The Idiot (Vintage Classics)

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  “So you can see for yourself that everything’s known already even without him. But what is it to you now? What is there to hope for? And if there were any hope left, it would only give you a look of suffering in her eyes.”

  “Well, in the face of a scandal even she would turn coward, despite all her love of novels. Everything up to a certain limit, and everybody up to a certain limit—you’re all the same.”

  “Aglaya would turn coward?” Varya flared up, looking contemptuously at her brother. “You really have a mean little soul, though! None of you is worth anything. She may be funny and eccentric, but she’s a thousand times nobler than any of us.”

  “Well, never mind, never mind, don’t be angry,” Ganya again muttered smugly.

  “I’m only sorry for mother,” Varya went on. “I’m afraid this story with father may get to her, oh, I’m afraid!”

  “And it surely has,” Ganya observed.

  Varya got up to go upstairs to Nina Alexandrovna, but stopped and looked intently at her brother.

  “Who could have told her?”

  “Ippolit, it must be. I suppose he considered it his prime pleasure to report it to mother, as soon as he moved in with us.”

  “But how does he know, pray tell? The prince and Lebedev decided not to tell anyone, even Kolya doesn’t know.”

  “Ippolit? He found it out himself. You can’t imagine what a cunning creature he is; what a gossip he is; what a nose he’s got for smelling out everything bad, everything scandalous. Well, believe it or not, but I’m convinced that he’s already got Aglaya in his hands! And if he hasn’t, he will. Rogozhin has also entered into relations with him. How does the prince not notice it! And how he wants to do me a bad turn now! He considers me his personal enemy, I saw through him long ago, and why, what is it to him, he’ll die anyway—I can’t understand it! But I’ll fool him; I’ll do him a bad turn, and not he me, you’ll see.”

  “Why did you lure him here, then, if you hate him so much? And is it worth it to do him a bad turn?”

  “It was you who advised me to lure him here.”

  “I thought he’d be useful; and do you know that he has now fallen in love with Aglaya himself and has written to her? They questioned me … it’s just possible that he’s written to Lizaveta Prokofyevna, too.”

  “He’s no danger in that sense!” Ganya said with a spiteful laugh. “However, there’s probably something else in it. He may very well be in love, because he’s a boy! But … he wouldn’t write anonymous letters to the old lady. He’s such a spiteful, worthless, self-satisfied mediocrity!… I’m convinced, I know for certain, that he represented me to her as an intriguer, and began with that. I confess that like a fool I let things slip to him at first; I thought he’d take up my interests just to be revenged on the prince; he’s such a cunning creature! Oh, now I’ve seen through him completely. And the theft he heard about from his own mother, the captain’s widow. If the old man ventured to do that, it was for her sake. Suddenly, out of the blue, he tells me that ‘the general’ has promised his mother four hundred roubles, and he does it just like that, out of the blue, without any ceremony. Then I understood everything. And he just peeks into my eyes with some kind of relish; he probably also told mother solely for the pleasure of breaking her heart. And why doesn’t he die, pray tell? He promised to die in three weeks, but he’s even grown fatter here! He doesn’t cough any more; yesterday evening he said himself that he hadn’t coughed up blood for two days.”

  “Throw him out.”

  “I don’t hate him, I despise him,” Ganya said proudly. “Well, yes, yes, I do hate him, I do!” he suddenly cried with extraordinary fury. “And I’ll say it right to his face, even when he’s about to die, on his pillow! If you’d only read his ‘Confession’—God, what naïvety of impudence! It’s Lieutenant Pirogov, it’s Nozdryov5 in a tragedy, and above all—a little brat! Oh, with what relish I’d have given him a whipping then, precisely to astonish him. He’s taking revenge on everybody now, because it didn’t come off then … But what’s that? More noise there? No, what is it, finally? I won’t put up with it, finally! Ptitsyn!” he shouted to Ptitsyn, who was coming into the room. “What is this, what are things here coming to, finally? It’s … it’s …”

  But the noise was quickly approaching, the door was suddenly flung open, and old man Ivolgin, in wrath, purple, shaken, beside himself, also fell upon Ptitsyn. The old man was followed by Nina Alexandrovna, Kolya, and, last of all, Ippolit.

