Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  She grew so hot and angry saying this (which was very natural, however) that General Epanchin was much pleased, and considered the matter settled. But Totsky, having once been so thoroughly scared, was not quite confident even now, and was for a long time afraid that there might be a snake under the flowers. But negotiations had been opened; the point on which the whole scheme of the two friends rested, the possibility of Nastasya Filippovna’s being attracted by Ganya, became more and more clear and definite, so that even Totsky began to believe at times in the possibility of success. Meanwhile Nastasya Filippovna came to an understanding with Ganya; very little was said, as though the subject were painful to her delicacy. She recognised and sanctioned his love, however, but insisted that she would not bind herself in anyway; that she reserved for herself till the marriage (if marriage there were) the right to say no up to the very last moment, and she gave Ganya equal freedom. Ganya soon afterwards learned by a lucky chance that Nastasya Filippovna knew in full detail all about his family’s hostility to the marriaqe and to her personally, and the scenes at home to which it gave rise. She had not spoken of this to him, though he was expecting it daily.

  There is much more to be told of all the gossip and complications arising from the proposed match and the negotiations for it; but we have been anticipating things already, and some of these complications were no more than vague rumours. It was said, for instance, that Totsky had found out that Nastasya Filippovna had some undefined and secret understanding with the general’s daughters — a wildly improbable story. But another story he could not help believing, and it haunted him like a nightmare. He heard for a fact that Nastasya Filippovna was fully aware that Ganya was marrying her only for money; that Ganya had a bad, mercenary, impatient, envious heart, and that his vanity was grotesque and beyond all bounds; that though Ganya had really been passionately striving to conquer Nastasya Filippovna, yet after the two elder men had determined to exploit the incipient passion on both sides for their own purposes, and to buy Ganya by selling to him Nastasya Filippovna in lawful wedlock, he began to hate her like a nightmare. Passion and hatred were strangely mingled in his soul, and although he did after painful hesitation give his consent to marry the “disreputable hussy,” he swore in his heart to make her pay bitterly for it and “to take it out of her” afterwards, as he was said to have expressed it himself. It was rumoured Nastasya Filippovna knew all this and had some secret plan up her sleeve. Totsky was in such a panic that he even gave up confiding his uneasiness to Epanchin; but there were moments when, like a weak man, he readily regained his spirits and took quite a cheerful view. He was greatly relieved, for instance, when Nastasya Filippovna promised the two friends that she would give them her final decision on the evening of her birthday.

  On the other hand, the strangest and most incredible rumour concerning no less honoured a person than Ivan Fyodorovitch appeared, alas! more and more well founded as time went on.

  At the first blush it sounded perfectly wild. It was difficult to believe that Ivan Fyodorovitch at his venerable time of life, with his excellent understanding and his practical knowledge of the world, and all the rest of it, could have fallen under Nastasya Filippovna’s spell himself, and that it had come to such a pitch that this caprice had almost become a passion. What he was hoping for it was difficult to imagine; possibly for assistance from Ganya himself. Totsky suspected something of the kind, at any rate; he suspected the existence of some tacit agreement between the general and Ganya, resting on their comprehension of each other. But it is well known that a man carried away by passion, especially a man getting on in years, is quite blind, and prone to find grounds for hope where there are none; what’s more, he loses his judgment and acts like a foolish child, however great an intellect he may have. It was known that the general had procured for Nastasya Filippovna’s birthday some magnificent pearls, costing an immense sum, as a present from himself, and had thought a great deal about this present, though he knew that Nastasya Filippovna was not mercenary. On the day before the birthday he was in a perfect fever, though he successfully concealed his emotion. It was of those pearls that Madame Epanchin had heard. Lizaveta Prokofyevna had, it is true, many years’

  experience of her husband’s flightiness, and had in fact got almost accustomed to it, but it was impossible to let such an incident pass; the rumour about the pearls made a great impression upon her. The general detected this beforehand; some words had been uttered on the previous day; he foresaw a momentous explanation coming, and dreaded it. That was why he was particularly unwilling to lunch in the bosom of his family on the morning on which our story begins. Before Myshkin’s appearance he had decided to escape on the pretext of urgent business. Making his escape often meant in the general’s case simply running away. He wanted to gain that day at least, and above all that evening, undisturbed by unpleasantness. And suddenly the prince had turned up so appropriately. “A perfect god-send!” thought the general to himself, as he went in to meet his wife.

