The Idiot

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  “That is, took part in what ‘such’ an affair? I don’t see any ‘such’ an affair.”

  “Undoubtedly this person wished somehow to hinder Evgeny Pavlych in something, endowing him, in the eyes of witnesses, with qualities he does not and could not have,” Prince Shch. replied rather drily.

  Prince Lev Nikolaevich was embarrassed, but nevertheless went on looking intently and inquiringly at the prince: but the latter fell silent.

  “And not simply promissory notes? Not literally as it happened yesterday?” the prince finally murmured in some impatience.

  “But I’m telling you, judge for yourself, what can there be in common between Evgeny Pavlych and … her, and with Rogozhin on top of it? I repeat to you, his fortune is enormous, that I know perfectly well; there’s another fortune expected from his uncle. Nastasya Filippovna simply …”

  Prince Shch. suddenly fell silent, evidently because he did not want to go on telling the prince about Nastasya Filippovna.

  “It means, in any case, that he’s acquainted with her?” Prince Lev Nikolaevich suddenly asked, after a moment’s silence.

  “It seems so—a flighty fellow! However, if so, it was very long ago, still before, that is, two or three years ago. He used to know Totsky, too. But now there could be nothing of the sort, and they could never be on familiar terms! You know yourself that she hasn’t been here; she hasn’t been anywhere here. Many people don’t know that she’s appeared again. I noticed her carriage only three days ago, no more.”

  “A magnificent carriage!” said Adelaida.

  “Yes, the carriage is magnificent.”

  They both went away, however, in the most friendly, the most, one might say, brotherly disposition towards Prince Lev Nikolaevich.

  But for our hero this visit contained in itself something even capital. We may assume that he himself had suspected a great deal since the previous night (and perhaps even earlier), but till their visit he had not dared to think his apprehensions fully borne out. Now, though, it was becoming clear: Prince Shch. had, of course, interpreted the event wrongly, but still he had wandered around the truth, he had understood that this was an intrigue. (“Incidentally, he may understand it quite correctly in himself,” thought the prince, “only he doesn’t want to say it and therefore deliberately interprets it wrongly.”) The clearest thing of all was that people were now visiting him (namely, Prince Shch.) in hopes of some explanation; and if so, then they thought he was a direct participant in the intrigue. Besides that, if it was all indeed so important, then it meant that she had some terrible goal, but what was this goal? Terrible! “And how can she be stopped? It’s absolutely impossible to stop her if she’s sure of her goal!” That the prince already knew from experience. “A madwoman. A madwoman.”

  But there were far, far too many other insoluble circumstances that had come together that morning, all at the same time, and all demanding immediate resolution, so that the prince felt very sad. He was slightly distracted by Vera Lebedev, who came with Lyubochka and, laughing, spent a long time telling him something. She was followed by her sister, the one who kept opening her mouth wide, then by the high-school boy, Lebedev’s son, who assured him that the “star Wormwood” in the Apocalypse, which fell to earth on the fountains of water,44 was, in his father’s interpretation, the railway network spread across Europe. The prince did not believe that Lebedev interpreted it that way, and they decided to check it with him at the first opportunity. From Vera Lebedev the prince learned that Keller had migrated over to them the day before and, by all tokens, would not be leaving for a long time, because he had found the company of and made friends with General Ivolgin; however, he declared that he was staying with them solely in order to complete his education. The prince was beginning to like Lebedev’s children more and more every day. Kolya was away the whole day: he left for Petersburg very early. (Lebedev also left at daybreak on some little business of his own.) But the prince was waiting impatiently for a visit from Gavrila Ardalionovich, who was bound to call on him that same day.

