The Idiot (64 page)

‘But... who ... no one would challenge me to a duel.’

‘Well, but what if they did? Would you be very afraid?’

‘I think I would be very ... afraid.’

‘Do you mean it? Then you’re a coward?’

‘N-no; perhaps not. A coward is someone who’s afraid and runs away; but someone who’s afraid and doesn’t run away is not a coward,’ smiled the prince, after some thought.

‘And you wouldn’t run away?’

‘Perhaps not,’ he laughed, at last, in response to Aglaya’s questions.

‘Although I’m a woman, I would never run away,’ she observed, almost offended. ‘Actually, I think you’re laughing at me and putting on airs in your usual way, to make yourself more interesting; tell me: do they usually fire at twelve paces? And some at ten? That would mean one of them would certainly be killed or wounded, wouldn’t it?’

‘I don’t think people are very often hit in duels.’

‘No? But Pushkin was killed.’

‘That was possibly an accident.’

‘It wasn’t an accident at all; it was a duel to the death, and he was killed.’

‘The bullet struck so low that D’ Anthès
¹
was probably aiming somewhere higher, at the chest or the head; but no one aims so low, and so the bullet most likely struck Pushkin by accident, as the result of a slip. People who are experts have told me that.’

‘Well, a soldier I talked to once told me that when they’re drawn up to fire, they’re specially instructed by the regulations to aim halfway down the man, that’s how they put it: “halfway down the man”. So that means they’re ordered to shoot not at the chest and not at the head, but precisely halfway down the man. I later asked an officer, and he told me that it’s quite true.’

‘It’s probably because they fire from a long distance.’

‘Can you shoot?’

‘I never have.’

‘You mean you don’t know how to load a pistol?’

‘No. That is, I know how to, but I’ve never loaded one myself.’

‘Well, that means you don’t know how to, because to do it you need practice! Listen then, and remember it: number one, buy good pistol powder, not damp (they say it shouldn’t be damp, but very dry), the fine sort, you have to ask for it, and not the sort they use to fire cannons. They say you have to make the bullet yourself. Have you got pistols?’

‘No, and I don’t want any,’ the prince began to laugh.

‘Oh, what nonsense! You must buy one without fail: a good one, they say French or English are the best. Then take a pinch of powder, perhaps two pinches, and put it in. The more you use, the better. Stuff it in with felt (they say it has to be felt, for some reason), you can get it from a mattress, or sometimes doors are upholstered with felt. Then, when you’ve stuffed the felt in, insert the bullet - do you hear, the bullet comes after, and the powder first, otherwise it won’t fire. Why are you laughing? I want you to practise shooting several times each day and you must learn how to hit the target. Will you do it?’

The prince laughed; Aglaya stamped her foot in vexation. Her serious air during this conversation somewhat surprised the prince. He had a vague feeling that there was something he ought to find out, something he ought to ask - at any rate, something more serious than how to load a pistol. But all of that had flown out of his mind, excepting the one circumstance that she was sitting before him, and he was looking at her, and it would have been a matter of almost total indifference to him no matter what she had been talking about.

From upstairs on to the veranda, at last, came Ivan Fydorovich himself; he was setting off somewhere with a frowning, preoccupied and determined look.

‘Ah, Lev Nikolayevich, it’s you ... Where are you off to now?’ he asked, in spite of the fact that Lev Nikolayevich had no thought of moving from his chair. ‘Come along, then, there’s something I’d like to tell you.’

‘Goodbye,’ said Aglaya, extending her hand to the prince.

By now it was quite dark on the veranda, and the prince would not have been able to distinguish her face very clearly. A moment later, as he and the general were leaving the dacha, he suddenly blushed terribly and clenched his right hand tightly.

It turned out that Ivan Fyodorovich was going his way; Ivan Fyodorovich, in spite of the late hour, was hurrying to have a talk with someone about something. But meanwhile he began to talk to the prince, quickly, anxiously, rather incoherently, often mentioning Lizaveta Prokofyevna in the conversation. If the prince had been able to be more attentive at that moment, he would have realized that Ivan Fyodorovich wanted, among other things, to worm something out of him, too, or, rather, directly and openly ask him about something, but was not succeeding in getting to the main point. To his shame, the prince was so distracted that at first he even heard nothing, and when the general stopped in front of him with some burning question, he was forced to confess that he understood none of it.

