The Idiot (17 page)

The prince fell silent and looked round at them all.

‘That is rather different from quietism, of course,’ Alexandra said to herself.

‘Well, now tell us about when you were in love,’ said Adelaida.

The prince looked at her with surprise.

‘Listen,’ Adelaida went on, as if in a hurry, ‘you have still to tell us the story about the Basle painting, but now I want to hear about when you were in love; don’t deny it, you’ve been in love. What’s more, as soon as you begin to tell a story you stop being a philosopher.’

‘As soon as you finish telling something you at once begin to be ashamed of what you have told,’ Aglaya suddenly observed. ‘Why is that?’

‘Really, how stupid this is,’ snapped the general’s wife, looking at Aglaya in indignation.

‘It’s not clever,’ Alexandra confirmed.

‘Don’t listen to her, Prince,’ the general’s wife said, turning to him. ‘She’s doing it on purpose, out of some kind of spite; she really hasn’t been brought up as stupidly as that; don’t go away with the idea that they’re out to tease you. They’ve probably got something up their sleeve, but they already like you. I know by their faces.’

‘I know by their faces, too,’ said the prince, giving his words particular emphasis.

‘How can that be?’ Adelaida asked with curiosity.

‘What do you know about our faces?’ the two others also asked curiously.

But the prince said nothing, and looked earnest; they all awaited his reply.

‘I’ll tell you later,’ he said quietly and earnestly.

‘You really are trying to arouse our interest,’ exclaimed Aglaya, ‘and what solemnity!’

‘Oh, very well,’ Adelaida hurried on again, ‘but if you are such an expert on faces, you must have been in love; so I guessed correctly. Now tell us.’

‘I’ve never been in love,’ the prince replied, quietly and gravely as before. ‘I... was happy in a different way.’

‘How, in what way?’

‘Very well, I shall tell you,’ the prince said softly, as if in deep reflection.

