The Idiot (85 page)

‘What do you think she’s going to talk about tomorrow?’ asked Ganya.

‘It doesn’t matter, the main thing is that she wants to see you again for the first time in six months. Now listen to me, Ganya: whatever happens there, however it turns out, remember that it’s
important
! It is very important! Don’t go boasting again, don’t put your foot in it, but don’t be cowardly either, mind that! Do you think she hasn’t realized why I’ve been trailing over there this last six months? And imagine: she didn’t say a word about it to me today, didn’t let on. I mean, I smuggled
myself in to see them, the old woman didn’t know I was there, otherwise she’d have probably shown me the door. I took the risk of going there for you, in order to find out, no matter what...’

There was more shouting and noise from above; several people were coming down the stairs.

‘We mustn’t allow this now, not on any account!’ Varya exclaimed, frightened and in haste. ‘There mustn’t be even the shadow of a scandal! Go and apologize!’

But the paterfamilias was already out in the street. Kolya followed him, lugging the bag. Nina Alexandrovna stood on the front steps, crying; she wanted to run after them, but Ptitsyn held her back.

‘You’ll only make him worse doing that,’ he told her. ‘He has nowhere to go, they’ll bring him back in half an hour, I’ve already spoken to Kolya; let him play the fool for a bit.’

‘What’s all the swagger, where are you off to?’ cried Ganya from the window. ‘You’ve nowhere to go, anyway!’

‘Come back, Papa!’ cried Varya. ‘The neighbours will hear.’

The general stopped, turned round, extended his arm and exclaimed:

‘My curse upon this house!’

‘And he has to say it in a theatrical voice!’ muttered Ganya, closing the window with a bang.

The neighbours were indeed listening. Varya ran out of the room.

When Varya was out the way, Ganya took the note from the table, kissed it, clicked his tongue and performed an
entrechat.

At any other time, the fuss with the general would not have led to anything. In the past there had been similar instances of sudden eccentricity, though they had been rather infrequent, because, on the whole, he was a very quiet man, and one with inclinations that were almost good. He had gone to battle, perhaps, a hundred times against the disorderliness that had overmastered him in recent years. He would suddenly remember that he was a ‘paterfamilias’, make it up with his wife, and weep sincerely. He respected Nina Alexandrovna to the point of adoration for the fact that she had forgiven him so often and in silence, and loved him even in his degrading aspect of buffoon. But the magnanimous struggle with disorderliness did not usually last for long; the general was also very much ‘a man of impulse’, though in his own way; as a rule, he was unable to endure the idle life of a penitent he led in his own family, and ended in revolt; fell into a passion, for which even he reproached himself at those very moments, but could not hold himself in check: picked a quarrel, began to talk with grandiose eloquence, demanded for himself a boundless and impossible respect, and finally vanished out of the house, sometimes even for a long time. During the past two years he had known about the affairs of his family only in vague terms, or by hearsay; he had ceased to enter into them in more detail, feeling not the slightest inclination to do so.

