“He is sorry for his sins now, prince,” cried Keller. “He did not want

to let you know he was here; he was hidden over there in the

corner,—but he repents now, he feels his guilt.”

“Why, what has he done?”

“I met him outside and brought him in—he’s a gentleman who doesn’t

often allow his friends to see him, of late—but he’s sorry now.”

“Delighted, I’m sure!—I’ll come back directly, gentlemen,—sit down

there with the others, please,—excuse me one moment,” said the host,

getting away with difficulty in order to follow Evgenie.

“You are very gay here,” began the latter, “and I have had quite a

pleasant half-hour while I waited for you. Now then, my dear Lef

Nicolaievitch, this is what’s the matter. I’ve arranged it all with

Moloftsoff, and have just come in to relieve your mind on that score.

You need be under no apprehensions. He was very sensible, as he should

be, of course, for I think he was entirely to blame himself.”

“What Moloftsoff?”

“The young fellow whose arms you held, don’t you know? He was so wild

with you that he was going to send a friend to you tomorrow morning.”

“What nonsense!”

“Of course it is nonsense, and in nonsense it would have ended,

doubtless; but you know these fellows, they—”

“Excuse me, but I think you must have something else that you wished to

speak about, Evgenie Pavlovitch?”

“Of course, I have!” said the other, laughing. “You see, my dear

fellow, tomorrow, very early in the morning, I must be off to town

about this unfortunate business (my uncle, you know!). Just imagine, my

dear sir, it is all true—word for word—and, of course, everybody knew

it excepting myself. All this has been such a blow to me that I have

not managed to call in at the Epanchins’. Tomorrow I shall not see them

either, because I shall be in town. I may not be here for three days or

more; in a word, my affairs are a little out of gear. But though my

town business is, of course, most pressing, still I determined not to

go away until I had seen you, and had a clear understanding with you

upon certain points; and that without loss of time. I will wait now, if

you will allow me, until the company departs; I may just as well, for I

have nowhere else to go to, and I shall certainly not do any sleeping

tonight; I’m far too excited. And finally, I must confess that, though

I know it is bad form to pursue a man in this way, I have come to beg

your friendship, my dear prince. You are an unusual sort of a person;

you don’t lie at every step, as some men do; in fact, you don’t lie at

all, and there is a matter in which I need a true and sincere friend,

for I really may claim to be among the number of bona fide unfortunates

just now.”

He laughed again.

“But the trouble is,” said the prince, after a slight pause for

reflection, “that goodness only knows when this party will break up.

Hadn’t we better stroll into the park? I’ll excuse myself, there’s no

danger of their going away.”

“No, no! I have my reasons for wishing them not to suspect us of being

engaged in any specially important conversation. There are gentry

present who are a little too much interested in us. You are not aware

of that perhaps, prince? It will be a great deal better if they see

that we are friendly just in an ordinary way. They’ll all go in a

couple of hours, and then I’ll ask you to give me twenty minutes—half

an hour at most.”

“By all means! I assure you I am delighted—you need not have entered

into all these explanations. As for your remarks about friendship with

me—thanks, very much indeed. You must excuse my being a little absent

this evening. Do you know, I cannot somehow be attentive to anything

just now?”

“I see, I see,” said Evgenie, smiling gently. His mirth seemed very

near the surface this evening.

“What do you see?” said the prince, startled.

“I don’t want you to suspect that I have simply come here to deceive

you and pump information out of you!” said Evgenie, still smiling, and

without making any direct reply to the question.

“Oh, but I haven’t the slightest doubt that you did come to pump me,”

said the prince, laughing himself, at last; “and I dare say you are

quite prepared to deceive me too, so far as that goes. But what of

that? I’m not afraid of you; besides, you’ll hardly believe it, I feel

as though I really didn’t care a scrap one way or the other, just

now!—And—and—and as you are a capital fellow, I am convinced of that, I

dare say we really shall end by being good friends. I like you very

much Evgenie Pavlovitch; I consider you a very good fellow indeed.”

“Well, in any case, you are a most delightful man to have to deal with,

be the business what it may,” concluded Evgenie. “Come along now, I’ll

drink a glass to your health. I’m charmed to have entered into alliance

with you. By-the-by,” he added suddenly, “has this young Hippolyte come

down to stay with you?”

“Yes.”

“He’s not going to die at once, I should think, is he?”

“Why?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I’ve been half an hour here with him, and he—”

Hippolyte had been waiting for the prince all this time, and had never

ceased looking at him and Evgenie Pavlovitch as they conversed in the

corner. He became much excited when they approached the table once

more. He was disturbed in his mind, it seemed; perspiration stood in

large drops on his forehead; in his gleaming eyes it was easy to read

impatience and agitation; his gaze wandered from face to face of those

present, and from object to object in the room, apparently without aim.

He had taken a part, and an animated one, in the noisy conversation of

the company; but his animation was clearly the outcome of fever. His

talk was almost incoherent; he would break off in the middle of a

sentence which he had begun with great interest, and forget what he had

been saying. The prince discovered to his dismay that Hippolyte had

been allowed to drink two large glasses of champagne; the one now

standing by him being the third. All this he found out afterwards; at

the moment he did not notice anything, very particularly.

“Do you know I am specially glad that today is your birthday!” cried

Hippolyte.

“Why?”

“You’ll soon see. D’you know I had a feeling that there would be a lot

of people here tonight? It’s not the first time that my presentiments

have been fulfilled. I wish I had known it was your birthday, I’d have

brought you a present—perhaps I have got a present for you! Who knows?

Ha, ha! How long is it now before daylight?”

“Not a couple of hours,” said Ptitsin, looking at his watch. “What’s

the good of daylight now? One can read all night in the open air

without it,” said someone.

“The good of it! Well, I want just to see a ray of the sun,” said

Hippolyte. “Can one drink to the sun’s health, do you think, prince?”

“Oh, I dare say one can; but you had better be calm and lie down,

Hippolyte—that’s much more important.”

“You are always preaching about resting; you are a regular nurse to me,

prince. As soon as the sun begins to ‘resound’ in the sky—what poet

said that? ‘The sun resounded in the sky.’ It is beautiful, though

there’s no sense in it!—then we will go to bed. Lebedeff, tell me, is

the sun the source of life? What does the source, or ‘spring,’ of life

really mean in the Apocalypse? You have heard of the ‘Star that is

called Wormwood,’ prince?”

“I have heard that Lebedeff explains it as the railroads that cover

Europe like a net.”

Everybody laughed, and Lebedeff got up abruptly.

“No! Allow me, that is not what we are discussing!” he cried, waving

his hand to impose silence. “Allow me! With these gentlemen... all

these gentlemen,” he added, suddenly addressing the prince, “on certain

points... that is...” He thumped the table repeatedly, and the laughter

increased. Lebedeff was in his usual evening condition, and had just

ended a long and scientific argument, which had left him excited and

irritable. On such occasions he was apt to evince a supreme contempt

for his opponents.

“It is not right! Half an hour ago, prince, it was agreed among us that

no one should interrupt, no one should laugh, that each person was to

express his thoughts freely; and then at the end, when everyone had

spoken, objections might be made, even by the atheists. We chose the

general as president. Now without some such rule and order, anyone

might be shouted down, even in the loftiest and most profound

thought....”

“Go on! Go on! Nobody is going to interrupt you!” cried several voices.

“Speak, but keep to the point!”

“What is this ‘star’?” asked another.

“I have no idea,” replied General Ivolgin, who presided with much

gravity.

“I love these arguments, prince,” said Keller, also more than half

intoxicated, moving restlessly in his chair. “Scientific and

political.” Then, turning suddenly towards Evgenie Pavlovitch, who was

seated near him: “Do you know, I simply adore reading the accounts of

the debates in the English parliament. Not that the discussions

themselves interest me; I am not a politician, you know; but it

delights me to see how they address each other ‘the noble lord who

agrees with me,’ ‘my honourable opponent who astonished Europe with his

proposal,’ ‘the noble viscount sitting opposite’—all these expressions,

all this parliamentarism of a free people, has an enormous attraction

for me. It fascinates me, prince. I have always been an artist in the

depths of my soul, I assure you, Evgenie Pavlovitch.”

“Do you mean to say,” cried Gania, from the other corner, “do you mean

to say that railways are accursed inventions, that they are a source of

ruin to humanity, a poison poured upon the earth to corrupt the springs

of life?”

Gavrila Ardalionovitch was in high spirits that evening, and it seemed

to the prince that his gaiety was mingled with triumph. Of course he

was only joking with Lebedeff, meaning to egg him on, but he grew

excited himself at the same time.

“Not the railways, oh dear, no!” replied Lebedeff, with a mixture of

violent anger and extreme enjoyment. “Considered alone, the railways

will not pollute the springs of life, but as a whole they are accursed.

The whole tendency of our latest centuries, in its scientific and

materialistic aspect, is most probably accursed.”

“Is it certainly accursed?... or do you only mean it might be? That is

an important point,” said Evgenie Pavlovitch.

“It is accursed, certainly accursed!” replied the clerk, vehemently.

“Don’t go so fast, Lebedeff; you are much milder in the morning,” said

Ptitsin, smiling.

“But, on the other hand, more frank in the evening! In the evening

sincere and frank,” repeated Lebedeff, earnestly. “More candid, more

exact, more honest, more honourable, and... although I may show you my

weak side, I challenge you all; you atheists, for instance! How are you

going to save the world? How find a straight road of progress, you men

of science, of industry, of cooperation, of trades unions, and all the

rest? How are you going to save it, I say? By what? By credit? What is

credit? To what will credit lead you?”

“You are too inquisitive,” remarked Evgenie Pavlovitch.

“Well, anyone who does not interest himself in questions such as this

is, in my opinion, a mere fashionable dummy.”

“But it will lead at least to solidarity, and balance of interests,”

said Ptitsin.

“You will reach that with nothing to help you but credit? Without

recourse to any moral principle, having for your foundation only

individual selfishness, and the satisfaction of material desires?

Universal peace, and the happiness of mankind as a whole, being the

result! Is it really so that I may understand you, sir?”

“But the universal necessity of living, of drinking, of eating—in

short, the whole scientific conviction that this necessity can only be

satisfied by universal co-operation and the solidarity of interests—is,

it seems to me, a strong enough idea to serve as a basis, so to speak,

and a ‘spring of life,’ for humanity in future centuries,” said Gavrila

Ardalionovitch, now thoroughly roused.

“The necessity of eating and drinking, that is to say, solely the

instinct of self-preservation...”

“Is not that enough? The instinct of self-preservation is the normal

law of humanity...”

“Who told you that?” broke in Evgenie Pavlovitch.

“It is a law, doubtless, but a law neither more nor less normal than

that of destruction, even self-destruction. Is it possible that the

whole normal law of humanity is contained in this sentiment of

self-preservation?”

“Ah!” cried Hippolyte, turning towards Evgenie Pavlovitch, and looking

at him with a queer sort of curiosity.

Then seeing that Radomski was laughing, he began to laugh himself,

nudged Colia, who was sitting beside him, with his elbow, and again

asked what time it was. He even pulled Colia’s silver watch out of his

hand, and looked at it eagerly. Then, as if he had forgotten

everything, he stretched himself out on the sofa, put his hands behind

his head, and looked up at the sky. After a minute or two he got up and

came back to the table to listen to Lebedeff’s outpourings, as the

latter passionately commentated on Evgenie Pavlovitch’s paradox.