  II

  IT WAS ALREADY five days since Ippolit had moved to the Ptitsyns’ house. It had happened somehow naturally, without any special words or any falling-out between him and the prince; not only had they not quarreled, but it seemed they had even parted friends. Gavrila Ardalionovich, so hostile to Ippolit on that earlier evening, had come to see him himself, though only three days after the event, probably guided by some sudden thought. For some reason Rogozhin also began to visit the sick boy. At first it seemed to the prince that it would even be better for the “poor boy” if he moved out of his house. But at the time of moving, Ippolit kept saying that he was moving to Ptitsyn’s, “who had been so kind as to give him a corner,” and, as if on purpose, never once said that he was moving to Ganya’s, though it was Ganya who had insisted that he be taken into the house. Ganya noticed it then and touchily laid it up in his heart.

  He was right when he said to his sister that the sick boy had improved. Indeed, Ippolit felt slightly better than before, which could be noticed from the first glance at him. He came into the room unhurriedly, after everyone else, with a mocking and unkindly smile. Nina Alexandrovna came in very frightened. (She had changed greatly during these six months, had grown thinner; having married off her daughter and moved to live with her, she had almost ceased to interfere externally in her children’s affairs.) Kolya was preoccupied and as if perplexed; there was much that he did not understand in “the general’s madness,” as he put it, not knowing, of course, the main reasons for this new turmoil in the house. But it was clear to him that his father was quarreling so much, everywhere and always, and had suddenly changed so much, that it was as if he were quite a different man than before. It also worried him that in the last three days the old man had even stopped drinking entirely. He knew that he had broken and even quarreled with Lebedev and the prince. Kolya had just come home with a bottle of vodka, which he had purchased with his own money.

  “Really, mother,” he had assured Nina Alexandrovna while still upstairs, “really, it’s better to let him have a drink. He hasn’t touched a drop in three days now; from anguish, it means. Really, it’s better! I used to bring it to him in debtors’ prison …”

  The general flung the door wide open and stood on the sill as if trembling with indignation.

  “My dear sir!” he cried out to Ptitsyn in a thundering voice, “if you have indeed decided to sacrifice a venerable old man, your father, that is, your wife’s father at least, honored by his sovereign, to a milksop and an atheist, I shall never set foot in your house again from this very hour. Choose, sir, choose immediately: either me, or this … screw! Yes, screw! I said it by accident, but he is a screw! Because he bores into my soul like a screw, and without any respect … like a screw!”

  “Or a corkscrew?” Ippolit put in.

  “No, not a corkscrew, because I’m a general to you, not a bottle. I have medals, medals of honor … and you’ve got a fig. Either him or me! Decide, sir, this minute, this very minute!” he again cried in frenzy to Ptitsyn. Here Kolya moved a chair for him, and he sank onto it almost in exhaustion.

  “Really, it would be better for you … to go to sleep,” the dumbfounded Ptitsyn murmured.

  “And what’s more, he threatens!” Ganya said in a low voice to his sister.

  “To sleep!” cried the general. “I am not drunk, my dear sir, and you offend me. I see,” he went on, standing up again, “I see that everything is against me here, everything and everyone. Enough! I am leaving … But
know, my dear sir, know …”

  They did not let him finish and sat him down again; they began begging him to calm himself. Ganya, in fury, went to the far corner. Nina Alexandrovna trembled and wept.

  “But what have I done to him? What is he complaining about?” cried Ippolit, baring his teeth.

  “So you did nothing?” Nina Alexandrovna suddenly observed. “You especially should be ashamed and … to torment an old man so inhumanly … and that in your position.”

  “First of all, what is this position of mine, madam! I respect you very much, precisely you, personally, but …”

  “He’s a screw!” the general shouted. “He bores into my soul and heart! He wants me to believe in atheism! Know, milksop, that you weren’t even born yet when I was already showered with honors; and you are merely an envious worm, torn in two, coughing … and dying of spite and unbelief … And why did Gavrila bring you here? Everybody’s against me, from strangers to my own son!”

  “Enough, you’re starting a tragedy!” cried Ganya. “It would be better if you didn’t go disgracing us all over town!”

