Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  He went out in haste and extreme wrath. Nina Alexandrovna, Kolya and Ptitsyn rushed after him.

  “Well, what have you done now!” Varya said to her brother. “He’ll be off there again most likely. The disgrace of it!”

  “He shouldn’t steal,” cried Ganya, almost spluttering with anger. Suddenly his eyes met Ippolit’s. Ganya positively shook. “As for you, sir,” he shouted, “you ought to remember, anyway, that you’re in another person’s house and . . . enjoying his hospitality, and not to irritate an old man who has obviously gone out of his mind.”

  Ippolit too felt a qualm, but he instantly controlled himself.

  “I don’t quite agree with you that your papa has gone out of his mind,” he answered calmly, “on the contrary, it seems to me that he has had more sense of late, really; don’t you think so? He has become so cautious, suspicious. He pries into everything, weighs every word. He began talking to me about that Kapitoshka with an object, you know. Only fancy, he wanted to lead me on to ...”

  “Ai’e, what the devil do I care what he wanted to lead you on to? I beg you not to try your shifty dodges on me, sir,” shrieked Ganya. “If you, too, know the real cause why the old man is in such a state (and you’ve been spying here these five days to such a degree that you certainly do know) you ought not to have irritated ... the unhappy man, and worried my mother by exaggerating the matter; for it’s all nonsense, simply a drunken freak, nothing more, not proved either, and I don’t think it’s worth a thought... but you must sting and spy because you .. . you are .

  “A screw!” laughed Ippolit.

  “Because you are an abject creature, because you worried people for half an hour, thinking to frighten them by shooting yourself with an unloaded pistol, making such a shameful exhibition of yourself, you walking mass of jaundiced spite who can’t even commit suicide without making a mess of it! I have given you hospitality, you’ve grown fat, you’ve left off coughing, and you repay it...”

  “Allow me, two words only; I am in Varvara Ardalionovna’s house, not yours, and I imagine indeed that you yourself are enjoying the hospitality of Mr. Ptitsyn. Four days ago I begged my mother to find lodgings for me in Pavlovsk and to move here herself, because I certainly feel better here, though I have not grown fat at all and am still coughing. Mother let me know yesterday evening that the lodging was ready, and I hasten to inform you on my side, that thanking your mother and sister for their kindness, I will move there to-day, as I decided to do last night. Excuse me, I interrupted you, I believe you wanted to say a great deal more.”

  “Oh, if that’s so,” said Ganya, quivering.

  “If that’s so, allow me to sit down,” added Ippolit, seating himself with perfect composure in the chair where the general had been sitting. “After all I am ill, you know; well, now I’m ready to listen to you, especially as this is our last conversation, perhaps indeed our last meeting.”

  Ganya suddenly felt ashamed.

  “You may be sure I won’t demean myself by settling accounts with you,” said he, “and if you ...”

  “You need not be so lofty,” interrupted Ippolit, “on the very first day of my coming here, I vowed I would not deny myself the satisfaction of paying off all scores with you, and in the most thoroughgoing way, when we came to part. I intend to do this now, but after you, of course.”

  “I beg you to leave the room.”

  “You’d better speak. You’ll only regret not having had it out, you know.”

  “Leave off, Ippolit, it’s all so horribly undignified; do me the favour to be quiet,” said Varya.

  “Only to oblige a lady,” laughed Ippolit, getting up. “Certainly, Varvara Ardalionovna, for you I am ready to cut it short, but only that, for some explanation between me and your brother is absolutely essential, and nothing would induce me to go away leaving a misunderstandinq.”

  “In plain words you’re a scandalmonger,” screamed Ganya, “and so you won’t go away without a scandal.”

  “There, you see,” Ippolit observed coolly, “you’re at it again, already. bu certainly will regret not speaking out. Once more I make way for you. I await your words.”

  Gavril Ardalionovitch looked at him contemptuously, without speaking.

