The Idiot (23 page)

‘But where is your study? And ... and where are the lodgers? I mean, you have lodgers, don’t you?’

Ganya blushed terribly, and began to stammer something in reply, but Nastasya Filippovna at once added:

‘But where is there to keep lodgers here? You haven’t even got a study. And does it pay?’ she suddenly addressed Nina Alexandrovna.

‘It’s quite a lot of trouble,’ the latter replied. ‘Of course, it ought to pay. Actually, we’ve only just ...’

But Nastasya Filippovna was not listening again: she was staring at Ganya, laughing and shouting to him:

‘What sort of look is that on your face? Oh my God, what a face you’ve got on at this moment!’

Several seconds of this laughter went by, and indeed, Ganya’s face really was very distorted; his rigid stupor, his comical, timorous embarrassment, suddenly left him; but he turned dreadfully pale; his lips began to twist convulsively; silently, fixedly and with an evil gaze, not moving away, he looked into the face of his visitor, who continued to laugh.

There was also another observer here, who had likewise not yet recovered from his numbed shock at the sight of Nastasya Filippovna; but although he stood ‘as stiff as a post’, in his former position, in the doorway of the drawing room, he had time to notice the pallor and ominous change in Ganya’s features. This observer was the prince. Almost in fear, he suddenly, mechanically, stepped forward.

‘Take a drink of water,’ he whispered to Ganya. ‘And don’t look like that...’

It was clear that he had said this with no calculation, no particular intention, no thought, at the first prompting; but his words produced an extraordinary effect. All Ganya’s anger was suddenly unloaded on the prince: Ganya seized him by the shoulder and looked at him in silent, vengeful hatred, almost unable to get a word out. There was a general commotion: Nina Alexandrovna even uttered a little scream, Ptitsyn stepped forward in concern, Kolya and Ferdyshchenko, appearing in the doorway, stood in amazement, and Varya alone glowered as before, though attentively observing. She did not sit down, but stood to the side, next to her mother, her arms folded on her bosom.

But Ganya at once pulled himself together, almost in the first moment of his gesture, and began to laugh nervously. He recovered himself completely.

‘I say, Prince, are you a doctor, then?’ he exclaimed, as cheerfully and naturally as he could. ‘You really gave me a fright; Nastasya Filippovna, allow me to introduce him to you, he’s a most valuable fellow, though I’ve only known him since this morning.’

Nastasya Filippovna looked at the prince in bewilderment.

‘A prince? He’s a prince? Imagine, just now, in the hallway, I thought he was a lackey and sent him in here to announce me! Ha-ha-ha!’

‘No harm done, no harm done,’ Ferdyshchenko chimed in, quickly going up to them and relieved that they had begun to laugh. ‘No harm done:
se non è vero ...
’
¹

‘And I very nearly gave you a scolding, Prince. Please forgive me. Ferdyshchenko, what are you doing here, at this hour? I didn’t think I would find you here, at least. Who? What prince? Myshkin?’ she again asked Ganya, who had meanwhile succeeded in introducing him, his hand around the prince’s shoulder.

‘Our lodger,’ repeated Ganya.

Evidently, the prince was being presented as something rare (and useful to them all, as a way out of their false position), and was almost being thrust on Nastasya Filippovna; the prince even distinctly heard the word ‘idiot’, whispered from behind him, apparently by Ferdyshchenko, as an explanation for Nastasya Filippovna.

‘Tell me, why didn’t you set me right just now, when I made such a dreadful ... mistake about you?’ Nastasya Filippovna continued, surveying the prince from head to foot in the most unceremonious fashion; she awaited his reply impatiently, as if wholly convinced the reply would be so stupid that it would be impossible to avoid laughing.

‘I was surprised at seeing you so suddenly ...’ the prince began to mutter.

‘But how did you know it was me? Where had you seen me before? What is this? It’s as if I had really seen him somewhere before ... And permit me to ask you, why were you dumbfounded just now? What is so dumbfounding about me?’

‘For heaven’s sake, man!’ Ferdyshchenko continued to grimace, ‘for heaven’s sake! Oh Lord, the things I should say were I to be asked such a question! For heaven’s sake ... Prince, after this you’re a bumpkin!’

‘And I would have said a lot in your place, too,’ the prince began to laugh to Ferdyshchenko. ‘Your portrait made a great impression on me earlier,’ he continued to Nastasya Filippovna. ‘Then I talked about you with the Yepanchins ... and early this morning, before I had even got to St Petersburg, on the train, Parfyon Rogozhin told me a great deal about you ... And at the very minute I opened the door to you I was also thinking about you, and suddenly here you are.’

‘But how did you know it was me?’

‘By your portra
it and ...’

‘And what else?’

‘And because you were exactly as I imagined you ... I also thought I had seen you somewhere.’

‘Where? Where?’

