The Idiot

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  “I’ll never consider you a scoundrel now,” said the prince. “Earlier I took you altogether for a villain, and suddenly you overjoyed me so—it’s a real lesson: not to judge without experience. Now I see that you not only cannot be considered a villain, but that you haven’t even gone all that bad. To my mind, you’re simply the most ordinary man that could be, only very weak and not the least bit original.”

  Ganya smiled sarcastically to himself but said nothing. The prince saw that his opinion was not liked, became embarrassed, and also fell silent.

  “Did father ask you for money?” Ganya asked suddenly.

  “No.”

  “He will. Don’t give him any. And he even used to be a decent man, I remember. He was received by good people. How quickly they all come to an end, all these decent old people! Circumstances need only change, and there’s nothing left of the former, it’s gone up like a flash of powder. He didn’t lie like that before, I assure you; he was just a much too rapturous man before, and—this is what it’s come to! Drink’s to blame, of course. Do you know that he keeps a mistress? He hasn’t stayed simply an innocent little liar. I can’t understand my mother’s long-suffering. Did he tell you about the siege of Kars? Or how his gray outrunner began to talk? He even goes that far.”

  And Ganya suddenly rocked with laughter.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked the prince.

  “It surprises me that you laugh so genuinely. You really have a childlike laugh. When you came in to make peace with me and said: ‘If you want, I’ll kiss your hand,’ it was like children making peace. Which means you’re still capable of such words and gestures. Then suddenly you start reading a whole lecture about all this darkness and the seventy-five thousand. Really, it’s all somehow absurd and cannot be.”

  “What do you want to conclude from that?”

  “Mightn’t it be that you’re acting too light-mindedly, that you ought to look around first? Varvara Ardalionovna may have spoken rightly.”

  “Ah, morality! That I’m still a little boy, I know myself,” Ganya interrupted him hotly, “if only in that I’ve started such a conversation with you. I’m not going into this darkness out of calculation, Prince,” he went on, giving himself away like a young man whose vanity has been wounded. “Out of calculation I’d surely make a mistake, because my head and character aren’t strong yet. I’m going out of passion, out of inclination, because I have a major goal. You must think I’ll get the seventy-five thousand and right away buy a carriage and pair. No, sir, I’ll go on wearing my two-year-old frock coat and drop all my club acquaintances. There are few people of self-control among us, and they’re all usurers, but I want to show self-control. The main thing here is to carry it through to the end—that’s the whole task! When he was seventeen, Ptitsyn slept in the street, peddled penknives, and started with a kopeck; now he’s got sixty thousand, but after what gymnastics! Well, I’m going to leap over all the gymnastics and start straight off with capital; in fifteen years people will say: ‘There goes Ivolgin, the king of the Jews.’36 You tell me I’m an unoriginal man. Note for yourself, dear Prince, that nothing offends a man of our time and tribe more than to be told that he’s unoriginal, weak of character, with no special talents, and an ordinary man. You didn’t even deign to consider me a good scoundrel, and, you know, I wanted to eat you for that just now! You insulted me more than Epanchin, who considers me (and without any discussion, without any provocation, in the simplicity of his soul, note that) capable of selling him my wife! That, my dear, has long infuriated me, and I want money. Having made money, be it known to you—I’ll become an original man in the highest degree. The meanest and most hateful thing about money is that it even gives one talent. And so it will be till the world ends. You’ll say it’s all childish or maybe poetry—so what, it’s the more fun for me, but the main thing will be done all the same. I’ll carry it through to the end and show self-control. Rira bien qui rira le dernier.a Why does Epanchin offend me so? Out of spite, is it? Never, sir. Simply because I’m so insignificant. Well, sir, but then … Enough, however, it’s late. Kolya has already poked his nose in twice: he’s calling you to dinner. And I’m clearing out. I’ll wander in to see you some time. It’ll be nice for you here; they’ll take you as one of the family now. Watch out, don’t give me away. I have a feeling that you and I will either be friends or enemies. And what do you think, Prince, if I had kissed your hand earlier (as I sincerely offered to do), would it have made me your enemy afterwards?”

