The Idiot (72 page)

‘“But wherever did you get the idea of coming to see me, Terentyev?” he exclaimed with his habitual charming familiarity, sometimes cheeky, but never offensive, which I so loved in him and for which I so hated him. “But what is this?” he cried in alarm. “You’re so ill!”

‘The cough had begun to torment me again, I fell on to a chair and could hardly catch my breath.

‘“Don’t let it trouble you, I’ve got T.B.,” I said. “I’ve come to ask you for a favour.”

‘He sat down in astonishment, and I at once set forth to him the doctor’s entire story and explained that since he had a great deal of influence on his uncle, he might be able to do something.

‘“I’ll do it, I’ll do it without fail, and I’ll tackle Uncle tomorrow; I’ll really be glad to, and you’ve told it all so well ... But all the same, Terentyev, wherever did you get the idea of turning to me?”

‘“So much depends upon your uncle, and since moreover we’ve always been enemies, Bakhmutov, and as you’re a decent fellow, I thought that you wouldn’t refuse an enemy,” I added with irony.

‘“In the way that Napoleon turned to England!”
⁵
he exclaimed, bursting into laughter. “I’ll do it, I’ll do it! Why, I’ll go right now, if I can!” he added quickly, seeing me get up from my chair seriously and sternly.

‘And indeed, in the most unexpected fashion, this matter was arranged between us with the best possible result. A month and a half later our medic got another post, in another province, received a travelling allowance, and even a cash advance. I suspect that Bakhmutov, who had developed a great habit of visiting him (while I deliberately stopped doing so and received the doctor almost coolly whenever he dropped in on me) - Bakhmutov, I suspect, even persuaded the doctor to borrow money from him. I saw Bakhmutov a couple of times during those six weeks, we met for the third time when we were seeing the doctor off. Bakhmutov held the farewell party at his house, in the form of a dinner with champagne, which the doctor’s wife also attended; however, she very soon left to go back to her baby. This was in early May, it was a clear evening, the enormous disc of the sun was sinking into the Gulf. Bakhmutov accompanied me home; we walked across Nikolayevsky Bridge; we had both had quite a lot to drink. Bakhmutov talked about his delight that the affair had ended so well, thanked me for something, explained how good he felt now after doing a good deed, assured me that all the credit belonged to me a
nd that those many people who nowadays taught and preached that the individual good deed was of no significance were wrong. I was also very anxious to talk for a while.

‘“Whoever attacks individual ’charity‘,” I began, “attacks the nature of man and despises his personal dignity. But the organization of ‘public charity’ and the question of personal freedom are two different questions and are not mutually exclusive. Individual kindness will always remain, because it is a need of the personality, a living need for the direct influence of one personality on another. In Moscow there used to live an old man, a ‘general’, that is, a State Councillor, with a German name; all his life he had traipsed around prisons and criminals; every party of convicts on its way to Siberia knew in advance that ‘the old general’
⁶
would visit them at Sparrow Hills. He did his work with great seriousness and devotion; he arrived, walked along the ranks of the convicts, who surrounded him, stopped before each one, asked each about his needs, hardly ever gave anyone a lecture, called them all ‘dear friends’. He gave money, sent necessary items - foot-bindings, foot-rags, linen, sometimes brought edifying books and distributed them to each man who could read, in the full conviction that they would be read en route and that those who could read would read them aloud to those who could not. About crime he rarely asked any questions, though he would listen if a criminal began to talk. All the criminals were on an equal footing as far as he was concerned, there were no distinctions. He talked to them like brothers, but towards the end they began to view him as a father. If he noticed a female convict with a baby in her arms, he would approach, fondle the baby and snap his fingers at it to make it laugh. These things he did for many years, right up to his death; eventually he was famous all over Russia and all over Siberia, among the criminals, that is. One man who had been in Siberia told me that he himself had witnessed how the most hardened criminals remembered the general, and yet the general, when he visited the gangs of convicts, was rarely able to give more than twenty copecks to each man. It’s true that he wasn’t remembered with much affection, or even very seriously. Some ‘unfortunate wretch’, who had killed twelve people, or put six children to the knife solely for his own amusement (there were such men, it is said), would suddenly, apropos of nothing, perhaps only once in twenty years, sigh and say: ‘Well, and how’s the old general now, is he still alive?’ He would even, perhaps, smile as he said it - and that would be all. How can you know what seed had been cast into his soul for ever by this ‘old general’, whom he had not forgotten in twenty years? How can you know, Bakhmutov, what significance this communication between one personality and another may have in the fate of the personality that is communicated with? ... I mean, we’re talking about the whole of a life, and a countless number of ramifications that are hidden from us. The very finest player of chess, the most acute of them, can only calculate a few moves ahead; one French player, who was able to calculate ten moves ahead, was described in the press as a mi
racle. But how many moves are here, and how much is there that is unknown to us? In sowing your seed, sowing your ‘charity’, your good deeds in whatever form, you give away a part of your personality and absorb part of another; a little more attention, and you are rewarded with knowledge, with the most unexpected discoveries. You will, at last, certainly view your deeds as a science; they will take over the whole of your life and may fill it. On the other hand, all your thoughts, all the seeds you have sown, which perhaps you have already forgotten, will take root and grow; the one who has received from you will give to another. And how can you know what part you will play in the future resolution of the fates of mankind? If this knowledge, and a whole lifetime of this work, exalts you, at last, to the point where you are able to sow a mighty seed, leave a mighty idea to the world as an inheritance, then ...” And so on, and so on. I talked a lot that day.