‘I’ve seen your eyes somewhere before ... but it isn’t possible! I’m just making it up ... I’ve never been here. Perhaps in a dream...’

‘Well done, Prince!’ cried Ferdyshchenko. ‘No, I take back my
se non è vero.
Unfortunately, though, unfortunately, it’s all because of his innocence!’ he added with regret.

The prince had delivered his few sentences in an anxious voice, faltering, and frequently pausing for breath. Everything about him indicated extreme agitation. Nastasya Filippovna looked at him with curiosity, but was not laughing now. At this same moment a new, loud voice, which could be heard from the other side of the crowd that densely surrounded the prince and Nastasya Filippovna, parted the crowd and, as it were, split it in two. Before Nastasya Filippovna stood the
paterfamilias
himself, General Ivolgin. He was wearing a tailcoat and a clean dickey; his moustache was dyed ...

This was more than Ganya could endure.

Proud and conceited to the point of morbid suspicion, of hypochondria; having sought all these past two months at least some point on which he could support himself more decently and present himself more nobly; feeling that he was as yet a novice on his chosen path, and that he might not last the course; having resolved at last in despair to settle in his own home, where he was a despot, upon complete brazenry, but not daring to settle on it in front of Nastasya Filippovna, who to the very last had confounded his stratagems and mercilessly kept the upper hand over him; ‘an impatient beggar’, to use Nastasya Filippovna’s own expression, which had already been reported to him; swearing by all the oaths to recompense her painfully for all this later and at the same time childishly dreaming now and then of making both ends meet and reconciling all the opposites - he must now also drain this horrible cup, and, what was more, at such a moment! One more unforeseen, but most terrible torment for a conceited man - the agony of blushing for his own relatives, in his own home, had fallen to his lot. ‘But is the reward worth it?’ flashed through Ganya’s head at that instant.

What was occurring at that very moment was what he had dreamed of these last two months only at nights, in the form of a nightmare that froze him with horror and burned him with shame: the meeting of his father with Nastasya Filippovna. Sometimes, to tease and torment himself, he had tried to picture the general during the wedding ceremony, but had never been able to finish the tormenting scene and had soon abandoned it. Perhaps he boundlessly exaggerated the calamity; but such is always the way with conceited men. During those two months he had had time to make up his mind and muster his resolve, and had promised himself that whatever else happened, he would somehow get rid of his father, at least for a time, and keep him in the background, even out of St Petersburg altogether, if possible, whether his mother agreed to it or not. Ten minutes earlier, when Nastasya Filippovna walked in, he had been so shocked, so stunned that he had completely forgotten the possibility of Ardalion Alexandrovich’s appearance on the scene and had done nothing about it. And now here was the general, in front of them all, and, what was more, in evening dress and a tailcoat, and this at the very moment when Nastasya Filippovna ‘was only looking for a chance to shower him and his family with mocking gibes’. (Of this he was convinced.) And indeed, what was the meaning
of her visit now, if not this? Had she come in order to make friends with his mother and sister or in order to insult them in his own home? But from the way in which the two sides were disposed, there could be no further doubt: his mother and sister sat to one side as though they had been reviled, while Nastasya Filippovna even seemed to have forgotten that they were in the same room as her ... And if she was behaving like that, then, of course, she must have her purpose!

Ferdyshchenko took hold of the general and led him over.

‘Ardalion Alexandrovich Ivolgin,’ the bowing and smiling general enunciated with dignity, ‘an unfortunate old soldier and father of a family that is happy in the expectation of including within it such a charming ...’

He did not get to the end; Ferdyshchenko quickly moved up a chair for him from behind, and the general, somewhat weak in the legs at this post-prandial hour, fairly flopped, or rather fell, into it; this did not disconcert him, however. He settled down directly facing Nastasya Filippovna and, with a pleasant grimace, slowly and ostentatiously, brought her fingers to his lips. It was, on the whole, rather hard to disconcert the general. His appearance, apart from a certain unkemptness, was still quite respectable, something of which he was very well aware. He had formerly had occasion to move in very good society, from which he had been excluded only two or three years before. Since then, he had abandoned himself with rather too little restraint to some of his weaknesses; but a nimble and pleasant manner remained with him to this day. Nastasya Filippovna seemed extremely pleased at the appearance of Ardalion Alexandrovich, of whom she had, of course, heard at second hand.

‘I have heard that my son ...’ Ardalion Ardalionovich began.

‘Oh, your son! You’re handsome, too, Papa, are you not? Why do you never show your face at my house? What is it, are you hiding yourself away or is your son hiding you? You of all people can come and see me without compromising anyone.’

‘Nineteenth-century children and their parents ...’ the general began again.

‘Nastasya Filippovna! Let Ardalion Alexandrovich go for a moment, please, someone is asking for him,’ Nina Alexandrovna said loudly.