“That is an artful and traitorous idea. A smart notion,” vociferated

the clerk, “thrown out as an apple of discord. But it is just. You are

a scoffer, a man of the world, a cavalry officer, and, though not

without brains, you do not realize how profound is your thought, nor

how true. Yes, the laws of self-preservation and of self-destruction

are equally powerful in this world. The devil will hold his empire over

humanity until a limit of time which is still unknown. You laugh? You

do not believe in the devil? Scepticism as to the devil is a French

idea, and it is also a frivolous idea. Do you know who the devil is? Do

you know his name? Although you don’t know his name you make a mockery

of his form, following the example of Voltaire. You sneer at his hoofs,

at his tail, at his horns—all of them the produce of your imagination!

In reality the devil is a great and terrible spirit, with neither

hoofs, nor tail, nor horns; it is you who have endowed him with these

attributes! But... he is not the question just now!”

“How do you know he is not the question now?” cried Hippolyte, laughing

hysterically.

“Another excellent idea, and worth considering!” replied Lebedeff.

“But, again, that is not the question. The question at this moment is

whether we have not weakened ‘the springs of life’ by the extension...”

“Of railways?” put in Colia eagerly.

“Not railways, properly speaking, presumptuous youth, but the general

tendency of which railways may be considered as the outward expression

and symbol. We hurry and push and hustle, for the good of humanity!

‘The world is becoming too noisy, too commercial!’ groans some solitary

thinker. ‘Undoubtedly it is, but the noise of waggons bearing bread to

starving humanity is of more value than tranquillity of soul,’ replies

another triumphantly, and passes on with an air of pride. As for me, I

don’t believe in these waggons bringing bread to humanity. For, founded

on no moral principle, these may well, even in the act of carrying

bread to humanity, coldly exclude a considerable portion of humanity

from enjoying it; that has been seen more than once.”

“What, these waggons may coldly exclude?” repeated someone.

“That has been seen already,” continued Lebedeff, not deigning to

notice the interruption. “Malthus was a friend of humanity, but, with

ill-founded moral principles, the friend of humanity is the devourer of

humanity, without mentioning his pride; for, touch the vanity of one of

these numberless philanthropists, and to avenge his self-esteem, he

will be ready at once to set fire to the whole globe; and to tell the

truth, we are all more or less like that. I, perhaps, might be the

first to set a light to the fuel, and then run away. But, again, I must

repeat, that is not the question.”

“What is it then, for goodness’ sake?”

“He is boring us!”

“The question is connected with the following anecdote of past times;

for I am obliged to relate a story. In our times, and in our country,

which I hope you love as much as I do, for as far as I am concerned, I

am ready to shed the last drop of my blood...

“Go on! Go on!”

“In our dear country, as indeed in the whole of Europe, a famine visits

humanity about four times a century, as far as I can remember; once in

every twenty-five years. I won’t swear to this being the exact figure,

but anyhow they have become comparatively rare.”

“Comparatively to what?”

“To the twelfth century, and those immediately preceding and following

it. We are told by historians that widespread famines occurred in those

days every two or three years, and such was the condition of things

that men actually had recourse to cannibalism, in secret, of course.

One of these cannibals, who had reached a good age, declared of his own

free will that during the course of his long and miserable life he had

personally killed and eaten, in the most profound secrecy, sixty monks,

not to mention several children; the number of the latter he thought

was about six, an insignificant total when compared with the enormous

mass of ecclesiastics consumed by him. As to adults, laymen that is to

say, he had never touched them.”

The president joined in the general outcry.

“That’s impossible!” said he in an aggrieved tone. “I am often

discussing subjects of this nature with him, gentlemen, but for the

most part he talks nonsense enough to make one deaf: this story has no

pretence of being true.”

“General, remember the siege of Kars! And you, gentlemen, I assure you

my anecdote is the naked truth. I may remark that reality, although it

is governed by invariable law, has at times a resemblance to falsehood.

In fact, the truer a thing is the less true it sounds.”

“But could anyone possibly eat sixty monks?” objected the scoffing

listeners.

“It is quite clear that he did not eat them all at once, but in a space

of fifteen or twenty years: from that point of view the thing is

comprehensible and natural...”

“Natural?”

“And natural,” repeated Lebedeff with pedantic obstinacy. “Besides, a

Catholic monk is by nature excessively curious; it would be quite easy

therefore to entice him into a wood, or some secret place, on false

pretences, and there to deal with him as said. But I do not dispute in

the least that the number of persons consumed appears to denote a spice

of greediness.”

“It is perhaps true, gentlemen,” said the prince, quietly. He had been

listening in silence up to that moment without taking part in the

conversation, but laughing heartily with the others from time to time.

Evidently he was delighted to see that everybody was amused, that

everybody was talking at once, and even that everybody was drinking. It

seemed as if he were not intending to speak at all, when suddenly he

intervened in such a serious voice that everyone looked at him with

interest.

“It is true that there were frequent famines at that time, gentlemen. I

have often heard of them, though I do not know much history. But it

seems to me that it must have been so. When I was in Switzerland I used

to look with astonishment at the many ruins of feudal castles perched

on the top of steep and rocky heights, half a mile at least above

sea-level, so that to reach them one had to climb many miles of stony

tracks. A castle, as you know, is, a kind of mountain of stones—a

dreadful, almost an impossible, labour! Doubtless the builders were all

poor men, vassals, and had to pay heavy taxes, and to keep up the

priesthood. How, then, could they provide for themselves, and when had

they time to plough and sow their fields? The greater number must,

literally, have died of starvation. I have sometimes asked myself how

it was that these communities were not utterly swept off the face of

the earth, and how they could possibly survive. Lebedeff is not

mistaken, in my opinion, when he says that there were cannibals in

those days, perhaps in considerable numbers; but I do not understand

why he should have dragged in the monks, nor what he means by that.”

“It is undoubtedly because, in the twelfth century, monks were the only

people one could eat; they were the fat, among many lean,” said Gavrila

Ardalionovitch.

“A brilliant idea, and most true!” cried Lebedeff, “for he never even

touched the laity. Sixty monks, and not a single layman! It is a

terrible idea, but it is historic, it is statistic; it is indeed one of

those facts which enables an intelligent historian to reconstruct the

physiognomy of a special epoch, for it brings out this further point

with mathematical accuracy, that the clergy were in those days sixty

times richer and more flourishing than the rest of humanity and perhaps

sixty times fatter also...”

“You are exaggerating, you are exaggerating, Lebedeff!” cried his

hearers, amid laughter.

“I admit that it is an historic thought, but what is your conclusion?”

asked the prince.

He spoke so seriously in addressing Lebedeff, that his tone contrasted

quite comically with that of the others. They were very nearly laughing

at him, too, but he did not notice it.

“Don’t you see he is a lunatic, prince?” whispered Evgenie Pavlovitch

in his ear. “Someone told me just now that he is a bit touched on the

subject of lawyers, that he has a mania for making speeches and intends

to pass the examinations. I am expecting a splendid burlesque now.”

“My conclusion is vast,” replied Lebedeff, in a voice like thunder.

“Let us examine first the psychological and legal position of the

criminal. We see that in spite of the difficulty of finding other food,

the accused, or, as we may say, my client, has often during his

peculiar life exhibited signs of repentance, and of wishing to give up

this clerical diet. Incontrovertible facts prove this assertion. He has

eaten five or six children, a relatively insignificant number, no

doubt, but remarkable enough from another point of view. It is manifest

that, pricked by remorse—for my client is religious, in his way, and

has a conscience, as I shall prove later—and desiring to extenuate his

sin as far as possible, he has tried six times at least to substitute

lay nourishment for clerical. That this was merely an experiment we can

hardly doubt: for if it had been only a question of gastronomic

variety, six would have been too few; why only six? Why not thirty? But

if we regard it as an experiment, inspired by the fear of committing

new sacrilege, then this number six becomes intelligible. Six attempts

to calm his remorse, and the pricking of his conscience, would amply

suffice, for these attempts could scarcely have been happy ones. In my

humble opinion, a child is too small; I should say, not sufficient;

which would result in four or five times more lay children than monks

being required in a given time. The sin, lessened on the one hand,

would therefore be increased on the other, in quantity, not in quality.

Please understand, gentlemen, that in reasoning thus, I am taking the

point of view which might have been taken by a criminal of the middle

ages. As for myself, a man of the late nineteenth century, I, of

course, should reason differently; I say so plainly, and therefore you

need not jeer at me nor mock me, gentlemen. As for you, general, it is

still more unbecoming on your part. In the second place, and giving my

own personal opinion, a child’s flesh is not a satisfying diet; it is

too insipid, too sweet; and the criminal, in making these experiments,

could have satisfied neither his conscience nor his appetite. I am

about to conclude, gentlemen; and my conclusion contains a reply to one

of the most important questions of that day and of our own! This

criminal ended at last by denouncing himself to the clergy, and giving

himself up to justice. We cannot but ask, remembering the penal system

of that day, and the tortures that awaited him—the wheel, the stake,

the fire!—we cannot but ask, I repeat, what induced him to accuse

himself of this crime? Why did he not simply stop short at the number

sixty, and keep his secret until his last breath? Why could he not

simply leave the monks alone, and go into the desert to repent? Or why

not become a monk himself? That is where the puzzle comes in! There

must have been something stronger than the stake or the fire, or even

than the habits of twenty years! There must have been an idea more

powerful than all the calamities and sorrows of this world, famine or

torture, leprosy or plague—an idea which entered into the heart,

directed and enlarged the springs of life, and made even that hell

supportable to humanity! Show me a force, a power like that, in this

our century of vices and railways! I might say, perhaps, in our century

of steamboats and railways, but I repeat in our century of vices and

railways, because I am drunk but truthful! Show me a single idea which

unites men nowadays with half the strength that it had in those

centuries, and dare to maintain that the ‘springs of life’ have not

been polluted and weakened beneath this ‘star,’ beneath this network in

which men are entangled! Don’t talk to me about your prosperity, your

riches, the rarity of famine, the rapidity of the means of transport!

There is more of riches, but less of force. The idea uniting heart and

soul to heart and soul exists no more. All is loose, soft, limp—we are

all of us limp.... Enough, gentlemen! I have done. That is not the

question. No, the question is now, excellency, I believe, to sit down

to the banquet you are about to provide for us!”

Lebedeff had roused great indignation in some of his auditors (it

should be remarked that the bottles were constantly uncorked during his

speech); but this unexpected conclusion calmed even the most turbulent

spirits. “That’s how a clever barrister makes a good point!” said he,

when speaking of his peroration later on. The visitors began to laugh

and chatter once again; the committee left their seats, and stretched

their legs on the terrace. Keller alone was still disgusted with

Lebedeff and his speech; he turned from one to another, saying in a

loud voice:

“He attacks education, he boasts of the fanaticism of the twelfth

century, he makes absurd grimaces, and added to that he is by no means

the innocent he makes himself out to be. How did he get the money to

buy this house, allow me to ask?”

In another corner was the general, holding forth to a group of hearers,

among them Ptitsin, whom he had buttonholed. “I have known,” said he,

“a real interpreter of the Apocalypse, the late Gregory Semeonovitch

Burmistroff, and he—he pierced the heart like a fiery flash! He began

by putting on his spectacles, then he opened a large black book; his

white beard, and his two medals on his breast, recalling acts of

charity, all added to his impressiveness. He began in a stern voice,

and before him generals, hard men of the world, bowed down, and ladies

fell to the ground fainting. But this one here—he ends by announcing a

banquet! That is not the real thing!”

