Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  “I think you are laughing. Why do you keep laughing at me? I notice that you are laughing at me all the time,” he said, turning with a sudden and uneasy irritation to Yevgeny Pavlovitch.

  The latter really was laughing. “I only wanted to ask you, Mr. . . . Ippolit. . . excuse me, I’ve forgotten your name.”

  “Mr. Terentyev,” said Myshkin.

  “Yes, Terentyev. Thank you, prince. It was mentioned before, but it escaped my memory. ... I wanted to ask you, Mr. Terentyev, is it true what I’ve heard, that you believe that you have only to talk to the peasants out of the window for a quarter of an hour and they’ll agree with you and follow you at once?”

  “It’s quite possible I’ve said so,” answered Ippolit, seeming to recall something. “I certainly did say so,” he added suddenly, growing eager again and looking at Yevgeny Pavlovitch. “What of it?”

  “Absolutely nothing; I simply wanted to know, to put the finishing touch.”

  “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch was silent, but Ippolit still looked at him in impatient expectation.

  “Well, have you finished?” Lizaveta Prokofyevna asked “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch. “Make haste and finish, my friends; he ought to be in bed. Or don’t you know how to?”

  She was in terrible vexation.

  “I am very much tempted to add,” Yevgeny Pavlovitch went on, smiling, “that everything I’ve heard from your companions, Mr. Terentyev, and everything you’ve said just now, and with such unmistakable talent, amounts in my opinion to the theory of the triumph of right before everything and setting everything aside, and even to the exclusion of everything else, and perhaps even before finding out what that right consists in. Perhaps I am mistaken.”

  “Of course you are mistaken; I don’t even understand you.... Further?”

  There was a murmur in the corner, too. Lebedyev’s nephew was muttering something in an undertone.

  “Why, scarcely anything further,” Yevgeny Pavlovitch went on. “I only meant to observe that from that position one may easily make a jump to the right of might, that is, to the right of the individual fist and of personal caprice, as indeed has often happened in the history of the world. Proudhon arrived at the right of might. In the American War, many of the most advanced Liberals declared themselves on the side of the planters on the ground that Negroes are Negroes, lower than the white race, and therefore that right of might was on the side of the white men..

  “Well?”

  “So then you don’t deny that might is right?”

  “Further?”

  “I must say you are logical. I only wanted to observe that from the right of might to the right of tigers and crocodiles, and even to the right of Danilovs and Gorskys, is not a long step.”

  “I don’t know. Further?”

  Ippolit scarcely heard what “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch said, and asked “Well?” and “Further?” more from a habit he had formed in arguments than from attention or curiosity.

  “Nothing more ... that’s all.”

  “I am not angry with you, though,” Ippolit concluded suddenly and quite unexpectedly, and, hardly knowing what he was doing, he held out his hand, even smiling.

  “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch was surprised at first, but with a most serious air touched the hand which was offered to him as though accepting forgiveness.

  “I must add,” he said in the same equivocally respectful tone, “my gratitude to you for the attention with which you have listened to me, for, from my numerous observations, our Liberals are never capable of letting anyone else have a conviction of his own without at once meeting their opponent with abuse or even something worse.”

  “You are perfectly right there,” observed General Epanchin, and, folding his hands behind his back, he retreated with a bored air to the steps of the verandah, where he yawned with vexation.

  “Well, that’s enough of you, my friend,” Lizaveta Prokofyevna announced suddenly to Yevgeny Pavlovitch, “I am tired of you.”

  “It’s late!” Ippolit suddenly got up, looked preoccupied and almost alarmed, gazing about him in perplexity. “I’ve kept you; I wanted to tell you everything. ... I thought that every one for the last time ... that was fancy....”

  It was evident that he revived by fits and starts. He would suddenly come to himself from actual delirium for a few minutes; he would remember and talk with complete consciousness, chiefly in disconnected phrases which he had perhaps thought out and learnt by heart in the long weary hours of his illness, in his bed, in sleepless solitude.

  “Well, good-bye,” he said suddenly and abruptly. “Do you think it’s easy for me to say good-bye to you? Ha ha!” He laughed angrily at his awkwerd question, and, seeming suddenly to grow furious at continually failing to say what he wanted to say, he said loudly and irritably: “bur excellency, I have the honour of inviting you to my funeral if only you think me worthy of such an honour, and ... all of you, ladies and gentlemen, in the wake of the general!”

