Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  “You know yourself it doesn’t depend on me.”

  “Parfyon, I am not your enemy, and I have no intention of interfering with you in anyway. I tell you that as I’ve told you once before, almost on a similar occasion. When your wedding was arranged in Moscow, I didn’t hinder you, you know that. The first time she rushed to me of herself, almost on the wedding day, begging me ‘to save’ her from you. It’s her own words I am repeating to you. Afterwards she ranawayfrom me too. You found her again and were going to marry her, and now they tell me she ran away from you again here. Is that true? Lebedyev told me so; that’s why I’ve come. But that you’d come together again I learnt for the first time only yesterday in the train from one of your former friends, Zalyozhev, if you care to know. I came here with a purpose. I wanted to persuade her to go abroad for the sake of her health. She is not well physically or mentally — her brain especially; and, to my mind, she needs great care. I didn’t mean to take her abroad myself; it was my plan for her to go without me. I am telling you the absolute truth. If it’s quite true that you’ve made it up again, I shan’t show myself to her, and I’ll never come again to see you either. bu know I don’t deceive you, because I’ve always been open with you. I have never concealed from you what I think about it, and I have always said that to marry you would be her perdition. bur perdition too . . . even more perhaps than hers. If you were to part again, I should be very glad; but I don’t intend to disturb or try to part you myself. Don’t worry yourself and don’t suspect me. You know yourself whether I was ever really your rival, even when she ran away to me. Now you are laughing. I know what you are laughing at. Yes, we lived apart, in different towns, and you know all that for a fact. I explained to you before that I don’t love her with love, but with pity. I believe I define it exactly. You said at the time that you understood what I said. Was that true? Did you understand? Here you are looking at me with hatred! I’ve come to reassure you, for you are dear to me too. I am very fond of you, Parfyon. But now I am going away and shall never come again. Good-bye!”

  Myshkin got up.

  “Stay with me a little,” said Parfyon softly, sitting still in his place with his head resting on his right hand. “It’s a long time since I’ve seen you.”

  Myshkin sat down. Both were silent again.

  “When you are not before me I feel anger against you at once, Lyov Nikolayevitch. Every minute of these three months that I haven’t seen you I have been angry with you, on my word, I have. I felt I could have poisoned you! I tell you now. bu haven’t been sitting a quarter of an hour with me, and all my anger is passing away and you are dear to me as you used to be. Stay with me a little....”

  “When I am with you, you believe me, but when I am away, you leave off believing me at once and begin suspecting me. bu are like your father,” Myshkin answered, with a friendly smile, trying to hide his emotion.

  “I believe your voice when I am with you. I understand, of course, we can’t be put on a level, you and I....”

  “Why do you add that? And now you are irritated again,” said Myshkin, wondering at Rogozhin.

  “Well, brother, our opinion is not asked in the matter,” he answered. “It’s settled without consulting us. bu see, we love in different ways too. There’s a difference in everything,” he went on softly after a pause. “You say you love her with pity. There’s no sort of pity for her in me. And she hates me too, more than anything. I dream of her every night now, always that she is laughing at me with other men. And that’s what she is doinq, brother. She is qoinq to the altar with me and she has forgotten to give me a thought, as though she were changing her shoe. Would you believe it, I haven’t seen her for five days, because I don’t dare to go to her. She’ll ask me, ‘What have you come for?’ She has covered me with shame.”

  “Shame? How can you!”

  “As though he didn’t know! Why, she ran away with you from me on the very wedding day — you said so yourself just now.”

  “Why, you don’t believe yourself that...”

  “Didn’t she shame me in Moscow with that officer, Zemtyuzhnikov? I know for certain she did, and even after she had fixed the wedding day.”

  “Impossible!” cried Myshkin.

  “I know it for a fact,” Rogozhin persisted with conviction. “She is not that sort of woman, you say? It’s no good telling me she is not that sort of woman, brother. That’s nonsense. With you she won’t be that sort of woman, and will be horrified herself, maybe, at such doings. But that’s just what she is with me. That’s the fact. She looks on me as the lowest refuse. I know for a fact that simply to make a laughingstock of me she got up an affair with Keller, that officer, the man who boxes. . . . “Vbu don’t know, of course, the tricks she played me at Moscow. And the money — the money I’ve wasted! ...”

