The Idiot (74 page)

‘A final explanation; I’m by no means dying because I haven’t the strength to endure these three weeks; oh, I’d have strength enough, and if I’d wanted it, I’d have been sufficiently consoled by the m
ere awareness of the injury that’s being done to me; but I’m not a French poet, and don’t want such consolations. Finally, there is also a temptation: nature has so circumscribed my activity so much by its three-week sentence that suicide may possibly be the only action I can still begin and end of my own free will. What of it, perhaps I want to take advantage of my last chance to
act?
A protest is sometimes no small thing ...’

The ‘Explanation’ was at an end; at last, Ippolit stopped talking ...

There is, in extreme cases, that stage of final, cynical frankness, when a highly strung person, goaded and driven beyond himself, no longer fears anything and is ready for any scandal, is even glad of it; lashes out at people, all the while with the vague but firm intention of jumping off a belfry a moment later and thereby resolving at a stroke all misunderstandings, should there be any. Another sign of this condition is usually the approaching exhaustion of physical strength. The extreme, almost unnatural tension that had been keeping Ippolit afloat until now had reached its last degree. Viewed in isolation, this eighteen-year-old boy, exhausted by illness, appeared weak, like a trembling leaf torn from a tree; but as soon as he looked round at his listeners - for the first time in the whole of the last hour - the most haughty, the most contemptuous and offensive disgust was at once expressed in his gaze and smile. His challenge was a swift one. But his listeners were also most indignant. They were all getting up from the table with bustle and annoyance. Tiredness, wine and tension were increasing the disorder and, as it were, the sordidness of the general impression, if one may put it that way.

Suddenly Ippolit leaped from his chair, as though he had been yanked upright.

‘The sun has risen!’ he exclaimed, catching sight of the gleaming tops of the trees, and pointing them out to the prince as though they were a miracle. ‘It’s risen!’

‘Did you think it wouldn’t, then?’ observed Ferdyshchenko.

‘Another whole day of this damned heat,’ Ganya muttered with careless annoyance, holding his hat, stretching and yawning. ‘This drought will probably go on for a month, and then where shall we be ... Shall we go, Ptitsyn?’

Ippolit listened with an astonishment that intensified to the point of stupefaction; suddenly he grew terribly pale and began to shake all over.

‘You are very clumsily feigning your indifference in order to insult me,’ he said, turning to Ganya, staring at him intently. ‘You’re a scoundrel!’

‘Well, have you ever damn well seen the like, letting himself go like that!’ Ferdyshchenko bawled. ‘What phenomenal weakness!’

‘He’s simply a fool,’ said Ganya.

Ippolit mustered his strength a little.

‘I realize, gentlemen,’ he began, trembling as before, and

halting at every word, ‘that I may have deserved your personal retaliation, and ... regret that I have bored you with my
raving (he pointed to the manuscript), though as a matter of fact, I regret not having bored you completely ...’ (he smiled stupidly) ‘have I bored you, Yevgeny Pavlych?’ he suddenly shot the question at him. ‘Have I bored you or not? Speak!’

‘It was a bit long-winded, though as a matter of fact ...’

‘Tell me everything! Don’t lie, at least once in your life!’ Ippolit commanded him, trembling.

‘Oh, it’s really all the same to me! Do me a favour, I beg you, and leave me alone,’ Yevgeny Pavlovich turned away with distaste.

‘Good night, Prince,’ Ptitsyn approached the prince.

‘But he’s going to shoot himself in a moment, what are you thinking of? Look at him!’ Vera exclaimed, rushing over to Ippolit in extreme alarm and even seizing him by the arms. ‘I mean, he said he would shoot himself when the sun rose, what are you thinking of?’

‘He won’t shoot himself!’ several voices, including Ganya’s, muttered gloatingly.

‘Gentlemen, watch out!’ cried Kolya, also seizing Ippolit by the arm. ‘Just look at him! Prince! Prince, what are you thinking of?’

Vera, Kolya, Keller and Burdovsky crowded round Ippolit; all four caught hold of his arms.

‘He has the right, the right!’ muttered Burdovsky, though he also looked quite lost.

‘With your permission, Prince, but what are your instructions?’ Lebedev approached the prince, drunk and resentful to the point of insolence.

‘What instructions?’

‘No, sir; with your permission, sir, I am the master of the house, sir, though I don’t wish to appear lacking in respect for you ... Let’s say that you’re the master of the house, too, but I don’t want this in my own home ... That’s what it is, sir ...’