  “It certainly would have, only not forever, later you would have been unable to keep from forgiving me,” the prince decided after some reflection, and laughed.

  “Aha! One must be more careful with you. Devil knows, you poured in some poison there, too. And, who knows, maybe you are my enemy? Incidentally—ha, ha, ha! I forgot to ask: is my impression right, that you like Nastasya Filippovna a bit too much, eh?”

  “Yes … I like her.”

  “In love?”

  “N-no!”

  “But he turns all red and suffers. Well, all right, all right, I won’t laugh. Good-bye. And, you know, she’s a virtuous woman, can you believe that? You think she lives with that one, with Totsky? No, no! Not for a long time. And did you notice that she’s terribly awkward and was even abashed for a few moments today? Really. There’s the kind that loves domination. Well, good-bye!”

  Ganechka went out much more casually than he came in, and in good spirits. For about ten minutes the prince remained motionless and pondered.

  Kolya again stuck his head in at the door.

  “I don’t want any dinner, Kolya. I had a good lunch at the Epanchins’.”

  Kolya came all the way in the door and handed the prince a note. It was from the general, folded and sealed. By Kolya’s face it could be seen that it was painful for him to deliver it. The prince read it, got up, and took his hat.

  “It’s two steps from here,” Kolya became embarrassed. “He’s sitting there now over a bottle. How he got them to give him credit I can’t understand. Prince, dear heart, please don’t tell them later that I brought you the note! I’ve sworn a thousand times not to do it, but I feel sorry for him. Oh, and please don’t be ceremonious with him: give him a little something, and there’s an end to it.”

  “I had a thought myself, Kolya. I need to see your father … on a certain matter … Let’s go …”

  XII

  KOLYA LED THE prince not far away, to Liteinaya, to a café and billiard parlor on the ground floor, with an entrance from the street. There, to the right, in the corner, in a private little room, Ardalion Alexandrovich had settled like an old-time habitué, a bottle on the table in front of him and, in fact, with the Indépendence Belge in his hands. He was expecting the prince. As soon as he saw him, he put the newspaper aside and began an ardent and verbose explanation, of which, however, the prince understood almost nothing, because the general was already nearly loaded.

  “I haven’t got ten roubles,” the prince interrupted, “but here’s twenty-five, have it broken for you and give me back fifteen, otherwise I’ll be left without a penny myself.”

  “Oh, no question; and rest assured that this very hour …”

  “Besides, I have something to ask you, General. Have you ever been to Nastasya Filippovna’s?”

  “I? Have I ever been? You say this to me? Several times, my dear, several times!” the general cried in a fit of self-satisfied and triumphant irony. “But I finally stopped it myself, because I did not wish to encourage an improper union. You saw it yourself, you were a witness this afternoon: I’ve done everything a father could do—but a meek and indulgent father; now a father of a different sort will come onstage, and then—we shall see whether the honored old soldier will gain the upper hand in this intrigue, or a shameless adventuress will get into the noblest of families.”

  “But I precisely wanted to ask you whether, as an acquaintance, you might not get me into Nastasya Filippovna’s this ev
ening? I absolutely must be there tonight; I have business; but I have no idea how to get in. I was introduced to her today, but all the same I wasn’t invited: she’s giving a party this evening. I’m prepared to overlook certain proprieties, however, and they can even laugh at me, if only I get in somehow.”

  “And you’ve hit squarely, squarely upon my own idea, my young friend,” the general exclaimed rapturously. “I didn’t summon you for a trifle!” he went on, picking up the money, however, and dispatching it into his pocket. “I summoned you precisely to invite you to accompany me on the march to Nastasya Filippovna, or, better, on the march against Nastasya Filippovna! General Ivolgin and Prince Myshkin! How will that seem to her! And I, in the guise of birthday courtesies, will finally pronounce my will—in a roundabout way, not directly, but it will be as if directly. Then Ganya himself will see what he must do: either an honored father and … so to speak … the rest of it, or … But what will be, will be! Your idea is highly fruitful. At nine o’clock we’ll set out, we still have time.”