  “And . . . and you are marrying her now? What will you do afterwards?” Myshkin asked in horror.

  Rogozhin bent a lowering, terrible gaze on Myshkin and made no answer.

  “It’s five days since I’ve been with her,” he went on after a minute’s pause. “I am afraid of her turning me out. ‘lam still mistress in my own house,’ she says. ‘If I choose I will get rid of you altogether and go abroad.’ (She told me that already, that she will go abroad, he observed, as it were in parenthesis, with a peculiar look into Myshkin’s eyes.) Sometimes, it’s true, she only does this to scare me. She is always laughing at me somehow. But another time she really scowls and is sullen and won’t say a word. That’s what I am afraid of. The other day I thought I’d take her something every time I went to see her. It only made her laugh at me, and afterwards she was really angry about it. She made a present to her maid, Katya, of a shawl I gave her, the like of which she may never have seen before, though she did live in luxury. And as to when our wedding is to be, I dare not open my lips. A queer sort of bridegroom when I am afraid to go and see her! So here I sit and when I can bear it no longer, I steal past her house on the sly or hide behind some corner. The other day I was on the watch almost till daybreak at her gate. I fancied there was something going on. And she must have seen me from the window. ‘What would you have done to me,’ she said, ‘if you had found out I’d deceived you?’ I couldn’t stand it, and I said, ‘bu know yourself.’”

  “What does she know?”

  “And how do I know?” Rogozhin laughed angrily. “At Moscow I couldn’t catch her with any one, though I was always on the track. I took her aside then and said to her once, ‘bu promised to marry me; you are entering an honest family, and do you know what you are now?’ I told her what she is.”

  “You told her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well?”

  ‘“I wouldn’t take you for a footman now perhaps,’ she said, ‘let alone be your wife!”And I won’t go away with that,’ said I; ‘I am done for anyway.”And I’ll call Keller, then,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell him and he’ll throw you out by the scruff of your neck.’ I flew at her and beat her till she was black and blue.”

  “Impossible!” cried Myshkin.

  “I tell you it was so,” Rogozhin repeated quietly, but with flashing eyes. “For thirty-six hours on end I didn’t sleep nor eat nor drink — I didn’t leave her room; I was on my knees before her. ‘If I die,’ I said, ‘I won’t go away till you forgive me, and if you tell them to throw me out, I’ll drown myself; for what should I do now without you?’ She was like a mad woman all that day: she went; then she was on the point of killing me with a knife; then she railed at me. She called Zalyozhev, Keller, Zemtyuzhnikov, and all of them, showed me to them, put me to shame. ‘Let’s make up a party and all go to the theatre to-night, gentlemen. Let him stay here if he won’t go; I am not bound to stay for him. They’ll bring you tea, Parfyon Semyonovitch, when I am out; you must be hungry by now.’ She came back from the theatre alone. ‘They are cowards and sneaks,’ she said. ‘They are afraid of you, and they frighten me. They say, “He won’t go away like that. He will cut your throat,
maybe.” But I’ll qo into mv bedroom and not even lock the door — so much for my being afraid of you! So that you may see and know it. Have you had any tea?”No,’ I said, ‘and I am not going to.”I’ve done my part, and this behaviour doesn’t suit you at all.’ And she did as she said, she didn’t lock her door. In the morning she came out and laughed. ‘Have you gone crazy?’ she asked. ‘Why, you’ll die of hunger!”Forgive me,’ said I. ‘I don’t want to forgive you. I won’t marry you, I’ve said so. Have you been sitting on that chair all night? Haven’t you been asleep?”No,’ said I, ‘I haven’t been asleep.”How stupid! And you won’t have breakfast or dinner again, I suppose?”I told you I won’t. Forgive me.”If only you knew how ill this suits you! It’s like a saddle on a cow. “Vbu don’t fancy you are going to scare me by that? What does it matter to me that you are hungry? As though that would frighten me!’ She was angry, but not for long, she soon began gibing at me again, and I wondered how it was that there was no anger in her; for she’ll resent a thing a long time, she’ll resent a thing with other people for a long time. Then it entered my head that she thinks so poorly of me that she can’t even feel much resentment against me. And that’s the truth!