  “You won’t speak. You mean to keep up your part — please yourself. On my side I will be as brief as possible. Two or three times to-day I have been reproached with accepting your hospitality. That’s unfair. By inviting me to stay with you, you tried to entrap me yourself, you reckoned I should want to payout the prince. bu heard, besides, that Aglaia Ivanova had shown sympathy for me and read my confession. Supposing for some reason that I was ready to devote myself altogether to your interests, you hoped that you might get help from me. I won’t explain more in detail! I do not demand assurances or confessions from you either; enough that I leave you to your conscience, and that now we thoroughly understand each other.”

  “Goodness knows what you make out of the most ordinary things!” cried Varya.

  “I told you: he’s a scandalmonger and a nasty schoolboy,” said Ganya.

  “Allow me, Varvara Ardalionovna, I’ll go on. The prince, of course, I can neither like nor respect; but he is certainly a kind man, though . . . rather ridiculous. But I’ve certainly no reason to hate him; I didn’t let on when your brother tried to set me against the prince; I was looking forward to having a laugh at him afterwards. I knew that your brother would make a blunder and give himself away to me shockingly. And so it has turned out... I am ready to spare him now, simply out of respect for you, Varvara Ardalionovna. But since I have made it clear that it is not so easy to catch me, I’ll explain why I was so anxious to make your brother look a fool. You must know that I’ve done it because I hate him, I confess it openly. When I die (for I am dying even if I have grown fatter as you say), when I die, I feel I shall go to paradise with my heart incomparably more at ease, if I succeed in making a fool of one at least of the class of people who have persecuted me all my life, whom I have hated all my life, and of which your excellent brother is a conspicuous example. I hate you, Gavril Ardalionovitch, simply because — this will perhaps seem marvellous to you — simply because you are the type, the incarnation, the acme of the most insolent and self-satisfied, the most vulgar and loathsome commonplaceness. burs is the commonplaceness of pomposity, of self-satisfaction and Olympian serenity. You are the most ordinary of the ordinary! Not the smallest idea of your own will ever take shape in your heart or your mind. But you are infinitely envious; you are firmly persuaded that you are a great genius; but yet doubt does visit you sometimes at black moments, and you grow spiteful and envious. Oh, there are still black spots on your horizon; they will pass when you become quite stupid, and that’s not far off; but a long and chequered path lies before you! I can’t call it a cheerful one and I’m glad of it. In the first place I predict that you won’t gain a certain lady...”

  “Oh, this is unbearable!” cried Varya. “Will you leave off, you horrid, spiteful creature?”

  Ganya turned white, quivered and kept silent. Ippolit stopped, looked intentlvand with relish at him,

  turned his eyes to Varya, bowed and went out, without adding another word.

  Gavril Ardalionovitch might with justice have complained of his lot and of his ill-success. For some time Varya did not venture to speak to him, she did not even glance at him as he paced to and fro before her with long strides; at last he walked away to the window and stood with his back to her. Varya thought of the Russian proverb about “a knife that cuts both ways.” A noise began again overhead.

  “Are you going?” Ganya asked suddenly, hearing her get up from her seat. “Wait a bit. Look at this.”

  He went up and threw on the chair before her a piece of paperfolded into the shape of a tiny note.

  “Good heavens!” cried Varya, clasping her hands.

  There were just seven lines in the note:

  “Gavril Ardalionovitch! As I am convinced of your friendly feeling for
me I venture to ask your advice in a matter of great importance to me. I should like to meet you to-morrow morning at seven o’clock at the green seat. It’s not far from our villa. Varvara Ardalionovna who must accompany you knows the place well. A.E.”

  “Good heavens, what will she do next?” Varvara Ardalionovna flung up her hands.

  Little as Ganya was inclined to be boastful at that moment, he could not help showing his triumph, especially after Ippolit’s humiliating predictions. A self-satisfied smile lit up his face, and Varya, too, beamed all over with delight.

  “And that on the very day when her betrothal is to be announced! Well, there’s no knowing what she’ll do next!”

  “What do you think? What does she mean to speak about to-morrow?” asked Ganya.

