The Idiot (Vintage Classics)

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

“I wanted to see how the comedy would end.”

  III

  THE INCIDENT AT the vauxhall struck both mother and daughters almost with terror. Alarmed and agitated, Lizaveta Prokofyevna literally all but ran with her daughters the whole way home from the vauxhall. In her view and understanding, all too much had occurred and been revealed in this incident, so that in her head, despite all the disorder and fear, resolute thoughts were already germinating. But everyone else also understood that something special had happened and that, perhaps fortunately, some extraordinary mystery was beginning to be revealed. Despite the earlier assurances of Prince Shch., Evgeny Pavlovich had now been “brought into the open,” exposed, uncovered, and “formally revealed as having connections with that creature.” So thought Lizaveta Prokofyevna and even her two elder daughters. The profit of this conclusion was that still more riddles accumulated. The girls, though inwardly somewhat indignant at their mother’s exaggerated alarm and so obvious flight, did not dare to trouble her with questions in the first moments of the turmoil. Besides that, for some reason it seemed to them that their little sister, Aglaya Ivanovna, might know more about this affair than the three of them, including the mother. Prince Shch. was also dark as night and also very pensive. Lizaveta Prokofyevna did not say a word to him all the way, but he seemed not to notice it. Adelaida tried to ask him who this uncle was who had just been spoken of and what had happened in Petersburg. But he mumbled in reply to her, with a very sour face, something very vague about some inquiries and that it was all, of course, an absurdity. “There’s no doubt of that!” Adelaida replied and did not ask him anything more. Aglaya was somehow extraordinarily calm and only observed, on the way, that they were running much too quickly. Once she turned and saw the prince, who was trying to catch up with them. Noticing his efforts, she smiled mockingly and did not turn to look at him anymore.

  Finally, almost at their dacha, they met Ivan Fyodorovich walking towards them; he had just come from Petersburg. At once, with the first word, he inquired about Evgeny Pavlovich. But his spouse walked past him menacingly, without answering and without even glancing at him. By the looks of his daughters and Prince Shch., he immediately guessed that there was a storm in the house. But even without that, his own face reflected some extraordinary anxiety. He at once took Prince Shch. by the arm, stopped him at the entrance, and exchanged a few words with him almost in a whisper. By the alarmed look of the two men as they went up onto the terrace afterwards and went to Lizaveta Prokofyevna’s side, one might have thought they had both heard some extraordinary news. Gradually they all gathered in Lizaveta Prokofyevna’s drawing room upstairs, and only the prince was left on the terrace. He was sitting in the corner as if waiting for something, though he did not know why himself; it did not even occur to him to leave, seeing the turmoil in the house; it seemed he had forgotten the whole universe and was prepared to sit it out for two years in a row, wherever he might be sitting. From time to time echoes of anxious conversation came to his ears. He himself would have been unable to say how long he had been sitting there. It was getting late and quite dark. Suddenly Aglaya came out on the terrace; she looked calm, though somewhat pale. Seeing the prince, whom she “obviously wasn’t expecting” to meet there, sitting on a chair in the corner, Aglaya smiled as if in perplexity.

  “What are you doing here?” she went over to him.

  The prince murmured something in embarrassment and jumped up from his chair; but Aglaya at once sat down next to him, and he sat down again. She looked him over, suddenly but attentively, then looked out the window, as if without any thought, then again at him. “Maybe she wants to laugh,” it occurred to the prince, “but no, she’d just laugh then.”

  “Maybe you’d like some tea. I’ll tell them,” she said after some silence.

  “N-no … I don’t know …”

  “Well, how can you not know that! Ah, yes, listen: if someone challenged you to a duel, what would you do? I meant to ask you earlier.”

  “But … who … no one is going to challenge me to a duel.”

  “Well, but if someone did? Would you be very afraid?”

  “I think I’d be very … afraid.”

  “Seriously? So you’re a coward?”

  “N-no, maybe not. A coward is someone who is afraid and runs away; but someone who is afraid but doesn’t run away is not a coward yet,” the prince smiled after pondering a little.

  “And you wouldn’t run away?”

  “Maybe I wouldn’t,” he finally laughed at Aglaya’s questions.

