The Idiot (83 page)

At length, Ganya began to frown; Varya was probably expatiating on this subject deliberately, in order to find out what he really thought. But again there was shouting from upstairs.

‘I’ll throw him out!’ Ganya shouted, as though glad to vent his exasperation.

‘And then he’ll go round all the houses, dragging us into disgrace, like yesterday.’

‘What - what do you mean? What do you mean: like yesterday? Did he ...’ Ganya said suddenly in horrible alarm.

‘Oh, good heavens, don’t you know?’ Varya collected herself.

‘What ... you don’t mean he was over there?’ exclaimed Ganya, blazing with shame and rabid fury. ‘Good God, but you’ve come from there! Did you discover anything? Was the old man there? Was he there or wasn’t he?’

And Ganya rushed to the door; Varya hurled herself at him and seized him with both hands.

‘What are you doing? Where are you going?’ she said. ‘If you let him out of the house now he’ll do something even worse, he’ll go and see
everyone! ...’

‘What did he do there? What did he say?’

‘Oh, they couldn’t tell me, they didn’t understand what he said; he just frightened them all. He went to see Ivan Fyodorovich, but he wasn’t at home; demanded to see Lizaveta Prokofyevna. Began by asking her for a job, working in the office there, and then began to complain about us, about me, my husband, you especially ... he said a great many things.’

‘Couldn’t you find out?’ Ganya trembled, almost hysterically.

‘But how could I? He himself hardly knew what he was saying, and perhaps they didn’t tell me it all.’

Ganya clutched at his head and ran to the window; Varya sat down by the other window.

‘Aglaya’s ridiculous,’ she observed suddenly. ‘She stopped me and said: “Please give your parents my special, personal regards; I shall probably find an opportunity to meet your father in a few days’ time.” And she said it so seriously. Dreadfully strange ...’

‘Wasn’t she mocking? Wasn’t she?’

‘That’s the whole thing, she wasn’t; that’s what makes it so strange.’

‘Does she know about the old man or doesn’t she, what do you suppose?’

‘I have no doubt at all that they know nothing at the house; but you’ve given me an idea: perhaps Aglaya does know. She alone knows, for her sisters were also surprised when she asked me to give her greetings to my father. And why precisely to him? If she knows, then the prince must have told her!’

‘It’s not hard to guess who told her! A thief! That’s all we needed. A thief in our own family, “the head of the family”.’

‘Oh, that’s rubbish!’ cried Varya, completely losing her temper. ‘A drunken escapade, nothing more. And who thought it up? Lebedev, the prince ... they’re fine ones to talk, surely; towering intellects both. I wouldn’t buy their stories for the price of a table-leg!’

‘The old man’s a thief and a drunkard,’ Ganya continued biliously, ‘I’m a beggar, my sister’s husband’s a money-lender - a fat lot for Aglaya to covet, and no mistake! Very nice, I must say!’

‘That sister’s husband, the money-lender, is your ...’

‘Provider, is it? Please don’t stand upon ceremony ...’

‘What are you so angry for?’ Varya collected herself. ‘You don’t understand anything, you’re like a schoolboy. Do you think all this will have damaged you in Aglaya’s eyes? You don’t know what she’s like; she’d reject the most peerless of fiancés, and happily run away and starve to death with some student in a garret-that’s her dream! You’ve never been able to understand how interesting you’d have become in her eyes if you’d managed to endure your surroundings with firmness and pride. The prince caught her on his hook because, for one thing, he wasn’t trying to catch her at all, and secondly, because everyone thinks he’s an idiot. The very fact that she upsets her family because of him - that’s what she likes now. A-ach, you don’t understand anything!’

‘Well, we’ll see whether I understand or not,’ Ganya muttered enigmatically. ‘Only I wouldn’t like her to find out about the old man. I thought the prince would restrain himself, and not tell her. He also held Lebedev in check; he wouldn’t even tell me everyt
hing when I pressed him ...’

‘So you can see for yourself that it’s not only him, everyone knows. And what do you want now? What do you hope for? Why, even if there was any hope left, this would just lend you an air of martyrdom in her eyes.’

‘Well, she’d also be afraid of a scandal, in spite of all the romanticism. Everything up to a certain limit, and everyone up to a certain limit, you’re all the same.’

