The Idiot (63 page)

In order to cross from the park to the rostrum where the band was playing, one had to go down three steps. At these steps the crowd came to a halt; they could not bring themselves to go down, but one of the women moved forward; only two of her retinue were so bold as to follow her. One was a middle-aged man of rather modest aspect, respectable in appearance, but with the air of a loner, that is, the kind of person who never knows anyone and whom no one else knows either. The other, who never left his lady’s side, was a perfect vagabond, of most ambiguous aspect. No one else followed the eccentric lady; but as she descended the steps she did not even glance back, as though it were really all the same to her whether anyone followed her or not. She was laughing and talking loudly, as before; she was dressed with exquisite and opulent taste, but with rather more extravagance than was proper. She set off past the band to the other end of the rostrum, where a carriage was waiting for someone by the side of the road.

The prince had not seen her for more than three months now. Ever since his recent arrival in St Petersburg he had intended to visit her; but a secret premonition was perhaps preventing him from doing so. At any rate, he was quite unable to guess the effect that a future meeting with her would have on him, though sometimes, in fear, he tried to imagine it. One thing was clear to him - that the meeting would be a painful one. Several times during those six months he had remembered the initial sensation this woman’s face had caused in him, when he had seen it only in her portrait; but even in that impression, he recalled, there had been too much that was painfu
l. That month in the provinces, when he had seen her almost every day, had had a terrible effect on him, to the point that he sometimes even tried to drive away the memory of that still recent time. In the very face of this woman there was always something tormenting for him: the prince, as he talked to Rogozhin, had ascribed this sensation to one of infinite compassion, and this was the truth: even in the portrait, this face had called forth from his heart the whole suffering of pity; this impression of suffering, and even of suffering for this creature, never left his heart, did not leave him even now. Oh no, it was even stronger. But the prince was dissatisfied with what he had told Rogozhin; and only now, in this moment of her sudden appearance, he realized, perhaps intuitively, what had been lacking in his words to Rogozhin. What had been lacking were the words that could have expressed horror - yes, horror! Now, at this moment, he sensed it fully; he was certain, was completely convinced, for particular reasons of his own, that this woman was insane. If, loving a woman more than anything in the world, or anticipating the possibility of such a love, one were suddenly to see her on a chain, behind an iron grille, under the warder’s stick - such an impression would be somewhat similar to what the prince felt now.

‘What’s wrong?’ Aglaya whispered quickly, surveying him and tugging him innocently by the arm.

He turned his head towards her, looked at her, glanced at her dark eyes which for some reason were glittering at that moment, tried to smile at her, but suddenly, as though he had forgotten her for a moment, moved his eyes away to the right again, and once more began to observe his extraordinary vision. At that moment Nastasya Filippovna was walking right past the young ladies’ chairs. Yevgeny Pavlovich was still telling Alexandra Ivanovna something that was obviously very amusing and interesting, in a quick and animated voice. The prince remembered that Aglaya suddenly said in a half-whisper: ‘What a ...’

A vague and unfinished remark; she instantly restrained herself and added no more, but this was already enough. Nastasya Filippovna, who was walking past as if she had not noticed anyone in particular, suddenly turned round in their direction and seemed only now to be aware of Yevgeny Pavlovich.

‘B-bah! So this is where he is!’ she exclaimed, suddenly stopping. ‘No messengers can find him, and there he sits as if on purpose, where you’d never dream ... Why, I thought you were over there ... at your uncle’s!’

Yevgeny Pavlovich flushed, gave Nastasya Filippovna a furious look, but quickly turned away from her again.

‘What? Don’t you know? He still doesn’t know, imagine! He’s shot himself! This morning your uncle shot himself! They told me this afternoon, at two o’clock; and half the city knows by now; three hundred and fifty thousand roubles of state funds are missing, they say, though others say it’s five hundred thousand. And there was I thinking he was going to leave you an inheritance; he’s blown the lot. He w
as a most dissolute old character ... Well, goodbye,
bonne chance!
So you’re not going to be there? You certainly took your retirement at the right time, you cunning fellow! But that’s nonsense, of course you knew, you knew in advance: perhaps you even knew yesterday ...’