‘He won’t shoot himself; the urchin’s playing the fool,’ General Ivolgin shouted unexpectedly, with indignation and aplomb.

‘Hurrah for the general!’ Ferdyshchenko chimed in.

‘I know he won’t shoot himself, General, most esteemed General, but all the same ... for I am the master of the house, after all.’

‘Listen, Mr Terentyev,’ said Ptitsyn suddenly, having said goodbye to the prince, and extending his hand to Ippolit. ‘I believe you said something in your notebook about your skeleton and that you’re bequeathing it to the Academy? You were talking about your own skeleton, yours and no one else’s, in other words, you are bequeathing your own bones?’

‘Yes, my bones ...’

‘It’s best to be sure. Otherwise, it’s possible for mistakes to happen: they say there was such an incident once.’

‘Why are you teasing him?’ the prince exclaimed suddenly.

‘You’ve reduced him to tears,’ added Ferdyshchenko.

But Ippolit was not crying at all. He began to get up from his chair, but the four people who surrounded him suddenly grabbed him, all together, by the arms. Laughter rang out.

‘That’s what he was leading up to, to make us grab him by the arms; that’s why he read his notebook, too,’ observed Rogozhin. ‘Goodbye, Prince. Ach, we’ve been sitting long enough; my bones are aching.’

‘If you really intended to shoot yourself, Terentyev,’ Yevgeny Pavlovich began to laugh, ‘then if I were in your place, after compliments like those I would purposely refrain from shooting myself, just in order to tease them.’

‘They can’t wait to see me shoot myself!’ Ippolit hurled at him.

He spoke as though he were attacking someone.

‘They’re annoyed that they’re not going to see it.’

‘So you think they’re not going to see it?’

‘I’m not trying to egg you on; on the contrary, I think it very possible that you’ll shoot yourself. The main thing is not to lose your temper ...’ Yevgeny Pavlovich drawled in a patronizing manner.

‘Only now do I see that I made a terrible mistake in reading them that notebook!’ Ippolit said quietly, looking at Yevgeny Pavlovich with such a trusting gaze that it was as though he were asking a friend for friendly advice.

‘It’s a ridiculous situation, but ... truly, I don’t know what to advise you,’ Yevgeny Pavlovich replied, smiling.

Ippolit stared at him sternly, not taking his eyes away, and said nothing. It was possible to guess that from time to time he was entirely oblivious of his surroundings.

‘No, sir, with your permission, sir, what a manner of speech that is, I mean to say, sir,’ said Lebedev. ‘“I’ll shoot myself in the park,” he says, “so as not to upset anyone”! He thinks he won’t upset anyone if he goes down and takes a couple of paces into the garden.’

‘Gentlemen ...’ the prince began.

‘No, sir, with your permission, highly esteemed Prince, sir,’ Lebedev interjected, ‘as your highness can see that this is not a joke, and as at least half of your guests are of the same opinion and are certain that now, after the words he has uttered here, he is certainly bound to shoot himself from considerations of personal honour, then I am the master of the house, sir, and declare before witnesses that I expect you to be of assistance!’

‘But what do we have to do, Lebedev? I am ready to assist you.’

‘It’s like this, sir: he must give up his pistol at once, the one he was boasting about to us, along with all its accessories. If he does so, then I agree to allow him to spend the night in this house, in view of his invalid state, under my supervision, of course. But tomorrow he must definitely go on his way; forgive me, Prince! If he doesn’t give up the gun, I shall immediately, at once, take him by the arms, I shall take one arm, the general will take the other, and I shall have the police informed forth
with, and then the matter will pass to the inspection of the police, sir. Mr Ferdyshchenko, as he is a friend, will go down to the station, sir.’

A hubbub ensued; Lebedev was already becoming excited beyond all limits; Ferdyshchenko was preparing to go for the police; Ganya kept vehemently insisting that no one was going to shoot himself, Yevgeny Pavlovich was silent.

‘Prince, have you ever hopped off a belfry?’ Ippolit whispered to him suddenly.

‘N-no ...’ the prince replied innocently.

