The Idiot (91 page)

‘Forgive a stupid, wicked, spoilt girl’ (she took him by the hand) ‘and be assured that we all have a boundless respect for you. And if I have dared to mock your beautiful ... kind simplicity, then forgive me as you would a child for a prank; forgive me for persisting with an absurdity that cannot, of course, have the slightest consequences ...’

Aglaya spoke these last words with particular emphasis.

Her father, mother and sisters all arrived in the drawing room in time to see and hear all this, and all were struck by the ‘absurdity that cannot have the slightest consequences’, and even more by Aglaya’s serious mood as she talked about that absurdity. They all exchanged questioning glances; but the prince, it seemed, had not understood these words and was in the highest stage of happiness.

‘Why do you say that,’ he muttered, ‘why do you ask ... forgiveness?’

He even wanted to say that he was unworthy of being asked for forgiveness. Who knows, perhaps he had even noticed the significance of the words about ‘an absurdity that cannot, of course, have the slightest consequence’, but, like the strange man he was, even rejoiced, perhaps, in those words. Unquestionably, for him the acme of bliss was represented by the mere fact that he would again be able to come and see Aglaya again without hindrance, that he would be allowed to talk to her, sit with her, go for walks with her, and, who knows, perhaps, would be satisfied with that for the rest of his life! (It was this very satisfaction that seemed to frighten Lizaveta Prokofyevna in private; she had a good idea of what he was about; many things frightened her which she herself was unable to express.)

It is hard to imagine the degree to which the prince grew animated and exuberant that evening. So cheerful was he that merely to look at him made one feel cheerful - that was how Aglaya’s sisters put it later. He talked effusively, and this had not occurred with him since the morning when, half a year earlier, he had made his first acquaintance with the Yepanchins; for after his return from St Petersburg he had been noticeably and intentionally silent and had recently, in everyone’s presence, let it slip to Prince Shch. that he had to restrain himself and keep silent, because he did not have the right to degrade an idea by setting it forth himself. He was almost the only person to talk all that evening, and told many things; clearly, with delight and in detail, he replied to questions. But nothing resembling polite conversation showed through in his words. They were all very serious, even sometimes abstruse ideas. The prince even set forth some of his own views, his own secret observations, so that it would all have even been comical, had it not been so ‘well set forth’, as all the listeners later agreed. The general, though he was partial to serious conversational subjects, shared with Lizaveta Prokofyevna the opinion that it was all rather too learned, so that towards the end of the evening they even became melancholy. In the end, however, the prince went so far as to tell some most ridiculous anecdotes, at which he was the first to laugh, making the others laugh, too, more at his laughter than at the anecdotes themselves. As for Aglaya, she hardly spoke all evening; on the other hand, she listened to Lev Nikolayevich intently, and even not so much listened to him, as looked at him.

‘How she looks at him, can’t take her eyes off him; hangs on his every word; she catches them all, catches them all!’ Lizaveta Prokofyevna said to her spouse later on. ‘But tell her she loves him, and she’ll cry blue murder!’

‘What can one do - it’s fate!’ the general shrugged his shoulders, and for a long time after kept repeating the word for which he had developed a liking. We should add that, as a man of business, there was also much in the present situation of all these things that he found exceedingly distasteful, especially in the vagueness of the matter; but for the present he also decided to remain silent and look ... into Lizaveta Prokofyevna’s eyes.

The family’s joyful mood did not last long. The very next day Aglaya quarrelled with the prince again, and so it went on without cease, for all the days that followed. For hours on end she held the prince up to ridicule and almost turned him into a buffoon. True, they did sometimes sit for an hour or two in their small domestic garden, in the arbour, but it was noticed that the prince almost invariably spent these occasions reading aloud a newspaper or a book to Aglaya.

‘You know,’ Aglaya told him once, interrupting the newspaper, ‘I’ve noticed that you’re awfully ill-informed; you don’t know anything properly, if one asks you for information: you don’t know who it was, what year it happened in, or under the terms of what treaty. You’re quite pathetic.’

‘I told you, I’m not very educated,’ replied the prince.

‘Well, what am I to think of you after that? How can I respect you after that? Carry on reading; though actually, no, don’t, please stop reading.’