‘At the moment,’ the prince began, ‘you’re all looking at me with such curiosity that if I don’t satisfy it you may perhaps get angry with me. No, I’m joking,’ he added quickly with a smile. ‘There ... there it was children all the time, and I spent all my time there with children, only with children. They were the children of that village, a whole band of children who attended the school there. Not that I taught them; oh no, for that there was a schoolteacher, Jules Thibaud; I may have also taught them in a way, but I was mostly just with them, and that was how all my four years passed. I needed nothing more. I told them everything, hid nothing from them. Their fathers and relatives got angry with me because in the end their children couldn’t do without me and kept crowding around me, and the schoolteacher even became my principal enemy. I made a lot of enemies there, and all because of the children. Even Schneider tried to make me feel ashamed. And what were they so afraid of? One can tell a child everything - everything; I have always been struck by how little adults understand children, even the fathers and mothers of their own children. Nothing should be hidden from children on the pretext that they’re too young and it’s too soon for them to know. What a sad and unhappy idea! And how well children themselves notice that their fathers consider them too young and devoid of comprehension, while in fact they comprehend everything. Adults don’t realize that even in the most difficult matter a child can give extremely useful advice. Oh Lord! When that pretty little bird looks at you, trustingly and happily, why, you feel ashamed to deceive it! I call them little birds because there is nothing finer than a bird in all the world. However, everyone in the village got angry with me most of all because of a certain incident ... and Thibaud was just envious of me; at first he simply shook his head and wondered how it was that the children understood everything I taught them and almost nothing he did, and then began to laugh at me when I told him that neither of us would teach them anything, but that they would teach us instead. And how could he envy me and spread false rumours about me when he himself lived among the children? Through children the soul is healed ... There was a certain patient in Schneider’s establishment, a very unfortunate man. It was such a dreadful misfortune that there can hardly be anything like it. He had been sent to be treated for insanity; in my opinion, he wasn’t insane, he was just suffering horribly - that was all his illness was. And if you knew what our children finally became to him ... But I had better tell you about that patient later on; for the moment I’ll just tell you how it all began. At first the children didn’t like me. I was so big, I’m always so awkward; I also know that I’m not good-looking ... and lastly, I was a foreigner. At first the children laughed at me, and they even began throwing stones at me, when they saw me k
issing Marie. And I only kissed her once ... No, don’t laugh,’ the prince hurried to check the smiles of his female listeners, ‘it had nothing to do with love at all. If you knew what an unhappy creature she was, you would be very sorry for her, as I was. She was from our village. Her mother was an old woman, and in her house, in that small, quite ramshackle cottage, which had two windows, one window was partitioned off, by permission of the village authorities; from that window she was allowed to sell laces, thread, tobacco and soap, all for the most meagre coppers, on which she lived. She was an invalid, and her legs kept swelling up, so that she had to sit still where she was. Marie was her daughter, about twenty, weak and thin; she had long ago begun to suffer from consumption, but she still went from house to house to do heavy work by the day - scrubbed floors, washed linen, swept yards, tended the cattle. A passing French
commis
seduced her and abducted her, but a week later left her alone on the road and quietly rode off. She arrived home, having begged her way, bespattered with mud, in rags, her shoes ripped and torn; she had travelled a whole week on foot, sleeping in fields, and had caught a very bad chill; her feet were covered in lacerations, and her hands were swollen and chapped. Even before that she had not been very pretty, it must be said; though her eyes were quiet, good-natured and innocent. She was terribly quiet. On one occasion, before all this, while at work, she had suddenly started to sing, and I remember that everyone was surprised and began to laugh: “Marie’s singing! How do you like that? Marie’s singing!” - and she was dreadfully embarrassed and was silent for ever after that. At that time people were still kind to her, but when she returned, ill and tormented, no one had any compassion for her at all! How cruel they are about this! What harsh ideas they have about it! Her mother was the first to receive her with spite and contempt: “You have dishonoured me now.” She was also the first to expose her to disgrace: when the people of the village heard that Marie had returned, they all came running to look at her, and almost the whole village crammed itself into the old woman’s cottage: old men, children, women, girls, all in such a hurrying, eager crowd. Marie lay on the floor, at the old woman’s feet, hungry, ragged, and crying. When they all came running, she hid her bedraggled hair and just pressed herself face down on the floor. Everyone around looked on her as a loathsome creature; the old men condemned her and shouted abuse at her, the young even laughed, the women scolded her, condemned her, regarded her with contempt as if she were some sort of spider. Her mother allowed all this to continue, just sat there, nodding her head and approving. Her mother was very ill at that time, and almost dying; two months later she did indeed die; she knew she was dying, and yet had no thought of being reconciled with her daughter right up to the time of her death, said not a word to her, chased her out to sleep in the passage, almost did not even feed her. She frequently had to put her infirm legs in warm water; each day Marie washed her legs and looked after her; she accepted all her services in silence and never said a kind word to her. Marie endured it all, and later, when I got to know her, I noticed that she herself approved of all this, and considered herself the very lowest of creatures. When the old woman took to her bed for good, the old women of the village came to look after her, in turn, as is the way there. Then they stopped feeding Marie altogether; and in the village everyone chased her away and no one would even give her any work, as they had done formerly. It was as if everyone spat on her, and the men even stopped thinking of her as a woman, kept saying such vile things to her. Sometimes, very rarely, on a Sunday, when the drunks were in their cups, they would throw her coppers, right there, straight on the ground; Marie would pick them up without saying anything. By then she had begun to cough blood. At last her tattered clothes became real rags, so that she was ashamed to show herself in the village; since the time of her return she had gone barefoot. It was at this point that children in particular, a whole crowd - there were over forty of them, schoolboys - began to tease her and even threw mud at her. She asked the herdsman to let her tend the cows, but the herdsman chased her away. Then she began to take the herd out herself, without permission, spending the whole day away from the house. As she was of great use to the herdsman, and he noticed this, he stopped chasing her away and would sometimes even give her the remains of his own dinner, cheese and bread. He considered this a great kindness on his part. But when her mother died, the pastor at the church had no qualms about holding Marie up to universal disgrace. Marie stood behind the coffin, as she was, in her rags, and cried. Many people had gathered to watch her cry and walk behind the coffin; then the pastor-he was still a young man, and his whole ambition was to became a great preacher - turned to them all and pointed at Marie. “There is the one who caused the death of this respected woman” (which wasn’t true, as she had already been ill for two years), “there she is standing before you, not daring to look up, because she has been marked by the finger of God; there she is, barefoot and in rags - an example to those who lose their virtue! And who is she? She is this woman’s daughter!”, and so on in that vein. And imagine, this base talk found favour with nearly all of them, but ... at this point something unusual happened; at this point the children intervened, because by now the children were all on my side and had begun to love Marie. It happened like this. I wanted to do something for Marie; she was very much in need of money, but I never had so much as a copeck while I was there. I had a small diamond pin, and I sold it to a second-hand dealer; he travelled about the villages and dealt in old clothes. He gave me eight francs, though it was probably worth forty. For a long time I tried to meet Marie alone; at last we met outside the village, by the fence, on a side path that led up the mountain, behind a tree. There I gave her the eight francs and told her to look after the money, as I would not have any more, and then kissed her and told her she should not think that I had any bad intention, and that I kissed her not because I was in love with her, but because I felt very sorry for her and because right from the outset I had not considered her