The general shrugged his shoulders.

‘You’re all turning into a strange bunch of people, from every aspect,’ he began again. ‘I tell you that I really do not understand the ideas and anxieties of Lizaveta Prokofyevna. She’s in a hysterical fit, crying and saying that they’ve shamed and disgraced us. Who? How? With whom? When and why? I confess I am guilty (that I admit), very guilty, but the solicitations of that ... troublesome woman (who behaves outrageously into the bargain) can only be curtailed, at last, by the police, and I intend to see someone this very day, and warn them. It can all be done quietly, modestly, in a kindly fashion, even, on a friendly basis and without any scandal. I also agree that the future is fraught with events and that there is much that is unexplained; there is also an intrigue at work here; but if no one knows anything here, no one can explain anything there; if I haven’t heard, you haven’t heard, he hasn’t heard, and another hasn’t heard anything either, then who, in the end, has heard, I ask you? How can this be explained, in your opinion, except by the fact that half of it’s a mirage, does not exist, in the manner of moonlight, for example ... or other ghostly visions.’

‘She
is insane,’ muttered the prince, suddenly remembering, with pain, all that had happened earlier.

‘That’s it in a nutshell, if it’s her you’re talking about. The same idea, more or less, visited me yesterday, and I fell asleep peacefully. But now I see that there are those here who see the matter more correctly, and I don’t believe that she’s insane. She’s a cantankerous woman, I grant, but also a subtle one, and not merely clever. That outburst of hers about Kapiton Alexeich today proves it. There’s some trickery on her part, or at any rate some sort of Jesuitical cunning, for special aims of her own.’

‘Who is this Kapiton Alexeich?’

‘Oh, Good Lord, Lev Nikolayevich, you’re not listening at all. I started out by telling you about Kapiton Alexeich; I got such a shock that my arms and legs are trembling even now. That’s why I got delayed in town today. Kapiton Alexeich Radomsky, Yevgeny Pavlych’s uncle ...’

‘Well!’ exclaimed the prince.

‘Shot himself this morning, at dawn, at seven o’clock. A respected old fellow, seventy years old, an Epicurean - and exactly as she said - it was public money, a whacking sum!’

‘But where did she ...’

‘Find out about it? Ha-ha! Well, as soon as she appeared, a whole staff formed itself round her, didn’t it? You know the kind of people who visit her now and seek “the honour of her acquaintance”. Naturally she could have heard something about it from those who came to see her, because now the whole of St Petersburg knows, and half of Pavlovsk, if not the whole of it. But what a subtle observation of hers that was about the uniform, as they told it to me, that is, about Yevgeny Pavlych going into retirement ahead of time! What a devilish hint! No, that doesn’t indicate insanity. Of course, I refuse to believe that Yevgeny Pavlych could have known about the disaster in advance, that is, at seven o’clock on such-and-such a date, and so on. But he could have had a premonition of it all. And there was I, and there were we all, Prince Shch., too, reckoning that the old man would leave him an inheritance! Dreadful! Dreadful! Please note, however, that I’m not accusing Yevgeny Pavlych of anything - I hasten to explain that to you - but all the same, it is suspicious. Prince Shch. is very shocked. It’s all turned out rather strangely.’

‘But what’s suspicious about Yevgeny Pavlych’s behaviour?’

‘Nothing! He’s conducted himself in a most noble manner. I wasn’t hinting at anything. His own fortune is, I believe, intact. Lizaveta Prokofyevna, of course, doesn’t want to hear anything ... But the main thing is that all these family disasters, or, rather, all these petty squabbles, one doesn’t even know what to call them ... To tell the truth, you, Lev Nikolayevich, are a friend of the family, and imagine, it’s only now just emerging, though without precise details, that more than a month ago Yevgeny Pavlych apparently had a confidential talk with Aglaya and received a formal refusal from her.’

