The Idiot

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  The general even became red as he spoke. “But Lebedev couldn’t have been in Moscow in the year twelve; he’s too young for that; it’s ridiculous.”

  “First, there’s that; but let us suppose he could already have been born then; but how can he assure me to my face that the French chasseur aimed his cannon at him and shot his leg off, just for fun; that he picked the leg up and brought it home, and then buried it in the Vagankovsky Cemetery, saying that he put a tombstone over it with an inscription on one side: ‘Here lies the leg of Collegiate Secretary Lebedev,’ and on the other: ‘Rest, dear dust, till the gladsome morning,’8 and, finally, that every year he has a panikhida9 served for it (which is a sacrilege), and that he goes to Moscow every year for that. As proof, he invites me to Moscow, in order to show me the grave and even that very French cannon, which was taken captive, in the Kremlin; he insists it’s the eleventh from the gate, a French falconet of an old design.”

  “And what’s more he has both legs intact, in plain sight!” laughed the prince. “I assure you, it’s an innocent joke; don’t be angry.”

  “But allow me some understanding, too, sir; concerning legs in plain sight—that, let us suppose, is not entirely implausible; he assures me that it is Chernosvitov’s leg …”10

  “Ah, yes, they say one can dance with Chernosvitov’s leg.”

  “I’m perfectly aware of that, sir; when Chernosvitov invented his leg, he came first thing to show it to me. But Chernosvitov’s leg was invented incomparably later … And besides, he insists that even his late wife, during the whole course of their married life, never knew that he, her husband, had a wooden leg. ‘If you,’ he said, when I pointed all these absurdities out to him, ‘if you could be Napoleon’s chamber-page in the year twelve, then you can also allow me to bury my leg in the Vagankovsky Cemetery.”

  “And were you really …” the prince began and became embarrassed.

  The general gave the prince a decidedly haughty and all but mocking look.

  “Finish what you were saying, Prince,” he drew out especially smoothly, “finish what you were saying. I’m indulgent, you may say everything: admit that you find the very thought ridiculous of seeing before you a man in his present humiliation and … uselessness, and hearing at the same time that this man was a personal witness … of great events. Is there anything that he has managed to … gossip to you about?”

  “No, I haven’t heard anything from Lebedev—if it’s Lebedev you’re speaking of …”

  “Hm, I thought the opposite. As a matter of fact, our conversation yesterday began on the occasion of this … strange article in the Archive.11 I pointed out its absurdity, and since I myself was a personal witness … you’re smiling, Prince, you’re looking into my face?”

  “N-no, I …”

  “I look young for my age,” the general drew the words out, “but I’m slightly older than I actually seem to be. In the year twelve I was ten or eleven. I don’t know my own age very well myself. My papers lower it; and I have had the weakness of lowering my age in the course of my life.”

  “I assure you, General, that I do not find it at all strange that you were in Moscow in the year twelve and … of course, you have things to tell … as have all who were there. One of our autobiographers12 begins his book precisely by telling how, in the year twelve, he, a nursing infant, was given bread by the French soldiers in Moscow.”

  “You see,” the general approved condescendingly, “my case is, of course, out of the ordinary, but neither is there anything extraordinary in it. Quite often the truth seems impossible. A chamber-page! It’s a strange thing to hear, of course. But the adventures of a ten-year-old child may be explained precisely by his age. It wouldn’t have happened to a fifteen-year-old, and that is absolutely so, because if I had been fifteen years old, I wouldn’t have run away from our wooden house in Old Basmannaya Street on the day Napoleon entered Moscow, away from my mother, who was too late in leaving Moscow13 and trembling with fear. If I had been fifteen, I would have turned coward, but, being ten, I feared nothing and pushed my way through the crowd up to the very porch of the palace, just as Napoleon was dismounting from his horse.”

  “Unquestionably, you have made an excellent observation, that precisely at ten one might not be afraid …” the prince yessed him shyly, pained by the thought that he was about to blush.

  “Unquestionably, and it all happened so simply and naturally, as things can only happen in reality; if a novelist were to turn to it, he would heap up all sorts of incredible tales.”

