), and … if you will permit me, ladies and gentlemen, I will ask the prince one last question, out of personal curiosity, and we’ll end there. This question occurred to me, as if on purpose, two hours ago (you see, Prince, I also sometimes think about serious things); I’ve answered it, but let’s see what the prince says. Mention has just been made of a ‘particular case.’ This has become a very portentous little phrase among us, one hears it often. Recently everyone was talking and writing about that terrible murder of six people by that … young man, and of a strange speech by his defense attorney, in which he said that, given the destitute condition of the criminal, it naturally had to occur to him to kill those six people. That’s not literal, but the meaning, I think, was that or something approaching it. In my personal opinion, the defense attorney, in voicing such a strange thought, was fully convinced that what he was saying was the most liberal, the most humane and progressive thing that could possibly be said in our time. Well, what would you say: is this perversion of notions and convictions, this possibility of such a warped and extraordinary view of things, a particular case or a general one?”
The Idiot Page 43