Ptitsin listened and smiled, then turned as if to get his hat; but if

he had intended to leave, he changed his mind. Before the others had

risen from the table, Gania had suddenly left off drinking, and pushed

away his glass, a dark shadow seemed to come over his face. When they

all rose, he went and sat down by Rogojin. It might have been believed

that quite friendly relations existed between them. Rogojin, who had

also seemed on the point of going away now sat motionless, his head

bent, seeming to have forgotten his intention. He had drunk no wine,

and appeared absorbed in reflection. From time to time he raised his

eyes, and examined everyone present; one might have imagined that he

was expecting something very important to himself, and that he had

decided to wait for it. The prince had taken two or three glasses of

champagne, and seemed cheerful. As he rose he noticed Evgenie

Pavlovitch, and, remembering the appointment he had made with him,

smiled pleasantly. Evgenie Pavlovitch made a sign with his head towards

Hippolyte, whom he was attentively watching. The invalid was fast

asleep, stretched out on the sofa.

“Tell me, prince, why on earth did this boy intrude himself upon you?”

he asked, with such annoyance and irritation in his voice that the

prince was quite surprised. “I wouldn’t mind laying odds that he is up

to some mischief.”

“I have observed,” said the prince, “that he seems to be an object of

very singular interest to you, Evgenie Pavlovitch. Why is it?”

“You may add that I have surely enough to think of, on my own account,

without him; and therefore it is all the more surprising that I cannot

tear my eyes and thoughts away from his detestable physiognomy.”

“Oh, come! He has a handsome face.”

“Why, look at him—look at him now!”

The prince glanced again at Evgenie Pavlovitch with considerable

surprise.

V.

Hippolyte, who had fallen asleep during Lebedeff’s discourse, now

suddenly woke up, just as though someone had jogged him in the side. He

shuddered, raised himself on his arm, gazed around, and grew very pale.

A look almost of terror crossed his face as he recollected.

“What! are they all off? Is it all over? Is the sun up?” He trembled,

and caught at the prince’s hand. “What time is it? Tell me, quick, for

goodness’ sake! How long have I slept?” he added, almost in despair,

just as though he had overslept something upon which his whole fate

depended.

“You have slept seven or perhaps eight minutes,” said Evgenie

Pavlovitch.

Hippolyte gazed eagerly at the latter, and mused for a few moments.

“Oh, is that all?” he said at last. “Then I—”

He drew a long, deep breath of relief, as it seemed. He realized that

all was not over as yet, that the sun had not risen, and that the

guests had merely gone to supper. He smiled, and two hectic spots

appeared on his cheeks.

“So you counted the minutes while I slept, did you, Evgenie

Pavlovitch?” he said, ironically. “You have not taken your eyes off me

all the evening—I have noticed that much, you see! Ah, Rogojin! I’ve

just been dreaming about him, prince,” he added, frowning. “Yes, by the

by,” starting up, “where’s the orator? Where’s Lebedeff? Has he

finished? What did he talk about? Is it true, prince, that you once

declared that ‘beauty would save the world’? Great Heaven! The prince

says that beauty saves the world! And I declare that he only has such

playful ideas because he’s in love! Gentlemen, the prince is in love. I

guessed it the moment he came in. Don’t blush, prince; you make me

sorry for you. What beauty saves the world? Colia told me that you are

a zealous Christian; is it so? Colia says you call yourself a

Christian.”

The prince regarded him attentively, but said nothing.

“You don’t answer me; perhaps you think I am very fond of you?” added

Hippolyte, as though the words had been drawn from him.

“No, I don’t think that. I know you don’t love me.”

“What, after yesterday? Wasn’t I honest with you?”

“I knew yesterday that you didn’t love me.”

“Why so? why so? Because I envy you, eh? You always think that, I know.

But do you know why I am saying all this? Look here! I must have some

more champagne—pour me out some, Keller, will you?”

“No, you’re not to drink any more, Hippolyte. I won’t let you.” The

prince moved the glass away.

“Well perhaps you’re right,” said Hippolyte, musing. “They might

say—yet, devil take them! what does it matter?—prince, what can it

matter what people will say of us _then_, eh? I believe I’m half

asleep. I’ve had such a dreadful dream—I’ve only just remembered it.

Prince, I don’t wish you such dreams as that, though sure enough,

perhaps, I _don’t_ love you. Why wish a man evil, though you do not

love him, eh? Give me your hand—let me press it sincerely. There—you’ve

given me your hand—you must feel that I _do_ press it sincerely, don’t

you? I don’t think I shall drink any more. What time is it? Never mind,

I know the time. The time has come, at all events. What! they are

laying supper over there, are they? Then this table is free? Capital,

gentlemen! I—hem! these gentlemen are not listening. Prince, I will

just read over an article I have here. Supper is more interesting, of

course, but—”

Here Hippolyte suddenly, and most unexpectedly, pulled out of his

breast-pocket a large sealed paper. This imposing-looking document he

placed upon the table before him.

The effect of this sudden action upon the company was instantaneous.

Evgenie Pavlovitch almost bounded off his chair in excitement. Rogojin

drew nearer to the table with a look on his face as if he knew what was

coming. Gania came nearer too; so did Lebedeff and the others—the paper

seemed to be an object of great interest to the company in general.

“What have you got there?” asked the prince, with some anxiety.

“At the first glimpse of the rising sun, prince, I will go to bed. I

told you I would, word of honour! You shall see!” cried Hippolyte. “You

think I’m not capable of opening this packet, do you?” He glared

defiantly round at the audience in general.

The prince observed that he was trembling all over.

“None of us ever thought such a thing!” Muishkin replied for all. “Why

should you suppose it of us? And what are you going to read, Hippolyte?

What is it?”

“Yes, what is it?” asked others. The packet sealed with red wax seemed

to attract everyone, as though it were a magnet.

“I wrote this yesterday, myself, just after I saw you, prince, and told

you I would come down here. I wrote all day and all night, and finished

it this morning early. Afterwards I had a dream.”

“Hadn’t we better hear it tomorrow?” asked the prince timidly.

“Tomorrow ‘there will be no more time!’” laughed Hippolyte,

hysterically. “You needn’t be afraid; I shall get through the whole

thing in forty minutes, at most an hour! Look how interested everybody

is! Everybody has drawn near. Look! look at them all staring at my

sealed packet! If I hadn’t sealed it up it wouldn’t have been half so

effective! Ha, ha! that’s mystery, that is! Now then, gentlemen, shall

I break the seal or not? Say the word; it’s a mystery, I tell you—a

secret! Prince, you know who said there would be ‘no more time’? It was

the great and powerful angel in the Apocalypse.”

“Better not read it now,” said the prince, putting his hand on the

packet.

“No, don’t read it!” cried Evgenie suddenly. He appeared so strangely

disturbed that many of those present could not help wondering.

“Reading? None of your reading now!” said somebody; “it’s supper-time.”

“What sort of an article is it? For a paper? Probably it’s very dull,”

said another. But the prince’s timid gesture had impressed even

Hippolyte.

“Then I’m not to read it?” he whispered, nervously. “Am I not to read

it?” he repeated, gazing around at each face in turn. “What are you

afraid of, prince?” he turned and asked the latter suddenly.

“What should I be afraid of?”

“Has anyone a coin about them? Give me a twenty-copeck piece,

somebody!” And Hippolyte leapt from his chair.

“Here you are,” said Lebedeff, handing him one; he thought the boy had

gone mad.

“Vera Lukianovna,” said Hippolyte, “toss it, will you? Heads, I read,

tails, I don’t.”

Vera Lebedeff tossed the coin into the air and let it fall on the

table.

It was “heads.”

“Then I read it,” said Hippolyte, in the tone of one bowing to the fiat

of destiny. He could not have grown paler if a verdict of death had

suddenly been presented to him.

“But after all, what is it? Is it possible that I should have just

risked my fate by tossing up?” he went on, shuddering; and looked round

him again. His eyes had a curious expression of sincerity. “That is an

astonishing psychological fact,” he cried, suddenly addressing the

prince, in a tone of the most intense surprise. “It is... it is

something quite inconceivable, prince,” he repeated with growing

animation, like a man regaining consciousness. “Take note of it,

prince, remember it; you collect, I am told, facts concerning capital

punishment... They told me so. Ha, ha! My God, how absurd!” He sat down

on the sofa, put his elbows on the table, and laid his head on his

hands. “It is shameful—though what does it matter to me if it is

shameful?

“Gentlemen, gentlemen! I am about to break the seal,” he continued,

with determination. “I—I—of course I don’t insist upon anyone listening

if they do not wish to.”

With trembling fingers he broke the seal and drew out several sheets of

paper, smoothed them out before him, and began sorting them.

“What on earth does all this mean? What’s he going to read?” muttered

several voices. Others said nothing; but one and all sat down and

watched with curiosity. They began to think something strange might

really be about to happen. Vera stood and trembled behind her father’s

chair, almost in tears with fright; Colia was nearly as much alarmed as

she was. Lebedeff jumped up and put a couple of candles nearer to

Hippolyte, so that he might see better.

“Gentlemen, this—you’ll soon see what this is,” began Hippolyte, and

suddenly commenced his reading.

“It’s headed, ‘A Necessary Explanation,’ with the motto, ‘_Après moi le

déluge!_’ Oh, deuce take it all! Surely I can never have seriously

written such a silly motto as that? Look here, gentlemen, I beg to give

notice that all this is very likely terrible nonsense. It is only a few

ideas of mine. If you think that there is anything mysterious coming—or

in a word—”

“Better read on without any more beating about the bush,” said Gania.

“Affectation!” remarked someone else.

“Too much talk,” said Rogojin, breaking the silence for the first time.

Hippolyte glanced at him suddenly, and when their eyes met Rogojin

showed his teeth in a disagreeable smile, and said the following

strange words: “That’s not the way to settle this business, my friend;

that’s not the way at all.”

Of course nobody knew what Rogojin meant by this; but his words made a

deep impression upon all. Everyone seemed to see in a flash the same

idea.

As for Hippolyte, their effect upon him was astounding. He trembled so

that the prince was obliged to support him, and would certainly have

cried out, but that his voice seemed to have entirely left him for the

moment. For a minute or two he could not speak at all, but panted and

stared at Rogojin. At last he managed to ejaculate:

“Then it was _you_ who came—_you_—_you?_”

“Came where? What do you mean?” asked Rogojin, amazed. But Hippolyte,

panting and choking with excitement, interrupted him violently.

“_You_ came to me last week, in the night, at two o’clock, the day I

was with you in the morning! Confess it was you!”

“Last week? In the night? Have you gone cracked, my good friend?”

Hippolyte paused and considered a moment. Then a smile of

cunning—almost triumph—crossed his lips.

“It was you,” he murmured, almost in a whisper, but with absolute

conviction. “Yes, it was you who came to my room and sat silently on a

chair at my window for a whole hour—more! It was between one and two at

night; you rose and went out at about three. It was you, you! Why you

should have frightened me so, why you should have wished to torment me

like that, I cannot tell—but you it was.”

There was absolute hatred in his eyes as he said this, but his look of

fear and his trembling had not left him.

“You shall hear all this directly, gentlemen. I—I—listen!”