‘Aglaya afraid?’ Varya flared up, giving her brother a contemptuous look. ‘What a base little soul you have! You don’t deserve anything. Even if she is ridiculous and eccentric, she’s a thousand times more noble than any of us.’

‘Oh, very well, very well, don’t lose your temper,’ Ganya muttered again, complacently.

‘It’s mother I feel sorry for,’ continued Varya. ‘I’m afraid that this episode of father’s will reach her ears, oh, I’m so afraid!’

‘It probably
bas
reached her ears,’ observed Ganya.

Varya made to get up, in order to set off upstairs and see Nina Alexandrovna, but stopped and gave her brother an attentive look.

‘But who could have told her?’

‘Ippolit, it must have been. He probably considered it a first-rate satisfaction to report it to mother as soon as he moved here.’

‘But how does he know, tell me, please? The prince and Lebedev decided not to tell anyone. Not even Kolya knows anything.’

‘Ippolit? He found out for himself. You can’t imagine what a sly creature he is; what a gossipmonger he is, what a nose he has for sniffing out anything bad, anything that savours of scandal. Well, you may believe it or not, but I’m convinced he’s got Aglaya eating out of his hand! And if he hasn’t, then he will. Rogozhin has also been in touch w
ith him. How is it that the prince doesn’t notice it? And now he wants to set a trap for me! He considers me his personal enemy, I saw through that long ago, and why, what is there for him in it, I mean, he’s going to die - I don’t understand it! But I’ll put a stop to his game; you’ll see, it won’t be him who sets a trap for me, I’ll set one for him.’

‘But why did you get him to come here, if you hate him so much? And is he worth setting traps for?’

‘It was you who advised me to get him to come here.’

‘I thought he’d be useful; but do you know, he has also fallen in love with Aglaya, and has been writing to her? They were asking me ... he very nearly wrote a letter to Lizaveta Prokofyevna.’

‘He’s not a danger in that sense!’ said Ganya, beginning to laugh maliciously. ‘Though there’s no doubt that something is up. It’s very possible that he’s in love, because he’s a little brat! But ... he wouldn’t write the old woman anonymous letters. He’s a malicious, petty, self-satisfied mediocrity! ... I’m convinced, I know for certain that he presented me to her as an intriguer, that was how he got started. I admit that like a fool I let the cat out of the bag to him at the beginning; I thought he’d support my interests out of pure revenge on the prince; he’s such a sly creature! Oh, I’ve seen through him completely now. As regards that theft, he heard about it from his mother, the captain’s widow. If the old man resolved to commit such a deed, he did it for the captain’s widow. All of a sudden, for no apparent reason, he informed me that “the general” had promised his mother four hundred roubles, just like that, for no apparent reason, without any ceremony. At that point, I understood everything. And the way he looked me in the eye, with a kind of enjoyment; he probably also told his mother, purely for the satisfaction of breaking her heart. And why doesn’t he die, tell me, if you please? I mean, he pledged himself to die in three weeks, and yet he’s put on weight here! He’s isn’t coughing so much; he himself said last night that he hadn’t coughed blood for two days ...’

‘Throw him out.’

‘I don’t hate him, I despise him,’ Ganya said proudly. ‘Well yes, yes, I suppose I do hate him, I suppose I do!’ he exclaimed suddenly with particular fury. ‘And I shall tell him that to his face, even when he’s about to die, on his deathbed! If you’d read his confession - my God, what naive brazenness! He’s Lieutenant Pirogov, he’s Nozdrev
⁴
in a tragedy, but above all, he’s a little brat! Oh, with what pleasure I’d have thrashed him then, precisely in order to give him a surprise. Now he’s taking his revenge on everyone because he didn’t succeed that time ... But what’s that? There’s noise there again! But really, what on earth is going on? I really can’t stand it any more! Ptitsyn!’ he exclaimed to Ptitsyn, who was entering the room, ‘what is this, what are things coming to in our house? It’s ... it’s ...’

But the noise was rapidly coming closer, the door suddenly flew open, and old Ivolgin, wrathful, purple, shaken, beside himsel
f, also lunged at Ptitsyn. The old man was followed by Nina Alexandrovna, Kolya and, bringing up the rear, Ippolit.