Although in her brazen pestering, in her advertising of their acquaintance and an intimacy that did not exist, there was certainly a purpose, and of this there could be no doubt, Yevgeny Pavlovich first thought of somehow getting away and at all costs ignoring the woman who was insulting him. But Nastasya Filippovna’s words had struck him like thunder; hearing of his uncle’s death, he turned as pale as a handkerchief, and turned to face his informant. At that moment Lizaveta Prokofyevna quickly got up from her seat, made everyone else get up as well, and almost ran from the seat. Only Prince Lev Nikolayevich remained seated for a moment, as though undecided, and Yevgeny Pavlovich continued to stand, unable to gather his wits. But the Yepanchins had not managed to go twenty paces when a terrible scandal broke out.

The officer, Yevgeny Pavlovich’s great friend, who had been talking to Aglaya, was in the highest degree of indignation.

‘You need to use the whip, otherwise you’ll get nowhere with that creature!’ he said almost loudly. (He had apparently been Yevgeny Pavlovich’s
confidant
earlier, too.)

Nastasya Filippovna turned round to him in an instant. Her eyes flashed; she rushed up to the young man, whom she did not know at all, who stood two paces from her, holding a thin plaited riding crop, tore it out of his hands and lashed her insulter across the face with it. All this happened in a single moment ... The officer, beside himself, rushed at her; around Nastasya Filippovna there was no longer a retinue; the decorous middle-aged gentleman had already managed to make himself scarce altogether, while the tipsy gentleman was standing to one side and laughing fit to burst. A moment later, of course, the police would have appeared, and that moment would have cost Nastasya Filippovna dear, had not unexpected help arrived: the prince, who had come to a halt two paces away, managed to seize the officer’s arms from behind. Tearing his arm free, the officer gave him a powerful shove in the chest; the prince went flying back some three paces and fell into a chair. But now Nastasya Filippovna had two more defenders. Before the attacking officer stood the boxer, the author of the article familiar to the reader, and a fully paid-up member of the old Rogozhin gang.

‘Keller! Retired lieutenant,’ he introduced himself with a swagger. ‘If it’s hand-to-hand fighting you want, captain, then, replacing the weaker sex, I am at your service; I am trained in all the arts of English boxing. Don’t push, captain; I sympathize about the
bloody
insult, but I cannot allow you to exercise the right of the fist upon a woman in public. But if, as befits a most hon-our-able man, you wish to fight in a different manner, then - you do, of course, understand what I mean, captain ...’

But by now the captain had recovered his wits, and was no longer listening to him. At that moment Rogozhin, who had appeared from the crowd, caught Nastasya Filippovna by the arm and led her off with him. For his part, Rogozhin looked dreadfully shaken - pale and trembling. As he led Nastasya Filippovna away, he managed to laugh maliciously in the officer’s face and, with the look of a gloating shopkeeper, say:

‘Hah! Caught it, didn’t you? Your face all covered in blood! Hah!’

Having gathered his wits and now quite aware of whom he was dealing with, the officer politely (covering his face with a handkerchief, however) turned to the prince, who had already risen from his chair:

‘Prince Myshkin, whose acquaintance I had the pleasure of making?’

‘She’s a madwoman! Insane! I assure you!’ the prince replied in a trembling voice, for some reason stretching out his shaking hands to him.

‘Of course, I have no such inside information, but I must have your name.’

He nodded and walked away. The police arrived exactly five seconds after the last of the
dramatis personae
had disappeared. As a matter of fact, the scandal had lasted no more than two minutes. Several members of the public got up from their seats and left, others merely moved from one seat to another; still others were very pleased about the scandal; others yet again began intense discussions, taking a keen interest in it all. In short, the matter ended in the usual way. The band began to play again. The prince went off after the Yepanchins. If it had occurred to him or if he had managed to look to the left, as he sat on his chair after being pushed away, he would have seen Aglaya, some twenty paces from him; she had stopped to observe the scandalous scene and was not heeding the cries of her mother and sisters as they walked on, summoning her to catch up with them. Prince Shch. ran up her and at last persuaded her to leave. Lizaveta Prokofyevna remembered that Aglaya returned to them in such excitement that it was unlikely she had even heard their summoning cries. But exactly two minutes later, as soon as they entered the park, Aglaya said quietly in her usual indifferent and capricious voice:

‘I wanted to see how the comedy would end.’

