The Idiot (75 page)

He collapsed at last, truly unconscious. He was carried into the prince’s study, and Lebedev, who had quite sobered up now, immediately sent for a doctor, while he himself, together with his daughter, son, Burdovsky and the general, remained by the sick man’s bed. When the unconscious Ippolit had been carried out, Keller stood in the middle of the room and proclaimed for all to hear, rapping out each word separately, in a state of total inspiration:

‘Gentlemen, if any of you ever again, out loud, in my presence, expresses any doubt that the cap was forgotten on purpose, and tries to assert that the unhappy young man was merely indulging in playacting - then you’ll have me to deal with.’

But he received no reply. The guests, at last, dispersed in a throng and hurriedly. Ptitsyn, Ganya and Rogozhin set off together.

The prince was very surprised that Yevgeny Pavlovich seemed to have changed his plans and was leaving without having a proper talk.

‘I mean, you wanted to talk to me, when they’d all gone home, didn’t you?’ he asked him.

‘That’s correct,’ said Yevgeny Pavlovich, suddenly sitting down in a chair and seating the prince beside him, ‘but now I have temporarily changed my plans. I’ll confess to you that I am somewhat upset, as you are, too. My thoughts have been thrown off balance; moreover, what I want to talk to you about is very important to me, and for you also. You see, Prince, just once in my life I want to do something completely honourable, that is, completely without any ulterior motive, well, but I think that now, at this moment, I’m not capable of doing anything completely honourable, and neither, perhaps, are you ... so ... and ... well, and we can talk later. Perhaps the matter will even gain in clarity both for you and for me, if we wait for two or three days, which I shall spend in St Petersburg.’

Here he again got up from his chair, which made it appear strange that he had sat down at all in the first place. To the prince it also seemed that Yevgeny Pavlovich was unhappy and irritated, and there was a hostility in his gaze that had certainly not been there before.

‘Incidentally, are you going to see the patient now?’

‘Yes ... and I’m afraid,’ the prince said quietly.

‘Don’t be afraid; he’ll probably live for at least another six weeks, and may even recover his health here. But the best thing would be if tomorrow you told him to go.’

‘Perhaps I really did force his hand by ... not saying anything; he may have thought I also doubted that he’d shoot himself. What do you think, Yevgeny Pavlych?’

‘Nothing of the kind. You’re too soft-hearted, don’t trouble yourself about it. I’ve heard, but have never actually seen it in real life, of a man deliberately shooting himself in order to be praised for it, or out of spite for not being praised for it. Above all, I would never have believed there could be such an open admission of feebleness!’

‘Do you think he’ll try to shoot himself again?’

‘No, not after this he won’t. But beware of these home-grown Lacenaires
²
of ours! I repeat, crime is too common a refuge for such untalented, impatient and greedy nonentities.’

‘He’s not really a Lacenaire, is he?’

‘The essence is the same, though their
emplois
may be different. You’ll see if this gentleman is not capable of knocking off ten people just for a “joke”, exactly as he read aloud to us just now in his “Explanation”. Now those words of his won’t let me get any sleep.’

‘Perhaps you’re worrying too much.’

‘You are extraordinary, Prince; don’t you believe he’s capable of killing ten people
now?’

‘I’m afraid to answer you; it’s all very strange; but ...’

‘Well, as you please, as you please!’ Yevgeny Pavlovich concluded irritably. ‘What’s more, you’re a very brave man; just don’t end up one of the ten yourself.’

‘The most likely thing is that he won’t kill anyone,’ said the prince, looking at Yevgeny Pavlovich reflectively.

The latter burst into malicious laughter.

‘Au revoir,
it’s time I was off! But did you notice that he wanted to leave a copy of his confession to Aglaya Ivanovna?’

‘Yes, I did and ... I’m thinking about it.’

‘I’m sure you are, if those ten people are on your mind,’ Yevgeny Pavlovich laughed again, and went out.