  ‘Do you know what the Pope of Rome is?’ she asked. ‘I’ve heard,’ I said. ‘You’ve never learnt any universal history, Parfyon Semyonovitch,’ said she. ‘I never learnt anything,’ I said. ‘I’ll give you a story to read then,’ she said. ‘There was once a Pope, and he was angry with an emperor, and that emperor knelt barefoot before his palace for three days without eating or drinking till he forgave him. What do you suppose that emperor thought to himself, and what vows did he take while he was kneeling there? Stay,’ she said, ‘I’ll read it to you myself.’ She jumped up and brought the book. ‘It’s poetry,’ she said; and began reading me in verse how that emperor had vowed during those three days to avenge himself on the Pope for it. ‘Don’t you like that, Parfyon Semyonovitch?’ said she. ‘That’s all true,’ said I, ‘that you’ve read.”Aha! you say it’s true yourself. Then perhaps you are making vows: “When she is married to me I’ll make her remember it all! I’ll humble her to my heart’s content!” “I don’t know,’ said I, ‘perhaps I am thinking so.”How can you say you don’t know?”Why, I don’t know,’ said I; ‘I have no thoughts for that now.”What are you thinking of now?”Well, you’ll get up and walk past me, and I’m looking at you and watching you. Your skirt rustles, and my heart sinks; you go out of the room, and I remember every little word of yours, your voice and what you said. And all last night I thought of nothing; I listened all the while how you were breathing in your sleep, and twice you stirred.”And I dare say you don’t think, and you don’t remember, how you beat me?’ she said. ‘Perhaps I do think of it; I don’t know.”And if I don’t forgive you and I won’t marry you?”I’ve told you I’ll drown myself.”Perhaps you’ll murder me first. . .’ she said, and seemed to ponder. Then she was angry and went out. An hour later she came in to me so gloomy. ‘I will marry you, Parfyon Semyonovitch,’ she said, ‘and not because I am afraid of you; there’s nothing but ruin anyway. What’s better? Sit down,’ she said; ‘they’ll bring you dinner directly. And if I marry you I’ll be a faithful wife to you,’ she added; ‘don’t doubt of that and don’t be uneasy.’ Then she was silent, and said, ‘Anyway you are not a flunkey.’ Then she fixed the wedding day, and a week later she ran away from me to Lebedyev here. When I came she said, ‘I don’t give you up altogether; I only want to wait as long as I like, because I am still my own mistress. bu can wait too if you like.’ That’s how we stand now. . . . What do you think of all that, Lyov Nikolayevitch?”

  “What do you think yourself?” Myshkin questioned back, looking sorrowfully at Rogozhin.

  “Do you suppose I think?” broke from the latter.

  He would have added something, but paused in hopeless dejection.

  Myshkin stood up and would again have taken leave.

  “I won’t hinder you, anyway,” he said softly, almost dreamily, as though replying to some secret inner thought of his own.

  “Do you know what!” said Rogozhin, suddenly more eager, and his eyes kindled. “How is it you give in to me like this? Have you quite got over loving her? You used to be miserable, anyway; I saw that. Then why is it you’ve come here in such haste? From pity?” and his face worked with spiteful mockery. “Ha, ha!”

  “You think I am deceiving you now?” Myshkin inquired.

  “No, I believe you; but I can’t make it out. One might almost believe that your pity is greater than my love.”

  A certain malice and an urgent desire to express himself at once glowed in his face.

  “Well, there’s no distinguishing your love from hate,” said Myshkin, smiling. “It will pass, and then perhaps the trouble will be worse. I tell you this, brother Parfyon ...”

  “That I shall murder her?”

  Myshkin started.

  “You will hate her bitterly for this love, for all this torture you are suffering now. What is strangest of all to me is that she can again mean to marry you. When I heard it yesterday, I scarcely believed it, and it made me so unhappy! You see, she has thrown you up twice and run away on the wedding day; so she has some foreboding. What does she find in you now? It’s not your money; that’s nonsense. And no doubt you’ve wasted a good deal of it by now. Can it be simply to get a husband? Why, she could find plenty of others. Any man would be better than you, because you really may murder her; and she knows that only too well now, perhaps. Is it because you love her so passionately? It’s true that may be it. I’ve heard there are women who want just that sort of love. . . . Only . . .” Myshkin stopped and sank into thought.