  He laughed again, but it was the laugh of a madman. Lizaveta Prokofyevna moved towards him in alarm and took him by the arm. He looked at her intently with the same lauqh which seemed to have stopped short and frozen on his face.

  “Do you know I came here to see the trees? These here” — he pointed to the trees in the park— “that’s not ridiculous, is it? There is nothing ridiculous in it?” he asked Lizaveta Prokofyevna seriously, and suddenly he sank into thought; then a minute later raised his head and began inquisitively looking about in the company. He was looking for “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch, who was standing quite near on the right of him in the same place as before, but he had already forgotten and looked round. “Ah, you’ve not gone away!” He found him at last. “bu were laughing just now at my wanting to talk out of the window for a quarter of an hour. . . . But do you know I am not eighteen? I’ve lain so much on that pillow and looked out of that window and thought so much . . . about every one . . . that... a dead man has no age, you know. I thought that last week when I woke up in the night. . . . And do you know what you are more afraid of than anything? You are more afraid of our sincerity than of anything, though you do despise us! I thought that too, lying on my pillow, that night.... bu think I meant to laugh at you, Lizaveta Prokofyevna? No, I was not laughing at you, I only wanted to praise you. Kolya told me the prince said you were a child . . . that’s good. . . . “Vfes, what was it? ... I was going to say something more. . . .” He hid his face in his hands and pondered. “Oh, yes, when you were saying ‘Good-bye’ just now I suddenly thought: these people here, there never will be any more of them, never! And the trees too . . . there will be nothing but the red-brick wall, the wall of Meyer’s house . .. opposite my window. .. . Well, tell them about all that... try to tell them; here’s a beauty . . . you are dead, you know. Introduce yourself as a dead man; tell them that the dead may say anything and that the Princess Marya Alexeyevna — . . . won’t find fault. Ha ha! bu don’t laugh? . . .” He scanned them all mistrustfully. “You know, a great many ideas have come into my head as I lay on the pillow.... Do you know, I am convinced that Nature is very ironical. . . . bu said just now that I am an atheist, but do you know this Nature . . . Why are you laughing again? bu are horribly cruel!” he pronounced suddenly with mournful indignation, looking at all of them. “I have not corrupted Kolya,” he concluded in quite a different tone, earnest and convinced, as thouqh remembering something again.

  “Nobody, nobody is laughing at you here; don’t worry yourself,” said Lizaveta Prokofyevna in distress. “A new doctor shall come to-morrow; the other one was mistaken. Sit down, you can hardly stand on your legs! bu are delirious. . . . Ah, what are we to do with him now?” she asked anxiously, making him sit down in an arm-chair.

  A tear gleamed on her cheek. Ippolit stopped, almost amazed. He raised his hand, stretched it out timidly, and touched the tear. He smiled a childlike smile.

  “I. .. you,” he began joyfully, “you don’t know how I . . . he has always talked to me so enthusiastically about you,
he there,” he pointed to Kolya. “I like his enthusiasm. I’ve never corrupted him! He is the only friend I leave behind. ... I should like to have left every one friends, every one ... but I had none. ... I meant to do so much, I had the right. . . . Oh, how much I wanted! Now I want nothing. I don’t want to want anything, I promised myself not to want anything; let them seek the truth without me! Yes, Nature is ironical. Why,” he resumed with heat, “why does she create the best beings only to laugh at them afterwards? It is her doing that the sole creature recognized on earth as perfection ... it is her doing that, showing him to men, she has decreed for him to say words for which so much blood has been shed, that if it had been shed at once, men must have been drowned in it. . . . Ah, it’s a good thing that I am dying! Perhaps I too should utter some horrible lie, Nature would beguile me into it.... I have not corrupted anyone.... I wanted to live for the happiness of all men, to discover and proclaim the truth. ... I gazed out of the window on Meyer’s wall and dreamed of only speaking for a quarter of an hour and convincing every one, every one, and for once in my life I have met . . . you, though I haven’t others, and see what has come of it? Nothing! All that has come of it is that you despise me! So then I am a fool, so then I am not needed, so then it’s time for me to go! And I haven’t succeeded in leaving any memory behind me — not a sound, not a trace, not one deed; I haven’t preached one truth! . . . Don’t laugh at the foolish fellow! Forget! Forget it all. Forget it, please; don’t be so cruel! Do you know that if this consumption hadn’t turned up, I should have killed myself.”