‘“And to think that one such as you is refused life!” Bakhmutov exclaimed to someone in heated reproach.

‘At that moment we stood on the bridge, leaning on the railings, and looking at the Neva.

‘“Do you know what occurs to me?” I said, leaning over the railings even more.

‘“Surely not to throw yourself into the water?” exclaimed Bakhmutov, almost in fear. Perhaps he had read my thought in my face.

‘“No, at present I have only one reflection, the following: here I am now with two or three months left to live, perhaps four; but, for example, when I have only two months left, and if I should terribly want to do one good deed that would require much work, much running about and fuss, like the business with our doctor, then in that case I suppose I would have to refuse it because of the lack of time remaining to me and try to find some other ‘good deed’, a lesser one, which was within my
means
(if I’m so intent on doing good deeds). You must admit that it’s an amusing thought!”

‘Poor Bakhmutov was very worried about me; he accompanied me all the way to my building, and was so tactful that he never once launched into commiserations, and said practically nothing the whole way. On saying goodbye to me, he fervently shook my hand and asked to be allowed to visit me. I replied to him that if he came to see me as a “comforter” (because even if he said nothing, he would still come as a comforter, I explained that to him), then by that very fact he would remind me of death even more each time he came. He shrugged his shoulders, which I had not really expected.

‘But on that evening and that night the first seed of my “final conviction” was sown. I seized eagerly on this new thought, eagerly analysed it in all its ramifications, in all its aspects (I couldn’t sleep all night), and the more I immersed myself in it, the more I absorbed it, the more afraid I was. At last a terrible fear descended on me, and stayed with me over the days that followed. Sometimes, thinking about that constant fear of mine, I would swiftly freeze in the face of a new terror: could I not infer from
this new fear that my “final conviction” had taken root in me too profoundly, and that it could not but arrive at a resolution? But I had not sufficient determination to resolve it. Three weeks later it was all over, and the resolution manifested itself, but as a result of a very strange circumstance.

‘At this point in my explanation, I jot down all those numbers and dates. To me, of course, it will all be the same, but
now
(and, perhaps, only at this moment), I want those who will judge my action to be able to see clearly the logical chain of deductions from which my “final conviction” emerged. I wrote just now, above, that the ultimate determination I lacked in order to fulfil my “final conviction” came to me, it seems, not from any logical deduction at all, but from some strange jolt, a certain strange circumstance that was not, perhaps, connected with the previous course of events in any way. About ten days ago Rogozhin dropped in to see me about some business of his, the nature of which it I don’t need to go into here. I had never seen Rogozhin before, but had heard a very great deal about him. I gave him all the information he wanted, and he soon left, and since he had only come for information, the matter between us would have ended there. But he had begun to interest me too much, and all that day I was under the influence of strange thoughts, so much so that I determined to go and see him the next day myself, to return the visit. Rogozhin was obviously displeased, and even “delicately” hinted that there was no point in continuing our acquaintance; but all the same, I spent a very interesting hour there, as, probably, did he. There was such a contrast between us that it could not fail to affect us both, me especially: I was a man already counting his days, while he was living the fullest and most spontaneous of lives, in the present, without any concern for “final” conclusions, numbers or anything else that did not concern ... that did not concern ... that did not concern what he was mad about; I hope that Mr Rogozhin will forgive me that expression, if only because I am an inferior
littérateur
who is unable to express his own ideas. In spite of all his lack of courtesy, it seemed to me that he was a man of intelligence and able to understand many things, though he took little interest in anything that did not affect him directly. I made no allusion to him about my “final conviction”, but it somehow seemed to me that, while listening to me, he guessed what it was. He said nothing, he is a dreadfully taciturn fellow. I hinted to him as I left that in spite of all the difference between us and all our opposing qualities,
les extrémités se touchent
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(I translated it into Russian for him), so perhaps he himself is not as far from my “final conviction” as it seems. To this he replied with a very morose and sour grimace, got up, found my cap for me himself, making it look as if I were leaving of my own accord, and quite simply showed me out of his gloomy house with the pretence that he was seeing me off out of politeness. His house shocked me; it’s like a cemetery, but he likes it, I think, which is, however, understandable: a full and spontaneous life such as the one he leads is too full in itself to require furnishings.