And again that same evening they obtained a fleeting glimpse of something on her part that was very puzzling to them all. Prince Shch. was back from St Petersburg, and Aglaya was very affectionate to him, asking many questions about Yevgeny Pavlovich. (Prince Lev Nikolayevich had not arrived yet.) Suddenly Prince Shch. somehow permitted himself to allude to ‘the new and imminent upheaval in the household’, in response to a few words let slip by Lizaveta Prokofyevna to the effect that it might perhaps be necessary to postpone Adelaida’s wedding again, so that both weddings could take place together. One simply cannot imagine how Aglaya flared up at ‘all these stupid suppositions’; and, among other things, she blurted out that ‘she did not yet intend to take the place of anyone’s mistresses’.

These words shocked them all, especially the parents. Lizaveta Prokofyevna insisted, in secret consultation with her husband, that the prince would really have to explain himself concerning Nastasya Filippovna.

Ivan Fyodorovich swore that it was all merely an ‘outburst’, caused by Aglaya’s ‘shyness’; that if Prince Shch. had not begun to talk about the wedding there would have been no outburst, because Aglaya herself knew, knew for certain, that this was all a slander spread by unkind people and that Nastasya Filippovna was going to marry Rogozhin; that not only did the prince have no liaison with her, he had nothing to do with her; and, indeed, never had done, if the whole truth were to be told.

But in spite of it all, the prince showed no sign of being upset, and continued in his blissful state. Oh, of course, he too sometimes noticed something, as it were, gloomy and impatient in Aglaya’s glances; but his faith was more in something else, and the gloom vanished of itself. Once having placed his trust, nothing could make him hesitate further. Perhaps he was even too calm; that, at any rate, was how it seemed to Ippolit, when he met him by chance in the park one day.

‘Well, wasn’t it true what I told you that time, that you’re in love?’ he began, coming up to the prince of his own accord and making him stop. The prince offered his hand to him and congratulated him on ‘looking so well’. The invalid did indeed seem quite exuberant, as is often the case with consumptives.

He had approached the prince in order to make some caustic remark about how happy the prince looked, but at once lost the thread, and began to talk about himself. He started to complain, complained about many things, at great length, and rather incoherently.

‘You wouldn’t believe,’ he concluded, ‘how irritable, petty, selfish, vain and commonplace they all are over there; would you believe, they only took me in on condition that I died as soon as possible, and now
they’re all mad at me because I’m not dying and, on the contrary, feel better. It’s a farce! I’ll wager that you don’t believe me!’

The prince did not feel like contradicting.

‘I even sometimes think of coming back and moving in with you again,’ Ippolit added casually. ‘So you don’t think they’re capable of taking someone in on condition that he dies, and as soon as possible?’

‘I thought they invited you with other considerations in mind.’

‘Heh! You know, you’re not at all as simple as you’re made out to be! Now’s not the time, but I could tell you a few things about that Ganechka and his hopes. They’re undermining you, Prince, pitilessly undermining you, and ... I even feel sorry for you, because you’re so calm. But alas - you can’t be any different!’

‘That’s a fine thing to feel sorry for me about!’ the prince began to laugh. ‘Tell me, in your opinion, would I be happier if I were less calm?’

‘It’s better to be unhappy and
know,
than to be happy and live ... as a fool. You appear not to believe for one moment that you have a rival, and ... in that quarter?’

‘Your remark about rivalry is a little cynical, Ippolit; I’m sorry, but I don’t have the right to answer you. As for Gavrila Ardalionovich, then you yourself must admit that he can hardly remain calm after all he has lost, if you have the slightest knowledge of his affairs. I think it’s better to see it from that point of view. He’ll manage to change; he has his whole life ahead of him, and life is rich ... though actually ... actually,’ the prince was suddenly perplexed, ‘about this undermining ... I don’t even know what you’re talking about; we’d better drop this conversation, Ippolit.’

‘Let’s leave it for now; after all, you’re required to be gracious. Yes, Prince, you have to touch it with your finger in order not to believe it again, ha-ha! And do you have a very great deal of contempt for me now, what do you think?’

‘Why? Because you’ve suffered, and are suffering, more than us?’

‘No, because I’m unworthy of my suffering.’

‘The person who’s able to suffer more must for that reason be worthy of suffering more. When Aglaya Ivanovna read your confession, she wanted to see you, but ...’

‘She’s putting it off ... it’s out of the question for her, I understand ...’ Ippolit cut in, as though trying to steer the conversation away from that subject as quickly as possible. ‘Incidentally, they say that you yourself read all that rubbish to her out loud; it really was written ... and enacted ... in a state of delirium. And I really don’t understand the degree of - I won’t say cruelty (that would humiliate me) - but childish vanity and vindictiveness one would have to have in order to reproach me for that confession and use it against me as a weapon! Don’t worry, it’s not you I’m talking about.’

‘You know, I’m sorry that you repudiate that notebook, Ippolit, what you wrote in it is sincere, and, you know, even its most ridiculous aspects (Ippolit frowned intensely) are redeemed by suffering, f
or to confess to them also involved suffering and ... perhaps, great courage. The thought that moved you certainly had a noble foundation, I see that more and more clearly, I swear to you. I’m not judging you, I’m telling you this in order to express my opinion, and I’m sorry I kept silent that evening ...’

Ippolit flushed. The thought flickered through his mind that the prince was dissembling and trying to catch him out; but studying the prince’s face more closely, he could not help believing in his sincerity; his own face cleared.

‘And yet all the same one must die!’ he said quietly, nearly adding: ‘someone like me!’ ‘And can you imagine how that Ganechka wears me out; he has devised, by way of a rebuttal, the notion that perhaps three or four of those who listened to my notebook that evening may die before me! He thinks that’s a consolation, ha-ha! For one thing, they’re not dead yet; and even if those people did die, then what consolation would there be in that, tell me? He judges by his own lights; actually, he has even gone further, now he simply hurls abuse, says that in such cases a decent man dies in silence and that in all of this there’s nothing but egoism on my part! How do you like that? No, on the contrary, what egoism on his part! What exquisite, or rather, what bovine crudity there is in their egoism, an egoism they simply cannot manage to perceive in themselves! ... Have you ever read about the death of a certain Stepan Glebov,
²
in the eighteenth century, Prince?

‘What Stepan Glebov was that?’

‘He was impaled on the stake in the time of Peter the Great.’

‘Oh, good Lord, yes, I know! He was impaled for fifteen hours, in the freezing cold, in his fur coat, and died with great nobility of soul; of course, I’ve read about him ... well?’

‘God may grant a death like that to some people, but not to us! Perhaps you think I’m not capable of dying like Glebov?’

‘Oh, not at all!’ The prince was embarrassed. ‘I simply meant that you ... well, not that you wouldn’t be like Glebov, but ... that you ... that in those days you’d have been more like ...’

‘Let me guess: Osterman, not Glebov-is that what you mean?’

‘What Osterman?’ the prince was astonished.

‘Osterman, the diplomat Osterman, Peter the Great’s Osterman,’ muttered Ippolit, suddenly losing the thread. A certain bewilderment followed.

‘Oh, n-n-no! That’s not what I meant,’ the prince said slowly, after a silence. ‘I don’t think you’ve ever been an ... Osterman ...’

Ippolit frowned.

‘Actually, you see, the reason I say that,’ the prince suddenly interjected again, evidently wishing to correct himself, ‘is because the people of that time (I swear to you, this has always struck me) were apparently not at all like we are today, it was a different race from that of our own era,
³
truly, almost a different breed ... In those days people were
carried by a single idea, whereas now they’re more nervous, more developed, more sensitive, as if they were carried along by two or three ideas at the same time ... the man of today is broader — and, let me tell you, that’s what prevents him from being the unified individual he was in those times ... I ... I ... that was all I meant, not...’

‘I understand; you’re now trying to console me after disagreeing with me so naively, ha-ha! You’re a complete child, Prince. However, I notice that you always treat me like ... like a china cup ... It’s all right, it’s all right, I’m not angry. At any rate, as it happens, we’ve had a very amusing conversation; you’re sometimes a complete child, Prince. As a matter of fact, I’ll have you know that I might perhaps want to be something better than an Osterman; it wouldn’t be worth rising from the dead to be an Osterman ... Though in fact, I see that I ought to die as soon as possible, or else I could end up ... Leave me.
Au revoir!
Oh, very well, you tell me, give me your opinion: what would be the best way for me to die? ... The way that would be ... the most virtuous one, I mean? Go on, tell me!’