  “Oh, that’s quite so!” cried the prince. “I was struck by that same thought, and quite recently. I know about an actual murder over a watch, it’s in all the newspapers now. If a writer had invented it, the critics and connoisseurs of popular life would have shouted at once that it was incredible; but reading it in the newspapers as a fact, you feel that it is precisely from such facts that you learn about Russian reality. That is a wonderful observation, General!” the prince concluded warmly, terribly glad that he could evade the color appearing on his face.

  “Isn’t it true? Isn’t it true?” cried the general, his eyes even flashing with pleasure. “A boy, a child, who has no understanding of danger, makes his way through the crowd, to see the splendor, the uniforms, the suite, and, finally, the great man, about whom he has heard so much shouting. Because at that time everyone, for several years in a row, had been shouting about him alone. The world was filled with his name; I had, so to speak, sucked it in with my mother’s milk. Napoleon, passing within two steps of me, happened to catch my glance; I was dressed like a young gentleman, in very good clothes. I was the only one dressed like that in the crowd, you’ll agree …”

  “Unquestionably, that must have struck him and proved to him that not everybody had left, that some of the nobility had stayed with their children.”

  “Precisely, precisely! He wanted to attract the boyars!14 When he cast his eagle’s gaze on me, my eyes must have flashed in response to him. ‘Voilà un garçon bien éveillé! Qui est ton père?’† I answered at once, almost breathless with excitement: ‘A general who died on the battlefields of his fatherland.’ ‘Le fils d’un boyard et d’un brave par-dessus le marché! J’aime les boyards. M’aimes-tu, petit?’‡ To this quick question I replied as quickly: ‘The Russian heart can discern a great man even in the enemy of his fatherland!’ That is, as a matter of fact, I don’t remember whether I literally expressed myself that way … I was a child … but that must have been the sense of it! Napoleon was struck, he pondered and said to his suite: ‘I like this boy’s pride! But if all Russians think as this child does, then …’ He didn’t finish and went into the palace. I at once mingled with his suite and ran after him. In the suite they already stepped back for me and looked on me as a favorite. But all that merely flashed by … I remember only that, on going into the first hall, the emperor suddenly stopped before the portrait of the empress Catherine, looked at it thoughtfully for a long time, and finally said: ‘That was a great woman!’—and walked on. Two days later everybody already knew me in the palace and in the Kremlin and called me ‘le petit boyard.’ I went home only to sleep. At home they nearly lost their minds. Two days after that Napoleon’s chamber-page, the Baron de Bazancourt,15 died from the hardships of the campaign. Napoleon remembered about me; I was taken, brought there without any explanations, the uniform of the deceased, a boy of about twelve, was tried on me, and when they brought me before the emperor in the uniform, and he nodded his head at me, they announced to me that I had been granted a favor and made his majesty’s chamber-page. I was glad. I actually felt a warm sympathy for him, and had for a long time … well, and besides, you’ll agree, there was the splendid uniform, which means a lot for a child … I went about in a dark green tailcoat, with long and narrow tails, gold buttons, red piping on the gold-embroidered sleeves, a high, stiff, open collar, embroidered with gold, and embroidered coattails; white, close-fitting chamois breeches, a white silk waistcoat,
silk stockings, and buckled shoes … or, during the emperor’s promenades on horseback, if I was in his suite, high top-boots. Though the situation was not brilliant, and there was already a presentiment of great calamities, etiquette was observed as far as possible, and the more punctually the stronger the presentiment of those calamities.”

  “Yes, of course …” murmured the prince, looking almost lost, “your memoirs would be … extremely interesting.”

  The general, of course, was repeating what he had told Lebedev the day before, and therefore repeating it very smoothly; but here again he mistrustfully glanced sidelong at the prince.

  “My memoirs,” he spoke with redoubled pride, “to write my memoirs? That doesn’t tempt me, Prince! If you wish, my memoirs have already been written, but … but they are lying in my desk. Let them, when earth has closed my eyes, let them appear then and, undoubtedly, be translated into other languages, not for their literary merit, no, but for the importance of the tremendous facts of which I was an evident witness, though a child; but all the more so: as a child I penetrated into the very intimate, so to speak, bedroom of ‘the great man’! At night I heard the groaning of this ‘giant in misfortune,’ he could not be ashamed of groaning and weeping before a child, though I already understood that the cause of his suffering was the silence of the emperor Alexander.”