  He seemed wanting to say a great deal more but did not say it; he sank back in the chair, covered his face with his hands, and began crying like a little child.

  “Well, what are we to do with him now!” exclaimed Lizaveta Prokofyevna. She darted up to him, took his head, and pressed it close to her bosom. He sobbed convulsively. “There, there, there! Come, don’t cry. Come, that’s enough. bu are a good boy. God will forgive you because of your ignorance! Come, that’s enough; be a man. Besides, you’ll feel ashamed.”

  “Up there,” said Ippolit, trying to raise his head, “I’ve a brother and sisters, little children, poor, innocent. . . . She will corrupt them! You are a saint, you . . . are a child yourself — save them! Get them away from that woman . . . she ... a disgrace. . . . Oh, help them, help them! God will repay you a hundred-fold. For God’s sake, for Christ’s sake!”

  “Do tell me, Ivan Fyodorovitch, what is to be done now,” Lizaveta Prokofyevna cried irritably. “Be so good as to break your majestic silence. If you don’t decide somethinq, vou may as well know that I shall stay the night here myself; you’ve tyrannised over me enough with your despotism!”

  Lizaveta Prokofyevna spoke with excitement and anger, and awaited an immediate reply. But in such cases those present, if there are many of them, usually receive such questions in silence and with passive interest, unwilling to take anything upon themselves, and only express their opinions long afterwards. Among those present on this occasion there were some who were capable of sitting there till morning without uttering a word. Varvara Ardalionovna, for instance, had been sitting at a little distance all the evening, listening in silence with an extraordinary interest, for which there were perhaps special reasons.

  “My opinion, my dear,” the general expressed himself at last, “is that a nurse is more needed here than our agitation, and perhaps a trustworthy, sober person for the night. In any case the prince must be asked, and ... the invalid must have rest at once. And to-morrow we can show interest in him again.”

  “It’s twelve o’clock. We are going. Is he coming with us or is he staying with you?” Doktorenko asked Myshkin, irritably and angrily.

  “If you like, you can stay here with him,” said Myshkin; “there’ll be room.”

  “Your excellency!” Mr. Keller suddenly and enthusiastically flew up to General Epanchin. “If a satisfactory man is wanted for the night, I am ready to sacrifice myself for a friend ... he is such a soul! I’ve long considered him a great man, your excellency! My education has been defective, of course, but his criticisms — they are pearls, pearls, your excellency!”

  The general turned away in despair.

  “I shall be very glad if he will stay, of course; it’s difficult for him to be moved,” Myshkin replied to Lizaveta Prokofyevna’s irritable questions.

  “Are you asleep? If you don’t want him, my friend, I’ll take him home with us. My goodness, he can hardly stand upright himself! Why, you are ill?”

  Earlier in the evening Lizaveta Prokofyevna, not finding Myshkin at death’s door, had been misled by appearances into exaggerating his strength; but his recent illness, the painful recollections associated with it, the fatigue of this strenuous evening, the incident with “the son of Pavlishtchev,” and the to-do with Ippolit now, all worked upon the morbid sensitiveness of Myshkin and excited him almost into a fever. Another anxiety, almost a fear, could moreover be discerned in his eyes; he looked apprehensively at Ippolit, as though expecting something more from him.

  Suddenly Ippolit got up, horribly pale and with an expression of terrible, almost despairing, shame on his distorted face. It was expressed chiefly in his eyes, which looked with fear and hatred at the company, and in the vacant, twisted, and abject grin on his quivering lips. He dropped his eyes at once and strolled, staggering and still with the same smile, up to Burdovsky and Doktorenko, who were standing at the verandah steps; he was going away with them.

  “Ah, that’s what I was afraid of!” cried Myshkin; “that was bound to happen!”

  Ippolit turned quickly to him with frenzied anger, and every feature in his face seemed to be quivering and speaking.