‘Let him go? For heaven’s sake, I’ve heard so much about him, have wanted to see him for so long! And what sort of business can he have? I mean, he’s retired, isn’t he? You won’t leave me, General, you won’t go away, will you?’

‘I give you my word that he’ll come and see you in person, but now he is in need of rest.’

‘Ardalion Alexandrovich, they say you’re in need of rest!’ Nastasya Filippovna exclaimed with a resentful and peevish face, like a thoughtless little girl who has had a toy taken away from her. The general at once tried to make himself look even more foolish.

‘My dear! My dear!’ he said reproachfully, solemnly turning to his wife and putting his hand on his heart.

‘Will you not come away, Mama?’ Varya asked loudly.

‘No,Varya, I shall stay here to the end.’

Nastasya Filippovna could not have failed to hear the question and the answer, but this only seemed to make her cheerfulness all the greater. She at once began to shower the general with questions again, and within five minutes the general was in the most festive mood, launching into oratory, to the loud laughter of those present.

Kolya tugged the prince by his coat tail.

‘Get him out of here somehow! Can’t you? Please!’ And tears of indignation even burned in the poor boy’s eyes. ‘Oh, confound Ganka!’ he added to himself.

‘I did indeed have a great friendship with Ivan Fyodorovich Yepanchin,’ the general gushed, in response to Nastasya Filippovna’s questions. ‘He, I and the late Prince Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin, whose son I have today embraced after a twenty years’ separation, were thr
ee inseparables, so to speak, a cavalcade: Athos, Porthos and Aramis.
²
But alas, one is in the grave, struck down by slander and a bullet, another is before you, still struggling with slander and bullets ...’

‘Bullets?’ Nastasya Filippovna exclaimed.

‘They are here, in my chest, I received them at Kars,
³
and in bad weather I feel them. In all other respects I live like a philosopher, I go out, take walks, play draughts at my café, like a
bourgeois
who has retired from practical affairs, and read the
Independance
.
⁴
But with our Porthos, Yepanchin, after the business with the lap-dog on the train three years ago, I have had absolutely nothing further to do.’

‘A lap-dog? But what was that about?’ Nastasya Filippovna asked with particular curiosity. ‘A lap-dog? You don’t say, and on a train! ...’ she said, as if remembering something.

‘Oh, a stupid story, it’s not worth repeating: it involved Princess Belokonskaya’s governess, Mistress Schmidt, but ... it’s not worth repeating.’

‘But you absolutely must tell me!’ Nastasya Filippovna exclaimed merrily.

‘I haven’t heard it yet, either!’ observed Ferdyshchenko.
‘C’est du nouveau.’
⁵

‘Ardalion Alexandrovich!’ Nina Alexandrovna’s imploring voice again rang out.

‘Papa, someone’s asking for you!’ cried Kolya.

‘A stupid story, and one that can be told in a few words,’ the general began complacently. ‘Two years ago, yes, more or less, just after the opening of the new — Railway, when attending to some business that was extremely important to me, about retiring from my position in the service (by that time I was back in civilian clothes), I took a ticket, first cla
ss: I got in, sat down, had a smoke. That’s to say, I continued to smoke, I had lit my cigar earlier. I was alone in the compartment. Smoking is not prohibited, but it’s not permitted either; it’s just semi-permitted, as a matter of custom; well, and depending on the person. The window had been lowered. Suddenly, just before the whistle for departure, two ladies with a lap-dog got in and occupied the seats directly opposite me; they were late for the train; one of them was dressed in the most eye-catching manner, in light blue; the other more modestly, in black silk and a pelerine. They were quite good-looking, gazed at me haughtily, were talking English. I, of course, paid no attention; I smoked. That’s to say, I thought about it, but I continued to smoke, because the window was open, and I smoked out of the window. The lap-dog was resting on the light-blue lady’s knees, it was small, no bigger than my fist, black, with little white paws, a curiosity, even. It had a silver collar with a motto. I paid no attention. Though I did notice that the ladies seemed to be angry, about my cigar, of course. One of them trained her lorgnette on me, a tortoiseshell one. Again I paid no attention: because, after all, they didn’t say anything! If they’d said something, warned me, asked me, I mean, after all, there is such a thing as the human tongue! But they said nothing ... then suddenly - and it came, I tell you, with not the slightest forewarning, I mean not the very slightest, every bit as though she had gone quite out of her mind - the light-blue lady snatched my cigar from me and threw it out of the window. The train hurtled along, I stared at her like a halfwit. The woman was wild; a wild woman, quite as if she were from some savage society; but a stout woman, plump, tall, fair-haired, red-cheeked (even too much so), her eyes flashing at me. Without saying a word, but with uncommon politeness, with the most complete politeness, with the most refined, so to speak, politeness, I approached the lap-dog with two fingers, delicately picked it up by the collar and flung it out of the window after the cigar! You should have heard the squeals! The train continued to speed along ...’