  “How have I disgraced you, milksop! You? I can only bring you honor, and not dishonor!”

  He jumped up and they could no longer restrain him; but Gavrila Ardalionovich, too, had obviously broken loose.

  “Look who’s talking about honor!” he cried spitefully.

  “What did you say?” the general thundered, turning pale and taking a step towards him.

  “I need only open my mouth in order to …” Ganya screamed suddenly and did not finish. The two stood facing each other, shaken beyond measure, especially Ganya.

  “Ganya, how can you!” cried Nina Alexandrovna, rushing to stop her son.

  “What nonsense all around!” Varya snapped indignantly. “Enough, mother,” she seized her.

  “I spare you only for mother’s sake,” Ganya said tragically.

  “Speak!” the general bellowed, totally beside himself. “Speak for fear of a father’s curse … speak!”

  “As if I’m afraid of your curse! Whose fault is it if you’ve been like a crazy man for the past eight days? Eight days, you see, I know it by the dates … Watch out, don’t drive me to the limit: I’ll tell everything … Why did you drag yourself to the Epanchins’ yesterday? Calling yourself an old man, gray-haired, the father of a family! A fine one!”

  “Shut up, Ganka!” cried Kolya. “Shut up, you fool!”

  “But I, how have I insulted him?” Ippolit insisted, in what seemed like the same mocking tone. “Why does he call me a screw? Did you hear? He pesters me himself; just now he came and started talking about some Captain Eropegov. I have no wish for your company, General; I avoided you before, you know that. I have nothing to do with Captain Eropegov, don’t you agree? I did not move here for the sake of Captain Eropegov. I merely voiced my opinion that this Captain Eropegov may never have existed at all. And he started kicking up dust.”

  “He undoubtedly never existed!” snapped Ganya.

  But the general stood as if stunned and only looked around senselessly. His son’s phrase struck him by its extreme frankness. For the first moment he was even at a loss for words. And at last, only when Ippolit burst out laughing at Ganya’s reply and shouted: “Well, do you hear, your own son also says there was no Captain Eropegov,” did the old man babble, completely confounded:

  “Kapiton Eropegov, not Captain … Kapiton … a retired lieutenant-colonel, Eropegov … Kapiton.”

  “There was no Kapiton either!” Ganya was now thoroughly angry.

  “Wh … why wasn’t there?” mumbled the general, and color rose to his face.

  “Well, enough!” Ptitsyn and Varya tried to pacify him.

  “Shut up, Ganka!” Kolya cried again.

  But the intercession seemed to have brought the general to his senses.

  “How wasn’t there? Why didn’t he exist?” he menacingly turned on his son.

  “There just wasn’t. There wasn’t, that’s all, and there simply cannot be! So there. Leave me alone, I tell you.”

  “And this is my son … my own son, whom I … oh, God! Eropegov, Eroshka Eropegov never lived!”

  “Well, so, now it’s Eroshka, now it’s Kapitoshka!” Ippolit put in.

  “Kapitoshka, sir, Kapitoshka, not Eroshka! Kapiton, Captain Alexeevich, that is, Kapiton … a lieutenant-colonel … retired … married to Marya … Marya Petrovna Su … Su … a friend and comrade … Sutugov, even as a junker.6 For him I shed … I shielded him … killed. No Kapitoshka Eropegov! Never existed!”

  The general was shouting in excitement, but in such a way that one might have thought the point went one way and the shouting another. True, at another time he would have borne something much more offensive than the news about the total non-existence of Kapiton Eropegov, would have shouted a little, started a scandal, lost his temper, but all the same in the end he would have withdrawn to his room upstairs and gone to bed. But now, owing to the extraordinary strangeness of the human heart, it so happened that precisely such an offense as the doubt of Eropegov made the cup run over. The old man turned purple, raised his arms, and shouted:

  “Enough! My curse … away from this house! Nikolai, bring my bag, I’m going … away!”

  He went out, hurrying and in extreme wrath. Nina Alexan-drovna, Kolya, and Ptitsyn rushed after him.

  “Well, what have you done now!” Varya said to her brother. “He may drag himself there again. Ah, what shame, what shame!”