  “That doesn’t matter. What matters is that she wants to see you for the first time after six months. Listen to me, Ganya, whatever’s happened, whatever turn it takes, I tell you it’s important! It’s tremendously important! Don’t swagger, don’t make another blunder, and don’t be faint-hearted either, mind that. She must have guessed why I’ve been trudging off there for the last six months? And fancy, she didn’t say a word to me to-day, she made no sign. I’ve been to them on the sly, you know. The old woman did not know I was there, or maybe she’d have sent me packing. I risked it for your sake, to find out at all costs....”

  Again there was shouting and uproar overhead. Several persons were coming downstairs.

  “This mustn’t be allowed now on any account!” cried Varya, flurried and alarmed. “Not a shadow of a scandal! Go, ask his forgiveness!”

  But the head of the family was already in the street. Kolya was dragging his bag after him. Nina Alexandrovna was standing on the steps, crying; she would have run after him, but Ptitsyn held her back.

  “You only make him worse like that,” he said to her. “He has nowhere to go. He’ll be brought back again in half an hour. I’ve spoken to Kolya already; let him play the fool.”

  “Why these heroics? Where can you go?” Ganya shouted from the window. “You’ve nowhere to go!”

  “Come back, father!” cried Varya, “the neighbours will hear.”

  The general stopped, turned round, stretched out his hand, and exclaimed:

  “My curse on this house!”

  “He must take that theatrical tone!” muttered Ganya, closing the window with a slam.

  The neighbours certainly were listening. Varya ran out of the room.

  When Varya had gone out, Ganya took the note from the table, kissed it, gave a click of satisfaction and pirouetted round.

  CHAPTER 3

  The SCENE with the general would never have come to anything in other circumstances. He had had sudden outbursts of temper of the same kind before, though not often; for, generally speaking, he was a very good-tempered man, and of a rather kindly disposition. A hundred times perhaps he had struggled against the bad habits that had gained the mastery of him of late years. He used suddenly to remember that he was head of a family, would make it up with his wife, and shed genuine tears. He respected and almost worshipped Nina Alexandrovna, for having forgiven him so much in silence, and for loving him, even though he had become a grotesque and degraded figure. But his noble-hearted efforts to overcome his failings did not usually last long. The general was besides of a too “impulsive” character, though in his own peculiar fashion. He could not stand for long his empty mode of life as a penitent in his family and ended by revolting. He flew into a paroxysm of excitement, for which, perhaps he was inwardly reproaching himself at the very moment, though he could not restrain himself: he quarrelled, began talking eloquently and rhetorically, insisting upon being treated with the most exaggerated and impossible respect and finally would disappear from the house, sometimes remaining absent for a long time. For the last two years he had only a vague idea from hearsay of the circumstances of the family. He had given up going further into matters, feeling not the slightest impulse to do so.

  But this time there was something exceptional in the “general’s outbreak.” Every one seemed to be aware of something, and every one seemed afraid to speak of it. The general had “formally” presented himself to his family, that is to Nina Alexandrovna, only three days before, but not humble and penitent as on all previous “reappearances,” but on the contrary — with marked irritability. He was loquacious, restless, talked heatedly to all, and, as it were, hurled himself upon every one he met, but always speaking of such irrelevant and unexpected subjects that it was impossible to get to the bottom of what was worrying him. At moments he was cheerful, but for the most part he was thoughtful, though he did not know himself what he was thinking about. He would suddenly begin to talk of something — of the Epanchins, of Myshkin, of Lebedyev — and then he would suddenly break off and cease speaking, and only responded to further questions with a vacant smile, without being conscious himself that he was being questioned or that he was smiling. He had spent the previous night moaning and groaning and had exhausted Nina Alexandrovna, who had been up all night, preparing fomentations. Towards morning he had suddenly fallen asleep; he slept for four hours and waked up with a most violent and irrational attack of hypochondria, which ended in a quarrel with Ippolit and “a curse on this house.” They noticed, too, that for those three days he had been liable to violent attacks of self-esteem, which made him morbidly ready to take offence. Kolya assured his mother and insisted that this was all due to a craving for drink, and perhaps for Lebedyev, with whom the general had become extraordinarily friendly of late. But, three days before he had suddenly quarrelled with Lebedyev, and had parted from him in a terrible fury. There had even been some sort of a scene with Myshkin. Kolya begged Myshkin for an explanation, and began at last to suspect that he too knew something he did not want to tell him. If, as Ganya, with every possibility of correctness, supposed, some special conversation had taken place between Ippolit and Nina Alexandrovna, it seemed strange that this spiteful youth, whom Ganya called so openly a “scandalmonger,” had not found satisfaction in initiating Kolya into the secret in the same way. It was very possible that he was not such a malicious and nasty “puppy” as Ganya had described him in speaking to his sister, but was malicious in a different way. And he could hardly have informed Nina Alexandrovna of what he had observed simply in order “to break her heart.” Don’t let us forget that the causes of human actions are usually immeasurably more complex and varied than our subsequent explanations of them. And these can rarely be distinctly defined. The best course for the story-teller at times is to confine himself to a simple narrative of events. And this is the line we will adopt in the rest of our account of the present catastrophe with the general; for, do what we may, it is absolutely inevitable we should bestow rather more space and attention than we had originally proposed on this person of secondary importance in our story.

