The Idiot (51 page)

‘What do you mean, fraud? ... What do you mean: “not Pavlishchev’s son”? ... How is it possible? ...’ the exclamations resounded. Burdovsky’s entire company was in a state of utter disarray.

‘But of course it’s fraud! I mean, if Mr Burdovsky now turns out not to be “Pavlishchev’s son”, then Mr Burdovsky’s demand will be downright fraudulent (that is, of course, if he knows the truth!), but that’s the whole point, that he’s been deceived, and it’s for that reason I insist that he be acquitted; it’s for that reason I say that he deserves pity for his naivety, and must have support; otherwise he too will emerge from this case as a fraudster. Look, I myself am already convinced that he doesn’t know anything! I myself was in such a condition before I left for Switzerland, also babbled incoherent words - one wants to express oneself, and can’t ... I understand that; I find it very easy to sympathize with that, because I’m almost the same, and so I can speak! And, in any case, all the same - in spite of the fact that there is no “Pavlishchev’s son” now and all of this turns out to be a mystification - all the same I am not changing my decision, and am ready to return the ten thousand, in memory of Pavlishchev. You see, before Mr Burdovsky I wanted to spend that ten thousand on a school, in memory of Pavlishchev, but now it won’t matter whether it goes on a school or to Mr Burdovsky, because Mr Burdovsky, though he isn’t “Pavlishchev’s son”, is as good as “Pavlishchev’s son”: because he himself has been so cruelly deceived; he sincerely believed that he was Pavlishchev’s son! So listen, gentlemen, to what Gavrila Ardalionovich has to say, let’s finish this, don’t be angry, don’t get excited, sit down! In a moment Gavrila Ardalionovich will explain it all to us, and I confess that I myself am exceedingly eager to learn all the details. He says, Mr Burdovsky, that he even went to Pskov to see your mother, who had not died at all, as you were made to say in the article ... Sit down, gentlemen, sit down!’

The prince sat down and again managed to make Mr Burdovsky’s company, who had leaped up from their places, resume their seats. For the last ten or twenty minutes he had been talking with a flushed face, loudly, in an impatient patter, carried away, trying to talk or shout everyone else down, and afterwards, of course, had occasion bitterly to regret some of the phrases and sentences that broke from him now. If he had not been so exercised and almost brought to the point of losing his temper he w
ould not have permitted himself to express aloud, so touchily and hurriedly, some of his conjectures and unneeded frank disclosures. But no sooner had he sat down on his chair than his heart was transfixed to the point of agony by a burning sense of remorse. In addition to having ‘offended’ Burdovsky, by so publicly assuming that he too suffered from the same illness for which he had been treated in Switzerland - in addition to that, his offer of ten thousand, instead of a school, had been made, in his opinion, rudely and insensitively, like a hand-out, especially as it had been made aloud in front of people. ‘I should have waited and made the offer tomorrow alone with him,’ the prince thought at once, ‘but I don’t think it can be put right now! Yes, I’m an idiot, a real idiot!’ he decided to himself in a fit of shame and extreme vexation.

Meanwhile Gavrila Ardalionovich, who had hitherto kept to one side and maintained a stubborn silence, came forward at the prince’s invitation, stood beside him and began to give a calm and clear account of the matter that had been entrusted to him by the prince. All conversation fell silent instantly. Everyone listened with extreme curiosity, especially all the members of Burdovsky’s company.

‘You will not, of course, deny,’ Gavrila Ardalionovich began, directly addressing Burdovsky who was listening to him with all his might, eyes bulging at him in astonishment, and obviously in a state of intense dismay, ‘you will not deny - nor, of course, will you wish to - that you were born just two years after the lawful marriage of your esteemed mother to collegiate secretary Mr Burdovsky, your father. The time of your birth may very easily be proved on a factual basis, so the distortion of that fact in Mr Keller’s article, so offensive to you and your mother, can only be explained by the playfulness of Mr Keller’s own imagination, as he thought this would strengthen the self-evident nature of your claim and thus aid your interests. Mr Keller says that he read you the article beforehand, though not in its entirety ... without any doubt, he did not read as far as that part ...’

‘That’s true, I didn’t,’ the boxer interrupted, ‘but all the facts were given to me by a competent person, and I ...’