He seized his paper in a desperate hurry; he fidgeted with it, and

tried to sort it, but for a long while his trembling hands could not

collect the sheets together. “He’s either mad or delirious,” murmured

Rogojin. At last he began.

For the first five minutes the reader’s voice continued to tremble, and

he read disconnectedly and unevenly; but gradually his voice

strengthened. Occasionally a violent fit of coughing stopped him, but

his animation grew with the progress of the reading—as did also the

disagreeable impression which it made upon his audience,—until it

reached the highest pitch of excitement.

Here is the article.

MY NECESSARY EXPLANATION.

“_Après moi le déluge._

“Yesterday morning the prince came to see me. Among other things he

asked me to come down to his villa. I knew he would come and persuade

me to this step, and that he would adduce the argument that it would be

easier for me to die ‘among people and green trees,’—as he expressed

it. But today he did not say ‘die,’ he said ‘live.’ It is pretty much

the same to me, in my position, which he says. When I asked him why he

made such a point of his ‘green trees,’ he told me, to my astonishment,

that he had heard that last time I was in Pavlofsk I had said that I

had come ‘to have a last look at the trees.’

“When I observed that it was all the same whether one died among trees

or in front of a blank brick wall, as here, and that it was not worth

making any fuss over a fortnight, he agreed at once. But he insisted

that the good air at Pavlofsk and the greenness would certainly cause a

physical change for the better, and that my excitement, and my

_dreams_, would be perhaps relieved. I remarked to him, with a smile,

that he spoke like a materialist, and he answered that he had always

been one. As he never tells a lie, there must be something in his

words. His smile is a pleasant one. I have had a good look at him. I

don’t know whether I like him or not; and I have no time to waste over

the question. The hatred which I felt for him for five months has

become considerably modified, I may say, during the last month. Who

knows, perhaps I am going to Pavlofsk on purpose to see him! But why do

I leave my chamber? Those who are sentenced to death should not leave

their cells. If I had not formed a final resolve, but had decided to

wait until the last minute, I should not leave my room, or accept his

invitation to come and die at Pavlofsk. I must be quick and finish this

explanation before tomorrow. I shall have no time to read it over and

correct it, for I must read it tomorrow to the prince and two or three

witnesses whom I shall probably find there.

“As it will be absolutely true, without a touch of falsehood, I am

curious to see what impression it will make upon me myself at the

moment when I read it out. This is my ‘last and solemn’—but why need I

call it that? There is no question about the truth of it, for it is not

worthwhile lying for a fortnight; a fortnight of life is not itself

worth having, which is a proof that I write nothing here but pure

truth.

(“N.B.—Let me remember to consider; am I mad at this moment, or not? or

rather at these moments? I have been told that consumptives sometimes

do go out of their minds for a while in the last stages of the malady.

I can prove this tomorrow when I read it out, by the impression it

makes upon the audience. I must settle this question once and for all,

otherwise I can’t go on with anything.)

“I believe I have just written dreadful nonsense; but there’s no time

for correcting, as I said before. Besides that, I have made myself a

promise not to alter a single word of what I write in this paper, even

though I find that I am contradicting myself every five lines. I wish

to verify the working of the natural logic of my ideas tomorrow during

the reading—whether I am capable of detecting logical errors, and

whether all that I have meditated over during the last six months be

true, or nothing but delirium.

“If two months since I had been called upon to leave my room and the

view of Meyer’s wall opposite, I verily believe I should have been

sorry. But now I have no such feeling, and yet I am leaving this room

and Meyer’s brick wall _for ever_. So that my conclusion, that it is

not worth while indulging in grief, or any other emotion, for a

fortnight, has proved stronger than my very nature, and has taken over

the direction of my feelings. But is it so? Is it the case that my

nature is conquered entirely? If I were to be put on the rack now, I

should certainly cry out. I should not say that it is not worth while

to yell and feel pain because I have but a fortnight to live.

“But is it true that I have but a fortnight of life left to me? I know

I told some of my friends that Doctor B. had informed me that this was

the case; but I now confess that I lied; B. has not even seen me.

However, a week ago, I called in a medical student, Kislorodoff, who is

a Nationalist, an Atheist, and a Nihilist, by conviction, and that is

why I had him. I needed a man who would tell me the bare truth without

any humbug or ceremony—and so he did—indeed, almost with pleasure

(which I thought was going a little too far).

“Well, he plumped out that I had about a month left me; it might be a

little more, he said, under favourable circumstances, but it might also

be considerably less. According to his opinion I might die quite

suddenly—tomorrow, for instance—there had been such cases. Only a day

or two since a young lady at Colomna who suffered from consumption, and

was about on a par with myself in the march of the disease, was going

out to market to buy provisions, when she suddenly felt faint, lay down

on the sofa, gasped once, and died.

“Kislorodoff told me all this with a sort of exaggerated devil-may-care

negligence, and as though he did me great honour by talking to me so,

because it showed that he considered me the same sort of exalted

Nihilistic being as himself, to whom death was a matter of no

consequence whatever, either way.

“At all events, the fact remained—a month of life and no more! That he

is right in his estimation I am absolutely persuaded.

“It puzzles me much to think how on earth the prince guessed yesterday

that I have had bad dreams. He said to me, ‘Your excitement and dreams

will find relief at Pavlofsk.’ Why did he say ‘dreams’? Either he is a

doctor, or else he is a man of exceptional intelligence and wonderful

powers of observation. (But that he is an ‘idiot,’ at bottom there can

be no doubt whatever.) It so happened that just before he arrived I had

a delightful little dream; one of a kind that I have hundreds of just

now. I had fallen asleep about an hour before he came in, and dreamed

that I was in some room, not my own. It was a large room, well

furnished, with a cupboard, chest of drawers, sofa, and my bed, a fine

wide bed covered with a silken counterpane. But I observed in the room

a dreadful-looking creature, a sort of monster. It was a little like a

scorpion, but was not a scorpion, but far more horrible, and especially

so, because there are no creatures anything like it in nature, and

because it had appeared to me for a purpose, and bore some mysterious

signification. I looked at the beast well; it was brown in colour and

had a shell; it was a crawling kind of reptile, about eight inches

long, and narrowed down from the head, which was about a couple of

fingers in width, to the end of the tail, which came to a fine point.

Out of its trunk, about a couple of inches below its head, came two

legs at an angle of forty-five degrees, each about three inches long,

so that the beast looked like a trident from above. It had eight hard

needle-like whiskers coming out from different parts of its body; it

went along like a snake, bending its body about in spite of the shell

it wore, and its motion was very quick and very horrible to look at. I

was dreadfully afraid it would sting me; somebody had told me, I

thought, that it was venomous; but what tormented me most of all was

the wondering and wondering as to who had sent it into my room, and

what was the mystery which I felt it contained.

“It hid itself under the cupboard and under the chest of drawers, and

crawled into the corners. I sat on a chair and kept my legs tucked

under me. Then the beast crawled quietly across the room and

disappeared somewhere near my chair. I looked about for it in terror,

but I still hoped that as my feet were safely tucked away it would not

be able to touch me.

“Suddenly I heard behind me, and about on a level with my head, a sort

of rattling sound. I turned sharp round and saw that the brute had

crawled up the wall as high as the level of my face, and that its

horrible tail, which was moving incredibly fast from side to side, was

actually touching my hair! I jumped up—and it disappeared. I did not

dare lie down on my bed for fear it should creep under my pillow. My

mother came into the room, and some friends of hers. They began to hunt

for the reptile and were more composed than I was; they did not seem to

be afraid of it. But they did not understand as I did.

“Suddenly the monster reappeared; it crawled slowly across the room and

made for the door, as though with some fixed intention, and with a slow

movement that was more horrible than ever.

“Then my mother opened the door and called my dog, Norma. Norma was a

great Newfoundland, and died five years ago.

“She sprang forward and stood still in front of the reptile as if she

had been turned to stone. The beast stopped too, but its tail and claws

still moved about. I believe animals are incapable of feeling

supernatural fright—if I have been rightly informed,—but at this moment

there appeared to me to be something more than ordinary about Norma’s

terror, as though it must be supernatural; and as though she felt, just

as I did myself, that this reptile was connected with some mysterious

secret, some fatal omen.

“Norma backed slowly and carefully away from the brute, which followed

her, creeping deliberately after her as though it intended to make a

sudden dart and sting her.

“In spite of Norma’s terror she looked furious, though she trembled in

all her limbs. At length she slowly bared her terrible teeth, opened

her great red jaws, hesitated—took courage, and seized the beast in her

mouth. It seemed to try to dart out of her jaws twice, but Norma caught

at it and half swallowed it as it was escaping. The shell cracked in

her teeth; and the tail and legs stuck out of her mouth and shook about

in a horrible manner. Suddenly Norma gave a piteous whine; the reptile

had bitten her tongue. She opened her mouth wide with the pain, and I

saw the beast lying across her tongue, and out of its body, which was

almost bitten in two, came a hideous white-looking substance, oozing

out into Norma’s mouth; it was of the consistency of a crushed

black-beetle. Just then I awoke and the prince entered the room.”

“Gentlemen!” said Hippolyte, breaking off here, “I have not done yet,

but it seems to me that I have written down a great deal here that is

unnecessary,—this dream—”

“You have indeed!” said Gania.

“There is too much about myself, I know, but—” As Hippolyte said this

his face wore a tired, pained look, and he wiped the sweat off his

brow.

“Yes,” said Lebedeff, “you certainly think a great deal too much about

yourself.”

“Well—gentlemen—I do not force anyone to listen! If any of you are

unwilling to sit it out, please go away, by all means!”

“He turns people out of a house that isn’t his own,” muttered Rogojin.

“Suppose we all go away?” said Ferdishenko suddenly.

Hippolyte clutched his manuscript, and gazing at the last speaker with

glittering eyes, said: “You don’t like me at all!” A few laughed at

this, but not all.

“Hippolyte,” said the prince, “give me the papers, and go to bed like a

sensible fellow. We’ll have a good talk tomorrow, but you really

mustn’t go on with this reading; it is not good for you!”

“How can I? How can I?” cried Hippolyte, looking at him in amazement.

“Gentlemen! I was a fool! I won’t break off again. Listen, everyone who

wants to!”

He gulped down some water out of a glass standing near, bent over the

table, in order to hide his face from the audience, and recommenced.

“The idea that it is not worth while living for a few weeks took

possession of me a month ago, when I was told that I had four weeks to

live, but only partially so at that time. The idea quite overmastered

me three days since, that evening at Pavlofsk. The first time that I

felt really impressed with this thought was on the terrace at the

prince’s, at the very moment when I had taken it into my head to make a

last trial of life. I wanted to see people and trees (I believe I said

so myself), I got excited, I maintained Burdovsky’s rights, ‘my

neighbour!’—I dreamt that one and all would open their arms, and

embrace me, that there would be an indescribable exchange of

forgiveness between us all! In a word, I behaved like a fool, and then,

at that very same instant, I felt my ‘last conviction.’ I ask myself

now how I could have waited six months for that conviction! I knew that

I had a disease that spares no one, and I really had no illusions; but

the more I realized my condition, the more I clung to life; I wanted to

live at any price. I confess I might well have resented that blind,

deaf fate, which, with no apparent reason, seemed to have decided to

crush me like a fly; but why did I not stop at resentment? Why did I

begin to live, knowing that it was not worthwhile to begin? Why did I

attempt to do what I knew to be an impossibility? And yet I could not

even read a book to the end; I had given up reading. What is the good

of reading, what is the good of learning anything, for just six months?