‘That’s impossible!’ the prince exclaimed heatedly.

‘Well, do you know anything about it? Look, my dear fellow,’ the general said in startled surprise, rooted to the spot like one thunderstruck, ‘perhaps I put my foot in it by telling you, and it was improper and indecent of me, but I mean, it’s because you ... you ... that’s the sort of man you are. Perhaps you know something definite?’ ‘I don’t know anything ... about Yevgeny Pavlych,’ muttered the prince.

‘And neither do I! You know, brother, they really do want to dig a hole in the ground and bury me, and they don’t want to reflect that it’s hard for a man and I won’t come through it. There was such a scene just now, dreadful! I’m talking to you as I would to my own son. The worst of it is that Aglaya seems to laugh at her mother. The part about her apparently having refused Yevgeny Pavlych a month ago and with them having had a confidential talk, a rather formal one, was told to me by the sisters, as a sort of guess ... a reliable guess, however. But I mean, she’s s
uch a self-willed and fantastical creature that it defies description! All the generous feelings, all the brilliant qualities of heart and mind - that is all, perhaps, in her, but it is accompanied by caprice, mockery - in a word, a devilish character, and with fantasies as well. She laughed in her mother’s face just now, at her sisters, at Prince Shch., not to speak of me, she hardly ever stops laughing at me, but I, well, I love her, you know, I even love her laughter - and, I think, that little devil loves me specially for it, that is, more than all the others, I think. I’ll bet she’s already made a laughing-stock of you about something or another. I caught the two of you in conversation just now after the storm earlier, upstairs; she was sitting with you as if nothing had taken place.’

The prince blushed dreadfully, and clenched his right hand, but continued to remain silent.

‘My dear, good Lev Nikolayevich!’ the general said suddenly with feeling and ardour, ‘I ... and even Lizaveta Prokofyevna herself (who has, however, begun to abuse you again, and me, too, because of you, I don’t understand why), we love you all the same, love you sincerely and respect you, even in spite of everything, of all appearances, that is. But you must admit, dear friend, you must admit that it was baffling and vexing to suddenly hear that cold-blooded little devil (for she faced her mother with an air of the most profound contempt for all our questions, and above all for mine, because I, damn it, was stupid enough to think that I could be stern with her, as I was the head of the household - well, it was a stupid thing to do), that cool and composed little devil suddenly explaining with a smile that the “madwoman” (that was how she put it, and I find it strange that she should have used the same word as you: “didn’t you guess it before?”, she said), that the madwoman had “taken it into her head to marry me at all costs to Prince Lev Nikolayevich, and is doing her best to get Yevgeny Pavlych out of our house” ... that’s all she said; she gave no further explanation, laughed to herself as we gaped in astonishment, then slammed the door and left. Later they told me about the turn of events between her and you this afternoon and ... and ... listen, dear Prince, you’re not a man who takes offence easily and you’re very sensible, I’ve noticed that about you, but ... please don’t be angry: she is laughing at you. Laughing like a child, and so please don’t be angry at her, but it is certainly so. Don’t read anything into it - she’s simply making fun of both you and of all of us, from idleness. Well, goodbye! You know our feelings, don’t you? Our sincere feelings for you? Those feelings are devoted, and they will never change, never ... but ... I must be off this way now, so
au revoir!
I’ve seldom been quite so down in the dumps (is that how they say it?) as I am now ... A grand life one has at one’s dacha, doesn’t one?’

Remaining alone at the crossroads, the prince looked about him, quickly crossed the street and went up close to the lighted window of one of the dachas, unfolded a small piece of paper he had been tightly clutc
hing in his right hand during the whole of his conversation with Ivan Fyodorovich, and read, catching the faint ray of light:

The note had been written in a hurry and folded carelessly, most probably before Aglaya had come out on to the veranda. In a state of indescribable agitation, bordering on terror, the prince again tightly clutched the piece of paper in his hand and quickly darted away from the window, from the light, like a frightened thief; but in this movement he suddenly collided head on with a gentleman who was standing right behind him.