‘Did you really think that I didn’t foresee all this hatred?’ Ippolit whispered again, his eyes beginning to flash, looking at the prince as though he really was expecting a reply from him. ‘Enough!’ he suddenly shouted at the whole audience. ‘I’m to blame ... more than anyone else! Lebedev, here is the key (he took out a purse and from it a steel ring with three or four small keys), here, this one, the last but one ... Kolya will show you ... Kolya! Where’s Kolya?’ he exclaimed, looking at Kolya without seeing him. ‘Yes ... he’ll show you; he packed the bag with me earlier. Take him through, Kolya; in the prince’s study, under the table ... my bag ... with this key, underneath, in a little box ... my pistol and the powder-horn. He packed them himself, Mr Lebedev, he’ll show you; but provided that first thing, early tomorrow morning, when I return to St Petersburg, you give me back the pistol. Do you hear? I’m doing this for the prince; not for you.’

‘That’s better!’ Lebedev grabbed the key and, smiling poisonously, ran into the adjacent room.

Kolya stopped, and was about to make some remark, but Lebedev hauled him off after him.

Ippolit looked at the laughing guests. The prince noticed that his teeth were chattering, as in the most violent fever.

‘What scoundrels they all are!’ Ippolit whispered again to the prince in frenzy. Whenever he spoke to the prince, he leaned forward and whispered.

‘Let them be; you’re very weak ...’

‘In a moment, in a moment ... I’ll go in a moment.’ Suddenly he embraced the prince.

‘Perhaps you think I’m insane?’ He looked at him, beginning to laugh strangely.

‘No, but you ...’

‘In a moment, in a moment, be quiet; don’t say anything; wait ... I want to look into your eyes ... Stand like that, I’m going to look. I’m going to say farewell to Man.’

He stood and looked motionlessly and silently at the prince, for about ten seconds, very pale, his temples wet with sweat, and clutching rather strangely at the prince with one hand, as though afraid to let him go.

‘Ippolit, Ippolit, what’s the matter with you?’ exclaimed the prince.

‘In a moment ... enough ... I’m going to lie down. I’ll drink one mouthful to the health of the sun ... I want to, I want to, leave me alone!’

He quickly seized a glass from the table, darted away, and in a single instant approached the descent from the veranda. The prince was about to run after him, but it so happened that, as if on purpose, at that same instant Yevgeny Pavlovich stretched out his hand to him in farewell. One second passed, and suddenly a universal cry resounded on the veranda. This was followed by a moment of extreme confusion.

This is what had happened:

Right at the top of the steps that led down from the veranda, Ippolit stopped, holding the glass in his left hand and putting his right hand into the right-hand pocket of his coat. Keller avowed later that Ippolit had been keeping that hand in his right pocket earlier, while he was talking to the prince, and had seized him by the shoulder and collar with his left hand, and Keller maintained that it was this right hand in the pocket that had caused the first stirrings of suspicion in him. Whatever the truth of the matter, a certain uneasiness had made him run after Ippolit. But he had not had time to catch him up. All he saw was something gleam suddenly in Ippolit’s right hand, and at that same second a small pocket pistol appeared right next to his temple. Keller rushed to seize him by the hand, but at that same second Ippolit had pulled the trigger. The sharp, dry click of the trigger was heard, but no shot followed. When Keller put his arms round him, he fell into them as though unconscious, perhaps imagining that he was already dead. The pistol was now in Keller’s hands. Ippolit was lifted up, a chair was placed under him, he was made to sit in it, and everyone crowded round, everyone shouted, everyone asked questions. They had all heard the click of the trigger and seen the man alive, not even scratched. Ippolit sat, not understanding what was happening, and looking round at all with a senseless gaze. At that moment, Lebedev and Kolya came running in.

‘Didn’t it go off?’ some people asked.

‘Perhaps it wasn’t even loaded?’ others guessed.

‘It was loaded!’ proclaimed Keller, examining the pistol, ‘but ...’

‘Did it really not go off?’

‘There was no firing cap at all,’ announced Keller.

It is hard to describe the pitiful scene that followed. The initial and universal alarm began to be replaced by laughter; some people even began to laugh loudly, taking a malicious pleasure in this. Ippolit sobbed as in a hysterical fit, wrung his hands, went rushing up to them all, even to Ferdyshchenko, seized him with both arms and swore to him that he had forgotten - ‘I forgot by complete accident, not on purpose’ - to insert the firing cap, that ‘the caps are all here, in my waistcoat pocket, about ten of them’ (he showed them to everyone), that he had not inserted one earlier, fearing the gun might go off in his pocket by accident, that he had always reckoned on having time to insert in when he needed to, and had suddenly forgotten. He rushed over to the prince, to Yevgeny Pavlovich, implored Keller to give him back the pistol, said that he would now show them all that ‘my honour, my honour ...’ that now he was ‘dishonoured for ever’.