The Idiot

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  But they did not let her finish. They all came and eagerly gathered around her. The prince at once began begging everyone to stay for tea and apologized for not having thought of it till then. Even the general was so amiable as to mutter something reassuring and amiably ask Lizaveta Prokofyevna whether it was not, after all, too cool for her on the terrace. He even all but asked Ippolit how long he had been studying at the university, but he did not ask. Evgeny Pavlovich and Prince Shch. suddenly became extremely amiable and merry; the faces of Adelaida and Alexandra, through their continuing astonishment, even expressed pleasure; in short, everyone was obviously glad that Lizaveta Prokofyevna’s crisis was over. Only Aglaya was sullen and silently sat down a little way off. The rest of the company also stayed; no one wanted to leave, not even General Ivolgin, to whom Lebedev, however, whispered something in passing, probably something not entirely pleasant, because the general at once effaced himself somewhere in a corner. The prince also went and invited Burdovsky and his company, not leaving anyone out. They muttered with a strained air that they would wait for Ippolit, and withdrew at once to the furthest corner of the terrace, where they all sat down side by side again. Lebedev had probably had tea prepared for himself long ago, because it appeared at once. The clock struck eleven.

  X

  IPPOLIT MOISTENED HIS lips with the cup of tea Vera Lebedev served him, set the cup down on the table, and suddenly, as if abashed, looked around almost in embarrassment.

  “Look, Lizaveta Prokofyevna, these cups,” he was hurrying somehow strangely, “these china cups, and fine china by the look of it, Lebedev always keeps locked up in a glass case; he never serves them … the usual thing, they came with his wife’s dowry … the usual thing with them … and now he’s served them, in your honor, naturally, he’s so glad …”

  He wanted to add something more, but found no words.

  “He got embarrassed, just as I expected,” Evgeny Pavlovich suddenly whispered in the prince’s ear. “That’s dangerous, eh? The surest sign that now, out of spite, he’ll pull off something so eccentric that even Lizaveta Prokofyevna may not be able to sit it out.”

  The prince looked at him questioningly.

  “You’re not afraid of eccentricity?” Evgeny Pavlovich added. “I’m not either, I even wish for it; in fact, all I want is that our dear Lizaveta Prokofyevna be punished, and that without fail, today, right now; I don’t want to leave without that. You seem to be feverish?”

  “Later, don’t interfere. Yes, I’m unwell,” the prince replied distractedly and even impatiently. He had heard his name, Ippolit was speaking about him.

  “You don’t believe it?” Ippolit laughed hysterically. “That’s as it should be, but the prince will believe it from the first and won’t be the least surprised.”

  “Do you hear, Prince?” Lizaveta Prokofyevna turned to him. “Do you hear?”

  There was laughter all around. Lebedev fussily thrust himself forward and squirmed right in front of Lizaveta Prokofyevna.

  “He says that this clown here, your landlord … corrected the article for that gentleman, the one that was just read about you.”

  The prince looked at Lebedev in surprise.

  “Why are you silent?” Lizaveta Prokofyevna even stamped her foot.

  “Well,” the prince murmured, continuing to scrutinize Lebedev, “I can already see that he did.”

  “Is it true?” Lizaveta Prokofyevna quickly turned to Lebedev.

  “The real truth, Your Excellency!” Lebedev replied firmly and unshakeably, placing his hand on his heart.

  “It’s as if he’s boasting!” she all but jumped in her chair.

  “I’m mean, mean!” Lebedev murmured, beginning to beat his breast and bowing his head lower and lower.

  “What do I care if you’re mean! He thinks he can say ‘I’m mean’ and wriggle out of it. Aren’t you ashamed, Prince, to keep company with such wretched little people, I say it again? I’ll never forgive you!”

  “The prince will forgive me!” Lebedev said with conviction and affection.

