enmity, and of that dreadful laughter, the very recollection of which
sent a cold chill down Totski’s back to this very day; but she seemed
charmed and really glad to have the opportunity of talking seriously
with him for once in a way. She confessed that she had long wished to
have a frank and free conversation and to ask for friendly advice, but
that pride had hitherto prevented her; now, however, that the ice was
broken, nothing could be more welcome to her than this opportunity.
First, with a sad smile, and then with a twinkle of merriment in her
eyes, she admitted that such a storm as that of five years ago was now
quite out of the question. She said that she had long since changed her
views of things, and recognized that facts must be taken into
consideration in spite of the feelings of the heart. What was done was
done and ended, and she could not understand why Totski should still
feel alarmed.
She next turned to General Epanchin and observed, most courteously,
that she had long since known of his daughters, and that she had heard
none but good report; that she had learned to think of them with deep
and sincere respect. The idea alone that she could in any way serve
them, would be to her both a pride and a source of real happiness.
It was true that she was lonely in her present life; Totski had judged
her thoughts aright. She longed to rise, if not to love, at least to
family life and new hopes and objects, but as to Gavrila
Ardalionovitch, she could not as yet say much. She thought it must be
the case that he loved her; she felt that she too might learn to love
him, if she could be sure of the firmness of his attachment to herself;
but he was very young, and it was a difficult question to decide. What
she specially liked about him was that he worked, and supported his
family by his toil.
She had heard that he was proud and ambitious; she had heard much that
was interesting of his mother and sister, she had heard of them from
Mr. Ptitsin, and would much like to make their acquaintance,
but—another question!—would they like to receive her into their house?
At all events, though she did not reject the idea of this marriage, she
desired not to be hurried. As for the seventy-five thousand roubles,
Mr. Totski need not have found any difficulty or awkwardness about the
matter; she quite understood the value of money, and would, of course,
accept the gift. She thanked him for his delicacy, however, but saw no
reason why Gavrila Ardalionovitch should not know about it.
She would not marry the latter, she said, until she felt persuaded that
neither on his part nor on the part of his family did there exist any
sort of concealed suspicions as to herself. She did not intend to ask
forgiveness for anything in the past, which fact she desired to be
known. She did not consider herself to blame for anything that had
happened in former years, and she thought that Gavrila Ardalionovitch
should be informed as to the relations which had existed between
herself and Totski during the last five years. If she accepted this
money it was not to be considered as indemnification for her misfortune
as a young girl, which had not been in any degree her own fault, but
merely as compensation for her ruined life.
She became so excited and agitated during all these explanations and
confessions that General Epanchin was highly gratified, and considered
the matter satisfactorily arranged once for all. But the once bitten
Totski was twice shy, and looked for hidden snakes among the flowers.
However, the special point to which the two friends particularly
trusted to bring about their object (namely, Gania’s attractiveness for
Nastasia Philipovna), stood out more and more prominently; the
pourparlers had commenced, and gradually even Totski began to believe
in the possibility of success.
Before long Nastasia and Gania had talked the matter over. Very little
was said—her modesty seemed to suffer under the infliction of
discussing such a question. But she recognized his love, on the
understanding that she bound herself to nothing whatever, and that she
reserved the right to say “no” up to the very hour of the marriage
ceremony. Gania was to have the same right of refusal at the last
moment.
It soon became clear to Gania, after scenes of wrath and quarrellings
at the domestic hearth, that his family were seriously opposed to the
match, and that Nastasia was aware of this fact was equally evident.
She said nothing about it, though he daily expected her to do so.
There were several rumours afloat, before long, which upset Totski’s
equanimity a good deal, but we will not now stop to describe them;
merely mentioning an instance or two. One was that Nastasia had entered
into close and secret relations with the Epanchin girls—a most unlikely
rumour; another was that Nastasia had long satisfied herself of the
fact that Gania was merely marrying her for money, and that his nature
was gloomy and greedy, impatient and selfish, to an extraordinary
degree; and that although he had been keen enough in his desire to
achieve a conquest before, yet since the two friends had agreed to
exploit his passion for their own purposes, it was clear enough that he
had begun to consider the whole thing a nuisance and a nightmare.
In his heart passion and hate seemed to hold divided sway, and although
he had at last given his consent to marry the woman (as he said), under
the stress of circumstances, yet he promised himself that he would
“take it out of her,” after marriage.
Nastasia seemed to Totski to have divined all this, and to be preparing
something on her own account, which frightened him to such an extent
that he did not dare communicate his views even to the general. But at
times he would pluck up his courage and be full of hope and good
spirits again, acting, in fact, as weak men do act in such
circumstances.
However, both the friends felt that the thing looked rosy indeed when
one day Nastasia informed them that she would give her final answer on
the evening of her birthday, which anniversary was due in a very short
time.
A strange rumour began to circulate, meanwhile; no less than that the
respectable and highly respected General Epanchin was himself so
fascinated by Nastasia Philipovna that his feeling for her amounted
almost to passion. What he thought to gain by Gania’s marriage to the
girl it was difficult to imagine. Possibly he counted on Gania’s
complaisance; for Totski had long suspected that there existed some
secret understanding between the general and his secretary. At all
events the fact was known that he had prepared a magnificent present of
pearls for Nastasia’s birthday, and that he was looking forward to the
occasion when he should present his gift with the greatest excitement
and impatience. The day before her birthday he was in a fever of
agitation.
Mrs. Epanchin, long accustomed to her husband’s infidelities, had heard
of the pearls, and the rumour excited her liveliest curiosity and
interest. The general remarked her suspicions, and felt that a grand
explanation must shortly take place—which fact alarmed him much.
This is the reason why he was so unwilling to take lunch (on the
morning upon which we took up this narrative) with the rest of his
family. Before the prince’s arrival he had made up his mind to plead
business, and “cut” the meal; which simply meant running away.
He was particularly anxious that this one day should be
passed—especially the evening—without unpleasantness between himself
and his family; and just at the right moment the prince turned up—“as
though Heaven had sent him on purpose,” said the general to himself, as
he left the study to seek out the wife of his bosom.
V.
Mrs. General Epanchin was a proud woman by nature. What must her
feelings have been when she heard that Prince Muishkin, the last of his
and her line, had arrived in beggar’s guise, a wretched idiot, a
recipient of charity—all of which details the general gave out for
greater effect! He was anxious to steal her interest at the first
swoop, so as to distract her thoughts from other matters nearer home.
Mrs. Epanchin was in the habit of holding herself very straight, and
staring before her, without speaking, in moments of excitement.
She was a fine woman of the same age as her husband, with a slightly
hooked nose, a high, narrow forehead, thick hair turning a little grey,
and a sallow complexion. Her eyes were grey and wore a very curious
expression at times. She believed them to be most effective—a belief
that nothing could alter.
“What, receive him! Now, at once?” asked Mrs. Epanchin, gazing vaguely
at her husband as he stood fidgeting before her.
“Oh, dear me, I assure you there is no need to stand on ceremony with
him,” the general explained hastily. “He is quite a child, not to say a
pathetic-looking creature. He has fits of some sort, and has just
arrived from Switzerland, straight from the station, dressed like a
German and without a farthing in his pocket. I gave him twenty-five
roubles to go on with, and am going to find him some easy place in one
of the government offices. I should like you to ply him well with the
victuals, my dears, for I should think he must be very hungry.”
“You astonish me,” said the lady, gazing as before. “Fits, and hungry
too! What sort of fits?”
“Oh, they don’t come on frequently, besides, he’s a regular child,
though he seems to be fairly educated. I should like you, if possible,
my dears,” the general added, making slowly for the door, “to put him
through his paces a bit, and see what he is good for. I think you
should be kind to him; it is a good deed, you know—however, just as you
like, of course—but he is a sort of relation, remember, and I thought
it might interest you to see the young fellow, seeing that this is so.”
“Oh, of course, mamma, if we needn’t stand on ceremony with him, we
must give the poor fellow something to eat after his journey;
especially as he has not the least idea where to go to,” said
Alexandra, the eldest of the girls.
“Besides, he’s quite a child; we can entertain him with a little
hide-and-seek, in case of need,” said Adelaida.
“Hide-and-seek? What do you mean?” inquired Mrs. Epanchin.
“Oh, do stop pretending, mamma,” cried Aglaya, in vexation. “Send him
up, father; mother allows.”
The general rang the bell and gave orders that the prince should be
shown in.
“Only on condition that he has a napkin under his chin at lunch, then,”
said Mrs. Epanchin, “and let Fedor, or Mavra, stand behind him while he
eats. Is he quiet when he has these fits? He doesn’t show violence,
does he?”
“On the contrary, he seems to be very well brought up. His manners are
excellent—but here he is himself. Here you are, prince—let me introduce
you, the last of the Muishkins, a relative of your own, my dear, or at
least of the same name. Receive him kindly, please. They’ll bring in
lunch directly, prince; you must stop and have some, but you must
excuse me. I’m in a hurry, I must be off—”
“We all know where _you_ must be off to!” said Mrs. Epanchin, in a
meaning voice.
“Yes, yes—I must hurry away, I’m late! Look here, dears, let him write
you something in your albums; you’ve no idea what a wonderful
caligraphist he is, wonderful talent! He has just written out ‘Abbot
Pafnute signed this’ for me. Well, _au revoir!_”
“Stop a minute; where are you off to? Who is this abbot?” cried Mrs.
Epanchin to her retreating husband in a tone of excited annoyance.
“Yes, my dear, it was an old abbot of that name—I must be off to see
the count, he’s waiting for me, I’m late—Good-bye! _Au revoir_,
prince!”—and the general bolted at full speed.
“Oh, yes—I know what count you’re going to see!” remarked his wife in a
cutting manner, as she turned her angry eyes on the prince. “Now then,
what’s all this about?—What abbot—Who’s Pafnute?” she added, brusquely.
“Mamma!” said Alexandra, shocked at her rudeness.
Aglaya stamped her foot.
“Nonsense! Let me alone!” said the angry mother. “Now then, prince, sit
down here, no, nearer, come nearer the light! I want to have a good
look at you. So, now then, who is this abbot?”
“Abbot Pafnute,” said our friend, seriously and with deference.
“Pafnute, yes. And who was he?”
Mrs. Epanchin put these questions hastily and brusquely, and when the
prince answered she nodded her head sagely at each word he said.
“The Abbot Pafnute lived in the fourteenth century,” began the prince;
“he was in charge of one of the monasteries on the Volga, about where
our present Kostroma government lies. He went to Oreol and helped in
the great matters then going on in the religious world; he signed an
edict there, and I have seen a print of his signature; it struck me, so
I copied it. When the general asked me, in his study, to write
something for him, to show my handwriting, I wrote ‘The Abbot Pafnute
signed this,’ in the exact handwriting of the abbot. The general liked
it very much, and that’s why he recalled it just now.”
“Aglaya, make a note of ‘Pafnute,’ or we shall forget him. H’m! and
where is this signature?”
“I think it was left on the general’s table.”
“Let it be sent for at once!”
“Oh, I’ll write you a new one in half a minute,” said the prince, “if
you like!”
“Of course, mamma!” said Alexandra. “But let’s have lunch now, we are
all hungry!”
“Yes; come along, prince,” said the mother, “are you very hungry?”
“Yes; I must say that I am pretty hungry, thanks very much.”
“H’m! I like to see that you know your manners; and you are by no means
such a person as the general thought fit to describe you. Come along;
you sit here, opposite to me,” she continued, “I wish to be able to see
your face. Alexandra, Adelaida, look after the prince! He doesn’t seem
so very ill, does he? I don’t think he requires a napkin under his
chin, after all; are you accustomed to having one on, prince?”
“Formerly, when I was seven years old or so. I believe I wore one; but
now I usually hold my napkin on my knee when I eat.”
“Of course, of course! And about your fits?”
“Fits?” asked the prince, slightly surprised. “I very seldom have fits
nowadays. I don’t know how it may be here, though; they say the climate
may be bad for me.”
“He talks very well, you know!” said Mrs. Epanchin, who still continued
to nod at each word the prince spoke. “I really did not expect it at
all; in fact, I suppose it was all stuff and nonsense on the general’s
part, as usual. Eat away, prince, and tell me where you were born, and
where you were brought up. I wish to know all about you, you interest
me very much!”
The prince expressed his thanks once more, and eating heartily the
while, recommenced the narrative of his life in Switzerland, all of
which we have heard before. Mrs. Epanchin became more and more pleased
with her guest; the girls, too, listened with considerable attention.
In talking over the question of relationship it turned out that the
prince was very well up in the matter and knew his pedigree off by
heart. It was found that scarcely any connection existed between
himself and Mrs. Epanchin, but the talk, and the opportunity of
conversing about her family tree, gratified the latter exceedingly, and
she rose from the table in great good humour.
“Let’s all go to my boudoir,” she said, “and they shall bring some
coffee in there. That’s the room where we all assemble and busy
ourselves as we like best,” she explained. “Alexandra, my eldest, here,
plays the piano, or reads or sews; Adelaida paints landscapes and
portraits (but never finishes any); and Aglaya sits and does nothing. I
don’t work too much, either. Here we are, now; sit down, prince, near
the fire and talk to us. I want to hear you relate something. I wish to
make sure of you first and then tell my old friend, Princess
Bielokonski, about you. I wish you to know all the good people and to
interest them. Now then, begin!”
“Mamma, it’s rather a strange order, that!” said Adelaida, who was
fussing among her paints and paint-brushes at the easel. Aglaya and
Alexandra had settled themselves with folded hands on a sofa, evidently
meaning to be listeners. The prince felt that the general attention was
concentrated upon himself.
“I should refuse to say a word if _I_ were ordered to tell a story like
that!” observed Aglaya.
“Why? what’s there strange about it? He has a tongue. Why shouldn’t he
tell us something? I want to judge whether he is a good story-teller;
anything you like, prince—how you liked Switzerland, what was your
first impression, anything. You’ll see, he’ll begin directly and tell
us all about it beautifully.”
“The impression was forcible—” the prince began.
“There, you see, girls,” said the impatient lady, “he _has_ begun, you
see.”
“Well, then, _let_ him talk, mamma,” said Alexandra. “This prince is a
great humbug and by no means an idiot,” she whispered to Aglaya.
“Oh, I saw that at once,” replied the latter. “I don’t think it at all
nice of him to play a part. What does he wish to gain by it, I wonder?”
“My first impression was a very strong one,” repeated the prince. “When
they took me away from Russia, I remember I passed through many German
towns and looked out of the windows, but did not trouble so much as to
ask questions about them. This was after a long series of fits. I
always used to fall into a sort of torpid condition after such a
series, and lost my memory almost entirely; and though I was not
altogether without reason at such times, yet I had no logical power of
thought. This would continue for three or four days, and then I would
recover myself again. I remember my melancholy was intolerable; I felt
inclined to cry; I sat and wondered and wondered uncomfortably; the
consciousness that everything was strange weighed terribly upon me; I
could understand that it was all foreign and strange. I recollect I
awoke from this state for the first time at Basle, one evening; the
bray of a donkey aroused me, a donkey in the town market. I saw the
donkey and was extremely pleased with it, and from that moment my head
seemed to clear.”
“A donkey? How strange! Yet it is not strange. Anyone of us might fall
in love with a donkey! It happened in mythological times,” said Madame
Epanchin, looking wrathfully at her daughters, who had begun to laugh.
“Go on, prince.”
“Since that evening I have been specially fond of donkeys. I began to
ask questions about them, for I had never seen one before; and I at
once came to the conclusion that this must be one of the most useful of
animals—strong, willing, patient, cheap; and, thanks to this donkey, I
began to like the whole country I was travelling through; and my
melancholy passed away.”
“All this is very strange and interesting,” said Mrs. Epanchin. “Now
let’s leave the donkey and go on to other matters. What are you
laughing at, Aglaya? and you too, Adelaida? The prince told us his
experiences very cleverly; he saw the donkey himself, and what have you
ever seen? _You_ have never been abroad.”
“I have seen a donkey though, mamma!” said Aglaya.
“And I’ve heard one!” said Adelaida. All three of the girls laughed out
loud, and the prince laughed with them.
“Well, it’s too bad of you,” said mamma. “You must forgive them,
prince; they are good girls. I am very fond of them, though I often
have to be scolding them; they are all as silly and mad as march
hares.”
“Oh, why shouldn’t they laugh?” said the prince. “I shouldn’t have let
the chance go by in their place, I know. But I stick up for the donkey,
all the same; he’s a patient, good-natured fellow.”
“Are you a patient man, prince? I ask out of curiosity,” said Mrs.
Epanchin.
All laughed again.
“Oh, that wretched donkey again, I see!” cried the lady. “I assure you,
prince, I was not guilty of the least—”
“Insinuation? Oh! I assure you, I take your word for it.” And the
prince continued laughing merrily.
“I must say it’s very nice of you to laugh. I see you really are a
kind-hearted fellow,” said Mrs. Epanchin.
“I’m not always kind, though.”
“I am kind myself, and _always_ kind too, if you please!” she retorted,
unexpectedly; “and that is my chief fault, for one ought not to be
always kind. I am often angry with these girls and their father; but
the worst of it is, I am always kindest when I am cross. I was very
angry just before you came, and Aglaya there read me a lesson—thanks,
Aglaya, dear—come and kiss me—there—that’s enough” she added, as Aglaya
came forward and kissed her lips and then her hand. “Now then, go on,
prince. Perhaps you can think of something more exciting than about the
donkey, eh?”
“I must say, again, _I_ can’t understand how you can expect anyone to
tell you stories straight away, so,” said Adelaida. “I know I never
could!”
“Yes, but the prince can, because he is clever—cleverer than you are by
ten or twenty times, if you like. There, that’s so, prince; and
seriously, let’s drop the donkey now—what else did you see abroad,
besides the donkey?”
“Yes, but the prince told us about the donkey very cleverly, all the
same,” said Alexandra. “I have always been most interested to hear how
people go mad and get well again, and that sort of thing. Especially
when it happens suddenly.”
“Quite so, quite so!” cried Mrs. Epanchin, delighted. “I see you _can_
be sensible now and then, Alexandra. You were speaking of Switzerland,
prince?”
“Yes. We came to Lucerne, and I was taken out in a boat. I felt how
lovely it was, but the loveliness weighed upon me somehow or other, and
made me feel melancholy.”
“Why?” asked Alexandra.
“I don’t know; I always feel like that when I look at the beauties of
nature for the first time; but then, I was ill at that time, of
course!”
“Oh, but I should like to see it!” said Adelaida; “and I don’t know
_when_ we shall ever go abroad. I’ve been two years looking out for a
good subject for a picture. I’ve done all I know. ‘The North and South
I know by heart,’ as our poet observes. Do help me to a subject,
prince.”
“Oh, but I know nothing about painting. It seems to me one only has to
look, and paint what one sees.”
“But I don’t know _how_ to see!”
“Nonsense, what rubbish you talk!” the mother struck in. “Not know how
to see! Open your eyes and look! If you can’t see here, you won’t see
abroad either. Tell us what you saw yourself, prince!”
“Yes, that’s better,” said Adelaida; “the prince _learned to see_
abroad.”
“Oh, I hardly know! You see, I only went to restore my health. I don’t
know whether I learned to see, exactly. I was very happy, however,
nearly all the time.”
“Happy! you can be happy?” cried Aglaya. “Then how can you say you did
not learn to see? I should think you could teach _us_ to see!”
“Oh! _do_ teach us,” laughed Adelaida.
“Oh! I can’t do that,” said the prince, laughing too. “I lived almost
all the while in one little Swiss village; what can I teach you? At
first I was only just not absolutely dull; then my health began to
improve—then every day became dearer and more precious to me, and the
longer I stayed, the dearer became the time to me; so much so that I
could not help observing it; but why this was so, it would be difficult
to say.”
“So that you didn’t care to go away anywhere else?”
“Well, at first I did; I was restless; I didn’t know however I should
manage to support life—you know there are such moments, especially in
solitude. There was a waterfall near us, such a lovely thin streak of
water, like a thread but white and moving. It fell from a great height,
but it looked quite low, and it was half a mile away, though it did not
seem fifty paces. I loved to listen to it at night, but it was then
that I became so restless. Sometimes I went and climbed the mountain
and stood there in the midst of the tall pines, all alone in the
terrible silence, with our little village in the distance, and the sky
so blue, and the sun so bright, and an old ruined castle on the
mountain-side, far away. I used to watch the line where earth and sky
met, and longed to go and seek there the key of all mysteries, thinking
that I might find there a new life, perhaps some great city where life
should be grander and richer—and then it struck me that life may be
grand enough even in a prison.”
“I read that last most praiseworthy thought in my manual, when I was
twelve years old,” said Aglaya.
“All this is pure philosophy,” said Adelaida. “You are a philosopher,
prince, and have come here to instruct us in your views.”
“Perhaps you are right,” said the prince, smiling. “I think I am a
philosopher, perhaps, and who knows, perhaps I do wish to teach my
views of things to those I meet with?”
“Your philosophy is rather like that of an old woman we know, who is
rich and yet does nothing but try how little she can spend. She talks
of nothing but money all day. Your great philosophical idea of a grand
life in a prison and your four happy years in that Swiss village are
like this, rather,” said Aglaya.
“As to life in a prison, of course there may be two opinions,” said the
prince. “I once heard the story of a man who lived twelve years in a
prison—I heard it from the man himself. He was one of the persons under
treatment with my professor; he had fits, and attacks of melancholy,
then he would weep, and once he tried to commit suicide. _His_ life in
prison was sad enough; his only acquaintances were spiders and a tree
that grew outside his grating—but I think I had better tell you of
another man I met last year. There was a very strange feature in this
case, strange because of its extremely rare occurrence. This man had
once been brought to the scaffold in company with several others, and
had had the sentence of death by shooting passed upon him for some
political crime. Twenty minutes later he had been reprieved and some
other punishment substituted; but the interval between the two
sentences, twenty minutes, or at least a quarter of an hour, had been
passed in the certainty that within a few minutes he must die. I was
very anxious to hear him speak of his impressions during that dreadful
time, and I several times inquired of him as to what he thought and
felt. He remembered everything with the most accurate and extraordinary
distinctness, and declared that he would never forget a single iota of
the experience.
“About twenty paces from the scaffold, where he had stood to hear the
sentence, were three posts, fixed in the ground, to which to fasten the
criminals (of whom there were several). The first three criminals were
taken to the posts, dressed in long white tunics, with white caps drawn
over their faces, so that they could not see the rifles pointed at
them. Then a group of soldiers took their stand opposite to each post.
My friend was the eighth on the list, and therefore he would have been
among the third lot to go up. A priest went about among them with a
cross: and there was about five minutes of time left for him to live.
“He said that those five minutes seemed to him to be a most
interminable period, an enormous wealth of time; he seemed to be
living, in these minutes, so many lives that there was no need as yet
to think of that last moment, so that he made several arrangements,
dividing up the time into portions—one for saying farewell to his
companions, two minutes for that; then a couple more for thinking over
his own life and career and all about himself; and another minute for a
last look around. He remembered having divided his time like this quite
well. While saying good-bye to his friends he recollected asking one of
them some very usual everyday question, and being much interested in
the answer. Then having bade farewell, he embarked upon those two
minutes which he had allotted to looking into himself; he knew
beforehand what he was going to think about. He wished to put it to
himself as quickly and clearly as possible, that here was he, a living,
thinking man, and that in three minutes he would be nobody; or if
somebody or something, then what and where? He thought he would decide
this question once for all in these last three minutes. A little way
off there stood a church, and its gilded spire glittered in the sun. He
remembered staring stubbornly at this spire, and at the rays of light
sparkling from it. He could not tear his eyes from these rays of light;
he got the idea that these rays were his new nature, and that in three
minutes he would become one of them, amalgamated somehow with them.
“The repugnance to what must ensue almost immediately, and the
uncertainty, were dreadful, he said; but worst of all was the idea,
‘What should I do if I were not to die now? What if I were to return to
life again? What an eternity of days, and all mine! How I should grudge
and count up every minute of it, so as to waste not a single instant!’
He said that this thought weighed so upon him and became such a
terrible burden upon his brain that he could not bear it, and wished
they would shoot him quickly and have done with it.”
The prince paused and all waited, expecting him to go on again and
finish the story.
“Is that all?” asked Aglaya.
“All? Yes,” said the prince, emerging from a momentary reverie.
“And why did you tell us this?”
“Oh, I happened to recall it, that’s all! It fitted into the
conversation—”
“You probably wish to deduce, prince,” said Alexandra, “that moments of
time cannot be reckoned by money value, and that sometimes five minutes
are worth priceless treasures. All this is very praiseworthy; but may I
ask about this friend of yours, who told you the terrible experience of
his life? He was reprieved, you say; in other words, they did restore
to him that ‘eternity of days.’ What did he do with these riches of
time? Did he keep careful account of his minutes?”
“Oh no, he didn’t! I asked him myself. He said that he had not lived a
bit as he had intended, and had wasted many, and many a minute.”
“Very well, then there’s an experiment, and the thing is proved; one
cannot live and count each moment; say what you like, but one
_cannot_.”
“That is true,” said the prince, “I have thought so myself. And yet,
why shouldn’t one do it?”
“You think, then, that you could live more wisely than other people?”
said Aglaya.
“I have had that idea.”
“And you have it still?”
“Yes—I have it still,” the prince replied.
He had contemplated Aglaya until now, with a pleasant though rather
timid smile, but as the last words fell from his lips he began to
laugh, and looked at her merrily.
“You are not very modest!” said she.
“But how brave you are!” said he. “You are laughing, and I—that man’s
tale impressed me so much, that I dreamt of it afterwards; yes, I
dreamt of those five minutes...”
He looked at his listeners again with that same serious, searching
expression.
“You are not angry with me?” he asked suddenly, and with a kind of
nervous hurry, although he looked them straight in the face.
“Why should we be angry?” they cried.
“Only because I seem to be giving you a lecture, all the time!”
At this they laughed heartily.
“Please don’t be angry with me,” continued the prince. “I know very
well that I have seen less of life than other people, and have less
knowledge of it. I must appear to speak strangely sometimes...”
He said the last words nervously.
“You say you have been happy, and that proves you have lived, not less,
but more than other people. Why make all these excuses?” interrupted
Aglaya in a mocking tone of voice. “Besides, you need not mind about
lecturing us; you have nothing to boast of. With your quietism, one
could live happily for a hundred years at least. One might show you the
execution of a felon, or show you one’s little finger. You could draw a
moral from either, and be quite satisfied. That sort of existence is
easy enough.”
“I can’t understand why you always fly into a temper,” said Mrs.
Epanchin, who had been listening to the conversation and examining the
faces of the speakers in turn. “I do not understand what you mean. What
has your little finger to do with it? The prince talks well, though he
is not amusing. He began all right, but now he seems sad.”
“Never mind, mamma! Prince, I wish you had seen an execution,” said
Aglaya. “I should like to ask you a question about that, if you had.”
“I have seen an execution,” said the prince.
“You have!” cried Aglaya. “I might have guessed it. That’s a fitting
crown to the rest of the story. If you have seen an execution, how can
you say you lived happily all the while?”
“But is there capital punishment where you were?” asked Adelaida.
“I saw it at Lyons. Schneider took us there, and as soon as we arrived
we came in for that.”
“Well, and did you like it very much? Was it very edifying and
instructive?” asked Aglaya.
“No, I didn’t like it at all, and was ill after seeing it; but I
confess I stared as though my eyes were fixed to the sight. I could not
tear them away.”
“I, too, should have been unable to tear my eyes away,” said Aglaya.
“They do not at all approve of women going to see an execution there.
The women who do go are condemned for it afterwards in the newspapers.”
“That is, by contending that it is not a sight for women they admit
that it is a sight for men. I congratulate them on the deduction. I
suppose you quite agree with them, prince?”
“Tell us about the execution,” put in Adelaida.
“I would much rather not, just now,” said the prince, a little
disturbed and frowning slightly.
“You don’t seem to want to tell us,” said Aglaya, with a mocking air.
“No,—the thing is, I was telling all about the execution a little while
ago, and—”
“Whom did you tell about it?”
“The man-servant, while I was waiting to see the general.”
“Our man-servant?” exclaimed several voices at once.
“Yes, the one who waits in the entrance hall, a greyish, red-faced
man—”
“The prince is clearly a democrat,” remarked Aglaya.
“Well, if you could tell Aleksey about it, surely you can tell us too.”
“I do so want to hear about it,” repeated Adelaida.
“Just now, I confess,” began the prince, with more animation, “when you
asked me for a subject for a picture, I confess I had serious thoughts
of giving you one. I thought of asking you to draw the face of a
criminal, one minute before the fall of the guillotine, while the
wretched man is still standing on the scaffold, preparatory to placing
his neck on the block.”
“What, his face? only his face?” asked Adelaida. “That would be a
strange subject indeed. And what sort of a picture would that make?”
“Oh, why not?” the prince insisted, with some warmth. “When I was in
Basle I saw a picture very much in that style—I should like to tell you
about it; I will some time or other; it struck me very forcibly.”
“Oh, you shall tell us about the Basle picture another time; now we
must have all about the execution,” said Adelaida. “Tell us about that
face as it appeared to your imagination—how should it be drawn?—just
the face alone, do you mean?”
“It was just a minute before the execution,” began the prince, readily,
carried away by the recollection and evidently forgetting everything
else in a moment; “just at the instant when he stepped off the ladder
on to the scaffold. He happened to look in my direction: I saw his eyes
and understood all, at once—but how am I to describe it? I do so wish
you or somebody else could draw it, you, if possible. I thought at the
time what a picture it would make. You must imagine all that went
before, of course, all—all. He had lived in the prison for some time
and had not expected that the execution would take place for at least a
week yet—he had counted on all the formalities and so on taking time;
but it so happened that his papers had been got ready quickly. At five
o’clock in the morning he was asleep—it was October, and at five in the
morning it was cold and dark. The governor of the prison comes in on
tip-toe and touches the sleeping man’s shoulder gently. He starts up.
‘What is it?’ he says. ‘The execution is fixed for ten o’clock.’ He was
only just awake, and would not believe at first, but began to argue
that his papers would not be out for a week, and so on. When he was
wide awake and realized the truth, he became very silent and argued no
more—so they say; but after a bit he said: ‘It comes very hard on one
so suddenly’ and then he was silent again and said nothing.
“The three or four hours went by, of course, in necessary
preparations—the priest, breakfast, (coffee, meat, and some wine they
gave him; doesn’t it seem ridiculous?) And yet I believe these people
give them a good breakfast out of pure kindness of heart, and believe
that they are doing a good action. Then he is dressed, and then begins
the procession through the town to the scaffold. I think he, too, must
feel that he has an age to live still while they cart him along.
Probably he thought, on the way, ‘Oh, I have a long, long time yet.
Three streets of life yet! When we’ve passed this street there’ll be
that other one; and then that one where the baker’s shop is on the
right; and when shall we get there? It’s ages, ages!’ Around him are
crowds shouting, yelling—ten thousand faces, twenty thousand eyes. All
this has to be endured, and especially the thought: ‘Here are ten
thousand men, and not one of them is going to be executed, and yet I am
to die.’ Well, all that is preparatory.
“At the scaffold there is a ladder, and just there he burst into
tears—and this was a strong man, and a terribly wicked one, they say!
There was a priest with him the whole time, talking; even in the cart
as they drove along, he talked and talked. Probably the other heard
nothing; he would begin to listen now and then, and at the third word
or so he had forgotten all about it.
“At last he began to mount the steps; his legs were tied, so that he
had to take very small steps. The priest, who seemed to be a wise man,
had stopped talking now, and only held the cross for the wretched
fellow to kiss. At the foot of the ladder he had been pale enough; but
when he set foot on the scaffold at the top, his face suddenly became
the colour of paper, positively like white notepaper. His legs must
have become suddenly feeble and helpless, and he felt a choking in his
throat—you know the sudden feeling one has in moments of terrible fear,
when one does not lose one’s wits, but is absolutely powerless to move?
If some dreadful thing were suddenly to happen; if a house were just
about to fall on one;—don’t you know how one would long to sit down and
shut one’s eyes and wait, and wait? Well, when this terrible feeling
came over him, the priest quickly pressed the cross to his lips,
without a word—a little silver cross it was—and he kept on pressing it
to the man’s lips every second. And whenever the cross touched his
lips, the eyes would open for a moment, and the legs moved once, and he
kissed the cross greedily, hurriedly—just as though he were anxious to
catch hold of something in case of its being useful to him afterwards,
though he could hardly have had any connected religious thoughts at the
time. And so up to the very block.
“How strange that criminals seldom swoon at such a moment! On the
contrary, the brain is especially active, and works
incessantly—probably hard, hard, hard—like an engine at full pressure.
I imagine that various thoughts must beat loud and fast through his
head—all unfinished ones, and strange, funny thoughts, very
likely!—like this, for instance: ‘That man is looking at me, and he has
a wart on his forehead! and the executioner has burst one of his
buttons, and the lowest one is all rusty!’ And meanwhile he notices and
remembers everything. There is one point that cannot be forgotten,
round which everything else dances and turns about; and because of this
point he cannot faint, and this lasts until the very final quarter of a
second, when the wretched neck is on the block and the victim listens
and waits and _knows_—that’s the point, he _knows_ that he is just
_now_ about to die, and listens for the rasp of the iron over his head.
If I lay there, I should certainly listen for that grating sound, and
hear it, too! There would probably be but the tenth part of an instant
left to hear it in, but one would certainly hear it. And imagine, some
people declare that when the head flies off it is _conscious_ of having
flown off! Just imagine what a thing to realize! Fancy if consciousness
were to last for even five seconds!
“Draw the scaffold so that only the top step of the ladder comes in
clearly. The criminal must be just stepping on to it, his face as white
as note-paper. The priest is holding the cross to his blue lips, and
the criminal kisses it, and knows and sees and understands everything.
The cross and the head—there’s your picture; the priest and the
executioner, with his two assistants, and a few heads and eyes below.
Those might come in as subordinate accessories—a sort of mist. There’s
a picture for you.” The prince paused, and looked around.
“Certainly that isn’t much like quietism,” murmured Alexandra, half to
herself.
“Now tell us about your love affairs,” said Adelaida, after a moment’s
pause.
The prince gazed at her in amazement.
“You know,” Adelaida continued, “you owe us a description of the Basle
picture; but first I wish to hear how you fell in love. Don’t deny the
fact, for you did, of course. Besides, you stop philosophizing when you
are telling about anything.”
“Why are you ashamed of your stories the moment after you have told
them?” asked Aglaya, suddenly.
“How silly you are!” said Mrs. Epanchin, looking indignantly towards
the last speaker.
“Yes, that wasn’t a clever remark,” said Alexandra.
“Don’t listen to her, prince,” said Mrs. Epanchin; “she says that sort
of thing out of mischief. Don’t think anything of their nonsense, it
means nothing. They love to chaff, but they like you. I can see it in
their faces—I know their faces.”
“I know their faces, too,” said the prince, with a peculiar stress on
the words.
“How so?” asked Adelaida, with curiosity.
“What do _you_ know about our faces?” exclaimed the other two, in
chorus.
But the prince was silent and serious. All awaited his reply.
“I’ll tell you afterwards,” he said quietly.
“Ah, you want to arouse our curiosity!” said Aglaya. “And how terribly
solemn you are about it!”
“Very well,” interrupted Adelaida, “then if you can read faces so well,
you _must_ have been in love. Come now; I’ve guessed—let’s have the
secret!”
“I have not been in love,” said the prince, as quietly and seriously as
before. “I have been happy in another way.”
“How, how?”
“Well, I’ll tell you,” said the prince, apparently in a deep reverie.
VI.
“Here you all are,” began the prince, “settling yourselves down to
listen to me with so much curiosity, that if I do not satisfy you you
will probably be angry with me. No, no! I’m only joking!” he added,
hastily, with a smile.
“Well, then—they were all children there, and I was always among
children and only with children. They were the children of the village
in which I lived, and they went to the school there—all of them. I did
not teach them, oh no; there was a master for that, one Jules Thibaut.
I may have taught them some things, but I was among them just as an
outsider, and I passed all four years of my life there among them. I
wished for nothing better; I used to tell them everything and hid
nothing from them. Their fathers and relations were very angry with me,
because the children could do nothing without me at last, and used to
throng after me at all times. The schoolmaster was my greatest enemy in
the end! I had many enemies, and all because of the children. Even
Schneider reproached me. What were they afraid of? One can tell a child
everything, anything. I have often been struck by the fact that parents
know their children so little. They should not conceal so much from
them. How well even little children understand that their parents
conceal things from them, because they consider them too young to
understand! Children are capable of giving advice in the most important
matters. How can one deceive these dear little birds, when they look at
one so sweetly and confidingly? I call them birds because there is
nothing in the world better than birds!
“However, most of the people were angry with me about one and the same
thing; but Thibaut simply was jealous of me. At first he had wagged his
head and wondered how it was that the children understood what I told
them so well, and could not learn from him; and he laughed like
anything when I replied that neither he nor I could teach them very
much, but that _they_ might teach us a good deal.
“How he could hate me and tell scandalous stories about me, living
among children as he did, is what I cannot understand. Children soothe
and heal the wounded heart. I remember there was one poor fellow at our
professor’s who was being treated for madness, and you have no idea
what those children did for him, eventually. I don’t think he was mad,
but only terribly unhappy. But I’ll tell you all about him another day.
Now I must get on with this story.
“The children did not love me at first; I was such a sickly, awkward
kind of a fellow then—and I know I am ugly. Besides, I was a foreigner.
The children used to laugh at me, at first; and they even went so far
as to throw stones at me, when they saw me kiss Marie. I only kissed
her once in my life—no, no, don’t laugh!” The prince hastened to
suppress the smiles of his audience at this point. “It was not a matter
of _love_ at all! If only you knew what a miserable creature she was,
you would have pitied her, just as I did. She belonged to our village.
Her mother was an old, old woman, and they used to sell string and
thread, and soap and tobacco, out of the window of their little house,
and lived on the pittance they gained by this trade. The old woman was
ill and very old, and could hardly move. Marie was her daughter, a girl
of twenty, weak and thin and consumptive; but still she did heavy work
at the houses around, day by day. Well, one fine day a commercial
traveller betrayed her and carried her off; and a week later he
deserted her. She came home dirty, draggled, and shoeless; she had
walked for a whole week without shoes; she had slept in the fields, and
caught a terrible cold; her feet were swollen and sore, and her hands
torn and scratched all over. She never had been pretty even before; but
her eyes were quiet, innocent, kind eyes.
“She was very quiet always—and I remember once, when she had suddenly
begun singing at her work, everyone said, ‘Marie tried to sing today!’
and she got so chaffed that she was silent for ever after. She had been
treated kindly in the place before; but when she came back now—ill and
shunned and miserable—not one of them all had the slightest sympathy
for her. Cruel people! Oh, what hazy understandings they have on such
matters! Her mother was the first to show the way. She received her
wrathfully, unkindly, and with contempt. ‘You have disgraced me,’ she
said. She was the first to cast her into ignominy; but when they all
heard that Marie had returned to the village, they ran out to see her
and crowded into the little cottage—old men, children, women,
girls—such a hurrying, stamping, greedy crowd. Marie was lying on the
floor at the old woman’s feet, hungry, torn, draggled, crying,
miserable.
“When everyone crowded into the room she hid her face in her
dishevelled hair and lay cowering on the floor. Everyone looked at her
as though she were a piece of dirt off the road. The old men scolded
and condemned, and the young ones laughed at her. The women condemned
her too, and looked at her contemptuously, just as though she were some
loathsome insect.
“Her mother allowed all this to go on, and nodded her head and
encouraged them. The old woman was very ill at that time, and knew she
was dying (she really did die a couple of months later), and though she
felt the end approaching she never thought of forgiving her daughter,
to the very day of her death. She would not even speak to her. She made
her sleep on straw in a shed, and hardly gave her food enough to
support life.
“Marie was very gentle to her mother, and nursed her, and did
everything for her; but the old woman accepted all her services without
a word and never showed her the slightest kindness. Marie bore all
this; and I could see when I got to know her that she thought it quite
right and fitting, considering herself the lowest and meanest of
creatures.
“When the old woman took to her bed finally, the other old women in the
village sat with her by turns, as the custom is there; and then Marie
was quite driven out of the house. They gave her no food at all, and
she could not get any work in the village; none would employ her. The
men seemed to consider her no longer a woman, they said such dreadful
things to her. Sometimes on Sundays, if they were drunk enough, they
used to throw her a penny or two, into the mud, and Marie would
silently pick up the money. She had began to spit blood at that time.
“At last her rags became so tattered and torn that she was ashamed of
appearing in the village any longer. The children used to pelt her with
mud; so she begged to be taken on as assistant cowherd, but the cowherd
would not have her. Then she took to helping him without leave; and he
saw how valuable her assistance was to him, and did not drive her away
again; on the contrary, he occasionally gave her the remnants of his
dinner, bread and cheese. He considered that he was being very kind.
When the mother died, the village parson was not ashamed to hold Marie
up to public derision and shame. Marie was standing at the coffin’s
head, in all her rags, crying.
“A crowd of people had collected to see how she would cry. The parson,
a young fellow ambitious of becoming a great preacher, began his sermon
and pointed to Marie. ‘There,’ he said, ‘there is the cause of the
death of this venerable woman’—(which was a lie, because she had been
ill for at least two years)—‘there she stands before you, and dares not
lift her eyes from the ground, because she knows that the finger of God
is upon her. Look at her tatters and rags—the badge of those who lose
their virtue. Who is she? her daughter!’ and so on to the end.
“And just fancy, this infamy pleased them, all of them, nearly. Only
the children had altered—for then they were all on my side and had
learned to love Marie.
“This is how it was: I had wished to do something for Marie; I longed
to give her some money, but I never had a farthing while I was there.
But I had a little diamond pin, and this I sold to a travelling pedlar;
he gave me eight francs for it—it was worth at least forty.
“I long sought to meet Marie alone; and at last I did meet her, on the
hillside beyond the village. I gave her the eight francs and asked her
to take care of the money because I could get no more; and then I
kissed her and said that she was not to suppose I kissed her with any
evil motives or because I was in love with her, for that I did so
solely out of pity for her, and because from the first I had not
accounted her as guilty so much as unfortunate. I longed to console and
encourage her somehow, and to assure her that she was not the low, base
thing which she and others strove to make out; but I don’t think she
understood me. She stood before me, dreadfully ashamed of herself, and
with downcast eyes; and when I had finished she kissed my hand. I would
have kissed hers, but she drew it away. Just at this moment the whole
troop of children saw us. (I found out afterwards that they had long
kept a watch upon me.) They all began whistling and clapping their
hands, and laughing at us. Marie ran away at once; and when I tried to
talk to them, they threw stones at me. All the village heard of it the
same day, and Marie’s position became worse than ever. The children
would not let her pass now in the streets, but annoyed her and threw
dirt at her more than before. They used to run after her—she racing
away with her poor feeble lungs panting and gasping, and they pelting
her and shouting abuse at her.
“Once I had to interfere by force; and after that I took to speaking to
them every day and whenever I could. Occasionally they stopped and
listened; but they teased Marie all the same.
“I told them how unhappy Marie was, and after a while they stopped
their abuse of her, and let her go by silently. Little by little we got
into the way of conversing together, the children and I. I concealed
nothing from them, I told them all. They listened very attentively and
soon began to be sorry for Marie. At last some of them took to saying
‘Good-morning’ to her, kindly, when they met her. It is the custom
there to salute anyone you meet with ‘Good-morning’ whether acquainted
or not. I can imagine how astonished Marie was at these first greetings
from the children.
“Once two little girls got hold of some food and took it to her, and
came back and told me. They said she had burst into tears, and that
they loved her very much now. Very soon after that they all became fond
of Marie, and at the same time they began to develop the greatest
affection for myself. They often came to me and begged me to tell them
stories. I think I must have told stories well, for they did so love to
hear them. At last I took to reading up interesting things on purpose
to pass them on to the little ones, and this went on for all the rest
of my time there, three years. Later, when everyone—even Schneider—was
angry with me for hiding nothing from the children, I pointed out how
foolish it was, for they always knew things, only they learnt them in a
way that soiled their minds but not so from me. One has only to
remember one’s own childhood to admit the truth of this. But nobody was
convinced... It was two weeks before her mother died that I had kissed
Marie; and when the clergyman preached that sermon the children were
all on my side.
“When I told them what a shame it was of the parson to talk as he had
done, and explained my reason, they were so angry that some of them
went and broke his windows with stones. Of course I stopped them, for
that was not right, but all the village heard of it, and how I caught
it for spoiling the children! Everyone discovered now that the little
ones had taken to being fond of Marie, and their parents were terribly
alarmed; but Marie was so happy. The children were forbidden to meet
her; but they used to run out of the village to the herd and take her
food and things; and sometimes just ran off there and kissed her, and
said, ‘_Je vous aime, Marie!_’ and then trotted back again. They
imagined that I was in love with Marie, and this was the only point on
which I did not undeceive them, for they got such enjoyment out of it.
And what delicacy and tenderness they showed!
“In the evening I used to walk to the waterfall. There was a spot there
which was quite closed in and hidden from view by large trees; and to
this spot the children used to come to me. They could not bear that
their dear Leon should love a poor girl without shoes to her feet and
dressed all in rags and tatters. So, would you believe it, they
actually clubbed together, somehow, and bought her shoes and stockings,
and some linen, and even a dress! I can’t understand how they managed
it, but they did it, all together. When I asked them about it they only
laughed and shouted, and the little girls clapped their hands and
kissed me. I sometimes went to see Marie secretly, too. She had become
very ill, and could hardly walk. She still went with the herd, but
could not help the herdsman any longer. She used to sit on a stone
near, and wait there almost motionless all day, till the herd went
home. Her consumption was so advanced, and she was so weak, that she
used to sit with closed eyes, breathing heavily. Her face was as thin
as a skeleton’s, and sweat used to stand on her white brow in large
drops. I always found her sitting just like that. I used to come up
quietly to look at her; but Marie would hear me, open her eyes, and
tremble violently as she kissed my hands. I did not take my hand away
because it made her happy to have it, and so she would sit and cry
quietly. Sometimes she tried to speak; but it was very difficult to
understand her. She was almost like a madwoman, with excitement and
ecstasy, whenever I came. Occasionally the children came with me; when
they did so, they would stand some way off and keep guard over us, so
as to tell me if anybody came near. This was a great pleasure to them.
“When we left her, Marie used to relapse at once into her old
condition, and sit with closed eyes and motionless limbs. One day she
could not go out at all, and remained at home all alone in the empty
hut; but the children very soon became aware of the fact, and nearly
all of them visited her that day as she lay alone and helpless in her
miserable bed.
“For two days the children looked after her, and then, when the village
people got to know that Marie was really dying, some of the old women
came and took it in turns to sit by her and look after her a bit. I
think they began to be a little sorry for her in the village at last;
at all events they did not interfere with the children any more, on her
account.
“Marie lay in a state of uncomfortable delirium the whole while; she
coughed dreadfully. The old women would not let the children stay in
the room; but they all collected outside the window each morning, if
only for a moment, and shouted ‘_Bon jour, notre bonne Marie!_’ and
Marie no sooner caught sight of, or heard them, and she became quite
animated at once, and, in spite of the old women, would try to sit up
and nod her head and smile at them, and thank them. The little ones
used to bring her nice things and sweets to eat, but she could hardly
touch anything. Thanks to them, I assure you, the girl died almost
perfectly happy. She almost forgot her misery, and seemed to accept
their love as a sort of symbol of pardon for her offence, though she
never ceased to consider herself a dreadful sinner. They used to
flutter at her window just like little birds, calling out: ‘_Nous
t’aimons, Marie!_’
“She died very soon; I had thought she would live much longer. The day
before her death I went to see her for the last time, just before
sunset. I think she recognized me, for she pressed my hand.
“Next morning they came and told me that Marie was dead. The children
could not be restrained now; they went and covered her coffin with
flowers, and put a wreath of lovely blossoms on her head. The pastor
did not throw any more shameful words at the poor dead woman; but there
were very few people at the funeral. However, when it came to carrying
the coffin, all the children rushed up, to carry it themselves. Of
course they could not do it alone, but they insisted on helping, and
walked alongside and behind, crying.
“They have planted roses all round her grave, and every year they look
after the flowers and make Marie’s resting-place as beautiful as they
can. I was in ill odour after all this with the parents of the
children, and especially with the parson and schoolmaster. Schneider
was obliged to promise that I should not meet them and talk to them;
but we conversed from a distance by signs, and they used to write me
sweet little notes. Afterwards I came closer than ever to those little
souls, but even then it was very dear to me, to have them so fond of
me.
“Schneider said that I did the children great harm by my pernicious
‘system’; what nonsense that was! And what did he mean by my system? He
said afterwards that he believed I was a child myself—just before I
came away. ‘You have the form and face of an adult’ he said, ‘but as
regards soul, and character, and perhaps even intelligence, you are a
child in the completest sense of the word, and always will be, if you
live to be sixty.’ I laughed very much, for of course that is nonsense.
But it is a fact that I do not care to be among grown-up people and
much prefer the society of children. However kind people may be to me,
I never feel quite at home with them, and am always glad to get back to
my little companions. Now my companions have always been children, not
because I was a child myself once, but because young things attract me.
On one of the first days of my stay in Switzerland, I was strolling
about alone and miserable, when I came upon the children rushing
noisily out of school, with their slates and bags, and books, their
games, their laughter and shouts—and my soul went out to them. I
stopped and laughed happily as I watched their little feet moving so
quickly. Girls and boys, laughing and crying; for as they went home
many of them found time to fight and make peace, to weep and play. I
forgot my troubles in looking at them. And then, all those three years,
I tried to understand why men should be for ever tormenting themselves.
I lived the life of a child there, and thought I should never leave the
little village; indeed, I was far from thinking that I should ever
return to Russia. But at last I recognized the fact that Schneider
could not keep me any longer. And then something so important happened,
that Schneider himself urged me to depart. I am going to see now if can
get good advice about it. Perhaps my lot in life will be changed; but
that is not the principal thing. The principal thing is the entire
change that has already come over me. I left many things behind me—too
many. They have gone. On the journey I said to myself, ‘I am going into
the world of men. I don’t know much, perhaps, but a new life has begun
for me.’ I made up my mind to be honest, and steadfast in accomplishing
my task. Perhaps I shall meet with troubles and many disappointments,
but I have made up my mind to be polite and sincere to everyone; more
cannot be asked of me. People may consider me a child if they like. I
am often called an idiot, and at one time I certainly was so ill that I
was nearly as bad as an idiot; but I am not an idiot now. How can I
possibly be so when I know myself that I am considered one?
“When I received a letter from those dear little souls, while passing
through Berlin, I only then realized how much I loved them. It was
very, very painful, getting that first little letter. How melancholy
they had been when they saw me off! For a month before, they had been
talking of my departure and sorrowing over it; and at the waterfall, of
an evening, when we parted for the night, they would hug me so tight
and kiss me so warmly, far more so than before. And every now and then
they would turn up one by one when I was alone, just to give me a kiss
and a hug, to show their love for me. The whole flock went with me to
the station, which was about a mile from the village, and every now and
then one of them would stop to throw his arms round me, and all the
little girls had tears in their voices, though they tried hard not to
cry. As the train steamed out of the station, I saw them all standing
on the platform waving to me and crying ‘Hurrah!’ till they were lost
in the distance.
“I assure you, when I came in here just now and saw your kind faces (I
can read faces well) my heart felt light for the first time since that
moment of parting. I think I must be one of those who are born to be in
luck, for one does not often meet with people whom one feels he can
love from the first sight of their faces; and yet, no sooner do I step
out of the railway carriage than I happen upon you!
“I know it is more or less a shamefaced thing to speak of one’s
feelings before others; and yet here am I talking like this to you, and
am not a bit ashamed or shy. I am an unsociable sort of fellow and
shall very likely not come to see you again for some time; but don’t
think the worse of me for that. It is not that I do not value your
society; and you must never suppose that I have taken offence at
anything.
“You asked me about your faces, and what I could read in them; I will
tell you with the greatest pleasure. You, Adelaida Ivanovna, have a
very happy face; it is the most sympathetic of the three. Not to speak
of your natural beauty, one can look at your face and say to one’s
self, ‘She has the face of a kind sister.’ You are simple and merry,
but you can see into another’s heart very quickly. That’s what I read
in your face.
“You too, Alexandra Ivanovna, have a very lovely face; but I think you
may have some secret sorrow. Your heart is undoubtedly a kind, good
one, but you are not merry. There is a certain suspicion of ‘shadow’ in
your face, like in that of Holbein’s Madonna in Dresden. So much for
your face. Have I guessed right?
“As for your face, Lizabetha Prokofievna, I not only think, but am
perfectly _sure_, that you are an absolute child—in all, in all, mind,
both good and bad—and in spite of your years. Don’t be angry with me
for saying so; you know what my feelings for children are. And do not
suppose that I am so candid out of pure simplicity of soul. Oh dear no,
it is by no means the case! Perhaps I have my own very profound object
in view.”
VII.
When the prince ceased speaking all were gazing merrily at him—even
Aglaya; but Lizabetha Prokofievna looked the jolliest of all.
“Well!” she cried, “we _have_ ‘put him through his paces,’ with a
vengeance! My dears, you imagined, I believe, that you were about to
patronize this young gentleman, like some poor _protégé_ picked up
somewhere, and taken under your magnificent protection. What fools we
were, and what a specially big fool is your father! Well done, prince!
I assure you the general actually asked me to put you through your
paces, and examine you. As to what you said about my face, you are
absolutely correct in your judgment. I am a child, and know it. I knew
it long before you said so; you have expressed my own thoughts. I think
your nature and mine must be extremely alike, and I am very glad of it.
We are like two drops of water, only you are a man and I a woman, and
I’ve not been to Switzerland, and that is all the difference between
us.”
“Don’t be in a hurry, mother; the prince says that he has some motive
behind his simplicity,” cried Aglaya.
“Yes, yes, so he does,” laughed the others.
“Oh, don’t you begin bantering him,” said mamma. “He is probably a good
deal cleverer than all three of you girls put together. We shall see.
Only you haven’t told us anything about Aglaya yet, prince; and Aglaya
and I are both waiting to hear.”
“I cannot say anything at present. I’ll tell you afterwards.”
“Why? Her face is clear enough, isn’t it?”
“Oh yes, of course. You are very beautiful, Aglaya Ivanovna, so
beautiful that one is afraid to look at you.”
“Is that all? What about her character?” persisted Mrs. Epanchin.
“It is difficult to judge when such beauty is concerned. I have not
prepared my judgment. Beauty is a riddle.”
“That means that you have set Aglaya a riddle!” said Adelaida. “Guess
it, Aglaya! But she’s pretty, prince, isn’t she?”
“Most wonderfully so,” said the latter, warmly, gazing at Aglaya with
admiration. “Almost as lovely as Nastasia Philipovna, but quite a
different type.”
All present exchanged looks of surprise.
“As lovely as _who?_” said Mrs. Epanchin. “As _Nastasia Philipovna?_
Where have you seen Nastasia Philipovna? What Nastasia Philipovna?”
“Gavrila Ardalionovitch showed the general her portrait just now.”
“How so? Did he bring the portrait for my husband?”
“Only to show it. Nastasia Philipovna gave it to Gavrila Ardalionovitch
today, and the latter brought it here to show to the general.”
“I must see it!” cried Mrs. Epanchin. “Where is the portrait? If she
gave it to him, he must have it; and he is still in the study. He never
leaves before four o’clock on Wednesdays. Send for Gavrila
Ardalionovitch at once. No, I don’t long to see _him_ so much. Look
here, dear prince, _be_ so kind, will you? Just step to the study and
fetch this portrait! Say we want to look at it. Please do this for me,
will you?”
“He is a nice fellow, but a little too simple,” said Adelaida, as the
prince left the room.
“He is, indeed,” said Alexandra; “almost laughably so at times.”
Neither one nor the other seemed to give expression to her full
thoughts.
“He got out of it very neatly about our faces, though,” said Aglaya.
“He flattered us all round, even mamma.”
“Nonsense!” cried the latter. “He did not flatter me. It was I who
found his appreciation flattering. I think you are a great deal more
foolish than he is. He is simple, of course, but also very knowing.
Just like myself.”
“How stupid of me to speak of the portrait,” thought the prince as he
entered the study, with a feeling of guilt at his heart, “and yet,
perhaps I was right after all.” He had an idea, unformed as yet, but a
strange idea.
Gavrila Ardalionovitch was still sitting in the study, buried in a mass
of papers. He looked as though he did not take his salary from the
public company, whose servant he was, for a sinecure.
He grew very wroth and confused when the prince asked for the portrait,
and explained how it came about that he had spoken of it.
“Oh, curse it all,” he said; “what on earth must you go blabbing for?
You know nothing about the thing, and yet—idiot!” he added, muttering
the last word to himself in irrepressible rage.
“I am very sorry; I was not thinking at the time. I merely said that
Aglaya was almost as beautiful as Nastasia Philipovna.”
Gania asked for further details; and the prince once more repeated the
conversation. Gania looked at him with ironical contempt the while.
“Nastasia Philipovna,” he began, and there paused; he was clearly much
agitated and annoyed. The prince reminded him of the portrait.
“Listen, prince,” said Gania, as though an idea had just struck him, “I
wish to ask you a great favour, and yet I really don’t know—”
He paused again, he was trying to make up his mind to something, and
was turning the matter over. The prince waited quietly. Once more Gania
fixed him with intent and questioning eyes.
“Prince,” he began again, “they are rather angry with me, in there,
owing to a circumstance which I need not explain, so that I do not care
to go in at present without an invitation. I particularly wish to speak
to Aglaya, but I have written a few words in case I shall not have the
chance of seeing her” (here the prince observed a small note in his
hand), “and I do not know how to get my communication to her. Don’t you
think you could undertake to give it to her at once, but only to her,
mind, and so that no one else should see you give it? It isn’t much of
a secret, but still—Well, will you do it?”
“I don’t quite like it,” replied the prince.
“Oh, but it is absolutely necessary for me,” Gania entreated. “Believe
me, if it were not so, I would not ask you; how else am I to get it to
her? It is most important, dreadfully important!”
Gania was evidently much alarmed at the idea that the prince would not
consent to take his note, and he looked at him now with an expression
of absolute entreaty.
“Well, I will take it then.”
“But mind, nobody is to see!” cried the delighted Gania “And of course
I may rely on your word of honour, eh?”
“I won’t show it to anyone,” said the prince.
“The letter is not sealed—” continued Gania, and paused in confusion.
“Oh, I won’t read it,” said the prince, quite simply.
He took up the portrait, and went out of the room.
Gania, left alone, clutched his head with his hands.
“One word from her,” he said, “one word from her, and I may yet be
free.”
He could not settle himself to his papers again, for agitation and
excitement, but began walking up and down the room from corner to
corner.
The prince walked along, musing. He did not like his commission, and
disliked the idea of Gania sending a note to Aglaya at all; but when he
was two rooms distant from the drawing-room, where they all were, he
stopped as though recalling something; went to the window, nearer the
light, and began to examine the portrait in his hand.
He longed to solve the mystery of something in the face of Nastasia
Philipovna, something which had struck him as he looked at the portrait
for the first time; the impression had not left him. It was partly the
fact of her marvellous beauty that struck him, and partly something
else. There was a suggestion of immense pride and disdain in the face
almost of hatred, and at the same time something confiding and very
full of simplicity. The contrast aroused a deep sympathy in his heart
as he looked at the lovely face. The blinding loveliness of it was
almost intolerable, this pale thin face with its flaming eyes; it was a
strange beauty.
The prince gazed at it for a minute or two, then glanced around him,
and hurriedly raised the portrait to his lips. When, a minute after, he
reached the drawing-room door, his face was quite composed. But just as
he reached the door he met Aglaya coming out alone.
“Gavrila Ardalionovitch begged me to give you this,” he said, handing
her the note.
Aglaya stopped, took the letter, and gazed strangely into the prince’s
eyes. There was no confusion in her face; a little surprise, perhaps,
but that was all. By her look she seemed merely to challenge the prince
to an explanation as to how he and Gania happened to be connected in
this matter. But her expression was perfectly cool and quiet, and even
condescending.
So they stood for a moment or two, confronting one another. At length a
faint smile passed over her face, and she passed by him without a word.
Mrs. Epanchin examined the portrait of Nastasia Philipovna for some
little while, holding it critically at arm’s length.
“Yes, she is pretty,” she said at last, “even very pretty. I have seen
her twice, but only at a distance. So you admire this kind of beauty,
do you?” she asked the prince, suddenly.
“Yes, I do—this kind.”
“Do you mean especially this kind?”
“Yes, especially this kind.”
“Why?”
“There is much suffering in this face,” murmured the prince, more as
though talking to himself than answering the question.
“I think you are wandering a little, prince,” Mrs. Epanchin decided,
after a lengthened survey of his face; and she tossed the portrait on
to the table, haughtily.
Alexandra took it, and Adelaida came up, and both the girls examined
the photograph. Just then Aglaya entered the room.
“What a power!” cried Adelaida suddenly, as she earnestly examined the
portrait over her sister’s shoulder.
“Whom? What power?” asked her mother, crossly.
“Such beauty is real power,” said Adelaida. “With such beauty as that
one might overthrow the world.” She returned to her easel thoughtfully.
Aglaya merely glanced at the portrait—frowned, and put out her
underlip; then went and sat down on the sofa with folded hands. Mrs.
Epanchin rang the bell.
“Ask Gavrila Ardalionovitch to step this way,” said she to the man who
answered.
“Mamma!” cried Alexandra, significantly.
“I shall just say two words to him, that’s all,” said her mother,
silencing all objection by her manner; she was evidently seriously put
out. “You see, prince, it is all secrets with us, just now—all secrets.
It seems to be the etiquette of the house, for some reason or other.
Stupid nonsense, and in a matter which ought to be approached with all
candour and open-heartedness. There is a marriage being talked of, and
I don’t like this marriage—”
“Mamma, what are you saying?” said Alexandra again, hurriedly.
“Well, what, my dear girl? As if you can possibly like it yourself? The
heart is the great thing, and the rest is all rubbish—though one must
have sense as well. Perhaps sense is really the great thing. Don’t
smile like that, Aglaya. I don’t contradict myself. A fool with a heart
and no brains is just as unhappy as a fool with brains and no heart. I
am one and you are the other, and therefore both of us suffer, both of
us are unhappy.”
“Why are you so unhappy, mother?” asked Adelaida, who alone of all the
company seemed to have preserved her good temper and spirits up to now.
“In the first place, because of my carefully brought-up daughters,”
said Mrs. Epanchin, cuttingly; “and as that is the best reason I can
give you we need not bother about any other at present. Enough of
words, now! We shall see how both of you (I don’t count Aglaya) will
manage your business, and whether you, most revered Alexandra Ivanovna,
will be happy with your fine mate.”
“Ah!” she added, as Gania suddenly entered the room, “here’s another
marrying subject. How do you do?” she continued, in response to Gania’s
bow; but she did not invite him to sit down. “You are going to be
married?”
“Married? how—what marriage?” murmured Gania, overwhelmed with
confusion.
“Are you about to take a wife? I ask,—if you prefer that expression.”
“No, no I—I—no!” said Gania, bringing out his lie with a tell-tale
blush of shame. He glanced keenly at Aglaya, who was sitting some way
off, and dropped his eyes immediately.
Aglaya gazed coldly, intently, and composedly at him, without taking
her eyes off his face, and watched his confusion.
“No? You say no, do you?” continued the pitiless Mrs. General. “Very
well, I shall remember that you told me this Wednesday morning, in
answer to my question, that you are not going to be married. What day
is it, Wednesday, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I think so!” said Adelaida.
“You never know the day of the week; what’s the day of the month?”
“Twenty-seventh!” said Gania.
“Twenty-seventh; very well. Good-bye now; you have a good deal to do,
I’m sure, and I must dress and go out. Take your portrait. Give my
respects to your unfortunate mother, Nina Alexandrovna. _Au revoir_,
dear prince, come in and see us often, do; and I shall tell old
Princess Bielokonski about you. I shall go and see her on purpose. And
listen, my dear boy, I feel sure that God has sent you to Petersburg
from Switzerland on purpose for me. Maybe you will have other things to
do, besides, but you are sent chiefly for my sake, I feel sure of it.
God sent you to me! _Au revoir!_ Alexandra, come with me, my dear.”
Mrs. Epanchin left the room.
Gania—confused, annoyed, furious—took up his portrait, and turned to
the prince with a nasty smile on his face.
“Prince,” he said, “I am just going home. If you have not changed your
mind as to living with us, perhaps you would like to come with me. You
don’t know the address, I believe?”
“Wait a minute, prince,” said Aglaya, suddenly rising from her seat,
“do write something in my album first, will you? Father says you are a
most talented caligraphist; I’ll bring you my book in a minute.” She
left the room.
“Well, _au revoir_, prince,” said Adelaida, “I must be going too.” She
pressed the prince’s hand warmly, and gave him a friendly smile as she
left the room. She did not so much as look at Gania.
“This is your doing, prince,” said Gania, turning on the latter so soon
as the others were all out of the room. “This is your doing, sir! _You_
have been telling them that I am going to be married!” He said this in
a hurried whisper, his eyes flashing with rage and his face ablaze.
“You shameless tattler!”
“I assure you, you are under a delusion,” said the prince, calmly and
politely. “I did not even know that you were to be married.”
“You heard me talking about it, the general and me. You heard me say
that everything was to be settled today at Nastasia Philipovna’s, and
you went and blurted it out here. You lie if you deny it. Who else
could have told them? Devil take it, sir, who could have told them
except yourself? Didn’t the old woman as good as hint as much to me?”
“If she hinted to you who told her you must know best, of course; but I
never said a word about it.”
“Did you give my note? Is there an answer?” interrupted Gania,
impatiently.
But at this moment Aglaya came back, and the prince had no time to
reply.
“There, prince,” said she, “there’s my album. Now choose a page and
write me something, will you? There’s a pen, a new one; do you mind a
steel one? I have heard that you caligraphists don’t like steel pens.”
Conversing with the prince, Aglaya did not even seem to notice that
Gania was in the room. But while the prince was getting his pen ready,
finding a page, and making his preparations to write, Gania came up to
the fireplace where Aglaya was standing, to the right of the prince,
and in trembling, broken accents said, almost in her ear:
“One word, just one word from you, and I’m saved.”
The prince turned sharply round and looked at both of them. Gania’s
face was full of real despair; he seemed to have said the words almost
unconsciously and on the impulse of the moment.
Aglaya gazed at him for some seconds with precisely the same composure
and calm astonishment as she had shown a little while before, when the
prince handed her the note, and it appeared that this calm surprise and
seemingly absolute incomprehension of what was said to her, were more
terribly overwhelming to Gania than even the most plainly expressed
disdain would have been.
“What shall I write?” asked the prince.
“I’ll dictate to you,” said Aglaya, coming up to the table. “Now then,
are you ready? Write, ‘I never condescend to bargain!’ Now put your
name and the date. Let me see it.”
The prince handed her the album.
“Capital! How beautifully you have written it! Thanks so much. _Au
revoir_, prince. Wait a minute,” she added, “I want to give you
something for a keepsake. Come with me this way, will you?”
The prince followed her. Arrived at the dining-room, she stopped.
“Read this,” she said, handing him Gania’s note.
The prince took it from her hand, but gazed at her in bewilderment.
“Oh! I _know_ you haven’t read it, and that you could never be that
man’s accomplice. Read it, I wish you to read it.”
The letter had evidently been written in a hurry:
“My fate is to be decided today” (it ran), “you know how. This day I
must give my word irrevocably. I have no right to ask your help, and I
dare not allow myself to indulge in any hopes; but once you said just
one word, and that word lighted up the night of my life, and became the
beacon of my days. Say one more such word, and save me from utter ruin.
Only tell me, ‘break off the whole thing!’ and I will do so this very
day. Oh! what can it cost you to say just this one word? In doing so
you will but be giving me a sign of your sympathy for me, and of your
pity; only this, only this; nothing more, _nothing_. I dare not indulge
in any hope, because I am unworthy of it. But if you say but this word,
I will take up my cross again with joy, and return once more to my
battle with poverty. I shall meet the storm and be glad of it; I shall
rise up with renewed strength.
“Send me back then this one word of sympathy, only sympathy, I
swear to you; and oh! do not be angry with the audacity of despair,
with the drowning man who has dared to make this last effort to
save himself from perishing beneath the waters.
“G.L.”
“This man assures me,” said Aglaya, scornfully, when the prince had
finished reading the letter, “that the words ‘break off everything’ do
not commit me to anything whatever; and himself gives me a written
guarantee to that effect, in this letter. Observe how ingenuously he
underlines certain words, and how crudely he glosses over his hidden
thoughts. He must know that if he ‘broke off everything,’ _first_, by
himself, and without telling me a word about it or having the slightest
hope on my account, that in that case I should perhaps be able to
change my opinion of him, and even accept his—friendship. He must know
that, but his soul is such a wretched thing. He knows it and cannot
make up his mind; he knows it and yet asks for guarantees. He cannot
bring himself to _trust_, he wants me to give him hopes of myself
before he lets go of his hundred thousand roubles. As to the ‘former
word’ which he declares ‘lighted up the night of his life,’ he is
simply an impudent liar; I merely pitied him once. But he is audacious
and shameless. He immediately began to hope, at that very moment. I saw
it. He has tried to catch me ever since; he is still fishing for me.
Well, enough of this. Take the letter and give it back to him, as soon
as you have left our house; not before, of course.”
“And what shall I tell him by way of answer?”
“Nothing—of course! That’s the best answer. Is it the case that you are
going to live in his house?”
“Yes, your father kindly recommended me to him.”
“Then look out for him, I warn you! He won’t forgive you easily, for
taking back the letter.”
Aglaya pressed the prince’s hand and left the room. Her face was
serious and frowning; she did not even smile as she nodded good-bye to
him at the door.
“I’ll just get my parcel and we’ll go,” said the prince to Gania, as he
re-entered the drawing-room. Gania stamped his foot with impatience.
His face looked dark and gloomy with rage.
At last they left the house behind them, the prince carrying his
bundle.
“The answer—quick—the answer!” said Gania, the instant they were
outside. “What did she say? Did you give the letter?” The prince
silently held out the note. Gania was struck motionless with amazement.
“How, what? my letter?” he cried. “He never delivered it! I might have
guessed it, oh! curse him! Of course she did not understand what I
meant, naturally! Why—why—_why_ didn’t you give her the note, you—”
“Excuse me; I was able to deliver it almost immediately after receiving
your commission, and I gave it, too, just as you asked me to. It has
come into my hands now because Aglaya Ivanovna has just returned it to
me.”
“How? When?”
“As soon as I finished writing in her album for her, and when she asked
me to come out of the room with her (you heard?), we went into the
dining-room, and she gave me your letter to read, and then told me to
return it.”
“To _read?_” cried Gania, almost at the top of his voice; “to _read_,
and you read it?”
And again he stood like a log in the middle of the pavement; so amazed
that his mouth remained open after the last word had left it.
“Yes, I have just read it.”
“And she gave it you to read herself—_herself?_”
“Yes, herself; and you may believe me when I tell you that I would not
have read it for anything without her permission.”
Gania was silent for a minute or two, as though thinking out some
problem. Suddenly he cried:
“It’s impossible, she cannot have given it to you to read! You are
lying. You read it yourself!”
“I am telling you the truth,” said the prince in his former composed
tone of voice; “and believe me, I am extremely sorry that the
circumstance should have made such an unpleasant impression upon you!”
“But, you wretched man, at least she must have said something? There
must be _some_ answer from her!”
“Yes, of course, she did say something!”
“Out with it then, damn it! Out with it at once!” and Gania stamped his
foot twice on the pavement.
“As soon as I had finished reading it, she told me that you were
fishing for her; that you wished to compromise her so far as to receive
some hopes from her, trusting to which hopes you might break with the
prospect of receiving a hundred thousand roubles. She said that if you
had done this without bargaining with her, if you had broken with the
money prospects without trying to force a guarantee out of her first,
she might have been your friend. That’s all, I think. Oh no, when I
asked her what I was to say, as I took the letter, she replied that ‘no
answer is the best answer.’ I think that was it. Forgive me if I do not
use her exact expressions. I tell you the sense as I understood it
myself.”
Ungovernable rage and madness took entire possession of Gania, and his
fury burst out without the least attempt at restraint.
“Oh! that’s it, is it!” he yelled. “She throws my letters out of the
window, does she! Oh! and she does not condescend to bargain, while I
_do_, eh? We shall see, we shall see! I shall pay her out for this.”
He twisted himself about with rage, and grew paler and paler; he shook
his fist. So the pair walked along a few steps. Gania did not stand on
ceremony with the prince; he behaved just as though he were alone in
his room. He clearly counted the latter as a nonentity. But suddenly he
seemed to have an idea, and recollected himself.
“But how was it?” he asked, “how was it that you (idiot that you are),”
he added to himself, “were so very confidential a couple of hours after
your first meeting with these people? How was that, eh?”
Up to this moment jealousy had not been one of his torments; now it
suddenly gnawed at his heart.
“That is a thing I cannot undertake to explain,” replied the prince.
Gania looked at him with angry contempt.
“Oh! I suppose the present she wished to make to you, when she took you
into the dining-room, was her confidence, eh?”
“I suppose that was it; I cannot explain it otherwise.”
“But why, _why?_ Devil take it, what did you do in there? Why did they
fancy you? Look here, can’t you remember exactly what you said to them,
from the very beginning? Can’t you remember?”
“Oh, we talked of a great many things. When first I went in we began to
speak of Switzerland.”
“Oh, the devil take Switzerland!”
“Then about executions.”
“Executions?”
“Yes—at least about one. Then I told the whole three years’ story of my
life, and the history of a poor peasant girl—”
“Oh, damn the peasant girl! go on, go on!” said Gania, impatiently.
“Then how Schneider told me about my childish nature, and—”
“Oh, _curse_ Schneider and his dirty opinions! Go on.”
“Then I began to talk about faces, at least about the _expressions_ of
faces, and said that Aglaya Ivanovna was nearly as lovely as Nastasia
Philipovna. It was then I blurted out about the portrait—”
“But you didn’t repeat what you heard in the study? You didn’t repeat
that—eh?”
“No, I tell you I did _not_.”
“Then how did they—look here! Did Aglaya show my letter to the old
lady?”
“Oh, there I can give you my fullest assurance that she did _not_. I
was there all the while—she had no time to do it!”
“But perhaps you may not have observed it, oh, you damned idiot, you!”
he shouted, quite beside himself with fury. “You can’t even describe
what went on.”
Gania having once descended to abuse, and receiving no check, very soon
knew no bounds or limit to his licence, as is often the way in such
cases. His rage so blinded him that he had not even been able to detect
that this “idiot,” whom he was abusing to such an extent, was very far
from being slow of comprehension, and had a way of taking in an
impression, and afterwards giving it out again, which was very
un-idiotic indeed. But something a little unforeseen now occurred.
“I think I ought to tell you, Gavrila Ardalionovitch,” said the prince,
suddenly, “that though I once was so ill that I really was little
better than an idiot, yet now I am almost recovered, and that,
therefore, it is not altogether pleasant to be called an idiot to my
face. Of course your anger is excusable, considering the treatment you
have just experienced; but I must remind you that you have twice abused
me rather rudely. I do not like this sort of thing, and especially so
at the first time of meeting a man, and, therefore, as we happen to be
at this moment standing at a crossroad, don’t you think we had better
part, you to the left, homewards, and I to the right, here? I have
twenty-five roubles, and I shall easily find a lodging.”
Gania was much confused, and blushed for shame “Do forgive me, prince!”
he cried, suddenly changing his abusive tone for one of great courtesy.
“For Heaven’s sake, forgive me! You see what a miserable plight I am
in, but you hardly know anything of the facts of the case as yet. If
you did, I am sure you would forgive me, at least partially. Of course
it was inexcusable of me, I know, but—”
“Oh, dear me, I really do not require such profuse apologies,” replied
the prince, hastily. “I quite understand how unpleasant your position
is, and that is what made you abuse me. So come along to your house,
after all. I shall be delighted—”
“I am not going to let him go like this,” thought Gania, glancing
angrily at the prince as they walked along. “The fellow has sucked
everything out of me, and now he takes off his mask—there’s something
more than appears, here we shall see. It shall all be as clear as water
by tonight, everything!”
But by this time they had reached Gania’s house.
VIII.
The flat occupied by Gania and his family was on the third floor of the
house. It was reached by a clean light staircase, and consisted of
seven rooms, a nice enough lodging, and one would have thought a little
too good for a clerk on two thousand roubles a year. But it was
designed to accommodate a few lodgers on board terms, and had been
taken a few months since, much to the disgust of Gania, at the urgent
request of his mother and his sister, Varvara Ardalionovna, who longed
to do something to increase the family income a little, and fixed their
hopes upon letting lodgings. Gania frowned upon the idea. He thought it
_infra dig_, and did not quite like appearing in society
afterwards—that society in which he had been accustomed to pose up to
now as a young man of rather brilliant prospects. All these concessions
and rebuffs of fortune, of late, had wounded his spirit severely, and
his temper had become extremely irritable, his wrath being generally
quite out of proportion to the cause. But if he had made up his mind to
put up with this sort of life for a while, it was only on the plain
understanding with his inner self that he would very soon change it
all, and have things as he chose again. Yet the very means by which he
hoped to make this change threatened to involve him in even greater
difficulties than he had had before.
The flat was divided by a passage which led straight out of the
entrance-hall. Along one side of this corridor lay the three rooms
which were designed for the accommodation of the “highly recommended”
lodgers. Besides these three rooms there was another small one at the
end of the passage, close to the kitchen, which was allotted to General
Ivolgin, the nominal master of the house, who slept on a wide sofa, and
was obliged to pass into and out of his room through the kitchen, and
up or down the back stairs. Colia, Gania’s young brother, a school-boy
of thirteen, shared this room with his father. He, too, had to sleep on
an old sofa, a narrow, uncomfortable thing with a torn rug over it; his
chief duty being to look after his father, who needed to be watched
more and more every day.
The prince was given the middle room of the three, the first being
occupied by one Ferdishenko, while the third was empty.