But on this occasion there was something unusual about the ‘fuss with the general’; there was something that everyone seemed to know, and something that everyone seemed afraid to talk about. The general had presented himself ‘formally’ to the family, or to Nina Alexandrovna, rather, only three days before, but somehow without reconciliation and without penitence, as had always happened at earlier ‘presentations’, and, on the contrary - with extraordinary irritability. He was garrulous, agitated, talked to all who encountered him with vehemence, as if attacking them, but always about subjects so varied and surprising that it was in no way possible to ascertain what was really upsetting him. At odd moments he was cheerful, but was more often sunk in reflection, though without knowing himself precisely upon what; would suddenly start talking about something - the Yepanchins, the prince and Lebedev - and suddenly break off and stop talking altogether, replying to further questions only with a stupid smile, not even noticing, however, that people were asking him something, but he was merely smiling. He had spent the past night moaning and groaning, and had worn out Nina Alexandrovna, who for some reason had stayed up all night warming poultices for him; towards morning he had suddenly dozed off, slept for four hours and woken up in a most violent and disorderly fit of morbid depression, which had ended in the quarrel with Ippolit and the ‘curse upon this house’. They also noticed that throughout those
three days he kept constantly lapsing into the most intense vaunting of ambition and, as a consequence, into extreme touchiness. Kolya, for his part, persisted, assuring his mother that all this was simply due to a craving for drink, and perhaps for Lebedev, too, with whom the general had become extremely friendly of late. However, three days earlier he had suddenly quarrelled with Lebedev and parted from him in dreadful rage, and there had even been some sort of scene with the prince. Kolya had asked the prince for an explanation, and began, at last, to suspect that there was something that even the latter did not appear to be willing to tell him. If, as Ganya assumed with very good reason, some particular conversation between Ippolit and Nina Alexandrovna had taken place, it was strange that this malicious gentleman, whom Ganya had so directly called a scandalmonger, had not taken pleasure in bringing Kolya to reason in a similar manner. It might very well be that he was not a malicious ‘brat’ as Ganya had called him, while talking to his sister, but was a malicious person of some other sort; and it was also hardly likely that he would have told Nina Alexandrovna his observations solely in order to ‘break her heart’. Let us not forget that the causes of human actions are usually infinitely more complex and more various than we are in the habit of explaining them afterwards, and are seldom clearly outlined. Sometimes it is best for the narrator to confine himself to a simple exposition of events. This is how we shall proceed with the rest of our account of the present catastrophe with the general; for no matter how hard we may try, we are confronted by the decided necessity of allotting to this secondary character in our story rather more attention and space than we had hitherto proposed.

These events followed one after the other, in this order:

When Lebedev, after his trip to St Petersburg in order to seek the whereabouts of Ferdyshchenko, returned that very same day, together with the general, he said nothing particular to the prince. If the prince had not at that time been very abstracted and preoccupied with other experiences of importance to him, he might soon have noticed that during the two days that followed Lebedev not only failed to present him with any explanations, but even, on the contrary, seemed for some reason to be avoiding him. Having at last paid heed to this, the prince was surprised to recall that during those two days, whenever he chanced to meet Lebedev, he never found him in anything but the most radiant disposition, and almost always in the general’s company. The two friends were never parted for a moment. The prince sometimes heard loud and rapid conversations, wafted to him from upstairs, jovial and cheerful argument; once, very late at night, there came to him the sounds, ringing out suddenly and unexpectedly, of a martial bacchanalian song, and he at once recognized the general’s hoarse bass. But the song that had rung out was not sustained, and suddenly fell silent. Then for about an hour there continued a violently animated and, by all the signs, drunken conversation. It was possible to guess that the friends who had been enjoying themselves upstairs were now embra
cing, and someone, at last, began to weep. Then suddenly there followed a violent quarrel, which also soon and swiftly died away. All during this time, Kolya was in a peculiarly worried state of mind. For the most part, the prince was not at home and sometimes returned to his quarters very late; he was always informed that Kolya had been looking for him and asking for him all day. But when they met, Kolya was not able to tell him anything in particular, apart from the fact that he was decidedly ‘unhappy’ with the general and his present conduct: ‘They trail about, get drunk at an inn not far from here, embrace each other and shout at each other in the street, make each other worse and can’t be parted.’ When the prince observed to him that earlier, too, the same thing had happened almost every day, Kolya really did not know what to say to this or how to explain the cause of his present anxiety.

As the prince was leaving the house at about eleven the next morning, after the bacchanalian singing and the quarrels, the general suddenly appeared before him, extremely agitated, almost shaken.

‘I have long sought the honour and the opportunity of meeting you, much-esteemed Lev Nikolayevich, long, very long,’ he muttered, squeezing the prince’s hand with extreme firmness, almost so it hurt. ‘Very, very long.’

The prince asked him to sit down.

‘No, I won’t, and in any case I’m detaining you, I’ll ... another time. I think on this occasion I can congratulate you on ... the fulfilment ... of your heart’s desire.’ ‘What heart’s desire?’

The prince was embarrassed. Like many others in his situation, he thought that absolutely no one had seen, guessed or realized anything.

