“I would never say anything if I were told to like that,” observed Aglaia.
“Why not? What is there queer about it? Why shouldn’t he tell me something? He has a tongue. I want to know how he can describe things. Come, anything. Tell us how you liked Switzerland, your first impression of it. You will see, he’ll begin directly, and begin well too.”
“It was a strong impression” . . . Myshkin was beginning.
“There, you see,” the eager lady broke in, addressing her daughters, “he has begun.”
“Do let him speak at least, maman,” said Alexandra, checking her. “This prince may be a great rogue and not an idiot at all,” she whispered to Aglaia.
“No doubt of it; I’ve seen that a long while,” answered Aglaia. “And it’s horrid of him to play a part. Is he trying to gain something by it?”
“My first impression was a very strong one,” Myshkin repeated. “When I was brought from Russia through various German towns, I simply looked about in silence and, I remember, asked no questions. That was after a long series of violent and painful attacks of my illness, and when my complaint was at its worst and my fits frequent, I always sank into complete stupefaction. I lost my memory, and though my brain worked, the logical sequence of ideas seemed broken. I couldn’t connect more than two or three ideas together. That’s how it seems to me. When the fits became less frequent and violent, I became strong and healthy again as I am now. I remember I was insufferably sad; I wanted to cry. I was all the while lost in wonder and uneasiness. What affected me most was that everything was strange; I realised that. I was crushed bv the strangeness of it. I was finally roused from this gloomy state, I remember, one evening on reaching Switzerland at Bale, and I was roused by the bray of an ass in the market-place. I was immensely struck with the ass, and for some reason extraordinarily pleased with it, and suddenly everything seemed to clear up in my head.”
“An ass? That’s odd,” observed Lizaveta Prokofyevna. “Yet there’s nothing odd about it; one of us may even fall in love with an ass,” she observed, looking wrathfully at the laughing girls. “It’s happened in mythology. Go on, prince.”
“I’ve been awfully fond of asses ever since; they have a special attraction for me. I began to ask about them because I’d never seen one before, and I understood at once what a useful creature it was — industrious, strong, patient, cheap, long-suffering. And so, through the ass, all Switzerland began to attract me, so that my melancholy passed completely.”
“That’s all very strange, but you can pass over the ass; let’s come to something else. Why do you keep laughing, Aglaia? And you, Adelaida? The prince told us splendidly about the ass. He has seen it himself, but what have you seen? “Vbu’ve never been abroad.”
“I have seen an ass, maman,” said Adelaida.
“And I’ve even heard one,” asserted Aglaia.
The three girls laughed again. Myshkin laughed with them.
“That’s too bad of you,” observed the lady. “bu must excuse them, prince, they are good-natured. I am always quarrelling with them, but I love them. They are flighty, thoughtless madcaps.”
“Why?” laughed Myshkin. “I should have done the same in their place. But still I stand up for the ass; the ass is a good-natured and useful creature.”
“And are you good-natured, prince? I ask from curiosity,” inquired Madame Epanchin.
Theyall laughed again.
“That hateful ass again! I wasn’t thinking about it,” cried the lady. “Believe me, prince, I spoke without any...”
“Hint? Oh, I believe you certainly.” And Myshkin went on laughing.
“I am glad you are laughing. I see you are a very good-natured young man,” said Lizaveta Prokofyevna.
“Sometimes not good-natured,” answered Myshkin.
“I am good-natured,” the lady put in unexpectedly, “and if you like I am always good-natured, you may say; it’s my one failing, for one oughtn’t to be always good-natured. I get angry often with these girls, and still more with Ivan Fyodorovitch; but the worst of it is that I am always more good-natured when I am angry. Just before you came in I was angry and pretended that I didn’t and couldn’t understand anything. I am like that sometimes; like a child. Aglaia pulled me up. Thank you for the lesson, Aglaia. But it’s all nonsense. I am not quite such a fool as I seem and as my daughters would like to make me out. I have a will of my own and am not easily put to shame. But I say this without malice. Come here, Aglaia, give me a kiss, there . . . that’s fondling enough,” she observed, when Aglaia had with real feeling kissed her on the lips and on the hand. “Go on, prince. Perhaps you will remember something more interesting than an ass.”
“I don’t understand how any one can describe straiqht off like that,” Adelaida observed aqain. “I
couldn’t think of anything.”
“But the prince will think of something, for he is extremely clever — at least ten times as clever as you are, very likely twelve times. I hope you will feel it after this. Prove it to them, prince, go on. bu really can pass over the ass now. What did you see abroad besides the ass?”
“It was clever about the ass too,” observed Alexandra. “It was interesting what the prince told us of his invalid condition and how one external shock made everything pleasant to him. I’ve always been interested to know how people go out of their minds and recover again. Especially when it happens all of a sudden.”
“Yes, yes,” cried her mother eagerly. “I see that you can be clever sometimes too. Well, come, stop laughing. You were speaking of Swiss scenery, prince, I think. Well?”
“We reached Lucerne and I was taken to the lake. I felt how beautiful it was, but I felt dreadfully depressed by it,” said Myshkin.
“Why?” asked Alexandra.
“I don’t know why. I always feel depressed and uneasy at the sight of such a landscape for the first time; I feel both happy and uneasy. But that was all while I was still ill.”
“I should awfully like to see it,” said Adelaida. “I can’t understand why we don’t go abroad. I haven’t been able to find subjects for painting for the last two years. The East and the South have been painted long ago. Find me a subject for a picture, prince.”
“I know nothing about it. I should have thought you’ve only to see and to paint.”
“I don’t know how to see things.”
“Why do you keep talking in riddles? I can’t make head or tail of it,” interrupted her mother. “What do you mean by not knowing how to see? bu’ve got eyes; see with them. If you can’t see here, you won’t learn how to abroad. Better tell us how you saw things yourself, prince.”
“Yes, that would be better,” added Adelaida. “The prince has learnt to see things abroad.”
“I don’t know. I simply got better abroad; I don’t know whether I learnt to see things. But I was almost all the time very happy.”
“Happy? You know how to be happy?” cried Aglaia. “Then how can you say you didn’t learn to see things? You might teach us, even.”
“Please do!” laughed Adelaida.
“I can’t teach anything,” Myshkin laughed too. “I spent almost all my time abroad in the same Swiss village. I rarely went on excursions, and only to a short distance. What could I teach you? At first I was simply not dull; I soon began to grow stronger. Then every day became precious to me, and more precious as time went on, so that I began to notice it. I used to go to bed very happy and get up happier still. But it would be hard to say why.”
“So you didn’t want to go away? bu had no desire to go anywhere?” asked Alexandra.
“At the beginning, quite at the beginning, I had, and I used to become very restless. I was continually thinking of the life I would lead. I wanted to know what life had in store for me. I was particularly restless at some moments. You know there are such moments, especially in solitude. There was a small waterfall there; it fell from a height on the the mountain, such a tiny thread, almost perpendicular — foa
ming, white and splashing. Though it fell from a great height it didn’t seem so high; it was the third of a mile away, but it only looked about fifty paces. I used to like listening to the sound of it at night. At such moments I was sometimes overcome with great restlessness; sometimes too at midday I wandered on the mountains, and stood alone halfway up a mountain surrounded by great ancient resinous pine trees; on the crest of the rock an old mediaeval castle in ruins; our little village far, far below, scarcely visible; bright sunshine, blue sky, and the terrible stillness. At such times I felt something was drawing me away, and I kept fancying that if I walked straight on, far, far away and reached that line where sky and earth meet, there I should find the key to the mystery, there I should see a new life a thousand times richer and more turbulent than ours. I dreamed of some great town like Naples, full of palaces, noise, roar, life. And I dreamed of all sorts of things, indeed. But afterwards I fancied one might find a wealth of life even in prison.”
“That last edifying reflection I read when I was twelve in my’Reader,’” said Aglaia.
“That’s all philosophy,” observed Adelaida. “You are a philosopher perhaps, and — who knows? — perhaps, truly.”
“Perhaps vou are riqht,” smiled Mvshkin. “I am really a philosopher perhaps, and — who know? — perhaps I really have a notion of instructing. . . . That’s possible, truly.”
“And your philosophy is just like “Vfevlampia Nikolayevna’s,” Aglaia put in again. “She is the widow of a clerk, who comes to see us, rather like a poor relation. Cheapness is her one object in life — to live as cheaply as possible, and she talks of nothing but farthings. And yet she has money, you know; she is sly. That’s like your wealth of life in prison; perhaps, too, your four years of happiness in the country for which you bartered your Naples; and you seem to have gained by the bargain, though it was a petty one.”
“There may be two opinions about life in prison,” said Myshkin. “A man who spent twelve years in prison told me something. He was one of the invalids in the care of my professor. He had fits; he was sometimes restless, wept, and even tried to kill himself. His life in prison had been a very sad one, I assure you, but not at all petty. Yet he had no friends but a spider and a tree that grew under his window. . . . But I’d better tell you how I met another man last year. There was one very strange circumstance about it — strange because such things rarely happen. This man had once been led out with others to the scaffold and a sentence of death was read over him. He was to be shot for a political offence. Twenty moments later a reprieve was read to them, and they were condemned to another punishment instead. “Vfet the interval between those two sentences, twenty minutes or at least a quarter of an hour, he passed in the fullest conviction that he would die in a few minutes. I was always eager to listen when he recalled his sensations at that time, and I often questioned him about it. He remembered it all with extraordinary distinctness and used to say that he never would forget those minutes. Twenty paces from the scaffold, round which soldiers and other people were standing, there were three posts stuck in the ground, as there were several criminals. The three first were led up, bound to the posts, the death-dress (a long white gown) was put on, and white caps were pulled over their eyes so that they should not see the guns; then a company of several soldiers was drawn up against each post. My friend was the eighth on the list, so he had to be one of the third set.
The priest went to each in turn with a cross. He had only five minutes more to live. He told me that those five minutes seemed to him an infinite time, a vast wealth; he felt that he had so many lives left in those five minutes that there was no need yet to think of the last moment, so much so that he divided his time up. He set aside time to take leave of his comrades, two minutes for that; then he kept another two minutes to think for the last time; and then a minute to look about him for the last time. He remembered very well having divided his time like that. He was dying at twenty-seven, strong and healthy. As he took leave of his comrades, he remembered asking one of them a somewhat irrelevant question and being particularly interested in the answer. Then when he had said good-bye, the two minutes came that he had set apart tor thinking to himself. He knew beforehand what he would think about. He wanted to realise as quickly and clearly as possible how it could be that now he existed and was living and in three minutes he would be something — someone or something. But what? Where? He meant to decide all that in those two minutes! Not far off there was a church,
and the gilt roof was glittering in the bright sunshine. He remembered that he stared very persistently at that roof and the light flashing from it; he could not tear himself away from the light. It seemed to him that those rays were his new nature and that in three minutes he would somehow melt into them. . . . The uncertainty and feeling of aversion for that new thing which would be and was just coming was awful. But he said that nothing was so dreadful at that time as the continual thought, ‘What if I were not to die! What if I could go back to life — what eternity! And it would all be mine! I would turn every minute into an age; I would lose nothing, I would count every minute as it passed, I would not waste one!’ He said that this idea turned to such a fury at last that he longed to be shot quickly.”
Myshkin suddenly ceased speaking; every one expected him to go on and draw some conclusion.
“Have you finished?” asked Aglaia.
“What? Yes,” said Myshkin, rousing himself from a momentary dreaminess.
“But what did you tell that story for?”
“Oh . . . something in our talk reminded me of it. ..
“You are very disconnected,” observed Alexandra. “You probably meant to show, prince, that not one instant of life can be considered petty, and that sometimes five minutes is a precious treasure. That’s all very laudable, but let me ask, how did that friend who told you such horrors ... he was reprieved, so he was presented with that ‘eternity of life.’ What did he do with that wealth afterwards? Did he live counting each moment?”
“Oh no, he told me himself. I asked him about that too. He didn’t live like that at all; he wasted many, many minutes.”
“Well, there you have it tried. So it seems it’s impossible really to live ‘counting each moment.’ For some reason it’s impossible.”
“Yes, for some reason it is impossible,” repeated Myshkin. “I thought so myself . . . and yet I somehow can’t believe it...”
“Then you think you will live more wisely than any one?” said Aglaia.
“Yes, I have thought that too sometimes.”
“And you think so still?”
“Yes ... I think so still,” answered Myshkin, looking at Aglaia with the same gentle and even timid smile;
but he laughed again at once and looked gaily at her.
“That’s modest,” said Aglaia almost irritably.
“But how brave you are, you laugh! But I was so impressed by his story that I dreamt of it afterwards. I ... dreamt of that five minutes ...”
Once more he looked earnestly and searchingly from one to another of his listeners.
“You are not angry with me for anything?” he asked suddenly, seeming embarrassed, but looking them straight in the face.
“What for?” cried the three young ladies in surprise.
“Why, because I seem all the while to be preaching to you.”
They all laughed.
“If you are angry, don’t be,” he said. “I know for myself that I have lived less than others and that I know less of life than any one. Perhaps I talk very queerly at times ...”
And he was overwhelmed with confusion.
“If you’re happy, as you say, you must have lived more, not less, than others. Why do you make a pretence and apoloqise?” Aqlaia persisted naggingly. “And please don’t mind about preaching to us; it’s no sign of superiority on your part. With your quietism one might fill a hundred years of life with happiness. If one shows you an execution or if one holds out one’s finger to you, you will draw equ
ally edifying reflections from both and be quite satisfied. Life is easy like that.”
“I can’t make out why you are so cross,” said Madame Epanchin, who had been watching the speakers’ faces for some time, “and I can’t make out what you are talking about either. Why a finger? What nonsense! The prince talks splendidly, only rather sadly. Why do you discourage him? When he began he was laughing, and now he is quite glum.”
“It’s all right, maman. But it’s a pity you haven’t seen an execution, prince, I should like to have asked you one question.”
“I have seen an execution,” answered Myshkin.
“You have?” cried Aglaia. “I ought to have guessed it. That’s the last straw! If you’ve seen that, how can you say that you were happy all the time? Didn’t I tell you the truth?”
“But do they have executions in your village?”
asked Adelaida.
“I saw it at Lyons. I visited the town with Schneider; he took me with him. We chanced upon it directly we arrived.”
“Well, did you like it? Was there much that was edifying and instructive?” asked Aglaia.
“I did not like it at all and I was rather ill afterwards, but I must confess I was riveted to the spot; I could not take my eyes off it.”
“I couldn’t have taken my eyes off it either,” said Aglaia.
“They don’t like women to look on at it; they even write about such women in the papers.”
“I suppose, if they consider that it’s not fit for women, they mean to infer (and so justify it) that it is fit for men. I congratulate them on their logic. And you think so too, no doubt.”
“Tell us about the execution,” Adelaida interrupted.
“I don’t feel at all inclined to now.” Myshkin was confused and almost frowned.
“You seem to grudge telling us about it,” Aglaia said tauntingly.
“No; but I’ve just been describing that execution.”
“Describing it to whom?”
Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky Page 270