An hour later, some time between three and four, the prince went down into the park. He had tried to fall asleep in the house, but could not, because of the violent beating of his heart. In the house, however, everything had been dealt with and made as quiet as it could be in the circumstances; the patient had fallen asleep, and the doctor who arrived declared that there was no particular danger. Lebedev, Kolya and Burdovsky had stretched out in the patient’s room, so they could take it in turns to keep watch; thus, there was no reason for apprehension.

But the prince’s anxiety kept growing from one minute to the next. He roamed about the park, absent-mindedly looking around him, and stopped in surprise when he reached the platform in front of the pleasure gardens and saw the row of empty benches and the music stands for the band. He was shocked by this place, and for some reason it seemed horribly ugly. He turned back and straight along the road he had walked the previous day with the Yepanchins into the pleasure gardens, reached the green bench that had been assigned to him for the rendezvous, sat down on it and suddenly burst out laughing loudly, which at once caused him extreme indignation. His depression continued; he felt like going away somewhere ... He knew not where. Above him in a tree a bird was singing, and he began to look for it between the leaves; suddenly the bird fluttered up from the tree, and at that same moment he for some reason recalled the ‘housefly’ in the ‘
sun’s hot beam‘, about which Ippolit had written that ‘even it knew its place and was a participant in the general chorus, while he alone was just an outcast’. This sentence had struck him earlier, and he remembered it now. A long-forgotten memory began to stir in him and all of a sudden acquired clarity.

It had happened in Switzerland, in the first year of his treatment, in the first few months, in fact. At the time, he had still been a complete idiot, not even able to talk properly, sometimes unable to understand what was being asked of him. One bright, sunny day he went into the mountains, and for a long time walked with a certain tormenting thought in his mind, but one that simply would not take shape. Before him was the brilliant sky, below him the lake, all round a radiant and unending horizon, which had no termination and no limit. For a long time he gazed, and was racked by torment. Now he remembered how he had stretched out his arms into that radiant, unending blue and had wept. What tortured him was that he was completely alien to all this. What feast was this, what permanent, great holiday, which had no end and to which he had been drawn long ago, always, ever since childhood, and which there was no way he could join. Each morning the same radiant sun ascended; each morning there was a rainbow on the waterfall; each evening the snowy, highest mountain, there, in the distance, on the edge of the sky, burned with a purple flame; each ‘little housefly that buzzed about him in the sun’s hot ray was a participant in all this chorus: it knew its place, liked it and was happy’; each blade of grass was growing and was happy! And everything had its path, and everything knew its path, left with a song and arrived with a song; he alone knew nothing, understood nothing, neither people, nor sounds, was alien to everything and an outcast. Oh, of course, he had not been able to say it in so many words at the time, or express his question; he suffered his torment like a deaf mute; but now it seemed to him that he
had
said all this at the time, all these same words, and that Ippolit had taken what he had said about the ‘housefly’ from him, from his words and tears at the time. He was sure of this, and for some reason this thought made his heart beat faster ...

On the bench he fell into oblivion, but his anxiety continued even in his sleep. Just before drowsing off, he remembered that Ippolit was going to kill ten people, and smiled wryly at the absurdity of supposing such a thing. All around him was a beautiful, clear quietness, with only the rustle of the leaves, which seemed to make it all even quieter and more secluded. He had a great many dreams, all anxious ones, which made him start awake every minute. At last a woman came to him; he knew her, knew her to the point of torment; he was always able to name her and point her out - but it was strange - she now seemed to have a face that was not at all the one he had always known, and he was agonizingly reluctant to accept her as that woman. In that face there was so much remorse and horror that it seemed she was a terrible criminal who had just committed a dreadful crime. A tear trembled on her pale cheek; she beckoned to him with her hand and put a finger to her lips, as though warning him to be quiet when he followe
d her. His heart froze; not for anything, not for anything was he willing to see her as a criminal; but he felt that something dreadful was about to happen, that would have a bearing on his entire life. She seemed to want to show him something, quite close to here, in the park. He got up in order to follow her, and suddenly someone’s radiant, fresh laughter rang out beside him; someone’s hand was suddenly in his; he seized that hand, pressed it hard and woke up. Before him stood Aglaya, laughing loudly.

She was laughing, but she was also indignant.