‘Excuse me, Mr Keller,’ Gavrila Ardalionovich stopped him. ‘Permit me to speak. I assure you that we shall come to your article in its turn, and then you will make your explanation, but now we had better continue in proper order. Quite by chance, with the help of my sister, Varvara Ardalionovna Ptitsyna, I have obtained from her intimate companion, Vera Alexeyevna Zubkova, a landowner and a widow, a certain letter from the late Nikolai Andreyevich Pavlishchev, which he wrote to her from abroad twenty-four years ago. Having made the acquaintance of Vera Alexeyevna, I applied, on her instructions, to the retired colonel Timofei Fyodorovich Vyazovkin, a distant relative and at one time a great friend of Mr Pavlishchev’s. From him I succeeded in obtaining two more letters from Nikolai Andreyevich, also written from abroad. From these three letters, from the dates and the facts mentioned in them, it is proven mathematically, without the slightest possibility of refutation or even doubt, that Nikolai Andreyevich then went abroad (where he stayed for three whole years) just one and a half years before you were born, Mr Burdovsky. Your mother, as you know, never left Russia ... At this present moment I shall not read those letters. It’s late now; at all events, I am merely stating a fact. But Mr Burdovsky, if you would like to make an appointment with me for tomorrow morning and to bring your witnesses (in any number you wish) and handwriting experts, I have no doubt that you will not fail to be convinced of the obvious truth of the fact I have related. If that is so then, of course, this entire case falls to the ground, and is ended of its own accord.’

There again ensued a universal stir and deep excitement. Burdovsky suddenly rose from his chair.

‘If that is so, then I have been deceived, deceived, and not by Chebarov, but long, long ago; I don’t want experts, I don’t want an appointment, I believe you, I refuse ... I won’t accept the ten thousand ... goodbye ...’

He took his peaked cap and moved back his chair in order to leave.

‘If you can, Mr Burdovsky,’ Gavrila Ardalionovich stopped him quietly and sweetly, ‘stay for another five minutes or so. A few more exceedingly important facts have come to light concerning this case; they affect you in particular, and are at any rate interesting. In my opinion, you cannot possibly ignore them, and perhaps you yourself will feel better if the matter is completely cleared up ...’

Burdovsky sat down in silence, his head slightly lowered and as if in intense reflection. Lebedev’s nephew, who had also risen to accompany him, sat down as well; though he had not lost his head or his boldness, it was clear that he was greatly puzzled. Ippolit was frowning, sad, and seemed very astonished. At that moment, however, he began to cough so violently that his handkerchief was stained with blood. The boxer looked almost afraid.

‘Ech, Antip!’ he cried bitterly. ‘I mean, I told you at the time ... the day before yesterday, that you may not be Pavlishchev’s son!’

There was a burst of laughter, two or three laughing louder than the rest.

‘The fact you stated just now, Mr Keller,’ Gavrila Ardalionovich interjected, ‘is most valuable. None the less, I am completely within my rights, on the most precise evidence, to assert that although Mr Burdovsky was very well aware of the date of his birth, he was not at all aware of the circumstance of this sojourn of Pavlishchev’s abroad, where Mr Pavlishchev spent the greater part of his life, only returning to Russia for short periods. In addition, the very fact of his departure at that time is not at all so remarkable in itself that people would remember it after twenty or more years, even those who knew Pavlishchev well, not to mention Mr Burdovsky, who was not even born then. Of course, it proved not impossible to make inquiries now; but I must confess that the information I received came to me quite accidentally and might easily not have come to me at all; so that for Mr Burdovsky and even for Chebarov these inquiries would have really been almost impossible, even if they had thought of making them. But then again, they might not have ...’

‘Forgive me, Mr Ivolgin,’ Ippolit suddenly interrupted him irritably, ‘but what is all this rigmarole - if you’ll forgive me - about ? The case has now been explained, we agree to believe the main fact, so why drag out these painful and hurtful proceedings any further? Perhaps you want to boast of the skill of your investigations, show off to the prince and ourselves what a good investigator, what a good detective you are? Or do you plan to excuse and justify Burdovsky on the grounds that he became involved in the matter through ignorance? But that is insolent, dear sir! Burdovsky does not need your justifications and excuses, I think you ought to k
now! He feels hurt, he is suffering now as it is, he is in an awkward position, you ought to have guessed that, realized it ...’