  CHAPTER 5

  Madame epanchin was jealous of the dignity of her family. What must it have been for her to hear without the slightest preparation that this Prince Myshkin, the last of the family, of whom she had heard something already, was no better than a poor idiot, was almost a beggar, and was ready to accept charity! The general reckoned on making an effect, impressing her at once, turning her attention in another direction and avoiding the question of the pearls under cover of this sensation.

  When anything extraordinary happened, Madame Epanchin used to open her eyes very wide, and, throwing back her whole person, she would stare vaguely before her without uttering a word. She was a woman of large build and of the same age as her husband, with dark hair, still thick, though getting very grey. She was rather thin, with a somewhat aquiline nose, sunken yellow cheeks, and thin drawn-in lips. Her forehead was high but narrow; her large grey eyes had sometimes a most unexpected expression. She had once had the weakness to fancy that her eyes were particularly effective, and nothing had been able to efface the conviction.

  “Receive him? bu receive him now, at once?” And the lady opened her eyes to their very widest, gazing at Ivan Fyodorovitch, as he fidgeted before her.

  “Oh, as far as that goes, there’s no need of ceremony, if only you don’t mind seeing him, my dear,” the general hastened to explain. “He is quite a child and such a pathetic figure; he has some sort of fits. He has just arrived from Switzerland — came straight from the station. He is queerly dressed, like a German, and not a penny, literally; he is almost crying. I gave him twenty-five roubles, and want to find him some little post as a clerk in our office. And I beg you, mesdames, to offer him lunch, for I think he is hungry too....”

  “You amaze me!” Madame Epanchin went on as before. “Hungry and fits! What sort of fits?”

  “Oh, they don’t occur so frequently; and, besides, he is like a child, but well educated. I should like to ask you, mesdames” — he addressed his daughters again— “to put him through an examination; it would be as well to know what he is fit for.”

  “An ex-am-in-a-tion?” drawled his wife, and in the utmost astonishment she rolled her eyes from her husband to her daughters and back again.

  “Oh, my dear, don’t take it in that sense ... but of course it’s just as you please. I was meaning to be friendly to him and introduce him to the family, because it’s almost an act of charity.”

  “Introduce him to the family? From Switzerland?”

  “That’s no drawback; but, I repeat again, it’s as you like. I thought of it because, in the first place, he is of the same name, and perhaps a relation; and besides, he’s nowhere to lay his head. I supposed it would be rather interesting to you to see him, in fact, because after all he belongs to the same family.”

  “Of course, maman, if one needn’t stand on ceremony with him. Besides he must be hungry after the journey; why not give him something to eat, if he has nowhere to go?” said the eldest girl, Alexandra.

>   “And if he is a perfect child, too. We could have a game of blind man’s buff with him.”

  “Blind man’s buff! What do you mean?”

  “Oh, maman, please leave off pretending!” Aglaia interrupted in vexation.

  The second daughter, Adelaida, who was of mirthful disposition, could not restrain herself and burst out laughing.

  “Send for him, papa, maman gives you leave,” Aglaia decided.

  The general rang, and told the servant to call the prince.

  “But on condition he has a napkin tied round his neck when he sits at the table,” his wife insisted. “Call Fyodor or Mavra ... to stand behind his chair and look after him while he eats. I only trust he is quiet when he has a fit. Does he wave his arms?”

  “Oh, quite the opposite, he is very well bred and has charming manners; he is just a little simple sometimes. But here he is. Come, let me introduce Prince Myshkin, the last of the name, your namesake and perhaps your kinsman; make him welcome and be kind to him. Lunch will be served directly, prince,

  so do us the honour. . . . But excuse me, I must hurry off, I am late.”

  “We know where you are hurrying off to,” observed his wife majestically.

  “I am in a hurry — I am in a hurry, my dear; I am late. Give him your albums, mesdames; let him write something there for you, his handwriting is something exquisite. You should see how he wrote out for me in the old-world characters, The Abbot Pafnuty put his hand thereto.’ ... Well, good-bye.”

  “Pafnuty? The abbot? Stop a minute — stop a minute. Where are you off to, and who is this Pafnuty?” his wife called with distinct annoyance and almost agitation after her escaping spouse.

  “Yes, yes, my dear, it was an abbot who lived in old days. . . . But I am off to the count’s, I ought to have been there long ago; he fixed the hour himself.. .. Good-bye for the present, prince.”

  The general retired with rapid steps.

  “I know what count he is going to see,” Lizaveta Prokofyevna pronounced sharply, and she turned her eyes irritably to the prince. “What was it?” she began peevishly and grumpily, trying to remember. “Well,

  what was it? Ah, yes, what about? ...”

  “Maman,” Alexandra was beginning; and Aglaia even stamped her foot.

  “Don’t interfere with me, Alexandra Ivanovna,” snapped the mother. “I want to know too. Sit here, prince, here on this easy-chair, opposite me; no, here. Move into the sun, nearer the light, so that I may see you. Well, what abbot?”

  “The Abbot Pafnuty,” answered Myshkin attentively and seriously.

  “Pafnuty? That’s interesting. Well, what about him?”

  The lady asked her questions impatiently, rapidly, sharply, keeping her eyes fixed on the prince; and when Myshkin answered, she nodded her head at every word.

  “The Abbot Pafnuty of the fourteenth century,” began Myshkin. “He was at the head of a monastery on the Volga in what is now the province of Kostroma. He was famous for his holy life. He visited the Tatars, helped in the management of public affairs, and signed some document. I’ve seen a copy of the signature. I liked the handwriting and I imitated it. When the general wanted to see my writing just now so as to find me a job, I wrote several phrases in different handwritings, and among others I wrote ‘the Abbot Pafnuty put his hand thereto’ in the abbot’s own handwriting. The general liked it very much, and so he spoke of it just now.”

  “Aglaia,” said Madame Epanchin, “remember Pafnuty, or better write it down, else I always forget. But I thought it would be more interesting. Where is this signature?”

  “I think it was left in the general’s study, on the table.”

  “Send at once and fetch it.”

  “Hadn’t I betterwrite it again for you, if you like?”

  “Of course, maman,” said Alexandra. “But nowwe had better have lunch, we are hungry.”

  “Quite so,” assented her mother. “Come along, prince. Are you very hungry?”

  “Yes, I’ve begun to be very hungry now, and I am very grateful to you.”

  “It’s a very good thing that you are polite, and I notice you are not nearly such a . . . queer creature as you were described. Come along. Sit here, facing me.” She insisted on making Myshkin sit down when they went into the dining-room. “I want to look at you. Alexandra, Adelaida, help the prince to something. He is really not such an . . . invalid, is he? Perhaps the table-napkin is not necessary. . . . Used you to have a napkin tied round your neck at mealtimes, prince?”

  “Long ago, when I was seven, I believe I did, but now I usually have my napkin on my knee at mealtimes.”

  “Quite right. And your fits?”

  “Fits?” The prince was a little surprised. “My fits don’t happen very often now. But I don’t know; I am told the climate here will make me worse.”

  “He speaks well,” said the lady, turning to her daughters; she still nodded her head at every word Myshkin uttered. “I didn’t expect it. So it was all stuff and nonsense, as usual. Help yourself, prince, and tell me where you were born and where you’ve been brought up? I want to know all about you; you interest me extremely.”

  Myshkin thanked her, and while eating with excellent appetite began again repeating the story he had repeated several times that morning. The lady was more and more pleased with him; the girls too listened rather attentively. They worked out the relationship; it turned out that Myshkin knew his family-tree fairly well. But in spite of their efforts they could make out scarcely any connexion between him and Madame Epanchin. Among the grandfathers and the grandmothers a distant kinship might be discovered. The lady was particularly delighted with this dry subject, for she scarcely ever had a chance of indulging her tastes by discussing her pedigree. So she got up from table quite excited.

  “Come, all of you, into our assembly-room,” she said, “and we’ll have coffee there. We have a room where we all meet,” she said to Myshkin, as she led him there. “My little drawing-room, where we assemble and sit when we are alone and each of us does her work. Alexandra, my eldest daughter here, plays the piano or reads or sews; Adelaida paints landscapes and portraits (and can never finish anything); and Aglaia sits doing nothing. I am not much good at work either; I can never get anything done. Well, here we are. Sit here, prince, by the fire and tell me something. I want to know how you tell a story. I want to be fully convinced, and when I see old Princess Byelokonsky, I shall tell her all about you. I

  want them all to be interested in you too. Come, tell me something.”

  “But, maman, it’s very queer to tell a story like that,” observed Adelaida, who had by now set up her easel, taken out her brushes and palette, and was setting to work copying from an engraving a landscape she had begun long ago.

  Alexandra and Aglaia sat down on a little sofa and, folding their arms, prepared to listen to the conversation. Myshkin observed that he was a centre of attention on all sides.