‘He’s asleep! You were asleep,’ she exclaimed in scornful surprise.

‘It’s you!’ the prince muttered, not yet quite awake, recognizing her with astonishment. ‘Ah, yes! That rendezvous ... I’ve been asleep here.’

‘I saw.’

‘Are you the only person who woke me? Has no one been here, except you? I thought there was ... another woman here...’

‘There was another woman here?!’

At last he completely woke up.

‘It was just a dream,’ he said reflectively. ‘Strange, to have such a dream at such a moment ... Sit down.’

He took her by the hand and seated her on the bench; he sat down beside her and fell into reflection. Aglaya did not begin a conversation, but merely surveyed her interlocutor with a fixed look. He also gazed at her, but only from time to time, as though he did not see her before him at all. She began to blush.

‘Ah, yes!’ the prince started. ‘Ippolit shot himself!’

‘When? At your house?’ she asked, though without much surprise. ‘But he was alive last night, I believe? How on earth could you sleep here after all that?’ she exclaimed, growing suddenly animated.

‘But you see, he isn’t dead, the pistol misfired.’

At Aglaya’s insistence, the prince had to tell immediately, and in great detail, the entire story of the preceding night. She constantly hurried him in his narrative, but interrupted him with ceaseless questions, which were nearly all irrelevant. Among other things, she listened with great interest to what Yevgeny Pavlovich had said, and several times even asked him to repeat it.

‘Well, that’s enough, we must hurry,’ she concluded when she had heard it all. ‘We can only stay here for another hour, until eight o’clock, for at eight I must be home without fail, so that they don’t find out I’ve been here, but I’m here on a matter of business; there is much that I need to tell you. Only you’ve quite disconcerted me now. As for Ippolit, I think that his pistol was bound to misfire, that would be most like him. But are you sure that he really wanted to shoot himself and that there was no deception there?’

‘No deception at all.’

‘That’s more likely. He wrote that you would bring me his confession, didn’t he? Why haven’t you brought it?’

‘But I mean, he isn’t dead. I’ll ask him for it.’

‘You must bring it without fail, and there’s no need to ask him. He’ll certainly be very pleased, because he probably tried to shoo
t himself so I would read his confession afterwards. Please, I ask you not to laugh at my words, Lev Nikolaich, because it could very well be so.’

‘I’m not laughing - I too am certain that it could very well be so.’

‘You’re certain? Do you really also think that?’ Aglaya said suddenly in great astonishment.

She asked her questions quickly, spoke rapidly, but sometimes seemed to lose the thread and often did not finish what she was saying; she was in a constant hurry to warn him about something; in general, she was in a state of extraordinary anxiety, and although she was putting a very brave face on it, even with a kind of challenge, she was also perhaps a little frightened. She was wearing the most ordinary, simple dress, which suited her very well. She frequently started and flushed, and sat on the edge of the bench. The prince’s agreement with her assertion that Ippolit had shot himself so that she would read his confession had surprised her very much.

‘Of course,’ explained the prince, ‘he wanted us all, not only you, to praise him ...’

‘How do you mean, praise him?’

‘Well, it’s ... How can I say it? It’s very hard to say. It’s just that he probably wanted us all to surround him and tell him that we love and respect him very much, and wanted us all to implore him to remain alive. It’s very possible that he had you in mind more than anyone else, because he mentioned you at a moment like that ... though perhaps he didn’t even know himself that he had you in mind.’

‘That I really do not understand at all: he had me in mind, and didn’t know that he had me in mind. Though as a matter of fact, I think I do understand: you know, when I was a girl of thirteen I thought of poisoning myself about thirty times, and then writing all about it in a letter to my parents, and also imagined how I would lie in my coffin, with everyone weeping over me and blaming themselves for having been so cruel to me ... Why are you smiling again?’ she added quickly, frowning. ‘What do you think about to yourself when you daydream? Perhaps you imagine you’re a field-marshal, and have beaten Napoleon?’

‘Well, yes, to be quite honest, I do think about that, especially when I’m falling asleep,’ the prince began to laugh. ‘Only it’s not Napoleon, but always the Austrians I’m beating.’