It was now five days since Ippolit had moved into Ptitsyn’s house. This had happened more or less naturally, without many words and without any falling-out between him and the prince; not only did they not quarrel, but apparently they even parted as friends. Gavrila Ardalionovich, who had been so hostile to Ippolit at the soiree, himself came to visit him, on the third day after the event, no less, probably guided by some sudden thought. For some reason Rogozhin also began to visit the patient. At first the prince thought that it might even be better for the ‘poor boy’ if he were to move out of his house. But even during his move, Ippolit was already saying that he would be moving to Ptitsyn, ‘who is so kind that he’s giving me a corner in his home‘, and, as if deliberately, never once said that he was moving to Ganya’s, though it was Ganya who had insisted that he be received into the household. At the time, Ganya noticed this, and touchily locked it away within his heart.

He was right when he told his sister that the patient was recovering. Ippolit really did feel somewhat better than before, and this could be seen from a first glance at him. He entered the room in leisurely fashion, behind all the others, with a mocking and ill-natured smile. Nina Alexandrovna entered in a state of considerable alarm. (She had changed much in the past six months, grown thinner; having given her daughter away in marriage and moved in to live with her, she had almost stopped involving herself outwardly in the affairs of her children.) Kolya was worried, and seemed somewhat perplexed; there was of course much that he did not understand about ‘the general’s madness’, as he put it, as he did not know the particular reasons for this fresh turmoil in the house. But it was clear to him that his father was now becoming so involved in squabbles, at every hour and in every place, and had suddenly changed so much, that it was as if he had become quite a different person from before. It also made him uneasy that during the past three days the old man had even quite given up drinking. He knew that his father had parted company with Lebedev and the prince, and had even quarrelled with them. Kolya had just returned to the house with a half-
shtof
of vodka, acquired with his own money.

‘Truly, Mama,’ he had already assured Nina Alexandrovna upstairs, ‘truly, it’s better for him to have a drink. It’s three days since he touched it; so he must be miserable. Truly, it’s better; I used to bring it to him when he was in the debtors’ prison ...’

The general opened the door so violently that it nearly flew off its hinges, and stood on the threshold, almost quivering with indignation.

‘My dear sir!’ he began to shout at Ptitsyn in a thunderous voice. ‘If you have really decided to sacrifice your own father, or at least the father of your wife, a man who has distinguished himself
in the service of his sovereign, to a milksop and atheist, then I shall cease to set foot in your house from this time on. You must choose, sir, and choose immediately: either me or this ... screw! Yes, screw! It slipped out of my mouth, but he’s - a screw! For he bores into my soul like a screw, and without any respect ... like a screw!’

‘Not a corkscrew?’ Ippolit put in.

‘No, not a corkscrew, for you see before you a general, not a bottle. I have medals, medals of distinction...and you have not a fig. Either he or I, sir! You must decide right now, this very moment!’ he shouted again at Ptitsyn in a frenzy. At this point Kolya brought up a chair for him, and he subsided on to it almost in exhaustion.

‘Really, it would be better if you ... took a nap,’ the dumbfounded Ptitsyn began to mutter.

‘He’s still making threats!’ Ganya said to his sister in a half whisper.

‘A nap?’ cried the general. ‘I am not drunk, my dear sir, and you are insulting me. I see,’ he continued, getting to his feet again, ‘I see that everyone here is against me, everything and everyone. Enough! I am going away ... But I’ll have you know, my dear sir, I’ll have you know ...’

They did not let him finish and sat him down again, began entreating him to calm himself. Ganya went off to a corner in a fury. Nina Alexandrovna trembled and wept.

‘But what have I done to him? What’s he complaining about?’ exclaimed Ippolit, baring his teeth in a grin.

‘I suppose you think you’ve done nothing?’ Nina Alexandrovna observed suddenly. ‘You are the one who ought to be particularly ashamed ... of tormenting the old man in such an inhuman fashion ... and in your position, too ...’

‘For one thing, what is my position, madam? I respect you very much, you in particular, personally, but...’

‘He’s a screw!’ shouted the general. ‘He bores into my soul and heart! He wants me to believe in atheism! I’ll have you know, milksop, that I was showered with honours before you were even born; but you are just an envious worm, torn in half, with a cough ... and dying of malice and unbelief ... And why has Gavrila brought you here? Everyone is against me, from strangers to my own son!’

‘Oh, that will do, now he’s playing his tragedy!’ cried Ganya. ‘Things might be a bit better if you’d stop disgracing us all over town!’