  “Solely out of nobility,” Keller, suddenly jumping over to them, began loudly and resoundingly, addressing Lizaveta Prokofyevna directly, “solely out of nobility, ma’am, and so as not to give away a compromised friend, did I conceal the fact of the correcting earlier, though he suggested chucking us down the stairs, as you heard yourself. So as to reestablish the truth, I confess that I actually did turn to him, for six roubles, though not at all for the style, but, essentially, as a competent person, to find out the facts, which for the most part were unknown to me. About his gaiters, about his appetite at the Swiss professor’s, about the fifty roubles instead of two hundred and fifty, in short, that whole grouping, all belongs to him, for six roubles, but the style wasn’t corrected.”

  “I must observe,” Lebedev interrupted him with feverish impatience and in a sort of creeping voice, while the laughter spread more and more, “that I corrected only the first half of the article, but since we disagreed in the middle and quarreled over an idea, I left the second half of the article uncorrected, sir, so all that’s illiterate there (and it is illiterate!) can’t be ascribed to me, sir …”

  “See what he’s fussing about!” cried Lizaveta Prokofyevna.

  “If I may ask,” Evgeny Pavlovich turned to Keller, “when was the article corrected?”

  “Yesterday morning,” Keller reported, “we had a meeting, promising on our word of honor to keep the secret on both sides.”

  “That was when he was crawling before you and assuring you of his devotion! Ah, wretched little people! I don’t need your Pushkin, and your daughter needn’t come to see me!”

  Lizaveta Prokofyevna was about to get up, but suddenly turned irritably to the laughing Ippolit:

  “What is it, my dear, have you decided to make me a laughingstock here?”

  “God save us,” Ippolit smiled crookedly, “but I’m struck most of all by your extreme eccentricity, Lizaveta Prokofyevna; I confess, I deliberately slipped that in about Lebedev, I knew how it would affect you, affect you alone, because the prince really will forgive him and probably already has … maybe has even already found an excuse in his mind—is it so, Prince, am I right?”

  He was breathless, his strange excitement was growing with every word.

  “Well?…” Lizaveta Prokofyevna said wrathfully, surprised at his tone. “Well?”

  “About you I’ve already heard a lot, in that same vein … with great gladness … have learned to have the highest respect for you,” Ippolit went on.

  He was saying one thing, but as if he wanted to say something quite different with the same words. He spoke with a shade of mockery and at the same time was disproportionately agitated, looked around suspiciously, was evidently confused and at a loss for every word, all of which, together with his consumptive look and strange, glittering, and as if frenzied gaze, involuntarily continued to draw people’s attention to him.

  “I’d be quite surprised, however, not knowing society (I admit it), that you not only remained in the company of our people tonight, which is quite unsuitable for you, but that you also kept these … girls here to listen to a scandalous affair, though they’ve already read it all in novels. However, I may not know … because I get confused, but, in any case, who except you would have stayed … at the request of a boy (yes, a boy, again I admit it) to spend an evening with him and take … part in everything and … so as … to be ashamed the next day … (I agree, however, that I’m not putting it right), I praise all that highly and deeply respect it, though by the mere look of his excellency your husband one can see how unpleasant it all is for him … Hee, hee!” he tittered, quite confused, and suddenly went into such a fit of coughing that for some two minutes he was unable to go on.

  “He even choked!” Lizaveta Prokofyevna said coldly and sharply, studying him with stern curiosity. “Well, dear boy, enough of you. It’s time to go!”

  “And allow me, my dear sir, for my part,
to point out to you,” Ivan Fyodorovich, having lost all patience, suddenly said vexedly, “that my wife is here visiting Prince Lev Nikolaevich, our mutual friend and neighbor, and that in any case it is not for you, young man, to judge Lizaveta Prokofyevna’s actions, nor to refer aloud and in my teeth to what is written on my face. No, sir. And if my wife stayed here,” he went on, growing more and more vexed with every word, “it was sooner out of amazement, sir, and an understandable contemporary curiosity to see some strange young people. And I myself stayed, as I stop sometimes in the street when I see something that can be looked upon as … as … as …”

  “As a rarity,” prompted Evgeny Pavlovich.