guilty in any way, but only as someone who was unfortunate. I very much wanted to comfort her right there and then and to assure her that she should not consider herself so inferior to everyone else, but I don’t think she understood. I noticed that immediately, though she hardly said anything all the time and stood before me with her eyes lowered, and terribly ashamed. When I had finished, she kissed my hand, and I at once took hers and was about to kiss it, but she quickly pulled it away. Then suddenly the children saw us, the whole crowd of them; I learned afterwards that they had been spying on me for a long time. They began to whistle, clap their hands and laugh, but Marie ran away as fast as she could. I wanted to talk to them, but they started to throw stones at me. That same day everyone found out about it, and the whole village again pounced on Marie; their dislike of her grew even worse. I even heard that they wanted to have her punished by the court, but nothing was done about this, thank God; on the other hand, the children would not give her a chance, and teased her worse than before, throwing mud at her; they chased her, she, with her weak chest, ran away from them, panting for breath, they followed her, shouting abuse at her. On one occasion I even rushed at them and fought them. Then I began to talk to them, talked every day, whenever I could. They would sometimes stop and listen, though they still shouted at her. I told them how unhappy Marie was; soon they stopped shouting at her and went away in silence. Little by little, we began to talk, and I hid nothing from them; I told them everything. They listened to me with great interest and soon began to feel sorry for Marie. Some of them, when they met her, began to greet her with affection; people there have a custom, when meeting one another - friends or not - of bowing and saying: “How do you do?” I can imagine how astonished Marie must have been. One day two little girls obtained some food and took it to her, delivered it, then came and told me. They said that Marie burst into tears and that now they loved her very much. Soon they all began to love her, and at the same time they suddenly began to love me, too. They took to coming to see me often and kept asking me to tell them things; I think I must have been good at this, because they were very fond of listening to me. And after that I studied and read things just in order to tell them about them later, and I did this for a whole three years. When later everyone - including Schneider - accused me of talking to them like grown-ups, of concealing nothing from them, I replied to them that lying to them was shameful, that they knew it all in any case, no matter how much one tried to hide it from them, and would probably find things out in the wrong sort of way, which they did not with me. All anyone had to do was remember what it was like when they were children. They did not agree ... I kissed Marie two weeks before her mother died; but by the time the pastor preached his sermon, all the children were on my side. I told them at once of what the pastor had done and helped them to understand what it meant; they all got angry with him, and some went so far as to break his windows with stones. I stopped them because this was bad behaviour, but everyone
found out about it at once, and then they began to accuse me of corrupting the children. Then they all discovered that the children loved Marie, and were terribly alarmed; but Marie was happy now. The children were even forbidden to meet her, but they ran to see her and the herd in secret, quite far away, almost half a verst from the village; they brought her sweets, and some simply ran there in order to hug her, give her a kiss, and say:
“Je vous aime, Marie!”
- and then run back at top speed. Marie almost went out of her mind with such sudden happiness; she had never even dreamed of this; she was embarrassed and overjoyed, but above all, the children, especially the little girls, wanted to run to her to tell her that I loved her and talked to them about her an awful lot. They said to her that I had told them all about it, and that now they loved her and felt sorry for her, and always would. Then they ran to me and told me with such joyful, bustling little faces that they had just seen Marie and that Marie sent me her greetings. In the evenings I walked to the waterfall; there was a spot there that was completely closed off from the village side, and around it poplars grew; there in the evenings they came running to me, some of them even secretly. I think that my love for Marie was frightfully pleasing to them, and in this one thing, in all the time I lived there, I deceived them. I did not try to open their eyes to the fact that I did not love Marie at all, or rather, that I was not in love with her, that I was only very sorry for her; I could see by all the signs that they would much prefer it to be as they imagined and had decided between themselves, so I said nothing and maintained the pretence that they had guessed correctly. And to what a degree were those little hearts tactful and affectionate: it seemed to them, among other things, impossible that their good
Leon
should love Marie so, when Marie was so poorly dressed and had no shoes. Imagine, they got her shoes, and stockings, and linen, and even some sort of dress; how they contrived this I do not know; the whole crowd of them worked at it. When I asked them about it they just laughed merrily, while the little girls clapped their hands and gave me a kiss. I sometimes also went in secret to see Marie myself. By now she was very ill, and could only just walk; at last she stopped working for the herdsman, but every morning she went off with the herd none the less. She would sit down apart, on her own; there, beneath an almost straight, sheer rock, there was a ledge; she sat right in the corner, concealed from everyone, on a stone, and sat there all day almost without moving, from early morning until the hour when the herd went back. She was already so weak from consumption that most of the time she sat with her eyes closed, leaning her head against the rock, dozing and breathing heavily; her face had grown as thin as a skeleton’s, and sweat stood out on her forehead and temples. That was how I always found her. I only came to see her for a minute, and I also did not want anyone to see me. As soon as I appeared, Marie at once quivered, opened her eyes and rushed to kiss my hands. I did not take them away any more, because it made her happy; all the time I sat there she trembled and cried; several times, it was true, she started to speak, but it was hard to understand her. She was like a mad girl, in dreadful agitation and ecstasy. Sometimes the children came with me. When they did, they usually stood close by, guarding us from something or someone, and from this they derived extraordinary pleasure. When we went away, Marie again remained alone, unmoving as before, her eyes closed, and leaning her head against the rock; she was, perhaps, dreaming of something. One morning she could no longer go out to the herd and remained at home in her empty house. The children at once found out, and nearly all of them went to visit her that day; she lay all alone, in her bed. For two days the children alone looked after her, taking it in turns to call, but later, when people in the village heard that Marie was actually dying, old women began to come from the village, to sit and watch by the bedside. It seemed that the village had begun to take pity on Marie, for at any rate the children were not stopped or scolded as they had been formerly. Marie was in a state of drowsiness all the time, her sleep was uneasy: she kept coughing dreadfully. The old women would shoo the children away, but they came running up to the window, sometimes only for a minute, just to say: