Suddenly Ganya and Ptitsyn came in; Nina Alexandrovna at once fell silent. The prince remained in the chair next to her, and Varya stepped aside; the portrait of Nastasya Filippovna lay most conspicuously on Nina Alexandrovna’s worktable, directly in front of her. Ganya saw it, frowned, vexedly took it from the table, and flung it onto his desk, which was at the other end of the room.
“Today, Ganya?” Nina Alexandrovna suddenly asked.
“Today what?” Ganya gave a start and suddenly fell upon the prince. “Ah, I understand, you’re into it here, too!… What is it with you, some sort of illness or something? Can’t help yourself? But understand, finally, Your Highness …”
“I’m to blame here, Ganya, and nobody else,” Ptitsyn interrupted.
Ganya looked at him questioningly.
“But it’s better, Ganya, the more so as the matter’s concluded on one side,” Ptitsyn murmured and, stepping away, sat down at the table, took some sort of scribbled-over paper from his pocket, and began studying it intently. Ganya stood in gloom, waiting uneasily for a family scene. He did not even think of apologizing to the prince.
“If it’s all concluded, then, of course, Ivan Petrovich is right,” said Nina Alexandrovna. “Don’t frown, please, and don’t be vexed, Ganya, I won’t ask about anything that you don’t want to talk about yourself, and I assure you that I am completely resigned, kindly don’t worry.”
She said this without taking her eyes from her work and, as it seemed, quite calmly. Ganya was surprised, but remained warily silent and looked at his mother, waiting for her to speak her mind more clearly. Family scenes had already cost him much too dearly. Nina Alexandrovna noticed this wariness and added, with a bitter smile:
“You still doubt and don’t believe me. You needn’t worry, there will be no tears or entreaties, as before, at least not on my part. All I want is for you to be happy and you know that; I am resigned to fate, but my heart will always be with you, whether we stay together or must part. Of course, I can only answer for myself; you cannot ask the same of your sister …”
“Ah, her again!” cried Ganya, looking mockingly and hatefully at his sister. “Mama! Again I swear to you something on which you have my word already: no one will ever dare to mistreat you while I am here, while I am alive. Whoever it may concern, I shall insist on the fullest respect, whoever crosses our threshold …”
Ganya was so overjoyed that he looked at his mother almost conciliatingly, almost tenderly.
“I wasn’t afraid for myself, Ganya, you know that. It’s not myself I’ve worried and suffered over all this time. They say it will all be concluded tonight? What will be concluded?”
“Tonight, at her place, she has promised to announce whether she gives me her consent or not,” replied Ganya.
“For almost three weeks we’ve avoided speaking of it, and it was better. Now, when everything’s already concluded, I will allow myself to ask just one thing: how could she give you her consent and even present you with her portrait, when you don’t love her? Can it be that she, being so … so …”
“Experienced, you mean?”
“That’s not how I wanted to put it. Can it be that you could blind her eyes to such a degree?”
Extraordinary irritation suddenly rang in this question. Ganya stood, reflected for a moment, and, not concealing his derision, said:
“You’ve gotten carried away, mama, and again could not restrain yourself, and that’s how everything always starts and flares up with us. You said there wouldn’t be any questions or reproaches, yet they’ve already started! We’d better drop it, really, we’d better; at least you had the intention … I will never leave you, not for anything; another man would flee from such a sister at least—see how she’s looking at me now! Let’s leave it at that! I was already rejoicing so … And how do you know I’m deceiving Nastasya Filippovna? But, as for Varya, it’s as she wishes and—enough! Well, now it’s quite enough!”
Ganya was getting more and more excited with every word and paced the room aimlessly. Such conversations instantly became a sore spot in all members of the family.
“I said, if she comes in here, then I go out of here—and I’ll also keep my word,” said Varya.
“Out of stubbornness!” cried Ganya. “And it’s out of stubbornness that you don’t get married! What are you doing snorting at me! I spit on it all, Varvara Ardalionovna; if you like, you can carry out your intention right now. I’m quite sick of you. So! You’ve finally decided to leave us, Prince!” he shouted at the prince, seeing him get up from his place.