  He arrived past six in the evening, just after dinner. With the first glance at him, it occurred to the prince that this gentleman at least must unmistakably know all the innermost secrets—and how could he not, having such helpers as Varvara Ardalionovna and her husband? But the prince’s relations with Ganya were somehow special. The prince, for instance, had entrusted him with the handling of the Burdovsky affair and had asked him especially to do it; but, despite this trust and some things that had gone before, there always remained between them certain points on which it was as if they had mutually decided to say nothing. It sometimes seemed to the prince that Ganya, for his part, might be wishing for the fullest and friendliest sincerity; now, for instance, as soon as he came in, it immediately seemed to the prince that Ganya was convinced in the highest degree that the time had come to break the ice between them on all points. (Gavrila Ardalionovich was in a hurry, however; his sister was waiting for him at Lebedev’s; the two were hastening about some business.)

  But if Ganya was indeed expecting a whole series of impatient questions, inadvertent communications, friendly outpourings, then, of course, he was very much mistaken. For all the twenty minutes of his visit, the prince was even very pensive, almost absentminded. The expected questions or, better to say, the one main question that Ganya expected, could not be asked. Then Ganya, too, decided to speak with great restraint. He spent all twenty minutes talking without pause, laughing, indulging in the most light, charming, and rapid babble, but never touching on the main thing.

  Ganya told him, incidentally, that Nastasya Filippovna had been there in Pavlovsk for only four days and was already attracting general attention. She was living somewhere, in some Matrosskaya Street, in a gawky little house, with Darya Alexeevna, but her carriage was just about the best in Pavlovsk. Around her a whole crowd of old and young suitors had already gathered; her carriage was sometimes accompanied by men on horseback. Nastasya Filippovna, as before, was very discriminating, admitting only choice people to her company. But all the same a whole troop had formed around her, to stand for her in case of need. One previously engaged man from among the summer people had already quarreled with his fiancée over her; one little old general had almost cursed his son. She often took with her on her rides a lovely girl, just turned sixteen, a distant relation of Darya Alexeevna’s; the girl was a good singer—so that in the evenings their little house attracted attention. Nastasya Filippovna, however, behaved extremely properly, dressed not magnificently but with extraordinary taste, and all the ladies envied “her taste, her beauty, and her carriage.”

  “Yesterday’s eccentric incident,” Ganya allowed, “was, of course, premeditated and, of course, should not count. To find any sort of fault with her, one would have to hunt for it on purpose or else use slander, which, however, would not be slow in coming,” Ganya concluded, expecting that here the prince would not fail to ask: “Why did he call yesterday’s incident a premeditated incident? And why would it not be slow in coming?” But the prince did not ask.

  About Evgeny Pavlovich, Ganya again expatiated on his own, without being specially asked, which was very strange, because he inserted him into the conversation with no real pretext. In Gavrila Ardalionovich’s view, Evgeny Pavlovich had not known Nastasya Filippovna, and now also knew her only a little, and that because he had been introduced to her some four days ago during a promenade, and it was unlikely that he had been to her house even once along with the others. As for the promissory notes, that was also possible (Ganya even knew it for certain); Evgeny Pavlovich’s fortune was big, of course, but “certain affairs to do with the estate were indeed in a certain disorder.” On this curious matter Ganya suddenly broke off. About Nastasya Filippovna’s escapade yesterday he did not say a single word, beyond what he had said earlier in passing. Varvara Ardalionovna finally came to fetch Ganya, stayed for a moment, announced (also unasked) that Evgeny Pavlovich would be in Petersburg today and maybe tomorrow
, that her husband (Ivan Petrovich Ptitsyn) was also in Petersburg, and almost on Evgeny Pavlovich’s business as well, because something had actually happened there. As she was leaving, she added that Lizaveta Prokofyevna was in an infernal mood today, but the strangest thing was that Aglaya had quarreled with the whole family, not only with her father and mother but even with both sisters, and “that it was not nice at all.” Having imparted as if in passing this last bit of news (extremely meaningful for the prince), the brother and sister left. Ganechka also did not mention a word about the affair of “Pavlishchev’s son,” perhaps out of false modesty, perhaps “sparing the prince’s feelings,” but all the same the prince thanked him again for having diligently concluded the affair.

  The prince was very glad to be left alone at last; he went down from the terrace, crossed the road, and entered the park; he wanted to think over and decide about a certain step. Yet this “step” was not one of those that can be thought over, but one of those that precisely cannot be thought over, but simply resolved upon: he suddenly wanted terribly to leave all this here and go back where he came from, to some far-off, forsaken place, to go at once and even without saying good-bye to anyone. He had the feeling that if he remained here just a few more days, he would certainly be drawn into this world irretrievably, and this world would henceforth be his lot. But he did not even reason for ten minutes and decided at once that to flee was “impossible,” that it would be almost pusillanimous, that such tasks stood before him that he now did not even have any right not to resolve them, or at least not to give all his strength to their resolution. In such thoughts he returned home after barely a quarter of an hour’s walk. He was utterly unhappy at that moment.

  Lebedev was still not at home, so that towards nightfall Keller managed to barge in on the prince, not drunk, but full of outpourings and confessions. He declared straight out that he had come to tell the prince his whole life’s story and that he had stayed in Pavlovsk just for that. There was not the slightest possibility of turning him out: he would not have gone for anything. Keller was prepared to talk very long and very incoherently, but suddenly at almost the first word he jumped ahead to the conclusion and declared that he had lost “any ghost of morality” (“solely out of disbelief in the Almighty”), so much so that he even stole. “If you can imagine that!”

  “Listen, Keller, in your place I’d rather not confess it without some special need,” the prince began, “and anyhow, maybe you’re slandering yourself on purpose?”

  “To you, solely to you alone, and solely so as to help my own development! Not to anybody else; I’ll die and carry my secret off under the shroud! But, Prince, if you only knew, if you only knew how difficult it is to get money in our age! Where is a man to get it, allow me to ask after that? One answer: bring gold and diamonds, and we’ll give you money for them—that is, precisely what I haven’t got, can you imagine that? I finally got angry and just stood there. ‘And for emeralds?’ I say. ‘For emeralds, too,’ he says. ‘Well, that’s splendid,’ I say, put on my hat, and walk out; devil take you, scoundrels! By God!”

  “But did you really have emeralds?”

  “What kind of emeralds could I have! Oh, Prince, your view of life is still so bright and innocent, and even, one might say, pastoral!”

  The prince finally began to feel not so much sorry as a bit ashamed. The thought even flashed in him: “Wouldn’t it be possible to make something of this man under someone’s good influence?” His own influence, for certain reasons, he considered quite unsuitable—not out of self-belittlement, but owing to a certain special view of things. They gradually warmed to the conversation, so much so that they did not want to part. Keller confessed with extraordinary readiness to having done such things that it was impossible to imagine how one could tell about them. Starting out each time, he would positively insist that he was repentant and inwardly “filled with tears,” and yet he would tell of his action as if he were proud of it, and at the same time occasionally in such a funny way that he and the prince would end up laughing like crazy.

  “Above all, there is some childlike trustfulness and extraordinary honesty in you,” the prince said at last. “You know, that by itself already redeems you greatly.”

  “I’m noble, noble, chivalrously noble!” Keller agreed with feeling. “But you know, Prince, it’s all only in dreams and, so to speak, for bravado, and in reality nothing ever comes of it! Why is that? I can’t understand it.”

  “Don’t despair. Now it can be said affirmatively that you have told me all your inmost truths; at least it seems to me that it’s now impossible to add anything more to what you’ve already said, isn’t it?”

  “Impossible?!” Keller exclaimed somehow ruefully. “Oh, Prince, you still have such a, so to speak, Swiss understanding of man.”

  “Could you possibly add to it?” the prince uttered in timid astonishment. “So what did you expect from me, Keller, tell me please, and why did you come with your confession?”

  “From you? What did I expect? First, your simple-heartedness alone is pleasant to look at; it’s pleasant to sit and talk with you; I know that I at least have a virtuous man before me, and second … second …”

  He faltered.

  “Perhaps you wanted to borrow some money?” the prince prompted him very seriously and simply, even as if somewhat timidly.

  Keller jumped; he glanced quickly, with the same surprise, straight into the prince’s eyes and banged his fist hard on the table.

  “Well, see how you throw a man into a final flummox! For pity’s sake, Prince: first such simple-heartedness, such innocence as even the golden age never heard of, then suddenly at the same time you pierce a man through like an arrow with this deepest psychology of observation. But excuse me, Prince, this calls for an explanation, because I … I’m simply confounded! Naturally, in the final end my aim was to borrow money, but you asked me about money as if you don’t find anything reprehensible in it, as if that’s how it should be?”

  “Yes … from you that’s how it should be.”

  “And you’re not indignant?”

  “But … at what?”

  “Listen, Prince, I stayed here last night, first, out of particular respect for the French archbishop Bourdaloue45 (we kept the corks popping at Lebedev’s till three in the morning), but second, and chiefly (I’ll cross myself with all crosses that I’m telling the real truth!), I stayed because I wanted, so to speak, by imparting to you my full, heartfelt confession, to contribute thereby to my own development; with that thought I fell asleep past three, bathed in tears. Now, if you’ll believe the noblest of persons: at the very moment that I was falling asleep, sincerely filled with internal and, so to speak, external tears (because in the end I did weep, I remember that!), an infernal thought came to me: ‘And finally, after the confession, why don’t I borrow some money from him?’ Thus I prepared my confession, so to speak, as a sort of ‘finesherbes with tears,’ to soften my path with these tears, so that you’d get mellow and count me out a hundred and fifty roubles. Isn’t that mean, in your opinion?”

  “It’s probably also not true, and the one simply coincided with the other. The two thoughts coincided, it happens very often. With me, constantly. I don’t think it’s nice, however, and, you know, Keller, I reproach myself most of all for it. It’s as if you had told me about myself just now. I’ve even happened to think sometimes,” the prince went on very seriously, being genuinely and deeply interested, “that all people are like that, so that I even began to approve of myself, because it’s very hard to resist these double thoughts; I’ve experienced it. God knows how they come and get conceived. But here you’ve called it outright meanness! Now I’ll begin to fear these thoughts again. In any case, I’m not your judge. But all the same, in my opinion, that can’t be called outright meanness, don’t you think? You used cunning in order to wheedle money out of me by means of tears, but you swear yourself that your confession had another, noble purpose, not only money. As for
the money, you need it to go carousing, right? After such a confession, that is, naturally, pusillanimous. But how, also, is one to give up carousing in a single moment? It’s impossible. What then is to be done? Best of all is to leave it to your own conscience, don’t you think?”

  The prince looked at Keller with extreme curiosity. The question of double thoughts had evidently occupied him for a long time.

  “Well, why they call you an idiot after that, I don’t understand!” exclaimed Keller.

  The prince blushed slightly.

  “The preacher Bourdaloue wouldn’t have spared a man, but you spared a man and reasoned about me in a human way! To punish myself and show that I’m touched, I don’t want a hundred and fifty roubles, give me just twenty-five roubles, and enough! That’s all I need for at least two weeks. I won’t come for money before two weeks from now. I wanted to give Agashka a treat, but she doesn’t deserve it. Oh, dear Prince, God bless you!”

  Lebedev came in at last, having only just returned, and, noticing the twenty-five-rouble note in Keller’s hand, he winced. But Keller, finding himself in possession of the money, hurried off and effaced himself immediately. Lebedev at once began talking him down.

  “You’re unfair, he was actually sincerely repentant,” the prince observed at last.

  “What good is his repentance! Exactly like me yesterday: ‘mean, mean,’ but it’s all just words, sir!”

  “So with you it was just words? And I thought …”

  “Well, to you, to you alone I’ll tell the truth, because you can see through a man: words, deeds, lies, truth—they’re all there together in me and completely sincere. The truth and deeds in me are made up of sincere repentance, believe it or not, I’ll swear to it, but the words and lies are made up of an infernal (and ever-present) notion, of somehow snaring a man here, too, of somehow profiting even from tears of repentance! By God, it’s so! I wouldn’t have told any other man—he’d laugh or spit; but you, Prince, you reason in a human way.”