  “I’m a woman, but I wouldn’t run away for anything,” she observed, almost touchily. “And, anyhow, you’re clowning and making fun of me in your usual way, to make yourself more interesting. Tell me: don’t they usually shoot from twelve paces? Sometimes even from ten? Doesn’t that mean you’re sure to be killed or wounded?”

  “People must rarely be hit at duels.”

  “Rarely? Pushkin was killed.”5

  “That may have been accidental.”

  “Not accidental at all. They fought to kill and he was killed.”

  “The bullet struck so low that d’Anthès must have been aiming somewhere higher, at his chest or head; no one aims to hit a man where he did, so the bullet most likely hit Pushkin accidentally, from a bad shot. Competent people have told me so.”

  “But I was told by a soldier I once talked with that, according to regulations, when they open ranks, they’re ordered to aim on purpose at the half-man; that’s how they say it: ‘at the half-man.’ That means not at the chest, not at the head, but they’re ordered to aim on purpose at the half-man. Later I asked an officer, and he said that was exactly right.”

  “It’s right because they shoot from a great distance.”

  “And do you know how to shoot?”

  “I’ve never done it.”

  “Do you at least know how to load a pistol?”

  “No, I don’t. That is, I understand how it’s done, but I’ve never loaded one myself.”

  “Well, that means you don’t know how, because it takes practice! Listen now and learn well: first, buy good gunpowder, not damp (they say it mustn’t be damp, but very dry), the fine sort, you can ask about it, but not the kind used for cannons. They say you have to mold the bullet yourself. Do you have pistols?”

  “No, and I don’t need any,” the prince suddenly laughed.

  “Ah, what nonsense! You must certainly buy one, a good one, French or English, they say they’re the best. Then take some powder, a thimbleful or maybe two thimblefuls, and pour it in. Better put in more. Ram it down with felt (they say it absolutely must be felt for some reason), you can get that somewhere, from some mattress, or doors are sometimes upholstered with felt. Then, when you’ve stuffed the felt in, you put in the bullet—do you hear, the bullet after, and the felt before, otherwise it won’t fire. Why are you laughing? I want you to shoot several times a day and learn to hit the mark without fail. Will you do it?”

  The prince laughed; Aglaya stamped her foot in vexation. Her serious air, in such a conversation, surprised the prince a little. He partly felt that he had to find out about something, to ask about something—in any case about something more serious than how to load a pistol. But everything flew out of his mind, except for the one fact that she was sitting before him, and he was looking at her, and what she talked about at that moment made scarcely any difference to him.

  Finally Ivan Fyodorovich himself came down to the terrace from upstairs; he was headed somewhere with a frowning, preoccupied, and determined look.

  “Ah, Lev Nikolaich, it’s you … Where to now?” he asked, though Lev Nikolaevich had not thought of moving from his place. “Come along, I’ll tell you a little something.”

  “Good-bye,” said Aglaya, and she gave the prince her hand.

  It was already rather dark on the terrace; the prince could not make out her face quite clearly at that moment. A minute later, as he and the general were leaving the dacha, he suddenly turned
terribly red and clenched his right hand tightly.

  It turned out that Ivan Fyodorovich was going the same way he was; despite the late hour, Ivan Fyodorovich was hurrying to speak with someone about something. But meanwhile he suddenly began talking with the prince, quickly, anxiously, rather incoherently, often mentioning Lizaveta Prokofyevna. If the prince could have been more attentive at that moment, he might have guessed that Ivan Fyodorovich wanted among other things to find out something from him as well, or, better, to ask him directly and openly about something, but never managed to touch on the chiefest point. To his shame, the prince was so distracted that at the very beginning he did not even hear anything, and when the general stopped in front of him with some burning question, he was forced to confess that he understood nothing.

  The general shrugged his shoulders.