In Ganya’s voice that degree of irritation could be heard in which a man almost enjoys his irritation, gives himself over to it without restraint and almost with increasing pleasure, whatever may come of it. The prince turned around at the door in order to make some reply, but, seeing from the pained expression on his offender’s face that with one more drop the vessel would overflow, he turned again and silently went out. A few minutes later he heard, by the noises coming from the drawing room, that in his absence the conversation had become more noisy and frank.
He went through the large room to the front hall, in order to get to the corridor and from there to his room. Passing by the door to the stairs, he heard and saw that someone outside the door was trying very hard to ring the bell; but something must have been wrong with the bell: it only jiggled slightly but made no sound. The prince lifted the bar, opened the door, and—stepped back in amazement, even shuddered all over: before him stood Nastasya Filippovna. He recognized her at once from the portrait. Her eyes flashed with a burst of vexation when she saw him; she quickly came into the front hall, pushed him aside with her shoulder, and said wrathfully, flinging off her fur coat:
“If you’re too lazy to fix the doorbell, you should at least be sitting in the front hall when people knock. Well, there, now he’s dropped my coat, the oaf!”
The coat was indeed lying on the floor; Nastasya Filippovna, not waiting for the prince to help her out of it, had flung it off into his arms without looking, but the prince had not managed to catch it.
“You ought to be dismissed. Go and announce me.”
The prince wanted to say something, but he was so much at a loss that nothing came out, and, holding the coat, which he had picked up from the floor, he went towards the drawing room.
“Well, so now he goes with the coat! Why are you taking the coat? Ha, ha, ha! Are you crazy or something?”
The prince came back and stood like a stone idol looking at her; when she laughed, he also smiled, but he was still unable to move his tongue. In the first moment, as he opened the door for her, he was pale; now color suddenly suffused his face.
“Ah, what an idiot!” Nastasya Filippovna cried indignantly, stamping her foot at him. “Well, what are you doing? Who are you going to announce?”
“Nastasya Filippovna,” murmured the prince.
“How do you know me?” she asked quickly. “I’ve never seen you before! Go and announce … What’s that shouting?”
“They’re quarreling,” the prince replied and went to the drawing room.
He came in at a rather decisive moment: Nina Alexandrovna was ready to forget entirely that she was “resigned to everything”; she was, however, defending Varya. Ptitsyn, too, was standing beside Varya, having abandoned his scribbled-over paper. Varya herself was not intimidated, nor was she the timid sort; but her brother’s rudeness was becoming more and more impolite and insufferable. On such occasions she usually stopped talking and merely looked at her brother silently, mockingly, not taking her eyes off him. This maneuver, as she knew, was apt to drive him to the utmost limits. At that very moment the prince stepped into the room and said loudly:
“Nastasya Filippovna!”
IX
A GENERAL HUSH FELL: everyone looked at the prince as if they did not understand him and—did not wish to understand. Ganya went numb with fright.
Nastasya Filippovna’s arrival, especially at the present moment
, was a most strange and bothersome surprise for them all. There was the fact alone that Nastasya Filippovna was visiting for the first time; until then she had behaved so haughtily that, in her conversations with Ganya, she had not even expressed any wish to meet his relations, and lately had not even mentioned them at all, as if they did not exist. Though he was partly glad that such a bothersome conversation had been put off, in his heart Ganya had laid this haughtiness to her account. In any case, he had expected sneers and barbs at his family from her sooner than a visit; he knew for certain that she was informed of all that went on in his home to do with his marital plans and what views his relations had of her. Her visit now, after giving him her portrait and on her birthday, the day when she had promised to decide his fate, almost signified the decision itself.
The perplexity with which everyone gazed at the prince did not last long: Nastasya Filippovna herself appeared in the doorway of the drawing room and again, as she came in, pushed the prince slightly aside.
“I finally managed to get in … why did you tie up the bell?” she asked gaily, holding out her hand to Ganya, who rushed to meet her. “What is this overturned look on your face? Introduce me, please …”
Completely at a loss, Ganya introduced her to Varya first, and the two women exchanged strange looks before offering each other their hands. Nastasya Filippovna laughed, however, and put on a mask of gaiety; while Varya had no wish to put on a mask and looked at her sullenly and intently; not even the shade of a smile, something required by simple politeness, appeared on her face. Ganya went dead; there was nothing to ask and no time to ask, and he shot such a menacing glance at Varya that she understood, from the force of it, what this moment meant for her brother. Here, it seems, she decided to yield to him and smiled faintly at Nastasya Filippovna. (They all still loved each other very much in the family.) Things were improved somewhat by Nina Alexandrovna, whom Ganya, utterly thrown off, introduced after his sister and even led up to Nastasya Filippovna. But Nina Alexandrovna had only just managed to start something about her “particular pleasure” when Nastasya Filippovna, without listening to the end, quickly turned to Ganya and, sitting down (though she had not yet been invited to) on a small sofa in the corner by the window, said loudly:
“Where’s your study? And … and where are the tenants? Don’t you keep tenants?”
Ganya blushed terribly and tried to mutter some reply, but Nastasya Filippovna immediately added:
“Where can you keep tenants here? You don’t even have a study. Is it profitable?” she suddenly asked Nina Alexandrovna.
“It’s a bit of a bother,” Nina Alexandrovna began. “Of course, there should be some profit. Though we’ve just …”
But again Nastasya Filippovna was no longer listening: she was looking at Ganya, laughing and saying loudly to him:
“What’s that face? Oh, my God, what a face you’ve got right now!”
This laughter continued for several moments, and Ganya’s face indeed became very distorted: his stupor, his comical, cowardly bewilderment suddenly left him; but he turned terribly pale; his lips twisted convulsively; silently, with a fixed and nasty look, not tearing his eyes away, he stared into the face of his visitor, who went on laughing.
There was yet another observer who also had not yet rid himself of his near stupefaction at the sight of Nastasya Filippovna; but though he stood “like a post” in his former place, in the doorway to the drawing room, he nevertheless managed to notice Ganya’s pallor and the malignant change in his face. This observer was the prince. All but frightened, he suddenly stepped forward mechanically.
“Drink some water,” he whispered to Ganya, “and don’t stare like that …”
It was evident that he had said it without any calculation, without any particular design, just so, on the first impulse; but his words produced an extraordinary effect. It seemed that all of Ganya’s spite suddenly poured out on the prince; he seized him by the shoulder and looked at him silently, vengefully, and hatefully, as if unable to utter a word. There was general agitation. Nina Alexandrovna even gave a little cry. Ptitsyn took a step forward in alarm, Kolya and Ferdyshchenko appeared in the doorway and stopped in amazement, Varya alone watched as sullenly as before, but observed attentively. She did not sit down, but stood to one side, next to her mother, her arms folded on her breast.
But Ganya came to his senses at once, almost at the moment of his reaction, and laughed nervously. He recovered completely.
“What are you, Prince, a doctor or something?” he cried as gaily and simple-heartedly as he could. “He even frightened me. Nastasya Filippovna, allow me to introduce this precious specimen to you, though I myself met him only this morning.”
Nastasya Filippovna looked at the prince in perplexity.
“Prince? He’s a prince? Imagine, and just now, in the front hall, I took him for a lackey and sent him to announce me! Ha, ha, ha!”
“No harm, no harm!” Ferdyshchenko picked up, approaching hastily and delighted that they had begun to laugh. “No harm: se non è vero …”§31
“And I all but scolded you, Prince. Forgive me, please. Ferdyshchenko, what are you doing here at such an hour? I thought I’d at least not find you here. Who? Prince what? Myshkin?” she repeated to Ganya, who, still holding the prince by the shoulder, meanwhile managed to introduce him.
“Our tenant,” repeated Ganya.
Obviously, the prince was being presented as something rare (and useful to them all as a way out of a false situation), he was almost shoved at Nastasya Filippovna; the prince even clearly heard the word “idiot” whispered behind him, probably by Ferdyshchenko, in explanation to Nastasya Filippovna.
“Tell me, why didn’t you undeceive me just now, when I made such a terrible … mistake about you?” Nastasya Filippovna went on, scrutinizing the prince from head to foot in a most unceremonious manner. She impatiently awaited the answer, as if fully convinced that the answer was bound to be so stupid that it would be impossible not to laugh.
“I was astonished, seeing you so suddenly …” the prince murmured.
“And how did you know it was me? Where have you seen me before? In fact, it’s as if I have seen him somewhere—why is that? And, allow me to ask you, why did you stand there so dumbstruck just now? What’s so dumbstriking about me?”
“Well, so? so?” Ferdyshchenko kept clowning. “Well, and so? Oh, Lord, what things I’d say to such a question! Well, so … What a booby you are, Prince, after this!”
“And what things I’d say, too, in your place!” the prince laughed to Ferdyshchenko. “I was very struck by your portrait today,” he went on to Nastasya Filippovna. “Then I talked about you with the Epanchins … and early in the morning, still on the train, before I arrived in Petersburg, Parfyon Rogozhin told me a lot about you … And at the very moment when I opened the door, I was also thinking about you, and suddenly there you were.”
“But how did you recognize me?”
“From the portrait and …”
“And?”
“And also because that was precisely how I imagined you … It’s as if I’ve also seen you somewhere.”
“Where? Where?”
“As if I’ve seen your eyes somewhere … but that can’t be! I’m just … I’ve never even been here before. Maybe in a dream …”
“Bravo, Prince!” cried Ferdyshchenko. “No, I take back my se non è vero … But anyhow, anyhow, it’s all just his innocence!” he added with regret.
The prince had spoken his few phrases in an uneasy voice, faltering and stopping frequently to catch his breath. Everything about him betrayed extreme agitation. Nastasya Filippovna looked at him with curiosity, but was no longer laughing. Just then a loud new voice was suddenly heard from behind the crowd that closely surrounded the prince and Nastasya Filippovna, parting the crowd, as it were, and dividing it in two. Before Nastasya Filippovna stood the father of the family, General Ivolgin himself. He was wearing a tailcoat and a clean shirtfront; hi
s moustache was dyed …
This was more than Ganya could bear.
Proud and vainglorious to the point of insecurity, of hypochondria; seeking all those two months for at least some point on which he could rest with a certain dignity and show himself nobly; feeling himself still a novice on the chosen path, who might fail to keep to it; finally, in despair, having resolved to become totally insolent in his own house, where he was a despot, but not daring to show the same resolve before Nastasya Filippovna, who went on confusing him until the last moment and mercilessly kept the upper hand; “an impatient pauper,” in Nastasya Filippovna’s own phrase, of which he had been informed; having sworn with all possible oaths to exact painful recompense for it later, and at the same time occasionally dreaming childishly to himself of making all ends meet and reconciling all opposites—he now had to drink this terrible cup as well and, above all, at such a moment! One more unforeseen but most awful torture for a vainglorious man—the torment of blushing for his own family in his own house—fell to his lot. “Is the reward finally worth it?” flashed in Ganya’s head at that moment.
What, for those two months, he had dreamed of only at night, as a nightmare which had made him freeze with horror and burn with shame, was taking place at that very moment: a family meeting was finally taking place between his father and Nastasya Filippovna. Occasionally, teasing and chafing himself, he had tried to imagine the general during the wedding ceremony, but he had never been able to finish the painful picture and had hastily abandoned it. Perhaps he had exaggerated the disaster beyond measure; but that is what always happens with vainglorious people. In those two months he had had time to think it over and decide, promising himself that he would try at all costs to cancel his father at least for a time, and even to efface him from Petersburg, if possible, whether his mother agreed to it or not. Ten minutes ago, when Nastasya Filippovna came in, he had been so stricken, so stunned, that he had completely forgotten the possibility of Ardalion Alexandrovich’s appearance on the scene, and had not made any arrangements. And so, here was the general, before them all, solemnly prepared and in a tailcoat besides, precisely at the moment when Nastasya Filippovna “was only seeking a chance to shower him and his household with mockery.” (Of that he was convinced.) And what, in fact, did her present visit mean if not that? Had she come to make friends with his mother and sister, or to insult them in his own house? But by the way both sides placed themselves, there could no longer be any doubt: his mother and sister sat to one side as if spat upon, while Nastasya Filippovna seemed to have forgotten they were even in the same room with her … And if she behaved like that, she certainly had her purpose!
The Idiot (Vintage Classics) Page 14