  “Excellent and right,” rejoiced his excellency, who had become a bit muddled in his comparison, “precisely as a rarity. But in any case, for me what is most amazing and even chagrining, if it may be put that way grammatically, is that you, young man, were not even able to understand that Lizaveta Prokofyevna stayed with you now because you are ill—if you are indeed dying—out of compassion, so to speak, on account of your pathetic words, sir, and that no sort of mud can cling to her name, qualities, and importance … Lizaveta Prokofyevna!” the flushed general concluded, “if you want to go, let us take leave of our good prince …”

  “Thank you for the lesson, General,” Ippolit interrupted gravely and unexpectedly, looking at him pensively.

  “Let’s go, maman, how long must this continue!” Aglaya said impatiently and wrathfully, getting up from her chair.

  “Two more minutes, my dear Ivan Fyodorovich, if you permit,” Lizaveta Prokofyevna turned to her husband with dignity, “it seems to me that he’s all feverish and simply raving; I’m convinced by his eyes; he cannot be left like this. Lev Nikolaevich! May he spend the night here, so that they won’t have to drag him to Petersburg tonight? Cher prince, are you bored?” she suddenly turned to Prince Shch. for some reason. “Come here, Alexandra, your hair needs putting right, my dear.”

  She put right her hair, which did not need putting right, and kissed her; that was all she had called her for.

  “I considered you capable of development …” Ippolit spoke again, coming out of his pensiveness. “Yes! this is what I wanted to say.” He was glad, as if he had suddenly remembered: “Burdovsky here sincerely wants to protect his mother, isn’t that so? And it turns out that he disgraces her. The prince here wants to help Burdovsky, offers him, with purity of heart, his tender friendship and his capital, and is maybe the only one among you all who does not feel loathing for him, and here they stand facing each other like real enemies … Ha, ha, ha! You all hate Burdovsky, because in your opinion his attitude towards his mother is not beautiful and graceful—right? right? right? And you’re all terribly fond of the beauty and gracefulness of forms, you stand on that alone, isn’t it so? (I’ve long suspected it was on that alone!) Well, know, then, that maybe not one of you has loved his mother as Burdovsky has! You, Prince, I know, sent money to Burdovsky’s mother on the quiet, through Ganechka, and I’ll bet—hee, hee, hee!” (he giggled hysterically), “I’ll bet that Burdovsky himself will now accuse you of indelicacy of form and disrespect for his mother, by God, he will, ha, ha, ha!”

  Here he again lost his breath and began to cough.

  “Well, is that all? Is that all now, have you said it all? Well, go to bed now, you have a fever,” Lizaveta Prokofyevna interrupted impatiently, not taking her worried eyes off him. “Ah, Lord! He’s still talking!”

  “It seems you’re laughing? Why must you keep laughing at me? I’ve noticed that you keep laughing at me,” he suddenly turned anxiously and irritably to Evgeny Pavlovich; the latter was indeed laughing.

  “I merely want to ask you, Mr.… Ippolit … sorry, I’ve forgotten your last name.”

  “Mr. Terentyev,” said the prince.

  “Yes, Terentyev, thank you, Prince, it was mentioned earlier, but it slipped my mind … I wanted to ask you, Mr. Terentyev, is it true what I’ve heard, that you are of the opinion that you need only talk to the people through the window for a quarter of an hour, and they will at once agree with you in everything and follow you at once?”

  “I may very well have said it …” Ippolit replied, as if trying to recall something. “Certainly I said it!” he suddenly added, becoming animated again and looking firmly at Evgeny Pavlovich. “And what of it?”

  “Precisely nothing; merely for my own information, to add it all up.”

  Evgeny Pavlovich fell silent, but Ippolit went on looking at him in impatient expectation.

  “Well, are you finished, or what?” Lizaveta Prokofyevna turned to Evgeny Pavlovich. “Finish quickly, dear boy, it’s time he went to bed. Or don’t you know how?” (She was terribly vexed.)

  “I wouldn’t mind adding,” Evgeny Pavlovich went on with a smile, “that everything I’ve heard from your comrades, Mr. Terentyev, and everything you’ve just explained, and with such unquestionable talent, boils down, in my opinion, to the theory of the triumph of rights, before all, and beyond all, and even to the exclusion of all else, and perhaps even before analyzing what makes up these rights. Perhaps I’m mistaken?”

  “Of course you’re mistaken, and I don’t even understand you … go on.”