That thought has made me throw aside a book more than once.

“Yes, that wall of Meyer’s could tell a tale if it liked. There was no

spot on its dirty surface that I did not know by heart. Accursed wall!

and yet it is dearer to me than all the Pavlofsk trees!—That is—it

_would_ be dearer if it were not all the same to me, now!

“I remember now with what hungry interest I began to watch the lives of

other people—interest that I had never felt before! I used to wait for

Colia’s arrival impatiently, for I was so ill myself, then, that I

could not leave the house. I so threw myself into every little detail

of news, and took so much interest in every report and rumour, that I

believe I became a regular gossip! I could not understand, among other

things, how all these people—with so much life in and before them—do

not become _rich_—and I don’t understand it now. I remember being told

of a poor wretch I once knew, who had died of hunger. I was almost

beside myself with rage! I believe if I could have resuscitated him I

would have done so for the sole purpose of murdering him!

“Occasionally I was so much better that I could go out; but the streets

used to put me in such a rage that I would lock myself up for days

rather than go out, even if I were well enough to do so! I could not

bear to see all those preoccupied, anxious-looking creatures

continuously surging along the streets past me! Why are they always

anxious? What is the meaning of their eternal care and worry? It is

their wickedness, their perpetual detestable malice—that’s what it

is—they are all full of malice, malice!

“Whose fault is it that they are all miserable, that they don’t know

how to live, though they have fifty or sixty years of life before them?

Why did that fool allow himself to die of hunger with sixty years of

unlived life before him?

“And everyone of them shows his rags, his toil-worn hands, and yells in

his wrath: ‘Here are we, working like cattle all our lives, and always

as hungry as dogs, and there are others who do not work, and are fat

and rich!’ The eternal refrain! And side by side with them trots along

some wretched fellow who has known better days, doing light porter’s

work from morn to night for a living, always blubbering and saying that

‘his wife died because he had no money to buy medicine with,’ and his

children dying of cold and hunger, and his eldest daughter gone to the

bad, and so on. Oh! I have no pity and no patience for these fools of

people. Why can’t they be Rothschilds? Whose fault is it that a man has

not got millions of money like Rothschild? If he has life, all this

must be in his power! Whose fault is it that he does not know how to

live his life?

“Oh! it’s all the same to me now—_now!_ But at that time I would soak

my pillow at night with tears of mortification, and tear at my blanket

in my rage and fury. Oh, how I longed at that time to be turned

out—_me_, eighteen years old, poor, half-clothed, turned out into the

street, quite alone, without lodging, without work, without a crust of

bread, without relations, without a single acquaintance, in some large

town—hungry, beaten (if you like), but in good health—and _then_ I

would show them—

“What would I show them?

“Oh, don’t think that I have no sense of my own humiliation! I have

suffered already in reading so far. Which of you all does not think me

a fool at this moment—a young fool who knows nothing of life—forgetting

that to live as I have lived these last six months is to live longer

than grey-haired old men. Well, let them laugh, and say it is all

nonsense, if they please. They may say it is all fairy-tales, if they

like; and I have spent whole nights telling myself fairy-tales. I

remember them all. But how can I tell fairy-tales now? The time for

them is over. They amused me when I found that there was not even time

for me to learn the Greek grammar, as I wanted to do. ‘I shall die

before I get to the syntax,’ I thought at the first page—and threw the

book under the table. It is there still, for I forbade anyone to pick

it up.

“If this ‘Explanation’ gets into anybody’s hands, and they have

patience to read it through, they may consider me a madman, or a

schoolboy, or, more likely, a man condemned to die, who thought it only

natural to conclude that all men, excepting himself, esteem life far

too lightly, live it far too carelessly and lazily, and are, therefore,

one and all, unworthy of it. Well, I affirm that my reader is wrong

again, for my convictions have nothing to do with my sentence of death.

Ask them, ask any one of them, or all of them, what they mean by

happiness! Oh, you may be perfectly sure that if Columbus was happy, it

was not after he had discovered America, but when he was discovering

it! You may be quite sure that he reached the culminating point of his

happiness three days before he saw the New World with his actual eyes,

when his mutinous sailors wanted to tack about, and return to Europe!

What did the New World matter after all? Columbus had hardly seen it

when he died, and in reality he was entirely ignorant of what he had

discovered. The important thing is life—life and nothing else! What is

any ‘discovery’ whatever compared with the incessant, eternal discovery

of life?

“But what is the use of talking? I’m afraid all this is so commonplace

that my confession will be taken for a schoolboy exercise—the work of

some ambitious lad writing in the hope of his work ‘seeing the light’;

or perhaps my readers will say that ‘I had perhaps something to say,

but did not know how to express it.’

“Let me add to this that in every idea emanating from genius, or even

in every serious human idea—born in the human brain—there always

remains something—some sediment—which cannot be expressed to others,

though one wrote volumes and lectured upon it for five-and-thirty

years. There is always a something, a remnant, which will never come

out from your brain, but will remain there with you, and you alone, for

ever and ever, and you will die, perhaps, without having imparted what

may be the very essence of your idea to a single living soul.

“So that if I cannot now impart all that has tormented me for the last

six months, at all events you will understand that, having reached my

‘last convictions,’ I must have paid a very dear price for them. That

is what I wished, for reasons of my own, to make a point of in this my

‘Explanation.’

“But let me resume.”

VI.

“I will not deceive you. ‘Reality’ got me so entrapped in its meshes

now and again during the past six months, that I forgot my ‘sentence’

(or perhaps I did not wish to think of it), and actually busied myself

with affairs.

“A word as to my circumstances. When, eight months since, I became very

ill, I threw up all my old connections and dropped all my old

companions. As I was always a gloomy, morose sort of individual, my

friends easily forgot me; of course, they would have forgotten me all

the same, without that excuse. My position at home was solitary enough.

Five months ago I separated myself entirely from the family, and no one

dared enter my room except at stated times, to clean and tidy it, and

so on, and to bring me my meals. My mother dared not disobey me; she

kept the children quiet, for my sake, and beat them if they dared to

make any noise and disturb me. I so often complained of them that I

should think they must be very fond, indeed, of me by this time. I

think I must have tormented ‘my faithful Colia’ (as I called him) a

good deal too. He tormented me of late; I could see that he always bore

my tempers as though he had determined to ‘spare the poor invalid.’

This annoyed me, naturally. He seemed to have taken it into his head to

imitate the prince in Christian meekness! Surikoff, who lived above us,

annoyed me, too. He was so miserably poor, and I used to prove to him

that he had no one to blame but himself for his poverty. I used to be

so angry that I think I frightened him eventually, for he stopped

coming to see me. He was a most meek and humble fellow, was Surikoff.

(N.B.—They say that meekness is a great power. I must ask the prince

about this, for the expression is his.) But I remember one day in

March, when I went up to his lodgings to see whether it was true that

one of his children had been starved and frozen to death, I began to

hold forth to him about his poverty being his own fault, and, in the

course of my remarks, I accidentally smiled at the corpse of his child.

Well, the poor wretch’s lips began to tremble, and he caught me by the

shoulder, and pushed me to the door. ‘Go out,’ he said, in a whisper. I

went out, of course, and I declare I _liked_ it. I liked it at the very

moment when I was turned out. But his words filled me with a strange

sort of feeling of disdainful pity for him whenever I thought of them—a

feeling which I did not in the least desire to entertain. At the very

moment of the insult (for I admit that I did insult him, though I did

not mean to), this man could not lose his temper. His lips had

trembled, but I swear it was not with rage. He had taken me by the arm,

and said, ‘Go out,’ without the least anger. There was dignity, a great

deal of dignity, about him, and it was so inconsistent with the look of

him that, I assure you, it was quite comical. But there was no anger.

Perhaps he merely began to despise me at that moment.

“Since that time he has always taken off his hat to me on the stairs,

whenever I met him, which is a thing he never did before; but he always

gets away from me as quickly as he can, as though he felt confused. If

he did despise me, he despised me ‘meekly,’ after his own fashion.

“I dare say he only took his hat off out of fear, as it were, to the

son of his creditor; for he always owed my mother money. I thought of

having an explanation with him, but I knew that if I did, he would

begin to apologize in a minute or two, so I decided to let him alone.

“Just about that time, that is, the middle of March, I suddenly felt

very much better; this continued for a couple of weeks. I used to go

out at dusk. I like the dusk, especially in March, when the night frost

begins to harden the day’s puddles, and the gas is burning.

“Well, one night in the Shestilavochnaya, a man passed me with a paper

parcel under his arm. I did not take stock of him very carefully, but

he seemed to be dressed in some shabby summer dust-coat, much too light

for the season. When he was opposite the lamp-post, some ten yards

away, I observed something fall out of his pocket. I hurried forward to

pick it up, just in time, for an old wretch in a long kaftan rushed up

too. He did not dispute the matter, but glanced at what was in my hand

and disappeared.

“It was a large old-fashioned pocket-book, stuffed full; but I guessed,

at a glance, that it had anything in the world inside it, except money.

“The owner was now some forty yards ahead of me, and was very soon lost

in the crowd. I ran after him, and began calling out; but as I knew

nothing to say excepting ‘hey!’ he did not turn round. Suddenly he

turned into the gate of a house to the left; and when I darted in after

him, the gateway was so dark that I could see nothing whatever. It was

one of those large houses built in small tenements, of which there must

have been at least a hundred.

“When I entered the yard I thought I saw a man going along on the far

side of it; but it was so dark I could not make out his figure.

“I crossed to that corner and found a dirty dark staircase. I heard a

man mounting up above me, some way higher than I was, and thinking I

should catch him before his door would be opened to him, I rushed after

him. I heard a door open and shut on the fifth storey, as I panted

along; the stairs were narrow, and the steps innumerable, but at last I

reached the door I thought the right one. Some moments passed before I

found the bell and got it to ring.

“An old peasant woman opened the door; she was busy lighting the

‘samovar’ in a tiny kitchen. She listened silently to my questions, did

not understand a word, of course, and opened another door leading into

a little bit of a room, low and scarcely furnished at all, but with a

large, wide bed in it, hung with curtains. On this bed lay one

Terentich, as the woman called him, drunk, it appeared to me. On the

table was an end of candle in an iron candlestick, and a half-bottle of

vodka, nearly finished. Terentich muttered something to me, and signed

towards the next room. The old woman had disappeared, so there was

nothing for me to do but to open the door indicated. I did so, and

entered the next room.

“This was still smaller than the other, so cramped that I could

scarcely turn round; a narrow single bed at one side took up nearly all

the room. Besides the bed there were only three common chairs, and a

wretched old kitchen-table standing before a small sofa. One could

hardly squeeze through between the table and the bed.

“On the table, as in the other room, burned a tallow candle-end in an

iron candlestick; and on the bed there whined a baby of scarcely three

weeks old. A pale-looking woman was dressing the child, probably the

mother; she looked as though she had not as yet got over the trouble of

childbirth, she seemed so weak and was so carelessly dressed. Another

child, a little girl of about three years old, lay on the sofa, covered

over with what looked like a man’s old dress-coat.

“At the table stood a man in his shirt sleeves; he had thrown off his

coat; it lay upon the bed; and he was unfolding a blue paper parcel in

which were a couple of pounds of bread, and some little sausages.

“On the table along with these things were a few old bits of black

bread, and some tea in a pot. From under the bed there protruded an

open portmanteau full of bundles of rags. In a word, the confusion and

untidiness of the room were indescribable.

“It appeared to me, at the first glance, that both the man and the

woman were respectable people, but brought to that pitch of poverty

where untidiness seems to get the better of every effort to cope with

it, till at last they take a sort of bitter satisfaction in it. When I

entered the room, the man, who had entered but a moment before me, and

was still unpacking his parcels, was saying something to his wife in an

excited manner. The news was apparently bad, as usual, for the woman

began whimpering. The man’s face seemed to me to be refined and even

pleasant. He was dark-complexioned, and about twenty-eight years of

age; he wore black whiskers, and his lip and chin were shaved. He

looked morose, but with a sort of pride of expression. A curious scene

followed.

“There are people who find satisfaction in their own touchy feelings,

especially when they have just taken the deepest offence; at such

moments they feel that they would rather be offended than not. These

easily-ignited natures, if they are wise, are always full of remorse

afterwards, when they reflect that they have been ten times as angry as

they need have been.

“The gentleman before me gazed at me for some seconds in amazement, and

his wife in terror; as though there was something alarmingly

extraordinary in the fact that anyone could come to see them. But

suddenly he fell upon me almost with fury; I had had no time to mutter

more than a couple of words; but he had doubtless observed that I was

decently dressed and, therefore, took deep offence because I had dared

enter his den so unceremoniously, and spy out the squalor and

untidiness of it.

“Of course he was delighted to get hold of someone upon whom to vent

his rage against things in general.

“For a moment I thought he would assault me; he grew so pale that he

looked like a woman about to have hysterics; his wife was dreadfully

alarmed.

“‘How dare you come in so? Be off!’ he shouted, trembling all over with

rage and scarcely able to articulate the words. Suddenly, however, he

observed his pocketbook in my hand.

“‘I think you dropped this,’ I remarked, as quietly and drily as I

could. (I thought it best to treat him so.) For some while he stood

before me in downright terror, and seemed unable to understand. He then

suddenly grabbed at his side-pocket, opened his mouth in alarm, and

beat his forehead with his hand.

“‘My God!’ he cried, ‘where did you find it? How?’ I explained in as

few words as I could, and as drily as possible, how I had seen it and

picked it up; how I had run after him, and called out to him, and how I

had followed him upstairs and groped my way to his door.

“‘Gracious Heaven!’ he cried, ‘all our papers are in it! My dear sir,

you little know what you have done for us. I should have been

lost—lost!’

“I had taken hold of the door-handle meanwhile, intending to leave the

room without reply; but I was panting with my run upstairs, and my

exhaustion came to a climax in a violent fit of coughing, so bad that I

could hardly stand.

“I saw how the man dashed about the room to find me an empty chair, how

he kicked the rags off a chair which was covered up by them, brought it

to me, and helped me to sit down; but my cough went on for another

three minutes or so. When I came to myself he was sitting by me on

another chair, which he had also cleared of the rubbish by throwing it

all over the floor, and was watching me intently.

“‘I’m afraid you are ill?’ he remarked, in the tone which doctors use

when they address a patient. ‘I am myself a medical man’ (he did not

say ‘doctor’), with which words he waved his hands towards the room and

its contents as though in protest at his present condition. ‘I see that

you—’

“‘I’m in consumption,’ I said laconically, rising from my seat.

“He jumped up, too.

“‘Perhaps you are exaggerating—if you were to take proper measures

perhaps—”

“He was terribly confused and did not seem able to collect his

scattered senses; the pocket-book was still in his left hand.

“‘Oh, don’t mind me,’ I said. ‘Dr. B—— saw me last week’ (I lugged him

in again), ‘and my hash is quite settled; pardon me—’ I took hold of

the door-handle again. I was on the point of opening the door and

leaving my grateful but confused medical friend to himself and his

shame, when my damnable cough got hold of me again.

“My doctor insisted on my sitting down again to get my breath. He now

said something to his wife who, without leaving her place, addressed a

few words of gratitude and courtesy to me. She seemed very shy over it,

and her sickly face flushed up with confusion. I remained, but with the

air of a man who knows he is intruding and is anxious to get away. The

doctor’s remorse at last seemed to need a vent, I could see.

“‘If I—’ he began, breaking off abruptly every other moment, and

starting another sentence. ‘I—I am so very grateful to you, and I am so

much to blame in your eyes, I feel sure, I—you see—’ (he pointed to the

room again) ‘at this moment I am in such a position—’

“‘Oh!’ I said, ‘there’s nothing to see; it’s quite a clear case—you’ve

lost your post and have come up to make explanations and get another,

if you can!’

“‘How do you know that?’ he asked in amazement.

“‘Oh, it was evident at the first glance,’ I said ironically, but not

intentionally so. ‘There are lots of people who come up from the

provinces full of hope, and run about town, and have to live as best

they can.’

“He began to talk at once excitedly and with trembling lips; he began

complaining and telling me his story. He interested me, I confess; I

sat there nearly an hour. His story was a very ordinary one. He had

been a provincial doctor; he had a civil appointment, and had no sooner

taken it up than intrigues began. Even his wife was dragged into these.

He was proud, and flew into a passion; there was a change of local

government which acted in favour of his opponents; his position was

undermined, complaints were made against him; he lost his post and came

up to Petersburg with his last remaining money, in order to appeal to

higher authorities. Of course nobody would listen to him for a long

time; he would come and tell his story one day and be refused promptly;

another day he would be fed on false promises; again he would be

treated harshly; then he would be told to sign some documents; then he

would sign the paper and hand it in, and they would refuse to receive

it, and tell him to file a formal petition. In a word he had been

driven about from office to office for five months and had spent every

farthing he had; his wife’s last rags had just been pawned; and

meanwhile a child had been born to them and—and today I have a final

refusal to my petition, and I have hardly a crumb of bread left—I have

nothing left; my wife has had a baby lately—and I—I—’

“He sprang up from his chair and turned away. His wife was crying in

the corner; the child had begun to moan again. I pulled out my

note-book and began writing in it. When I had finished and rose from my

chair he was standing before me with an expression of alarmed

curiosity.

“‘I have jotted down your name,’ I told him, ‘and all the rest of

it—the place you served at, the district, the date, and all. I have a

friend, Bachmatoff, whose uncle is a councillor of state and has to do

with these matters, one Peter Matveyevitch Bachmatoff.’

“‘Peter Matveyevitch Bachmatoff!’ he cried, trembling all over with

excitement. ‘Why, nearly everything depends on that very man!’

“It is very curious, this story of the medical man, and my visit, and

the happy termination to which I contributed by accident! Everything

fitted in, as in a novel. I told the poor people not to put much hope

in me, because I was but a poor schoolboy myself—(I am not really, but

I humiliated myself as much as possible in order to make them less

hopeful)—but that I would go at once to the Vassili Ostroff and see my

friend; and that as I knew for certain that his uncle adored him, and

was absolutely devoted to him as the last hope and branch of the

family, perhaps the old man might do something to oblige his nephew.

“‘If only they would allow me to explain all to his excellency! If I

could but be permitted to tell my tale to him!” he cried, trembling

with feverish agitation, and his eyes flashing with excitement. I

repeated once more that I could not hold out much hope—that it would

probably end in smoke, and if I did not turn up next morning they must

make up their minds that there was no more to be done in the matter.

“They showed me out with bows and every kind of respect; they seemed

quite beside themselves. I shall never forget the expression of their

faces!

“I took a droshky and drove over to the Vassili Ostroff at once. For

some years I had been at enmity with this young Bachmatoff, at school.

We considered him an aristocrat; at all events I called him one. He

used to dress smartly, and always drove to school in a private trap. He

was a good companion, and was always merry and jolly, sometimes even

witty, though he was not very intellectual, in spite of the fact that

he was always top of the class; I myself was never top in anything! All

his companions were very fond of him, excepting myself. He had several

times during those years come up to me and tried to make friends; but I

had always turned sulkily away and refused to have anything to do with

him. I had not seen him for a whole year now; he was at the university.

When, at nine o’clock, or so, this evening, I arrived and was shown up

to him with great ceremony, he first received me with astonishment, and

not too affably, but he soon cheered up, and suddenly gazed intently at

me and burst out laughing.

“‘Why, what on earth can have possessed you to come and see _me_,

Terentieff?’ he cried, with his usual pleasant, sometimes audacious,

but never offensive familiarity, which I liked in reality, but for

which I also detested him. ‘Why what’s the matter?’ he cried in alarm.

‘Are you ill?’

“That confounded cough of mine had come on again; I fell into a chair,

and with difficulty recovered my breath. ‘It’s all right, it’s only

consumption’ I said. ‘I have come to you with a petition!’

“He sat down in amazement, and I lost no time in telling him the

medical man’s history; and explained that he, with the influence which

he possessed over his uncle, might do some good to the poor fellow.

“‘I’ll do it—I’ll do it, of course!’ he said. ‘I shall attack my uncle

about it tomorrow morning, and I’m very glad you told me the story. But

how was it that you thought of coming to me about it, Terentieff?’

“‘So much depends upon your uncle,’ I said. ‘And besides we have always

been enemies, Bachmatoff; and as you are a generous sort of fellow, I

thought you would not refuse my request because I was your enemy!’ I

added with irony.

“‘Like Napoleon going to England, eh?’ cried he, laughing. ‘I’ll do it

though—of course, and at once, if I can!’ he added, seeing that I rose

seriously from my chair at this point.

“And sure enough the matter ended as satisfactorily as possible. A

month or so later my medical friend was appointed to another post. He

got his travelling expenses paid, and something to help him to start

life with once more. I think Bachmatoff must have persuaded the doctor

to accept a loan from himself. I saw Bachmatoff two or three times,

about this period, the third time being when he gave a farewell dinner

to the doctor and his wife before their departure, a champagne dinner.

“Bachmatoff saw me home after the dinner and we crossed the Nicolai

bridge. We were both a little drunk. He told me of his joy, the joyful

feeling of having done a good action; he said that it was all thanks to

myself that he could feel this satisfaction; and held forth about the

foolishness of the theory that individual charity is useless.

“I, too, was burning to have my say!

“‘In Moscow,’ I said, ‘there was an old state counsellor, a civil

general, who, all his life, had been in the habit of visiting the

prisons and speaking to criminals. Every party of convicts on its way

to Siberia knew beforehand that on the Vorobeef Hills the “old general”

would pay them a visit. He did all he undertook seriously and

devotedly. He would walk down the rows of the unfortunate prisoners,

stop before each individual and ask after his needs—he never sermonized

them; he spoke kindly to them—he gave them money; he brought them all

sorts of necessaries for the journey, and gave them devotional books,

choosing those who could read, under the firm conviction that they

would read to those who could not, as they went along.

“‘He scarcely ever talked about the particular crimes of any of them,

but listened if any volunteered information on that point. All the

convicts were equal for him, and he made no distinction. He spoke to

all as to brothers, and every one of them looked upon him as a father.

When he observed among the exiles some poor woman with a child, he

would always come forward and fondle the little one, and make it laugh.

He continued these acts of mercy up to his very death; and by that time

all the criminals, all over Russia and Siberia, knew him!

“‘A man I knew who had been to Siberia and returned, told me that he

himself had been a witness of how the very most hardened criminals

remembered the old general, though, in point of fact, he could never,

of course, have distributed more than a few pence to each member of a

party. Their recollection of him was not sentimental or particularly

devoted. Some wretch, for instance, who had been a murderer—cutting the

throat of a dozen fellow-creatures, for instance; or stabbing six

little children for his own amusement (there have been such men!)—would

perhaps, without rhyme or reason, suddenly give a sigh and say, “I

wonder whether that old general is alive still!” Although perhaps he

had not thought of mentioning him for a dozen years before! How can one

say what seed of good may have been dropped into his soul, never to

die?’

“I continued in that strain for a long while, pointing out to

Bachmatoff how impossible it is to follow up the effects of any

isolated good deed one may do, in all its influences and subtle

workings upon the heart and after-actions of others.

“‘And to think that you are to be cut off from life!’ remarked

Bachmatoff, in a tone of reproach, as though he would like to find

someone to pitch into on my account.

“We were leaning over the balustrade of the bridge, looking into the

Neva at this moment.

“‘Do you know what has suddenly come into my head?’ said I,

suddenly—leaning further and further over the rail.

“‘Surely not to throw yourself into the river?’ cried Bachmatoff in

alarm. Perhaps he read my thought in my face.

“‘No, not yet. At present nothing but the following consideration. You

see I have some two or three months left me to live—perhaps four; well,

supposing that when I have but a month or two more, I take a fancy for

some “good deed” that needs both trouble and time, like this business

of our doctor friend, for instance: why, I shall have to give up the

idea of it and take to something else—some _little_ good deed, _more

within my means_, eh? Isn’t that an amusing idea!’

“Poor Bachmatoff was much impressed—painfully so. He took me all the

way home; not attempting to console me, but behaving with the greatest

delicacy. On taking leave he pressed my hand warmly and asked

permission to come and see me. I replied that if he came to me as a

‘comforter,’ so to speak (for he would be in that capacity whether he

spoke to me in a soothing manner or only kept silence, as I pointed out

to him), he would but remind me each time of my approaching death! He

shrugged his shoulders, but quite agreed with me; and we parted better

friends than I had expected.

“But that evening and that night were sown the first seeds of my ‘last

conviction.’ I seized greedily on my new idea; I thirstily drank in all

its different aspects (I did not sleep a wink that night!), and the

deeper I went into it the more my being seemed to merge itself in it,

and the more alarmed I became. A dreadful terror came over me at last,

and did not leave me all next day.

“Sometimes, thinking over this, I became quite numb with the terror of

it; and I might well have deduced from this fact, that my ‘last

conviction’ was eating into my being too fast and too seriously, and

would undoubtedly come to its climax before long. And for the climax I

needed greater determination than I yet possessed.

“However, within three weeks my determination was taken, owing to a

very strange circumstance.

“Here on my paper, I make a note of all the figures and dates that come

into my explanation. Of course, it is all the same to me, but just

now—and perhaps only at this moment—I desire that all those who are to

judge of my action should see clearly out of how logical a sequence of

deductions has at length proceeded my ‘last conviction.’

“I have said above that the determination needed by me for the

accomplishment of my final resolve, came to hand not through any

sequence of causes, but thanks to a certain strange circumstance which

had perhaps no connection whatever with the matter at issue. Ten days

ago Rogojin called upon me about certain business of his own with which

I have nothing to do at present. I had never seen Rogojin before, but

had often heard about him.

“I gave him all the information he needed, and he very soon took his

departure; so that, since he only came for the purpose of gaining the

information, the matter might have been expected to end there.

“But he interested me too much, and all that day I was under the

influence of strange thoughts connected with him, and I determined to

return his visit the next day.

“Rogojin was evidently by no means pleased to see me, and hinted,

delicately, that he saw no reason why our acquaintance should continue.

For all that, however, I spent a very interesting hour, and so, I dare

say, did he. There was so great a contrast between us that I am sure we

must both have felt it; anyhow, I felt it acutely. Here was I, with my

days numbered, and he, a man in the full vigour of life, living in the

present, without the slightest thought for ‘final convictions,’ or

numbers, or days, or, in fact, for anything but that which-which—well,

which he was mad about, if he will excuse me the expression—as a feeble

author who cannot express his ideas properly.

“In spite of his lack of amiability, I could not help seeing, in

Rogojin a man of intellect and sense; and although, perhaps, there was

little in the outside world which was of interest to him, still he was

clearly a man with eyes to see.

“I hinted nothing to him about my ‘final conviction,’ but it appeared

to me that he had guessed it from my words. He remained silent—he is a

terribly silent man. I remarked to him, as I rose to depart, that, in

spite of the contrast and the wide differences between us two, les

extremites se touchent (‘extremes meet,’ as I explained to him in

Russian); so that maybe he was not so far from my final conviction as

appeared.

“His only reply to this was a sour grimace. He rose and looked for my

cap, and placed it in my hand, and led me out of the house—that

dreadful gloomy house of his—to all appearances, of course, as though I

were leaving of my own accord, and he were simply seeing me to the door

out of politeness. His house impressed me much; it is like a

burial-ground, he seems to like it, which is, however, quite natural.

Such a full life as he leads is so overflowing with absorbing interests

that he has little need of assistance from his surroundings.

“The visit to Rogojin exhausted me terribly. Besides, I had felt ill

since the morning; and by evening I was so weak that I took to my bed,

and was in high fever at intervals, and even delirious. Colia sat with

me until eleven o’clock.

“Yet I remember all he talked about, and every word we said, though

whenever my eyes closed for a moment I could picture nothing but the

image of Surikoff just in the act of finding a million roubles. He

could not make up his mind what to do with the money, and tore his hair

over it. He trembled with fear that somebody would rob him, and at last

he decided to bury it in the ground. I persuaded him that, instead of

putting it all away uselessly underground, he had better melt it down

and make a golden coffin out of it for his starved child, and then dig

up the little one and put her into the golden coffin. Surikoff accepted

this suggestion, I thought, with tears of gratitude, and immediately

commenced to carry out my design.

“I thought I spat on the ground and left him in disgust. Colia told me,

when I quite recovered my senses, that I had not been asleep for a

moment, but that I had spoken to him about Surikoff the whole while.

“At moments I was in a state of dreadful weakness and misery, so that

Colia was greatly disturbed when he left me.

“When I arose to lock the door after him, I suddenly called to mind a

picture I had noticed at Rogojin’s in one of his gloomiest rooms, over

the door. He had pointed it out to me himself as we walked past it, and

I believe I must have stood a good five minutes in front of it. There

was nothing artistic about it, but the picture made me feel strangely

uncomfortable. It represented Christ just taken down from the cross. It

seems to me that painters as a rule represent the Saviour, both on the

cross and taken down from it, with great beauty still upon His face.

This marvellous beauty they strive to preserve even in His moments of

deepest agony and passion. But there was no such beauty in Rogojin’s

picture. This was the presentment of a poor mangled body which had

evidently suffered unbearable anguish even before its crucifixion, full

of wounds and bruises, marks of the violence of soldiers and people,

and of the bitterness of the moment when He had fallen with the

cross—all this combined with the anguish of the actual crucifixion.

“The face was depicted as though still suffering; as though the body,

only just dead, was still almost quivering with agony. The picture was

one of pure nature, for the face was not beautified by the artist, but

was left as it would naturally be, whosoever the sufferer, after such

anguish.

“I know that the earliest Christian faith taught that the Saviour

suffered actually and not figuratively, and that nature was allowed her

own way even while His body was on the cross.

“It is strange to look on this dreadful picture of the mangled corpse

of the Saviour, and to put this question to oneself: ‘Supposing that

the disciples, the future apostles, the women who had followed Him and

stood by the cross, all of whom believed in and worshipped

Him—supposing that they saw this tortured body, this face so mangled

and bleeding and bruised (and they _must_ have so seen it)—how could

they have gazed upon the dreadful sight and yet have believed that He

would rise again?’

“The thought steps in, whether one likes it or no, that death is so

terrible and so powerful, that even He who conquered it in His miracles

during life was unable to triumph over it at the last. He who called to

Lazarus, ‘Lazarus, come forth!’ and the dead man lived—He was now

Himself a prey to nature and death. Nature appears to one, looking at

this picture, as some huge, implacable, dumb monster; or still better—a

stranger simile—some enormous mechanical engine of modern days which

has seized and crushed and swallowed up a great and invaluable Being, a

Being worth nature and all her laws, worth the whole earth, which was

perhaps created merely for the sake of the advent of that Being.

“This blind, dumb, implacable, eternal, unreasoning force is well shown

in the picture, and the absolute subordination of all men and things to

it is so well expressed that the idea unconsciously arises in the mind

of anyone who looks at it. All those faithful people who were gazing at

the cross and its mutilated occupant must have suffered agony of mind

that evening; for they must have felt that all their hopes and almost

all their faith had been shattered at a blow. They must have separated

in terror and dread that night, though each perhaps carried away with

him one great thought which was never eradicated from his mind for ever

afterwards. If this great Teacher of theirs could have seen Himself

after the Crucifixion, how could He have consented to mount the Cross

and to die as He did? This thought also comes into the mind of the man

who gazes at this picture. I thought of all this by snatches probably

between my attacks of delirium—for an hour and a half or so before

Colia’s departure.

“Can there be an appearance of that which has no form? And yet it

seemed to me, at certain moments, that I beheld in some strange and

impossible form, that dark, dumb, irresistibly powerful, eternal force.

“I thought someone led me by the hand and showed me, by the light of a

candle, a huge, loathsome insect, which he assured me was that very

force, that very almighty, dumb, irresistible Power, and laughed at the

indignation with which I received this information. In my room they

always light the little lamp before my icon for the night; it gives a

feeble flicker of light, but it is strong enough to see by dimly, and

if you sit just under it you can even read by it. I think it was about

twelve or a little past that night. I had not slept a wink, and was

lying with my eyes wide open, when suddenly the door opened, and in

came Rogojin.

“He entered, and shut the door behind him. Then he silently gazed at me

and went quickly to the corner of the room where the lamp was burning

and sat down underneath it.

“I was much surprised, and looked at him expectantly.

“Rogojin only leaned his elbow on the table and silently stared at me.

So passed two or three minutes, and I recollect that his silence hurt

and offended me very much. Why did he not speak?

“That his arrival at this time of night struck me as more or less

strange may possibly be the case; but I remember I was by no means

amazed at it. On the contrary, though I had not actually told him my

thought in the morning, yet I know he understood it; and this thought

was of such a character that it would not be anything very remarkable,

if one were to come for further talk about it at any hour of night,

however late.

“I thought he must have come for this purpose.

“In the morning we had parted not the best of friends; I remember he

looked at me with disagreeable sarcasm once or twice; and this same

look I observed in his eyes now—which was the cause of the annoyance I

felt.

“I did not for a moment suspect that I was delirious and that this

Rogojin was but the result of fever and excitement. I had not the

slightest idea of such a theory at first.

“Meanwhile he continued to sit and stare jeeringly at me.

“I angrily turned round in bed and made up my mind that I would not say

a word unless he did; so I rested silently on my pillow determined to

remain dumb, if it were to last till morning. I felt resolved that he

should speak first. Probably twenty minutes or so passed in this way.

Suddenly the idea struck me—what if this is an apparition and not

Rogojin himself?

“Neither during my illness nor at any previous time had I ever seen an

apparition;—but I had always thought, both when I was a little boy, and

even now, that if I were to see one I should die on the spot—though I

don’t believe in ghosts. And yet _now_, when the idea struck me that

this was a ghost and not Rogojin at all, I was not in the least

alarmed. Nay—the thought actually irritated me. Strangely enough, the

decision of the question as to whether this were a ghost or Rogojin did

not, for some reason or other, interest me nearly so much as it ought

to have done;—I think I began to muse about something altogether

different. For instance, I began to wonder why Rogojin, who had been in

dressing-gown and slippers when I saw him at home, had now put on a

dress-coat and white waistcoat and tie? I also thought to myself, I

remember—‘if this is a ghost, and I am not afraid of it, why don’t I

approach it and verify my suspicions? Perhaps I am afraid—’ And no

sooner did this last idea enter my head than an icy blast blew over me;

I felt a chill down my backbone and my knees shook.

“At this very moment, as though divining my thoughts, Rogojin raised

his head from his arm and began to part his lips as though he were

going to laugh—but he continued to stare at me as persistently as

before.

“I felt so furious with him at this moment that I longed to rush at

him; but as I had sworn that he should speak first, I continued to lie

still—and the more willingly, as I was still by no means satisfied as

to whether it really was Rogojin or not.

“I cannot remember how long this lasted; I cannot recollect, either,

whether consciousness forsook me at intervals, or not. But at last

Rogojin rose, staring at me as intently as ever, but not smiling any

longer,—and walking very softly, almost on tip-toes, to the door, he

opened it, went out, and shut it behind him.

“I did not rise from my bed, and I don’t know how long I lay with my

eyes open, thinking. I don’t know what I thought about, nor how I fell

asleep or became insensible; but I awoke next morning after nine

o’clock when they knocked at my door. My general orders are that if I

don’t open the door and call, by nine o’clock, Matreona is to come and

bring my tea. When I now opened the door to her, the thought suddenly

struck me—how could he have come in, since the door was locked? I made

inquiries and found that Rogojin himself could not possibly have come

in, because all our doors were locked for the night.

“Well, this strange circumstance—which I have described with so much

detail—was the ultimate cause which led me to taking my final

determination. So that no logic, or logical deductions, had anything to

do with my resolve;—it was simply a matter of disgust.

“It was impossible for me to go on living when life was full of such

detestable, strange, tormenting forms. This ghost had humiliated

me;—nor could I bear to be subordinate to that dark, horrible force

which was embodied in the form of the loathsome insect. It was only

towards evening, when I had quite made up my mind on this point, that I

began to feel easier.”

VII.

“I had a small pocket pistol. I had procured it while still a boy, at

that droll age when the stories of duels and highwaymen begin to

delight one, and when one imagines oneself nobly standing fire at some

future day, in a duel.

“There were a couple of old bullets in the bag which contained the

pistol, and powder enough in an old flask for two or three charges.

“The pistol was a wretched thing, very crooked and wouldn’t carry

farther than fifteen paces at the most. However, it would send your

skull flying well enough if you pressed the muzzle of it against your

temple.

“I determined to die at Pavlofsk at sunrise, in the park—so as to make

no commotion in the house.

“This ‘explanation’ will make the matter clear enough to the police.

Students of psychology, and anyone else who likes, may make what they

please of it. I should not like this paper, however, to be made public.

I request the prince to keep a copy himself, and to give a copy to

Aglaya Ivanovna Epanchin. This is my last will and testament. As for my

skeleton, I bequeath it to the Medical Academy for the benefit of

science.

“I recognize no jurisdiction over myself, and I know that I am now

beyond the power of laws and judges.

“A little while ago a very amusing idea struck me. What if I were now

to commit some terrible crime—murder ten fellow-creatures, for

instance, or anything else that is thought most shocking and dreadful

in this world—what a dilemma my judges would be in, with a criminal who

only has a fortnight to live in any case, now that the rack and other

forms of torture are abolished! Why, I should die comfortably in their

own hospital—in a warm, clean room, with an attentive doctor—probably

much more comfortably than I should at home.

“I don’t understand why people in my position do not oftener indulge in

such ideas—if only for a joke! Perhaps they do! Who knows! There are

plenty of merry souls among us!

“But though I do not recognize any jurisdiction over myself, still I

know that I shall be judged, when I am nothing but a voiceless lump of

clay; therefore I do not wish to go before I have left a word of

reply—the reply of a free man—not one forced to justify himself—oh no!

I have no need to ask forgiveness of anyone. I wish to say a word

merely because I happen to desire it of my own free will.

“Here, in the first place, comes a strange thought!

“Who, in the name of what Law, would think of disputing my full

personal right over the fortnight of life left to me? What jurisdiction

can be brought to bear upon the case? Who would wish me, not only to be

sentenced, but to endure the sentence to the end? Surely there exists

no man who would wish such a thing—why should anyone desire it? For the

sake of morality? Well, I can understand that if I were to make an

attempt upon my own life while in the enjoyment of full health and

vigour—my life which might have been ‘useful,’ etc., etc.—morality

might reproach me, according to the old routine, for disposing of my

life without permission—or whatever its tenet may be. But now, _now_,

when my sentence is out and my days numbered! How can morality have

need of my last breaths, and why should I die listening to the

consolations offered by the prince, who, without doubt, would not omit

to demonstrate that death is actually a benefactor to me? (Christians

like him always end up with that—it is their pet theory.) And what do

they want with their ridiculous ‘Pavlofsk trees’? To sweeten my last

hours? Cannot they understand that the more I forget myself, the more I

let myself become attached to these last illusions of life and love, by

means of which they try to hide from me Meyer’s wall, and all that is

so plainly written on it—the more unhappy they make me? What is the use

of all your nature to me—all your parks and trees, your sunsets and

sunrises, your blue skies and your self-satisfied faces—when all this

wealth of beauty and happiness begins with the fact that it accounts

me—only me—one too many! What is the good of all this beauty and glory

to me, when every second, every moment, I cannot but be aware that this

little fly which buzzes around my head in the sun’s rays—even this

little fly is a sharer and participator in all the glory of the

universe, and knows its place and is happy in it;—while I—only I, am an

outcast, and have been blind to the fact hitherto, thanks to my

simplicity! Oh! I know well how the prince and others would like me,

instead of indulging in all these wicked words of my own, to sing, to

the glory and triumph of morality, that well-known verse of Gilbert’s:

“‘O, puissent voir longtemps votre beauté sacrée

Tant d’amis, sourds à mes adieux!

Qu’ils meurent pleins de jours, que leur mort soit pleurée,

Qu’un ami leur ferme les yeux!’

“But believe me, believe me, my simple-hearted friends, that in this

highly moral verse, in this academical blessing to the world in general

in the French language, is hidden the intensest gall and bitterness;

but so well concealed is the venom, that I dare say the poet actually

persuaded himself that his words were full of the tears of pardon and

peace, instead of the bitterness of disappointment and malice, and so

died in the delusion.

“Do you know there is a limit of ignominy, beyond which man’s

consciousness of shame cannot go, and after which begins satisfaction

in shame? Well, of course humility is a great force in that sense, I

admit that—though not in the sense in which religion accounts humility

to be strength!

“Religion!—I admit eternal life—and perhaps I always did admit it.

“Admitted that consciousness is called into existence by the will of a

Higher Power; admitted that this consciousness looks out upon the world

and says ‘I am;’ and admitted that the Higher Power wills that the

consciousness so called into existence, be suddenly extinguished (for

so—for some unexplained reason—it is and must be)—still there comes the

eternal question—why must I be humble through all this? Is it not

enough that I am devoured, without my being expected to bless the power

that devours me? Surely—surely I need not suppose that

Somebody—there—will be offended because I do not wish to live out the

fortnight allowed me? I don’t believe it.

“It is much simpler, and far more likely, to believe that my death is

needed—the death of an insignificant atom—in order to fulfil the

general harmony of the universe—in order to make even some plus or

minus in the sum of existence. Just as every day the death of numbers

of beings is necessary because without their annihilation the rest

cannot live on—(although we must admit that the idea is not a

particularly grand one in itself!)

“However—admit the fact! Admit that without such perpetual devouring of

one another the world cannot continue to exist, or could never have

been organized—I am ever ready to confess that I cannot understand why

this is so—but I’ll tell you what I _do_ know, for certain. If I have

once been given to understand and realize that I _am_—what does it

matter to me that the world is organized on a system full of errors and

that otherwise it cannot be organized at all? Who will or can judge me

after this? Say what you like—the thing is impossible and unjust!

“And meanwhile I have never been able, in spite of my great desire to

do so, to persuade myself that there is no future existence, and no

Providence.

“The fact of the matter is that all this _does_ exist, but that we know

absolutely nothing about the future life and its laws!

“But it is so difficult, and even impossible to understand, that surely

I am not to be blamed because I could not fathom the incomprehensible?

“Of course I know they say that one must be obedient, and of course,

too, the prince is one of those who say so: that one must be obedient

without questions, out of pure goodness of heart, and that for my

worthy conduct in this matter I shall meet with reward in another

world. We degrade God when we attribute our own ideas to Him, out of

annoyance that we cannot fathom His ways.

“Again, I repeat, I cannot be blamed because I am unable to understand

that which it is not given to mankind to fathom. Why am I to be judged

because I could not comprehend the Will and Laws of Providence? No, we

had better drop religion.

“And enough of this. By the time I have got so far in the reading of my

document the sun will be up and the huge force of his rays will be

acting upon the living world. So be it. I shall die gazing straight at

the great Fountain of life and power; I do not want this life!

“If I had had the power to prevent my own birth I should certainly

never have consented to accept existence under such ridiculous

conditions. However, I have the power to end my existence, although I

do but give back days that are already numbered. It is an insignificant

gift, and my revolt is equally insignificant.

“Final explanation: I die, not in the least because I am unable to

support these next three weeks. Oh no, I should find strength enough,

and if I wished it I could obtain consolation from the thought of the

injury that is done me. But I am not a French poet, and I do not desire

such consolation. And finally, nature has so limited my capacity for

work or activity of any kind, in allotting me but three weeks of time,

that suicide is about the only thing left that I can begin and end in

the time of my own free will.

“Perhaps then I am anxious to take advantage of my last chance of doing

something for myself. A protest is sometimes no small thing.”

The explanation was finished; Hippolyte paused at last.

There is, in extreme cases, a final stage of cynical candour when a

nervous man, excited, and beside himself with emotion, will be afraid

of nothing and ready for any sort of scandal, nay, glad of it. The

extraordinary, almost unnatural, tension of the nerves which upheld

Hippolyte up to this point, had now arrived at this final stage. This

poor feeble boy of eighteen—exhausted by disease—looked for all the

world as weak and frail as a leaflet torn from its parent tree and

trembling in the breeze; but no sooner had his eye swept over his

audience, for the first time during the whole of the last hour, than

the most contemptuous, the most haughty expression of repugnance

lighted up his face. He defied them all, as it were. But his hearers

were indignant, too; they rose to their feet with annoyance. Fatigue,

the wine consumed, the strain of listening so long, all added to the

disagreeable impression which the reading had made upon them.

Suddenly Hippolyte jumped up as though he had been shot.

“The sun is rising,” he cried, seeing the gilded tops of the trees, and

pointing to them as to a miracle. “See, it is rising now!”

“Well, what then? Did you suppose it wasn’t going to rise?” asked

Ferdishenko.