The Idiot

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

to give orders. Lebedeff hurried out,followed by Vera.

  “It is quite true,” said Mrs. Epanchin decisively. “Talk, but not tooloud, and don’t excite yourself. You have made me sorry for you. Prince,you don’t deserve that I should stay and have tea with you, yet I will,all the same, but I won’t apologize. I apologize to nobody! Nobody! Itis absurd! However, forgive me, prince, if I blew you up--that is, ifyou like, of course. But please don’t let me keep anyone,” she addedsuddenly to her husband and daughters, in a tone of resentment, asthough they had grievously offended her. “I can come home alone quitewell.”

  But they did not let her finish, and gathered round her eagerly. Theprince immediately invited everyone to stay for tea, and apologizedfor not having thought of it before. The general murmured a few politewords, and asked Lizabetha Prokofievna if she did not feel cold on theterrace. He very nearly asked Hippolyte how long he had been at theUniversity, but stopped himself in time. Evgenie Pavlovitch and PrinceS. suddenly grew extremely gay and amiable. Adelaida and Alexandrahad not recovered from their surprise, but it was now mingled withsatisfaction; in short, everyone seemed very much relieved thatLizabetha Prokofievna had got over her paroxysm. Aglaya alone stillfrowned, and sat apart in silence. All the other guests stayed on aswell; no one wanted to go, not even General Ivolgin, but Lebedeff saidsomething to him in passing which did not seem to please him, for heimmediately went and sulked in a corner. The prince took care to offertea to Burdovsky and his friends as well as the rest. The invitationmade them rather uncomfortable. They muttered that they would wait forHippolyte, and went and sat by themselves in a distant corner of theverandah. Tea was served at once; Lebedeff had no doubt ordered itfor himself and his family before the others arrived. It was strikingeleven.

  X.

  After moistening his lips with the tea which Vera Lebedeff brought him,Hippolyte set the cup down on the table, and glanced round. He seemedconfused and almost at a loss.

  “Just look, Lizabetha Prokofievna,” he began, with a kind of feverishhaste; “these china cups are supposed to be extremely valuable. Lebedeffalways keeps them locked up in his china-cupboard; they were part of hiswife’s dowry. Yet he has brought them out tonight--in your honour, ofcourse! He is so pleased--” He was about to add something else, butcould not find the words.

  “There, he is feeling embarrassed; I expected as much,” whisperedEvgenie Pavlovitch suddenly in the prince’s ear. “It is a bad sign;what do you think? Now, out of spite, he will come out with somethingso outrageous that even Lizabetha Prokofievna will not be able to standit.”

  Muishkin looked at him inquiringly.

  “You do not care if he does?” added Evgenie Pavlovitch. “Neither do I;in fact, I should be glad, merely as a proper punishment for our dearLizabetha Prokofievna. I am very anxious that she should get it, withoutdelay, and I shall stay till she does. You seem feverish.”

  “Never mind; by-and-by; yes, I am not feeling well,” said the princeimpatiently, hardly listening. He had just heard Hippolyte mention hisown name.

  “You don’t believe it?” said the invalid, with a nervous laugh. “I don’twonder, but the prince will have no difficulty in believing it; he willnot be at all surprised.”

  “Do you hear, prince--do you hear that?” said Lizabetha Prokofievna,turning towards him.

  There was laughter in the group around her, and Lebedeff stood beforeher gesticulating wildly.

  “He declares that your humbug of a landlord revised this gentleman’sarticle--the article that was read aloud just now--in which you got sucha charming dressing-down.”

  The prince regarded Lebedeff with astonishment.

  “Why don’t you say something?” cried Lizabetha Prokofievna, stamping herfoot.

  “Well,” murmured the prince, with his eyes still fixed on Lebedeff, “Ican see now that he did.”

  “Is it true?” she asked eagerly.

  “Absolutely, your excellency,” said Lebedeff, without the leasthesitation.

  Mrs. Epanchin almost sprang up in amazement at his answer, and at theassurance of his tone.

  “He actually seems to boast of it!” she cried.

  “I am base--base!” muttered Lebedeff, beating his breast, and hanginghis head.

  “What do I care if you are base or not? He thinks he has only to say,‘I am base,’ and there is an end of it. As to you, prince, are you notashamed?--I repeat, are you not ashamed, to mix with such riff-raff? Iwill never forgive you!”