‘This visit to Rogozhin tired me greatly. Moreover, I had not been feeling well since morning; towards evening I grew very weak and lay down on the bed, from time to time experiencing a high fever, and at some moments even delirium. Kolya stayed with me until eleven o’clock. However, I remember all that he talked about and all that we talked about. But when at certain moments my eyes closed, I kept seeing Ivan Fomich receiving millions in cash. He really did not know where to put it all, racked his brains over it, trembled with fear lest someone stole it, and, at last, decided to bury it. I finally advised him that instead of gratuitously burying such a heap of gold, he should have the whole pile melted down to make a gold coffin for the “frozen” child, and dig up the child for that purpose. Surikov seemed to receive my mocking gibe with tears of gratitude, and at once proceeded to put the plan into action. In the dream I spat, and left him. Kolya assured me, when I had quite recovered consciousness, that I had not been asleep at all, and that I had spent the whole time talking to him about Surikov. At some moments I was in a state of extreme anguish and perturbation, and when Kolya left, he was anxious. When I myself got up in order to lock the door behind him, I suddenly remembered the painting I had seen that day at Rogozhin’s, in one of the most gloomy chambers of his house, above the door. He himself had shown it to me as we passed; I must have stood before it for about five minutes. It had no artistic merit; but it produced in me a strange sense of unease.

‘Depicted in the painting is Christ, who has just been taken down from the cross. I think that painters have usually been in the habit of depicting Christ, both on the cross and when taken down from it, still with a nuance of extraordinary beauty in the face; this beauty they seek to preserve in him even during his most terrible torments. But in Rogozhin’s painting there was no trace of beauty; this really was the corpse of a man who had endured endless torments even before the cross, wounds, tortures, beating from the guards, beating from the mob while he carried the cross and fell beneath it, and, at last, the agony of the cross which lasted six hours (by my calculations, at least). To be sure, it is the face of a man who has just been taken down from the cross, that is, retaining very much that is still alive and warm; nothing has yet had time to go stiff, so that on the face of the dead man one can even see suffering, as though he were experiencing it even now (this is very well captured by the artist); but on the other hand, the face is not spared at all; here there is only nature, and this is truly what the corpse of a man, whoever he may be, must look like after such torments. I am aware that the Christian Church established in the first centuries that Christ did not suffer figuratively but actually, and that therefore his body must have been wholly and completely subject to the laws of nature on the cross. In the painting, the face has been horribly lacerated by blows, swollen, with terrible, swollen and bloody bruises, the eyes open, the pupils narrow; the large, open whites of the eyes gleam with a deathly, glassy sheen. But strangely, as one looks at this corpse of a to
rtured man, a peculiar and interesting question arises: if this is really what the corpse looked like (and it certainly must have looked just like this) when it was seen by all his disciples, his chief future apostles, by the women who followed him and stood by the cross, indeed by all who believed in him and worshipped him, then how could they believe, as they looked at such a corpse, that this martyr would rise from the dead? Here one cannot help being struck by the notion that if death is so terrible and the laws of nature so powerful, then how can they be overcome? How can they be overcome when they have not been conquered even by the one who conquered nature in his own lifetime, to whom it submitted, who cried:
“Talitha cumi
”
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- and the damsel arose,
“Lazarus, come forth”,
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and the dead man came forth? Nature appears, as one looks at that painting, in the guise of some enormous, implacable and speechless animal or, more nearly, far more nearly, though strangely - in the guise of some enormous machine of the most modern devising, which has senselessly seized, smashed to pieces and devoured, dully and without feeling, a great and priceless being - a being which alone was worth the whole of nature and all its laws, the whole earth, which was, perhaps, created solely for the emergence of that being! It is as though this painting were the means by which this idea of a dark, brazen and senseless eternal force, to which everything is subordinate, is expressed, and is involuntarily conveyed to us. Those people who surrounded the dead man, though not one of them is visible in the painting, must have felt a terrible anguish and perturbation that evening, which had smashed all their hopes and almost all their beliefs in one go. They must have parted in the most dreadful fear, though each of them also took away within him an enormous idea that could never now be driven out of them. And if this same teacher could, on the eve of his execution, have seen what he looked like, then how could he have ascended the cross and died as he did now? This question also involuntarily presents itself as one looks at the painting.