  These events had succeeded one another in the following order.

  When Lebedyev on the same day returned with the general from his visit to Petersburg to look for Ferdyshtchenko, he told Myshkin nothing particular. If Myshkin had not been at the time too busy and preoccupied with other impressions of great importance to him, he might soon have noticed that during the two following days Lebedyev, far from giving him any kind of explanation, seemed, for some reason, to be trying to avoid meeting him. When Myshkin did at last turn his attention to the subject, he was surprised that he could not remember during those three days having met Lebedyev in any but the most blissful state of mind,

  and almost always in company with the general. They were never apart for a moment. Myshkin sometimes heard the sound of loud and rapid talk and merry laughing dispute from overhead. Once, very late at night, the strains of a martial and Bacchanalian song had suddenly and unexpectedly burst upon his ears, and he recognised at once the husky bass of the general. But the song ceased suddenly before the end. Then for about another hour an extremely animated, and from all signs, drunken conversation followed. It might be conj
ectured that the friends were embracing one another, and one of them finally began to weep. Then followed a violent quarrel, which also ceased suddenly soon after. All this time Kolya seemed peculiarly preoccupied. Myshkin was generally not at home, and returned sometimes very late. He was always told that Kolya had been looking for him all day, and asking for him. But when they met, Kolya had nothing special to tell him except that he was “dissatisfied” with the general and his goings on at present: “They wander about together, get drunk in a tavern close by, embrace one another and quarrel in the street. They make each other worse, and can’t be parted.” When Myshkin observed that it had been just the same every day before, Kolya was quite unable to find an answer, and could not explain the cause of his present uneasiness.

  The morning after the Bacchic song and quarrel, Myshkin was leaving the house about eleven o’clock when he was suddenly confronted by the general, who seemed greatly excited, almost overwhelmed, by something.

  “I’ve long been seeking the honour of meeting you, honoured Lyov Nikolayevitch, very long,” he muttered, squeezing Myshkin’s hand very tightly, almost hurting him. “A very, very long time.”

  Myshkin begged him to sit down.

  “No, I won’t sit down. Besides, I’m keeping you. I’ll come another time. I believe I may take the opportunity of congratulating you on . . . the fulfilment of your heart’s desire.”

  “What heart’s desire?”

  Myshkin was disconcerted. Like many people in his position he fancied that nobody saw, guessed, or understood anything about him.

  “Never mind, never mind! I would not wound your most delicate feelings. I have known them, and I

  know what it is when another man . . . pokes his nose ... as the saying is . . . where it isn’t wanted. I feel that every morning. I have come about another matter, an important one. A very important matter, prince.”

  Myshkin once more begged him to be seated and sat down himself.

  “Perhaps for one second. ... I have come to ask advice. I have, of course, no practical aim in life, but as I respect myself and . . . business habits in which the Russian as a rule, is so conspicuously deficient.. . . Iwishto place myself and my wife and my children in a position ... in fact, prince, I want your advice.”