  “Where does she live?”

  “Far from here: by the Bolshoi Theater, Mrs. Mytovtsev’s house, almost there in the square, on the second floor … She won’t have a big gathering, despite the birthday, and they’ll go home early …”

  It had long been evening; the prince was still sitting, listening, and waiting for the general, who had started on an endless number of anecotes and never finished a single one of them. On the prince’s arrival, he had called for a new bottle and finished it only an hour later, then called for one more and finished that one. It must be supposed that in the meantime the general had managed to tell almost the whole of his story. Finally the prince got up and said he could not wait any longer. The general finished the last dregs of his bottle, got up, and started out of the room with very unsteady steps. The prince was in despair. He could not understand how he could have been so foolishly trusting. In fact, he had never trusted the general; he had counted on him only so as to get into Nastasya Filippovna’s somehow, even if with a certain scandal, but he had not counted on an excessive scandal: the general turned out to be decidedly drunk, extremely eloquent, and talked nonstop, with feeling, with a tear in his soul. Things constantly came round to the fact that, owing to the bad behavior of all the members of his family, everything was about to collapse, and it was time finally to put a stop to it. They finally came out to Liteinaya. The thaw was still going on; a dismal, warm, noxious wind whistled along the streets, carriages splashed through the mud, iron-shod trotters and nags struck the pavement ringingly. A dismal and wet crowd of pedestrians wandered along the sidewalks. Some were drunk.

  “Do you see these lighted second floors?” said the general. “That is where all my comrades live, while I, I, who served and suffered more than all of them, I trudge on foot to the Bolshoi Theater, to the apartments of a dubious woman! A man with thirteen bullets in his chest … you don’t believe me? And yet it was solely for me that Pirogov telegraphed to Paris and left besieged Sevastopol for a time, and Nélaton, the court physician in Paris, obtained a safe conduct in the name of science and came to besieged Sevastopol to examine me.a The highest authorities know of it: ‘Ah, it’s that Ivolgin, the one with thirteen bullets!…’ That’s what they say, sir! Do you see this house, Prince? Here on the second floor lives my old comrade, General Sokolovich, with his most noble and numerous family. This house, with three more on Nevsky Prospect and two on Morskaya—that is the whole present circle of my acquaintance, that is, my own personal acquaintance. Nina Alexandrovna has long since resigned herself to circumstances. But I still go on remembering … and, so to speak, find repose in the cultivated circle of my former comrades and subordinates, who adore me to this day. This General Sokolovich (it’s a rather long time, however, since I’ve been to see him and Anna Fyodorovna) … you know, my dear Prince, when you don’t receive, you somehow involuntarily stop visiting others as well. And yet … hm … it seems you don’t believe … Though why shouldn’t I introduce the son of my best friend and childhood companion to this charming family? General Ivolgin and Prince Myshkin! You’ll meet an amazing girl, and not just one but two, even three, the ornaments of our capital and society: beauty, cultivation, tendency … the woman question, poetry—all this united in a happy, diversified mixture, not counting the dowry of at least eighty thousand in cash that each girl comes with, which never hurts, whatever the woman and social questions … in short, I absolutely, absolutely must and am duty-bound to introduce you. General Ivolgin and Prince Myshkin!”

  “At once? Now? But you’ve forgotten,” the prince began.

  “I’ve forgotten nothing, nothing, come along! This way, to this magnificent stairway. Surprising there’s no doorkeeper, but … it’s a holiday, and the doorkeeper is away. They haven’t dismissed the drunkard yet. This Sokolovich owes all the happiness of his life and career to me, to me alone and no one else, but … here we are.”

  The prince no longer objected to the visit and obediently followed the general, so as not to vex him, in the firm hope that General Sokolovich and his whole family would gradually evaporate like a mirage and turn out to be nonexistent, and they could calmly go back down the stairs. But, to his horror, he began to lose this hope: the general was taking him up the stairs like someone who really had acquaintances there, and kept putting in biographical and topographical details full of mathematical precision. Finally, when they reached the second floor and stopped outside the door of a wealthy apartment, and the general took hold of the bellpull, the prince decided to flee definitively; but one odd circumstance stopped him for a moment.