  There was also a murmur in the corner. Lebedev’s nephew muttered something in a half-whisper.

  “There’s not much more,” Evgeny Pavlovich went on. “I merely wanted to observe that from this case it’s possible to jump over directly to the right of force, that is, to the right of the singular fist and personal wanting, as, incidentally, has happened very often in this world. Proudhon stopped at the right of force.41 In the American war, many of the most progressive liberals declared themselves on the side of the plantation owners, in this sense, that Negroes are Negroes, inferior to the white race, and consequently the right of force belongs to the whites …”

  “Well?”

  “So you don’t deny the right of force?”

  “Go on.”

  “You’re consistent, then. I only wanted to observe that from the right of force to the right of tigers and crocodiles and even to Danilov and Gorsky is not a long step.”

  “I don’t know; go on.”

  Ippolit was barely listening to Evgeny Pavlovich, and even if he said “well” and “go on” to him, it seemed to be more from an old, adopted habit of conversation, and not out of attention and curiosity.

  “There’s nothing more … that’s all.”

  “Incidentally, I’m not angry with you,” Ippolit suddenly concluded quite unexpectedly and, hardly with full consciousness, held out his hand, even with a smile. Evgeny Pavlovich was surprised at first, but touched the hand held out to him with a most serious air, as though receiving forgiveness.

  “I cannot help adding,” he said in the same ambiguously respectful tone, “my gratitude to you for the attention with which you have allowed me to speak, because it has been my oft-repeated observation that our liberal has never yet been able to allow anyone to have his own convictions and not reply at once to his opponent with abuse or even worse …”

  “That is perfectly right,” General Ivan Fyodorovich observed and, putting his hands behind his back, with a most bored air retreated to the door of the terrace, where he proceeded to yawn with vexation.

  “Well, enough for you, dear boy,” Lizaveta Prokofyevna suddenly announced to Evgeny Pavlovich, “I’m tired of you …”

  “It’s time,” Ippolit suddenly stood up with a preoccupied and all but frightened look, gazing around in perplexity, “I’ve kept you; I wanted to tell you … I thought that everyone … for the last time … it was a fantasy …”

  One could see that he would become animated in bursts, suddenly coming out of what was almost real delirium for a few moments, and with full consciousness would suddenly remember and speak, mostly in fragments, perhaps thought up and memorized much earlier, in the long, boring hours of illness, in bed, alone, sleepless.

  “So, farewell!” he suddenly said sh
arply. “Do you think it’s easy for me to say farewell to you? Ha, ha!” he smiled vexedly at his own awkward question and suddenly, as if angry that he kept failing to say what he wanted, declared loudly and irritably: “Your Excellency! I have the honor of inviting you to my funeral, if you will vouchsafe me such an honor, and … all of you, ladies and gentlemen, along with the general!…”

  He laughed again; but this was now the laughter of a madman. Lizaveta Prokofyevna fearfully moved towards him and grasped his arm. He gazed at her intently, with the same laughter, though it no longer went on but seemed to have stopped and frozen on his face.

  “Do you know that I came here in order to see trees? Those …” (he pointed to the trees in the park), “that’s not funny, eh? There’s nothing funny in it, is there?” he asked Lizaveta Prokofyevna seriously, and suddenly fell to thinking; then, after a moment, he raised his head and began curiously searching through the crowd with his eyes. He was looking for Evgeny Pavlovich, who was standing very near, to the right, in the same spot as before, but he had already forgotten and searched all around. “Ah, you haven’t left!” he finally found him. “You laughed at me earlier, that I wanted to talk through the window for a quarter of an hour … But do you know that I’m not eighteen years old: I’ve spent so long lying on that pillow, and spent so long looking out of that window, and thought so much … about everybody … that … A dead man has no age, you know. I thought of that last week, when I woke up in the night … But do you know what you’re most afraid of? You’re most afraid of our sincerity, though you despise us! I thought of that at the same time, at night, on my pillow … Do you think I meant to laugh at you earlier, Lizaveta Prokofyevna? No, I wasn’t laughing at you, I only meant to praise you … Kolya told me that the prince called you a child … that’s good … So, what was I … there was something else I wanted …”