  “You’ve all become some sort of strange people, in all respects,” he started talking again. “I tell you, I utterly fail to understand Lizaveta Prokofyevna’s ideas and anxieties. She’s in hysterics, she weeps and says we’ve been covered with shame and disgrace. By whom? How? With whom? When and why? I confess I’m to blame (I admit it), greatly to blame, but the importunities of this … troublesome woman (and ill-behaved besides) can finally be restricted by the police, and even tonight I intend to see a certain person and give warning. Everything can be arranged quietly, meekly, affectionately even, through connections and without any scandal. I also agree that the future is fraught with events and much is unexplained; there’s some intrigue involved; but if they don’t know anything here, they can’t explain anything there either; if I haven’t heard, you haven’t heard, this one hasn’t heard, that one hasn’t heard, then who, finally, has heard, I ask you? What can explain it, in your opinion, except that the affair is half a mirage, doesn’t exist, like moonlight, for instance … or other phantoms.”

  “She is a madwoman,” the prince murmured, suddenly remembering, with pain, all that had happened earlier.

  “That’s the word, if you mean her. Somewhat the same idea used to visit me, and then I’d sleep peacefully. But now I see that others think more correctly, and I don’t believe it’s madness. She’s a cantankerous woman, granted, but with that also a subtle one, anything but crazy. Today’s escapade to do with Kapiton Alexeich proves it only too well. It’s a crooked business on her part, Jesuitical at the very least, for her own purposes.”

  “What Kapiton Alexeich?”

  “Ah, my God, Lev Nikolaich, you’re not listening at all. I began by telling you about Kapiton Alexeich; I’m so struck that even now I’m trembling from head to foot. That’s why I came late from the city today. Kapiton Alexeich Radomsky, Evgeny Pavlych’s uncle …”

  “What!” cried the prince.

  “Shot himself this morning at dawn, at seven o’clock. A venerable man, seventy years old, an Epicurean—and it’s just as she said about the government funds, a mighty sum!”

  “How did she …”

  “Find out, you mean? Ha, ha! As soon as she appeared here, a whole staff formed around her. You know what sort of persons visit her now and seek the ‘honor of her acquaintance.’ Naturally, she could have heard something earlier from her visitors, because the whole of Petersburg knows already and half, if not the whole, of Pavlovsk. But what a subtle observation she made about the uniform, as I’ve been told, that is, about Evgeny Pavlych managing to resign from the army in good time! What an infernal allusion! No, that doesn’t suggest insanity. I, of course, refuse to believe that Evgeny Pavlych could have known about the catastrophe beforehand, that is, on such-and-such a day, at seven o’clock, and so on. But he might have anticipated it all. And here I am, here we all are, including Prince Shch., counting on the old man leaving him an inheritance! Terrible! Terrible! Understand, however, that I’m not accusing Evgeny Pavlych of anything, and I hasten to make that clear to you, but all the same it’s suspicious. Prince Shch. is extremely struck. It’s all fallen out so strangely.”

  “But what is suspicious in Evgeny Pavlych’s behavior?”

  “Nothing! He behaved in the noblest fashion. I wasn’t hinting at anything. His own fortune, I think, is intact. Lizaveta Prokofyevna, naturally, won’t hear anything … But the main thing is all these family catastrophes, or, better, all these squabbles, one doesn’t even know what to call them … You, truly speaking, are a friend of the house, Lev Nikolaich, and imagine, it now turns out—though, by the way, not precisely—that Evgeny Pavlych supposedly proposed to Aglaya more than a month ago and supposedly received a formal rejection from her.”

  “That can’t be!” the prince cried hotly.

  “Perhaps you know something? You see, my dearest,” the general roused himself in surprise, stopping as if rooted to the spot, “maybe I spilled it out to you needlessly and improperly, but it’s because you’re … you’re … one might say, that sort of man. Maybe you know something particular?”

  “I know nothing … about Evgeny Pavlych,” the prince murmured.

  “Neither do I! They … they decidedly want to dig a hole in the ground and bury me, brother, and they refuse to understand that it’s hard on a man and that I won’t survive it. There was such a terrible scene just now! I’m telling you like my own son. The main thing is that Aglaya seems to be laughing at her mother. That she apparently rejected Evgeny Pavlych about a month ago, and that they had a rather formal talk, her sisters told us, as a guess … a firm guess, however. But she’s such a willful and fantastic being, it’s impossible to describe! All those magnanimities, all those brilliant qualities of heart and mind—all that, perhaps, is there in her, but along with such caprices and mockeries—in short, a demoniacal character, and with fantasies on top of it. She just laughed in her mother’s face, at her sisters, at Prince Shch.; to say nothing of me, it’s rare that she doesn’t laugh at me, but what am I, you know, I love her, love it even that she laughs at me—and the little demon seems to love me especially for that, that is, more than the others, it seems. I’ll bet she’s already laughed at you for something. I just found the two of you talking, after the storm upstairs; she was sitting with you as if nothing had happened.”