  “The prince will forgive me!” said Lebedeff with emotional conviction.

  Keller suddenly left his seat, and approached Lizabetha Prokofievna.

  “It was only out of generosity, madame,” he said in a resonant voice,“and because I would not betray a friend in an awkward position, thatI did not mention this revision before; though you heard him yourselfthreatening to kick us down the steps. To clear the matter up, I declarenow that I did have recourse to his assistance, and that I paid him sixroubles for it. But I did not ask him to correct my style; I simply wentto him for information concerning the facts, of which I was ignorantto a great extent, and which he was competent to give. The story of thegaiters, the appetite in the Swiss professor’s house, the substitutionof fifty roubles for two hundred and fifty--all such details, in fact,were got from him. I paid him six roubles for them; but he did notcorrect the style.”

  “I must state that I only revised the first part of the article,” interposed Lebedeff with feverish impatience, while laughter rose fromall around him; “but we fell out in the middle over one idea, so I nevercorrected the second part. Therefore I cannot be held responsible forthe numerous grammatical blunders in it.”

  “That is all he thinks of!” cried Lizabetha Prokofievna.

  “May I ask when this article was revised?” said Evgenie Pavlovitch toKeller.

  “Yesterday morning,” he replied, “we had an interview which we all gaveour word of honour to keep secret.”

  “The very time when he was cringing before you and making protestationsof devotion! Oh, the mean wretches! I will have nothing to do with yourPushkin, and your daughter shall not set foot in my house!”

  Lizabetha Prokofievna was about to rise, when she saw Hippolytelaughing, and turned upon him with irritation.

  “Well, sir, I suppose you wanted to make me look ridiculous?”

  “Heaven forbid!” he answered, with a forced smile. “But I am more thanever struck by your eccentricity, Lizabetha Prokofievna. I admit that Itold you of Lebedeff’s duplicity, on purpose. I knew the effect it wouldhave on you,--on you alone, for the prince will forgive him. He hasprobably forgiven him already, and is racking his brains to find someexcuse for him--is not that the truth, prince?”

  He gasped as he spoke, and his strange agitation seemed to increase.

  “Well?” said Mrs. Epanchin angrily, surprised at his tone; “well, whatmore?”

  “I have heard many things of the kind about you...they delighted me... Ihave learned to hold you in the highest esteem,” continued Hippolyte.

  His words seemed tinged with a kind of sarcastic mockery, yet he wasextremely agitated, casting suspicious glances around him, growingconfused, and constantly losing the thread of his ideas. All this,together with his consumptive appearance, and the frenzied expression ofhis blazing eyes, naturally attracted the attention of everyone present.

  “I might have been surprised (though I admit I know nothing of theworld), not only that you should have stayed on just now in the companyof such people as myself and my friends, who are not of your class, butthat you should let these... young ladies listen to such a scandalousaffair, though no doubt novel-reading has taught them all there is toknow. I may be mistaken; I hardly know what I am saying; but surelyno one but you would have stayed to please a whippersnapper (yes,a whippersnapper; I admit it) to spend the evening and take part ineverything--only to be ashamed of it tomorrow. (I know I express myselfbadly.) I admire and appreciate it all extremely, though the expressionon the face of his ex
cellency, your husband, shows that he thinks itvery improper. He-he!” He burst out laughing, and was seized with afit of coughing which lasted for two minutes and prevented him fromspeaking.

  “He has lost his breath now!” said Lizabetha Prokofievna coldly, lookingat him with more curiosity than pity: “Come, my dear boy, that is quiteenough--let us make an end of this.”

  Ivan Fedorovitch, now quite out of patience, interrupted suddenly. “Letme remark in my turn, sir,” he said in tones of deep annoyance, “thatmy wife is here as the guest of Prince Lef Nicolaievitch, our friend andneighbour, and that in any case, young man, it is not for you to passjudgment on the conduct of Lizabetha Prokofievna, or to make remarksaloud in my presence concerning what feelings you think may be readin my face. Yes, my wife stayed here,” continued the general, withincreasing irritation, “more out of amazement than anything else.Everyone can understand that a collection of such strange young menwould attract the attention of a person interested in contemporary life.I stayed myself, just as I sometimes stop to look on in the street whenI see something that may be regarded as-as-as-”

  “As a curiosity,” suggested Evgenie Pavlovitch, seeing his excellencyinvolved in a comparison which he could not complete.

  “That is exactly the word I wanted,” said the general withsatisfaction--“a curiosity. However, the most astonishing and, if I mayso express myself, the most painful, thing in this matter, is that youcannot even understand, young man, that Lizabetha Prokofievna, onlystayed with you because you are ill,--if you really are dying--movedby the pity awakened by your plaintive appeal, and that hername, character, and social position place her above all risk ofcontamination. Lizabetha Prokofievna!” he continued, now crimson withrage, “if you are coming, we will say goodnight to the prince, and--”

  “Thank you for the lesson, general,” said Hippolyte, with unexpectedgravity, regarding him thoughtfully.

  “Two minutes more, if you please, dear Ivan Fedorovitch,” said LizabethaProkofievna to her husband; “it seems to me that he is in a feverand delirious; you can see by his eyes what a state he is in; it isimpossible to let him go back to Petersburg tonight. Can you put himup, Lef Nicolaievitch? I hope you are not bored, dear prince,” sheadded suddenly to Prince S. “Alexandra, my dear, come here! Your hair iscoming down.”

  She arranged her daughter’s hair, which was not in the least disordered,and gave her a kiss. This was all that she had called her for.

  “I thought you were capable of development,” said Hippolyte, coming outof his fit of abstraction. “Yes, that is what I meant to say,” he added,with the satisfaction of one who suddenly remembers something he hadforgotten. “Here is Burdovsky, sincerely anxious to protect his mother;is not that so? And he himself is the cause of her disgrace. The princeis anxious to help Burdovsky and offers him friendship and a large sumof money, in the sincerity of his heart. And here they stand like twosworn enemies--ha, ha, ha! You all hate Burdovsky because his behaviourwith regard to his mother is shocking and repugnant to you; do you not?Is not that true? Is it not true? You all have a passion for beauty anddistinction in outward forms; that is all you care for, isn’t it? I havesuspected for a long time that you cared for nothing else! Well, let metell you that perhaps there is not one of you who loved your mother asBurdovsky loved his. As to you, prince, I know that you have sent moneysecretly to Burdovsky’s mother through Gania. Well, I bet now,” hecontinued with an hysterical laugh, “that Burdovsky will accuse you ofindelicacy, and reproach you with a want of respect for his mother! Yes,that is quite certain! Ha, ha, ha!”

  He caught his breath, and began to cough once more.

  “Come, that is enough! That is all now; you have no more to say? Nowgo to bed; you are burning with fever,” said Lizabetha Prokofievnaimpatiently. Her anxious eyes had never left the invalid. “Good heavens,he is going to begin again!”

  “You are laughing, I think? Why do you keep laughing at me?” saidHippolyte irritably to Evgenie Pavlovitch, who certainly was laughing.

  “I only want to know, Mr. Hippolyte--excuse me, I forget your surname.”

  “Mr. Terentieff,” said the prince.

  “Oh yes, Mr. Terentieff. Thank you prince. I heard it just now, but hadforgotten it. I want to know, Mr. Terentieff, if what I have heard aboutyou is true. It seems you are convinced that if you could speak to thepeople from a window for a quarter of an hour, you could make them alladopt your views and follow you?”

  “I may have said so,” answered Hippolyte, as if trying to remember.“Yes, I certainly said so,” he continued with sudden animation, fixingan unflinching glance on his questioner. “What of it?”

  “Nothing. I was only seeking further information, to put the finishingtouch.”

  Evgenie Pavlovitch was silent, but Hippolyte kept his eyes fixed uponhim, waiting impatiently for more.

  “Well, have you finished?” said Lizabetha Prokofievna to Evgenie. “Makehaste, sir; it is time he went to bed. Have you more to say?” She wasvery angry.

  “Yes, I have a little more,” said Evgenie Pavlovitch, with a smile. “Itseems to me that all you and your friends have said, Mr. Terentieff, andall you have just put forward with such undeniable talent, may be summedup in the triumph of right above all, independent of everything else, tothe exclusion of everything else; perhaps even before having discoveredwhat constitutes the right. I may be mistaken?”

  “You are certainly mistaken; I do not even understand you. What else?”

  Murmurs arose in the neighbourhood of Burdovsky and his companions;Lebedeff’s nephew protested under his breath.

  “I have nearly finished,” replied Evgenie Pavlovitch.

  “I will only remark that from these premises one could conclude thatmight is right--I mean the right of the clenched fist, and of personalinclination. Indeed, the world has often come to that conclusion.Prudhon upheld that might is right. In the American War some of the mostadvanced Liberals took sides with the planters on the score that theblacks were an inferior race to the whites, and that might was the rightof the white race.”

  “Well?”

  “You mean, no doubt, that you do not deny that might is right?”

  “What then?”

  “You are at least logical. I would only point out that from the rightof might, to the right of tigers and crocodiles, or even Daniloff andGorsky, is but a step.”

  “I know nothing about that; what else?”

  Hippolyte was scarcely listening. He kept saying “well?” and “what else?” mechanically, without the least curiosity, and by mere force of habit.

  “Why, nothing else; that is all.”

  “However, I bear you no grudge,” said Hippolyte suddenly, and, hardlyconscious of what he was doing, he held out his hand with a smile. Thegesture took Evgenie Pavlovitch by surprise, but with the utmost gravityhe touched the hand that was offered him in token of forgiveness.

  “I can but thank you,” he said, in a tone too respectful to be sincere,“for your kindness in letting me speak, for I have often noticed thatour Liberals never allow other people to have an opinion of their own,and immediately answer their opponents with abuse, if they do not haverecourse to arguments of a still more unpleasant nature.”

  “What you say is quite true,” observed General Epanchin; then, claspinghis hands behind his back, he returned to his place on the terracesteps, where he yawned with an air of boredom.

  “Come, sir, that will do; you weary me,” said Lizabetha Prokofievnasuddenly to Evgenie Pavlovitch.

  Hippolyte rose all at once, looking troubled and almost frightened.

  “It is time for me to go,” he said, glancing round in perplexity. “Ihave detained you... I wanted to tell you everything... I thought youall... for the last time... it was a whim...”

  He evidently had sudden fits of returning animation, when he awokefrom his semi-delirium; then, recovering full self-possession for afew moments, he would speak, in disconnected phrases which had perhapshaunted him for a long while
on his bed of suffering, during weary,sleepless nights.

  “Well, good-bye,” he said abruptly. “You think it is easy for me to saygood-bye to you? Ha, ha!”

  Feeling that his question was somewhat gauche, he smiled angrily. Thenas if vexed that he could not ever express what he really meant, he saidirritably, in a loud voice:

  “Excellency, I have the honour of inviting you to my funeral; that is,if you will deign to honour it with your presence. I invite you all,gentlemen, as well as the general.”

  He burst out laughing again, but it was the laughter of a madman.Lizabetha Prokofievna approached him anxiously and seized his arm.He stared at her for a moment, still laughing, but soon his face grewserious.

  “Do you know that I came here to see those trees?” pointing to thetrees in the park. “It is not ridiculous, is it? Say that it is notridiculous!” he demanded urgently of Lizabetha Prokofievna. Then heseemed to be plunged in thought. A moment later he raised his head, andhis eyes sought for someone. He was looking for Evgenie Pavlovitch, whowas close by on his right as before, but he had forgotten this, andhis eyes ranged over the assembled company. “Ah! you have not gone!” hesaid, when he caught sight of him at last. “You kept on laughing justnow, because I thought of speaking to the people from the window for aquarter of an hour. But I am not eighteen, you know; lying on that bed,and looking out of that window, I have thought of all sorts of thingsfor such a long time that... a dead man has no age, you know. I wassaying that to myself only last week, when I was awake in the night. Doyou know what you fear most? You fear our sincerity more than anything,although you despise us! The idea crossed my mind that night... Youthought I was making fun of you just now, Lizabetha Prokofievna? No, theidea of mockery was far from me; I only meant to praise you. Coliatold me the prince called you a child--very well--but let me see, I hadsomething else to say...” He covered his face with his hands and triedto collect his thoughts.

  “Ah, yes--you were going away just now, and I thought to myself: ‘Ishall never see these people again--never again! This is the last timeI shall see the trees, too. I shall see nothing after this but the redbrick wall of Meyer’s house opposite my window. Tell them about it--tryto tell