  “Yes, he did write letters … with offers of peace …” the prince agreed timidly.

  “As a matter of fact, we do not know precisely with what offers he wrote, but he wrote every day, every hour, letter after letter! He was terribly worried. Once, during the night, when we were alone, I rushed to him in tears (oh, yes, I loved him!): ‘Ask forgiveness, ask forgiveness of the emperor Alexander!’ I cried to him. That is, I ought to have said: ‘Make peace with the emperor Alexander,’ but, being a child, I naïvely spoke my whole mind. ‘Oh, my little one!’ he answered—he was pacing up and down the room—‘oh, my little one!’ It was as if he didn’t understand then that I was ten years old, and he even liked talking with me. ‘Oh, my little one, I am ready to kiss the feet of the emperor Alexander, but as for the Prussian king, as for the Austrian emperor, oh, they have my eternal hatred, and … finally … you don’t understand anything about politics!’ It was as if he suddenly remembered whom he was talking with, and he fell silent, but his eyes shot fire for a long time. Well, if I were to describe all these facts—and I was witness to greater facts—if I were to publish them now, and all these critics, all these literary vanities, all these jealousies, parties, and … no, sir, I humbly thank you!”

  “Concerning parties, your observation is, of course, correct, and I agree with you,” the prince replied quietly, after a short silence. “Quite recently I also read a book by Charras16 about the Waterloo campaign. The book is obviously a serious one, and the specialists maintain that it is written extremely knowledgeably. But a joy in Napoleon’s humiliation shows through on every page, and if it were possible to dispute even any little sign of talent in Napoleon’s other campaigns, it seems Charras would be extremely glad of it; and that is not a good thing in such a serious work, because it’s a party spirit. Were you kept very busy then by your service to the … emperor?”

  The general was in raptures. The prince’s observation, by its seriousness and simple-heartedness, dispelled the last remnants of his mistrust.

  “Charras! Oh, I was indignant myself! I wrote to him at the time, but … as a matter of fact, I don’t remember now … You ask whether my service kept me busy? Oh, no! They called me a chamber-page, but even then I did not regard it as serious. What’s more, Napoleon very soon lost all hope of drawing any Russians to him, and, of course, would have forgotten about me as well, having drawn me to him for political reasons, had it not been … had it not been for his personal love for me, I say it boldly now. My heart also drew me to him. My service was not a required thing; I had to come to the palace occasionally and … accompany the emperor during his promenades on horseback, and that’s all. I was a decent horseman. He used to go out for a ride before dinner; in his suite usually there was Davout, myself, the mameluke Rustan …”

  “Constant,”17 the prince suddenly came out with for some reason.

  “N-no, Constant wasn’t there then; he had gone then with a letter … to the empress Josephine;18 but instead of him there were two orderlies, several Polish uhlans … well, that was all the suite, except for the generals, naturally, and some marshals, whom Napoleon took along to examine the terrain, the disposition of the army, to discuss … Most often it was Davout who accompanied him, I remember it as if it were yesterday: an enormous, corpulent, cool-headed man in spectacles, with a strange gaze. The emperor most often discussed things with him. He valued his thoughts. I remember them holding a special council for several days; Davout used to come in the morning and in the evening, and often they even argued; in the end, it seemed that Napoleon began to agree. The two of them were in the study, I was the third, almost unnoticed by them. Suddenly Napoleon’s gaze happens to fall on me, a strange thought flashes in his eyes. ‘Child!’ he suddenly says to me, ‘what do you think: if I embrace Orthodoxy and free your slaves, will the Russians follow me or not?’ ‘Never!’ I cried in indignation. Napoleon was struck. ‘In this child’s eyes flashing with patriotism,’ he said, ‘I have read the opinion of the whole Russian people. Enough, Davout! It’s all fantasies! Tell me your other plan.’ ”

  “Yes, but that plan was a strong thought as well!” said the prince, obviously interested. “So you ascribe that project to Davout?”