  The prince turned terribly red and clenched his right hand, but said nothing.

  “My dear, kind Lev Nikolaich!” the general suddenly said with feeling and warmth, “I … and even Lizaveta Prokofyevna herself (who, incidentally, began railing at you again, and at me along with you and on account of you, only I don’t understand what for), we love you all the same, sincerely love you and respect you, even in spite of everything, that is, all appearances. But you must agree, dear friend, you yourself must agree, what a riddle it is suddenly, and how vexing to hear, when suddenly this cold-blooded little demon (because she stood before her mother with an air of the profoundest contempt for all our questions, and mostly for mine, because, devil take me, I got foolish, I decided to show my severity, since I’m the head of the family—well, and got foolish), this coldblooded little demon suddenly up and announced with a grin that this ‘madwoman’ (that was how she put it, and I find it strange that she used the same word as you: ‘Couldn’t you have figured it out by now?’ she says), that this madwoman ‘has taken it into her head to marry me off at all costs to Prince Lev Nikolaich, and that’s why she’s trying to drive Evgeny Pavlych out of our house …’ That’s all she said; she gave no further explanation, just laughed loudly, while we stood there gaping, slammed the door, and was gone. Then they told me about the incident today between her and you … and … and … listen, my dear Prince, you’re a very reasonable man, not about to take offense, I’ve noticed that in you, but … don’t be angry: by God, she’s making fun of you. She does it like a child, so don’t be angry with her, but it’s decidedly so. Don’t think anything—she simply makes fools of you and us, out of idleness. Well, good-bye! You do know our feelings? Our sincere feelings for you? They haven’t changed, never, not in anything … but … I go that way now, good-bye! I’ve rarely sat so poorly in my plate (or
how does it go?) than I’m sitting now6 … Dacha life!”

  Left alone at the intersection, the prince looked around, quickly crossed the road, went up to the lighted window of a dacha, unfolded a small piece of paper he had been clenching tightly in his right hand during the whole conversation with Ivan Fyodorovich, and read, catching a faint beam of light:

  Tomorrow at seven o’clock in the morning I will be on the green bench in the park, waiting for you. I have decided to talk with you about an extremely important matter that concerns you directly.

  P.S. I hope you won’t show this note to anyone. Though I’m ashamed to write such instructions to you, I consider that you deserve it, and so I’ve written it—blushing with shame at your ridiculous character.

  P.P.S. It is that same green bench I showed you today. Shame on you! I was forced to add that as well.

  The note had been written hastily and folded anyhow, most likely just before Aglaya came out to the terrace. In inexpressible agitation, resembling fear, the prince again clenched the paper tightly in his hand and quickly jumped away from the window, from the light, like a frightened thief; but in making this movement he suddenly ran smack into a gentleman who turned up right at his shoulder.

  “I’ve been watching you, Prince,” said the gentleman.

  “Is that you, Keller?” the prince cried in surprise.

  “I’ve been looking for you, Prince. I waited by the Epanchins’ dacha—naturally, I couldn’t go in. I followed you as you walked with the general. I’m at your service, Prince, you may dispose of Keller. Ready to sacrifice myself and even to die, if necessary.”

  “But … what for?”

  “Well, there’s sure to be a challenge. This Lieutenant Molovtsov, I know him, that is, not personally … he won’t suffer an insult. Our sort, that is, me and Rogozhin, he’s naturally inclined to consider riffraff, and maybe deservedly—so you turn out to be the only one answerable. You’ll have to pay the piper, Prince. He’s made inquiries about you, I’ve heard, and a friend of his is sure to call on you tomorrow, or maybe he’s waiting for you now. If you grant me the honor of choosing me as a second, I’m ready to accept the red cap for you;7 that’s why I was waiting for you, Prince.”