  “Why are you smiling at my father’s portrait again?” asked Rogozhin, who was watching every movement, every change in Myshkin’s face with extraordinary intentness.

  “Why did I smile? Oh, it struck me that if it were not for this burden laid upon you, if it were not for this love, you would most likely have become exactly like your father, and in a very short time too. You would have settled down quietly in this house with an obedient and submissive wife; you would have been stern and sparing of words, trusting no one and feeling no desire to; doing nothing but heap up money in dreary silence. At the most you would sometimes have praised the old books and been interested in the Old Believers’ fashion of crossing themselves, and that only in your old age....”

  “Laugh away; but, do you know, she said the very same thing not long ago, when she too was looking at that portrait! It’s queer how you both say the same thing now.”

  “Why, has she been in your house?” asked Myshkin with interest.

  “Yes. She looked a long time at the portrait and asked me about my father. ‘You’d be just such another,’ she laughed to me afterwards. ‘You have strong passions, Parfyon Semyonovitch,’ she said; ‘such passions that you might have been carried by them straight off to Siberia, if you weren’t intelligent too. For you have a great deal of intelligence,’ she said. (Those were her words. Would you believe it? It was the first time I’d heard her say such a thing.) ‘bu would have soon given up all this silliness, and as you are quite an uneducated man, you would have begun saving money and have settled down like your father in this house with your Skoptsy. Maybe you would have gone over to their faith in the end, and have grown so fond of your money that you would have heaped up not two but ten million perhaps, and have died of hunger on your bags of money. For you are passionate in everything; you push everything to a passion.’ That was just how she talked, almost in those very words. She had never talked to me like that before. You know she always talks nonsense with me, or jeers at me; and, indeed, she began laughing this time; but then she grew so dejected, she walked all over the house, looked at everything, and seemed scared. ‘I’ll change all this and do it up, or if you like I’ll buy another house before we are married.”No, no,’ she said; ‘nothing must be changed here, we’ll live like this. I want to live with your mo
ther,’ she said, ‘when I become your wife.’ I took her to my mother. She was respectful to her, as if she had been her own daughter. For the last two years mother has not been quite in her right mind (she is ill), and since my father died she’s become quite like a child: she can’t talk, she can’t walk, and only bows to every one she sees. If we didn’t feed her, I believe she wouldn’t notice it for three days. I took my mother’s right hand, folded her fingers. ‘Bless her, mother,’ said I; ‘she is going to the altar with me.’ Then she kissed my mother’s hand with feeling. ‘Your mother must have had a great deal of sorrow to bear,’ said she. She saw this book here. ‘What, have you begun reading Russian history?’ (She said to me herself in Moscow once, ‘You should educate yourself. You might at least read Solovyev’s Russian history. bu know nothing at all.’) ‘That’s right,’ she said, ‘go on reading. I’ll write you a list myself of the books you ought to read first, shall I?’And never, never before had she talked to me like that, so that I was positively amazed. For the first time I breathed like a living man.”

  “lam very glad of that, Parfyon,” said Myshkin with sincere feeling, “very glad. Who knows, after all perhaps God will bring you together.”

  “That will never be!” Rogozhin cried hotly.

  “Listen, Parfyon. Since you love her so, surely you want to gain her respect? And if you want to, you can’t be without hope? I said just now that I was unable to comprehend what makes her marry you. But though I can’t understand it, I have no doubt that there must be a sufficient, sensible reason. She is convinced of your love, but she must believe in some of your good qualities also. It can’t be otherwise. What you said just now confirms this. You told me yourself that she has found it possible to speak to you in quite a different way from how she has spoken and behaved to you before. bu are suspicious and jealous, and that has made you exaggerate everything you’ve noticed amiss. Of course she doesn’t think so ill of you as you say. If she did, it would be as good as deliberately going to be drowned or murdered to marry you. Is that possible?