The incident in the pleasure gardens affected both mother and daughters almost with horror. In dismay and agitation, Lizaveta Prokofyevna almost literally ran all the way home with her daughters. According to her view of the world, too much had taken place and been revealed in that incident, so that in spite of all the disorder and alarm, determined thoughts were already being born within her mind. Everyone realized, however, that something peculiar had happened and that it was possibly just as well that some extraordinary secret was about to be revealed. In spite of Prince Shch.’s earlier assurances and explanations, Yevgeny Pavlovich had now been ‘brought to the surface’, exposed, unmasked and ‘publicly disgraced in his relations with that creature’. That was how Lizaveta Prokofyevna, and even both elder daughters, saw it. The result of this conclusion was the amassing of yet more riddles. Though the girls were privately somewhat indignant about their mother’s excessive alarm and all-too-conspicuous flight, in the initial period of turmoil they could not bring themselves to upset her with questions. For some reason, moreover, it appeared to them that their sister, Aglaya Ivanovna, perhaps knew more about this matter than either they or their mother did. Prince Shch. also looked as black as night, and very pensive. Lizaveta Prokofyevna said not a word to him all the way, but he never even seemed to notice. Adelaida tried to ask him what uncle they had been talking about just then and what had happened back in St Petersburg, but he muttered in reply to her, with the sourest of expressions, something very vague about some kind of inquiries, and that it was all totally absurd, of course. ‘There’s no doubt about that!’ replied Adelaida, and after that asked no further questions. Aglaya had become unusually quiet and the only comment she made on the way was that they were running too fast. Once she turned round and saw the prince, who was trying to catch them up. Having noticed his efforts to catch up with them, she smiled mockingly, and did not look round at him any more.

At last, almost at the dacha itself, they met Ivan Fyodorovich coming towards them, having just returned from St Petersburg. The first thing he did was to inquire about Yevgeny Pavlovich. But his wife walked sternly past him, not replying and without even so much as a glance at him. From the looks on the faces of his daughters and Prince Shch. he guessed at once that there was a storm in the house. But quite apart from this, his own face reflected some unusual perturbation. He at once took Prince Shch. by the arm, stopped him at the entrance to the house and almost in a whisper exchanged some words with him. By the troubled look of both, when they later went out to the veranda and through to Lizaveta Prokofyevna’s room, one might have thought they had both heard some extraordinary piece of news. Little by little they all gathered in Lizaveta Prokofyevna’s ro
om upstairs, and on the veranda only the prince remained, at last. He sat in the corner, as though he were expecting something, though not knowing why; it did not occur to him to leave, seeing the turmoil in the house; he seemed to have forgotten the entire universe, and looked as though he was prepared to sit it out for two years on end, no matter where he was put. From upstairs he occasionally heard echoes of anxious conversation. He himself could not have said how long he sat there. It was getting late, and twilight had fallen. Suddenly Aglaya appeared on the veranda; she looked calm, though somewhat pale. Catching sight of the prince, whom she was ‘obviously not expecting’ to meet here, sitting on a chair, in a corner, Aglaya smiled as though in bewilderment.

‘What are you doing here?’

Embarrassed, the prince muttered something, and jumped up from his chair; but Aglaya at once sat down beside him, and he too sat down again. She cast a sudden but attentive glance at him, then looked out of the window, as if without anything particular in mind, then back at him again. ‘Perhaps she feels like laughing,’ thought the prince. ‘But no, after all, then she would have laughed.’

‘Perhaps you’d like some tea, I’ll have some made,’ she said, after a silence.

‘N-no ... I don’t know ...’

‘But how can one not know that? Oh yes, listen: if someone challenged you to a duel, what would you do? I wanted to ask you that earlier.’