‘Be assured, be assured! I shall not disturb the most delicate feelings. I have experienced it myself and know myself how it is when someone else’s ... so to speak, nose ... as the saying has it ... goes poking where it’s not wanted. I experience that every morning. I’ve come to see you on another matter, an important one. On a very important matter, Prince.’

The prince again asked him to sit down, and sat down himself.

‘Just for a second, perhaps? I’ve come for advice. Of course, I live without practical aims, but since I respect myself and ... the business mentality in which Russians are, on the whole, so deficient ... I wish to place myself, and my wife, and my children, in a position ... in a word, Prince, I seek advice.’

The prince warmly praised his intention.

‘Well, that’s all rubbish,’ the general interrupted quickly, ‘that’s not what I’ve come to see you about, it’s something else, important. In fact, I’ve resolved to explain to you, Lev Nikolayevich, as a man of whose sincerity of approach and nobility of feeling I am certain, as ... as ... You are not surprised by my words, Prince?’

The prince watched his guest, if not with particular surprise, then with exceeding attention and curiosity. The old man was rather pale, his lips sometimes quivered slightly, his hands seemed to be unable to fi
nd a quiet place for themselves. He had been sitting for only a few minutes, but had already managed a couple of times to suddenly get up from his chair for some reason and then suddenly sit down again, evidently not paying the slightest attention to his own manoeuvres. There were books on the table; he picked up one of them, continuing to talk, took a glance at the opened page, closed the book at once and put it back on the table, seized another book, which this time he did not open, but held all the rest of the time in his right hand, constantly waving it in the air.

‘Enough!’ he exclaimed suddenly. ‘I see that I’ve caused you a lot of nuisance.’

‘But not at all, for goodness’ sake, please continue, on the contrary, I am all ears and want to try to guess ...’

‘Prince! I wish to put myself in a position of respect ... I wish to respect myself and ... my rights.’

‘A man with such a wish is already worthy of respect by that very fact alone.’

The prince uttered his clichéd phrase in the firm certainty that it would have a positive effect. He somehow guessed instinctively that some emptily resonant but pleasant phrase, spoken at the right time, might suddenly subdue and reconcile the soul of such a man, especially in a position like the one in which the general found himself. At any rate, a visitor of this kind must be sent away with a lightened heart, and that was the task in hand.

The phrase flattered, touched and greatly pleased the general; he was suddenly deeply moved, instantly changed his tone and launched into long and rapturous explanations. But no matter how hard the prince tried, no matter how closely he listened, he was literally unable to understand a single word. The general spoke for about ten minutes, heatedly and quickly, as if he could not manage to express his jostling crowd of thoughts; by the end of it, tears had begun to glisten in his eyes, but even so, it was merely phrases without beginning or end, unexpected words and unexpected thoughts, swiftly and unexpectedly breaking through and skipping out one after the other.

‘Enough! You understand me and I am at ease,’ he concluded suddenly, getting up. ‘A heart like yours cannot fail to understand one who suffers. Prince, you are the ideal of nobility! What are others before you ... But you are young, and I give you my blessing. What I’ve actually come to see you about is to ask you to grant me an appointment for an important conversation, and that is my chief hope. I seek nothing but friendship and the heart, Prince; I have never been able to cope with the demands of my heart.’

‘But why not right now? I’m ready to listen ...’

‘No, Prince, no!’ the general broke in heatedly, ‘not now! Now is merely a dream! This is too, too important, too important ! This appointment will be an hour of final destiny. It will be my hour, and I would not wish
that we could be interrupted at such a sacred moment by the first person to walk in, the first insolent fellow, and there are not a few such insolent fellows,’ he bent forwards to the prince with a strange, mysterious and almost frightened whisper, ‘the sort of insolent fellow who is not worth the heel ... of your boot, beloved Prince! Oh, I do not say: of my boot! Note particularly, that I haven’t mentioned my boot; for I respect myself too much to be able to say that in plain terms; it is simply that you alone are capable of understanding that, rejecting my heel in this instance, I am perhaps displaying an exceeding pride in my own dignity. No other person would understand apart from you, and
he
is at the head of the “other persons”.
He
doesn’t understand anything, Prince; he is quite, quite incapable of understanding! One must have a heart, in order to understand!’