  “Ah, you were afraid of that, were you? That was bound to happen, you say? Then let me tell you, if I hate anyone here,” he yelled, spluttering, with a hoarse shriek, “I hate you all, everyone of you! — it’s you, Jesuitical, treacly soul, idiot, philanthropic millionaire; I hate you more than every one and everything in the world! I understood and hated you long ago, when first I heard of you; I hated you with all the hatred of my soul. . . . This has all been your contriving. bu led me on to breaking down! You drove a dying man to shame! bu, you, you are to blame for my abject cowardice! I would kill you if I were going to remain alive! I don’t want your benevolence, I won’t take anything — anything, do you hear? — from anyone! I was in delirium, and don’t you dare to triumph! I curse every one of you, once for all!”

  Here he choked completely.

  “He is ashamed of his tears,” Lebedyev whispered to Lizaveta Prokofyevna. “That was bound to happen. Bravo, the prince! he saw right through him.”

  But Lizaveta Prokofyevna did not deign to glance at him. She was standing proudly erect, with her head thrown back, scanning “these miserable people” with contemptuous curiosity. When Ippolit had finished, General Epanchin shrugged his shoulders; his wife looked him up and down wrathfully, as though asking an explanation of his movement, and at once turned to Myshkin.

  “We must thank you, prince, the eccentric friend of our family, for the agreeable evening you have given us all. I suppose your heart is rejoicing now at having succeeded in dragging us into your foolery. . . . Enough, my dear friend. Thank you for having let us have a clear view at last of what you are, anyway.”

  She began indignantly setting straight her mantle, waiting for “those people” to get off. A cab drove up at that moment to take them. Doktorenko had sent Lebedyev’s son, the schoolboy, to fetch it a quarter of an hour before. Immediately after his wife, General Epanchin managed to put in his word too.

  “Yes, indeed, prince, I should never have expected it . . . after everything, after all our friendly relations ... and then Lizaveta Prokofyevna ...”

  “How can you! How can you!” cried Adelaida. She walked quickly up to Myshkin and gave him her hand.

  Myshkin smiled at her with a bewildered face. Suddenly a rapid, excited whisper seemed to scorch his ear.

>   “If you don’t throw up these nasty people at once, I shall hate you all my life, all my life!” Aglaia whispered to him.

  She seemed in a sort of frenzy, but she turned away before he had time to look at her. However, he had by now nothing and no one to throw up: they had by this time succeeded somehow in getting the invalid into the cab, and it had driven away.

  “Well, how much longer is this going on, Ivan Fyodorovitch? What do you say to it? How long am I to be tormented by these spiteful boys?”

  “Well, my dear... I am ready, of course, and . . . the prince ...”

  Ivan Fyodorovitch held out his hand to Myshkin, however, but, without staying to shake hands, ran after Lizaveta Prokofyevna, who descended the terrace steps, rustling and wrathful.

  Alexandra, Adelaida, and her betrothed took leave of Myshkin with genuine affection. Yevgeny Pavlovitch did the same, and he alone was in good spirits.

  “It happened as I thought it would, only I am sorry you — poor fellow — have had such a bad time!” he whispered, with a most charming smile.

  Aglaia went away without saying good-bye.

  But the adventures of that evening were not yet over. Lizaveta Prokofyevna had still to face a very unexpected meeting.

  Before she had descended the verandah steps to the road, which ran along the edge of the park, a magnificent carriage, drawn by two white horses, came dashing by Myshkin’s villa. Two gorgeously dressed ladies were sitting in it. But the carriage suddenly pulled up not ten paces beyond the house. One of the ladies turned round quickly, as though she had suddenly caught sight of a friend she must speak to.

  “Yevgeny Pavlovitch, is that you, dear?” cried a beautiful ringing voice, which made Myshkin, and perhaps some one else too, start. “Oh, how glad I am I’ve found you at last! I sent a messenger to you in town, two of them; they’ve been looking for you all day!”

  “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch stood on the verandah steps as though thunderstruck. Lizaveta Prokofyevna too stood still, but not in horror and petrifaction like “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch; she looked at the audacious person with the same pride and cold contempt as she had five minutes before at “these miserable people,” and at once turned her steady gaze on Yevgeny Pavlovitch.