  “So don’t go stealing!” Ganya cried, all but choking with spite; suddenly his glance met with Ippolit; Ganya almost began to shake. “And you, my dear sir,” he cried, “ought to remember that you are not, after all, in your own house and … are enjoying hospitality, instead of vexing an old man who has obviously lost his mind …”

  Ippolit also seemed to wince, but he immediately checked himself.

  “I don’t quite agree with you that your father has lost his mind,” he replied calmly. “It seems to me, on the contrary, that his mind has been working much better lately, by God; don’t you believe so? He has become so cautious, suspicious, keeps asking questions, weighs every word … He started talking with me about that Kapitoshka with some aim; imagine, he wanted to suggest to me …”

  “Eh, the devil I care what he wanted to suggest to you! I ask you, sir, not to be clever and try to dodge with me!” Ganya shrieked. “If you also know the real reason why the old man is in such a state (and you’ve been spying so much in these five days here that you surely do know it), then you ought never to have vexed … the unfortunate man and tormented my mother by exaggerating the affair, because the whole affair is nonsense, just a drunken incident, nothing more, not even proved in any way, and I don’t care a whit about it … But you have to go taunting and spying, because you’re … you’re …”

  “A screw,” Ippolit grinned.

  “Because you’re trash, you tormented people for half an hour, thinking you’d frighten them that you were going to shoot yourself with your unloaded pistol, with which you bungled it so shamefully, you failed suicide, you … walking bile. I showed you hospitality, you’ve grown fatter, stopped coughing, and you repay me …”

  “Just a couple of words, if you please, sir; I am staying with Varvara Ardalionovna, not with you; you have not offered me any hospitality, and I even think that you yourself are enjoying the hospitality of Mr. Ptitsyn. Four days ago I asked my mother to find lodgings for me in Pavlovsk and to move here herself, because I actually do feel better here, though I haven’t grown fatter and I still cough. Yesterday evening my mother informed me that the apartment is ready, and I hasten to inform you for my part that, after thanking your dear mother and sister, I will move to my own place today, as I already decided to do last evening. Excuse me, I interrupted you; it seems you had much more to say.”

  “Oh, in that case …” Ganya began to tremble.

  “But in that case, allow me to sit down,” Ippolit added, sitting down most calml
y on the chair that the general had been sitting on. “I am ill after all; well, now I’m ready to listen to you, the more so as this is our last conversation and perhaps even our last meeting.”

  Ganya suddenly felt ashamed.

  “Believe me, I shall not lower myself to squaring accounts with you,” he said, “and if you …”

  “You needn’t be so supercilious,” Ippolit interrupted. “For my part, on the first day I moved here I promised myself not to deny myself the pleasure of speaking my mind to you as we said good-bye, and that in the most frank way. I intend to do so precisely now—after you, naturally.”

  “And I ask you to leave this room.”

  “Better speak, you’ll regret not saying everything.”

  “Stop it, Ippolit! All this is terribly shameful. Be so good as to stop!” said Varya.

  “Only for a lady,” Ippolit laughed, standing up. “If you please, Varvara Ardalionovna, I’m prepared to make it shorter for you, but only shorter, because some explanation between your brother and me has become quite necessary, and not for anything will I go away and leave any perplexity behind.”

  “You’re quite simply a gossip,” Ganya cried out, “that’s why you won’t leave without gossiping.”

  “There, you see,” Ippolit observed coolly, “you’ve already lost control of yourself. You really will regret not saying everything. Once more I yield the floor to you. I shall wait.”

  Gavrila Ardalionovich was silent and looked at him contemptuously.

  “You don’t want to? You intend to stand firm—as you will. For my part, I shall be as brief as possible. Two or three times today I have listened to a reproach about hospitality; that is unfair. In inviting me to stay with you, you wanted to catch me in your nets; you calculated that I wanted to be revenged on the prince. Moreover, you heard that Aglaya Ivanovna had shown concern for me and was reading my ‘Confession.’ Calculating, for some reason, that I would surrender myself entirely to your interests, you may have hoped to find some support in me. I shall not go into detail! Nor do I demand any acknowledgment or recognition on your part; suffice it that I leave you with your own conscience and that we now understand each other perfectly.”