  “You’re mistaken, General,” he said. “The name on the door is Kulakov, and you’re ringing for Sokolovich.”

  “Kulakov … Kulakov doesn’t prove anything. It’s Sokolovich’s apartment, and I’m ringing for Sokolovich. I spit on Kulakov … And, you see, they’re opening.”

  The door indeed opened. A footman peeped out and announced that “the masters aren’t at home, sir.”

  “Too bad, too bad, as if on purpose,” Ardalion Alexandrovich repeated several times with the deepest regret. “Tell them, my dear fellow, that General Ivolgin and Prince Myshkin wished to pay their personal respects and were extremely, extremely sorry …”

  At that moment another face peeped from inside through the open door, the housekeeper’s by the look of it, perhaps even the governess’s, a lady of about forty, wearing a dark dress. She approached with curiosity and mistrust on hearing the names of General Ivolgin and Prince Myshkin.

  “Marya Alexandrovna is not at home,” she said, studying the general in particular, “she took the young lady, Alexandra Mikhailovna, to visit her grandmother.”

  “And Alexandra Mikhailovna went with her—oh, God, what bad luck! And imagine, madam, I always have such bad luck! I humbly ask you to give her my greetings, and to remind Alexandra Mikhailovna … in short, convey to her my heartfelt wish for that which she herself wished for on Thursday, in the evening, to the strains of Chopin’s ballade; she’ll remember … My heartfelt wish! General Ivolgin and Prince Myshkin!”

  “I won’t forget, sir,” the lady bowed out, having become more trustful.

  Going downstairs, the general, his fervor not yet cooled, continued to regret the failure of the visit and that the prince had been deprived of such a charming acquaintance.

  “You know, my dear, I’m something of a poet in my soul, have you noticed that? But anyhow … anyhow, it seems we didn’t go to exactly the right place,” he suddenly concluded quite unexpectedly. “The Sokoloviches, I now recall, live in another house, and it seems they’re even in Moscow now. Yes, I was slightly mistaken, but that’s … no matter.”

  “I’d only like to know one thing,” the prince remarked dejectedly, “am I to stop counting on you entirely and go ahead on my own?”

  “To stop? Counting? On your own? But why on earth, when for me it’s a capital undertaking, upon which so much in the life of my whole family depends? No
, my young friend, you don’t know Ivolgin yet. Whoever says ‘Ivolgin’ says ‘a wall’: trust in Ivolgin as in a wall, that’s what I used to say in the squadron where I began my service. It’s just that I’d like to stop on the way at a certain house, where my soul has found repose these several years now, after anxieties and trials …”

  “You want to stop at home?”

  “No! I want … to see Mrs. Terentyev, the widow of Captain Terentyev, my former subordinate … and even friend … There, in her house, I am reborn in spirit and there I bring the sorrows of my personal and domestic life … And since today I precisely bear a great moral burden, I …”

  “It seems to me that I did a very foolish thing anyway,” the prince murmured, “in troubling you earlier. And besides that, you’re now … Good-bye!”

  “But I cannot, I cannot let you go, my young friend!” the general roused himself. “A widow, the mother of a family, and from her heart she produces chords to which my whole being responds. The visit to her is a matter of five minutes, in that house I behave without ceremony, I almost live there; I’ll wash, do the most necessary brushing up, and then we’ll take a cab to the Bolshoi Theater. You can be sure I shall have need of you for the whole evening … Here’s the house, we’ve arrived … Ah, Kolya, you’re already here? Well, is Marfa Borisovna at home, or have you only just arrived?”

  “Oh, no,” replied Kolya, who had run right into them in the gateway, “I’ve been here for a long time, with Ippolit, he’s worse, he stayed in bed this morning. I went down to the grocer’s just now for a deck of cards. Marfa Borisovna’s expecting you. Only, papa, you’re so … !” Kolya broke off, studying the general’s gait and bearing. “Oh, well, come on!”