‘That will do, Mr Terentyev, that will do,’ Gavrila Ardalionovich managed to interrupt, ‘please calm down, do not excite yourself; you are quite ill, I believe? I sympathize with you. In that case, if you wish, I have finished, that is, I shall be compelled to give but a brief account of the facts which, in my opinion, ought to be known in their entirety,’ he added, having noticed a certain universal movement resembling impatience. ‘I merely wish to state, with proof, for the information of all those who have an interest in the case, that your mother, Mr Burdovsky, enjoyed Pavlishchev’s attention and concern for the sole reason that she was the sister of that serf-girl with whom, in his very earliest youth, Nikolai Andreyevich Pavlishchev was so much in love that he would certainly have married her, had she not died suddenly. I have proof that this domestic fact, wholly true and genuine, is very little known, and even quite forgotten. Furthermore, I could explain how your mother, while yet but a child ten years old, was taken by Mr Pavlishchev to be brought up in place of her sister, that she was allotted a considerable dowry and that all these concerns gave rise to some extremely alarming rumours among the numerous Pavlishchev clan; it was even thought that he would marry his protegee, but in the end she married, from inclination (and this I could prove in the most precise manner), an official from the Surveyor’s Office, Mr Burdovsky, in the twentieth year of his age. Here I have gathered a few most precise facts, for proof, which show that your father, Mr Burdovsky, who was not a man of business at all, having received fifteen thousand as your mother’s dowry, gave up his civil service post, entered commercial undertakings, was deceived, lost his capital, could not endure the sorrow, and began to drink, which made him ill and, at last, died prematurely, in the eighth year of his marriage to your mother. After that, according to your mother’s own testimony, she remained in poverty and would have perished altogether had it not been for the constant and generous assistance of Pavlishchev, who paid her an allowance of up to six hundred roubles a year. Then there is a vast amount of evidence that he loved you greatly when you were a child. From this testimony, and again as confirmed by your mother, it appears that he loved you mainly because as a child you had an air of being tongue-tied, the air of a cripple, the air of a wretched, unhappy child (and Pavlishchev, as I deduced from exact proof, all his life had a special kind of tender disposition towards all that was oppressed and insulted by nature, especially in children - a fact, in my opinion, extremely important for our case.) Lastly, I can boast of the most precise investigations about that main fact, how that extreme devotion shown towards you by Pavlishchev (by whose efforts you entered the gymnasium and studied under special supervision) gave rise, at length, little by little, to the thought among Pavlishchev’s relatives and family that you were his son and that your father was simply a deceived husband. But the main thing is that this thought strengthen
ed into a definite and universal conviction only in the latter years of Pavlishchev’s life, when everyone was alarmed about the will, and when the original facts had been forgotten, and inquiries were impossible. Without doubt, this thought reached you, also, Mr Burdovsky, and took possession of you entirely. Your mother, with whom I had the honour to be personally acquainted, though she knew about all these rumours, even to this day does not know (I also concealed it from her), that you, her son, were also under the spell of that rumour. Your much respected mother, Mr Burdovsky, I found in Pskov, ill and in the most extreme poverty, into which she had fallen after Pavlishchev’s death. With tears of gratitude she told me that it was only through you and through your assistance that she was alive at all; she expects many things of you in the future and ardently believes in your future success ...’

‘This is really intolerable!’ Lebedev’s nephew suddenly declared loudly and impatiently. ‘What’s all this
roman
in aid of?’

‘Disgusting and indecent!’ Ippolit gave a violent movement. But Burdovsky did not notice anything and did not even move.

‘What’s it in aid of? What’s the reason for it?’ Gavrila Ardalionovich wondered slyly, venomously preparing to present his conclusion. ‘Well, for one thing, Mr Burdovsky is now, perhaps, quite convinced that Mr Pavlishchev loved him out of magnanimity, and not as a son. This one fact needed to be known by Mr Burdovsky, who confirmed and approved Mr Keller’s action just now, after the reading of the article. I say this because I consider you a decent man, Mr Burdovsky. For another thing, it turns out that there was not the slightest thievery or fraud on the part of Chebarov; that is an important point for me, too, because just now the prince, getting excited, mentioned that I was of the same opinion about the thievery and fraud in this unfortunate case. On the contrary, there was absolute conviction on all sides, and although Chebarov really was, perhaps, a major fraudster, in this affair he appears to have been no more than a pettifogger, a scrivener, a fixer. He hoped to earn big money as a lawyer, and his calculation was not only subtle and masterly, but most correct: he based himself on the ease with which the prince parted with money, and on his feeling of grateful veneration for the late Pavlishchev; he based himself, finally (and most importantly of all), on certain chivalrous views held by the prince concerning the obligations of honour and conscience. As regards Mr Burdovsky himself, one might even say that, thanks to certain convictions of his, so egged on by Chebarov and the gang that surrounded him was he that he began the affair almost not out of interest at all, but almost as a service to truth, progress and mankind. Now, after the facts that have been reported, it should be clear to everyone that Mr Burdovsky is a man of pure conduct, in spite of all appearances, and the prince can now more swiftly and more readily than before offer him both his friendly co-operation and that active assistance of which he spoke just now when he spoke of schools and Pavlishchev.’