  “At least they discussed it together. Of course it was a Napoleonic thought, an eagle’s thought, but the other project was also a thought … It was that same famous ‘conseil du lion,’§ as Napoleon himself called this advice of Davout’s. It consisted of locking themselves in the Kremlin with the entire army, building a lot of barracks, entrenching themselves behind fortifications, positioning the cannon, killing as many horses as possible and pickling the meat; of procuring or pillaging as much bread as possible and weathering the winter; and of breaking through the Russians in the spring. This plan strongly appealed to Napoleon. We went around the walls of the Kremlin every day, and he pointed out where to demolish, where to build, where there would be a lunette, where a ravelin, where a row of blockhouses—the eye, the speed, the stroke! Everything was finally decided; Davout kept pestering him to make the final decision. Again they were alone, and I was the third. Again Napoleon paced the room, his arms crossed. I couldn’t tear my eyes from his face; my heart was pounding. ‘I’m off,’ said Davout. ‘Where to?’ asked Napoleon. ‘To pickle horses,’ said Davout. Napoleon gave a start; destiny was being decided. ‘Little one,’ he said to me suddenly, ‘what do you think of our intentions?’ To be sure, he asked me just so, as a man of the greatest mind occasionally resorts to heads or tails in the last moment. Instead of Napoleon, I turn to Davout and say, as if inspired: ‘You’d better go back where you came from, General!’ The plan was destroyed. Davout shrugged and whispered on his way out: ‘Bah! Il devient superstitieux!’‖ And the next day the retreat was announced.”

  “All that is extremely interesting,” the prince said terribly quietly, “if that’s how it all was … that is, I mean to say …” he hastened to correct himself.

  “Oh, Prince!” cried the general, so intoxicated by his story that he might not have been able to stop now even before the greatest imprudence, “you say: ‘It all was!’ But there was more, I assure you, there was much more! These are merely facts, small, political facts. But I repeat to you, I was witness to the nightly tears and groans of this great man, and no one saw it except me! Towards the end, true, he no longer wept, there were no tears, only an occasional groan; but his face seemed more and more veiled in gloom. As if eternity were already overshadowing him with its dark wing. Sometimes, at night, we spent whole hours together alone, silent—the mameluke Rustan would be snoring in the next room; the man was a very sound sleeper. ‘But he is faithful to m
e and my dynasty,’ Napoleon used to say of him. Once I felt terribly grieved, and he suddenly noticed tears in my eyes; he looked at me with tenderness: ‘You pity me!’ he cried. ‘You, little one, and perhaps yet another child pities me, my son, le roi de Rome;a19 the rest all hate me, all of them, and my brothers will be the first to sell me in my misfortune!’ I burst into sobs and rushed to him; here he, too, could not restrain himself; we embraced each other and our tears mingled. ‘Write, write a letter to the empress Josephine!’ I said through my sobs. Napoleon gave a start, reflected, and said to me: ‘You have reminded me of the third heart that loves me; thank you, my friend!’ He sat down at once and wrote that letter to Josephine which was sent off with Constant the next morning.”

  “You did a beautiful thing,” said the prince. “Amidst his wicked thoughts you prompted him to a kind feeling.”

  “Precisely, Prince, and how beautifully you explain it, in conformity with your own heart!” the general cried rapturously, and, strangely enough, real tears glistened in his eyes. “Yes, Prince, that was a great spectacle! And, you know, I nearly followed him to Paris and, of course, would have shared with him ‘the torrid prison isle,’20 but, alas! our fates were separated! We parted ways: he went to the torrid isle, where once at least, in a moment of terrible sorrow, he may have remembered the tears of the poor boy who embraced and forgave him in Moscow; while I was sent to the cadet corps, where I found nothing but drill, the coarseness of my comrades, and … Alas! Everything went to wrack and ruin! ‘I do not want to part you from your mother and will not take you with me!’ he said to me on the day of the retreat, ‘but I would like to do something for you.’ He was about to mount his horse. ‘Write something in my sister’s album as a souvenir,’ I said timidly, because he was very upset and gloomy. He went back, asked for a pen, took the album. ‘How old is your sister?’ he asked me, pen in hand. ‘Three,’ I replied. ‘Petite fille alors.’b And he scribbled in the album: