The Idiot (Vintage Classics)

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  “Oh, come now, come now, darling! You certainly are in a fit: have you lost your mind?” the frightened Darya Alexeevna roused herself up.

  “And you thought it could really be?” Nastasya Filippovna jumped up from the sofa with a loud laugh. “That I could ruin such a baby? That’s just the right thing for Afanasy Ivanych: he’s the one who loves babies! Let’s go, Rogozhin! Get your packet ready! Never mind that you want to marry me, give me the money anyway. Maybe I still won’t marry you. You thought, since you want to marry me, you’d get to keep the packet? Ah, no! I’m shameless myself! I was Totsky’s concubine … Prince! you need Aglaya Epanchin now, not Nastasya Filippovna—otherwise Ferdyshchenko will point the finger at you! You’re not afraid, but I’d be afraid to ruin you and have you reproach me afterwards! And as for your declarations that I’d be doing you an honor, Totsky knows all about that. And you, Ganechka, you’ve missed Aglaya Epanchin; did you know that? If you hadn’t bargained with her, she would certainly have married you! That’s how you all are: keep company with dishonorable women, or with honorable women—there’s only one choice! Otherwise you’re sure to get confused … Hah, look at the general staring openmouthed …”

  “It’s bedlam, bedlam!” the general repeated, heaving his shoulders. He, too, got up from the sofa; they were all on their feet again. Nastasya Filippovna seemed to be in a frenzy.

  “It can’t be!” the prince groaned, wringing his hands.

  “You think not? Maybe I’m proud myself, even if I am shameless. You just called me perfection; a fine perfection, if just for the sake of boasting that I’ve trampled on a million and a princely title, I go off to a thieves’ den! What kind of wife am I for you after that? Afanasy Ivanych, I’ve really thrown a million out the window! How could you think I’d consider myself lucky to marry Ganechka and your seventy-five thousand? Keep the seventy-five thousand, Afanasy Ivanych (you didn’t even get up to a hundred, Rogozhin outdid you!); as for Ganechka, I’ll comfort him myself, I’ve got an idea. And now I want to carouse, I’m a streetwalker! I sat in prison for ten years, now comes happiness! What’s wrong, Rogozhin? Get ready, let’s go!”

  “Let’s go!” bellowed Rogozhin, nearly beside himself with joy. “Hey, you … whoever … wine! Ohh!…”

  “Lay in more wine, I’m going to drink. And will there be music?”

  “There will, there will! Keep away!” Rogozhin screamed in frenzy, seeing Darya Alexeevna approaching Nastasya Filippovna. “She’s mine! It’s all mine! A queen! The end!”

  He was breathless with joy; he circled around Nastasya Filippovna and cried out to everyone: “Keep away!” His whole company had already crowded into the drawing room. Some were drinking, others were shouting and guffawing, they were all in a most excited and uninhibited state. Ferdyshchenko began trying to sidle up to them. The general and Totsky made another move to disappear quickly. Ganya also had his hat in his hand, but he stood silently and still seemed unable to tear himself away from the picture that was developing before him.

  “Keep away!” cried Rogozhin.

  “What are you yelling for?” Nastasya Filippovna laughed loudly at him. “I’m still the mistress here; if I want, I can have you thrown out. I haven’t taken your money yet, it’s right there; give it to me, the whole packet! So there’s a hundred thousand in this packet? Pah, how loathsome! What’s wrong, Darya Alexeevna? Should I have ruined him?” (She pointed to the prince.) “How can he get married, he still needs a nursemaid himself; so the general will be his nursemaid—look how he dangles after him! See, Prince, your fiancée took the money because she’s dissolute, and you wanted to marry her! Why are you crying? Bitter, is it? No, but laugh, as I do!” Nastasya Filippovna went on, with two big tears glistening on her own cheeks. “Trust in time—everything will pass! Better to change your mind now than later … But why are you all crying—here’s Katya crying! What’s wrong, Katya, dear? I’ve left a lot to you and Pasha, I’ve already made the arrangements, and now goodbye! I’ve made an honest girl like you wait on a dissolute one like me … It’s better this way, Prince, truly better, you’d start despising me tomorrow, and there’d be no happiness for us! Don’t swear, I won’t believe you! And it would be so stupid … No, better let’s part nicely, because I’m a dreamer myself, there’d be no use! As if I haven’t dreamed of you myself? You’re right about that, I dreamed for a long time, still in the country, where he kept me for five years, completely alone, I used to think and think, dream and dream—and I kept imagining someone like you, kind, honest, good, and as silly as you are, who would suddenly come and say, ‘You’re not guilty, Nastasya Filippovna, and I adore you!’ And I sometimes dreamed so much that I’d go out of my mind … And then this one would come: he’d stay for two months a year, dishonor me, offend me, inflame me, debauch me, leave me—a thousand times I wanted to drown myself in the pond, but I was base, I had no courage—well, but now … Rogozhin, are you ready?”

  “Ready! Keep away!”

  “Ready!” several voices rang out.

  “The troikas are waiting with their little bells!”

  Nastasya Filippovna snatched up the packet with both hands.

  “Ganka, I’ve got an idea: I want to reward you, because why should you lose everything? Rogozhin, will he crawl to Vassilievsky Island for three roubles?”

  “He will!”

  “Well, then listen, Ganya, I want to look at your soul for the last time; you’ve been tormenting me for three long months; now it’s my turn. Do you see this packet? There’s a hundred thousand in it! I’m now going to throw it into the fireplace, onto the fire, before everyone, all these witnesses! As soon as it catches fire all over, go into the fireplace, only without gloves, with your bare hands, with your sleeves rolled up, and pull the packet out of the fire! If you pull it out, it’s yours, the whole hundred thousand is yours! You’ll only burn your fingers a little—but it’s a hundred thousand, just think! It won’t take long to snatch it out! And I’ll admire your soul as you go into the fire after my money. They’re all witnesses that the packet will be yours! And if you don’t get it out, it will burn; I won’t let anyone else touch it. Stand back! Everybody! It’s my money! I got it for a night with Rogozhin. Is it my money, Rogozhin?”

  “Yours, my joy! Yours, my queen!”

  “Well, then everybody stand back, I do as I like! Don’t interfere! Ferdyshchenko, stir up the fire.”

  “Nastasya Filippovna, my hands refuse to obey!” the flabber-gasted Ferdyshchenko replied.

  “Ahh!” Nastasya Filippovna cried, seized the fire tongs, separated two smoldering logs, and as soon as the fire blazed up, threw the packet into it.

  A cry was heard all around; many even crossed themselves.

  “She’s lost her mind, she’s lost her mind!” they cried all around.

  “Maybe … maybe we should tie her up?” the general whispered to Ptitsyn. “Or send for … she’s lost her mind, hasn’t she? Lost her mind?”

  “N-no, this may not be entirely madness,” Ptitsyn whispered, pale as a sheet and trembling, unable to tear his eyes from the packet, which was beginning to smolder.

  “She’s mad, isn’t she? Isn’t she mad?” the general pestered Totsky.

  “I told you she was a colorful woman,” murmured Afanasy Ivanovich, also gone somewhat pale.

  “But, after all, it’s a hundred thousand!…”

  “Lord, Lord!” was heard on all sides. Everyone crowded around the fireplace, everyone pushed in order to see, everyone exclaimed … Some even climbed onto chairs to look over the heads. Darya Alexeevna ran to the other room and exchanged frightened whispers with Katya and Pasha about something. The German beauty fled.

  “Dearest lady! Queen! Almighty one!” Lebedev screamed, crawling on his knees before Nastasya Filippovna and reaching out towards the fireplace. “A hundred thousand! A hundred thousand! I saw it myself, I was there when they wrapped it! Dearest lady! Merciful one! Order me into the fireplace: I’ll go all the way in, I�
��ll put my whole gray head into the fire!… A crippled wife, thirteen children—all orphaned, I buried my father last week, he sits there starving, Nastasya Filippovna!!” and, having screamed, he began crawling into the fireplace.

  “Away!” cried Nastasya Filippovna, pushing him aside. “Step back, everybody! Ganya, what are you standing there for? Don’t be ashamed! Go in! It’s your lucky chance!”

  But Ganya had already endured too much that day and that evening, and was not prepared for this last unexpected trial. The crowd parted into two halves before him, and he was left face to face with Nastasya Filippovna, three steps away from her. She stood right by the fireplace and waited, not tearing her burning, intent gaze from him. Ganya, in a tailcoat, his hat and gloves in his hand, stood silent and unresponding before her, his arms crossed, looking at the fire. An insane smile wandered over his face, which was pale as a sheet. True, he could not take his eyes off the fire, off the smoldering packet; but it seemed something new had arisen in his soul; it was as if he had sworn to endure the torture; he did not budge from the spot; in a few moments it became clear to everyone that he would not go after the packet, that he did not want to.

  “Hey, it’ll burn up, and they’ll shame you,” Nastasya Filippovna cried to him, “you’ll hang yourself afterwards, I’m not joking!”

  The fire that had flared up in the beginning between the two smoldering logs went out at first, when the packet fell on it and smothered it. But a small blue flame still clung from below to one corner of the lower log. Finally, a long, thin tongue of fire licked at the packet, the fire caught and raced along the edges of the paper, and suddenly the whole packet blazed in the fireplace and the bright flame shot upwards. Everyone gasped.

  “Dearest lady!” Lebedev kept screaming, straining forward once more, but Rogozhin dragged him back and pushed him aside again.

  Rogozhin himself had turned into one fixed gaze. He could not turn it from Nastasya Filippovna, he was reveling, he was in seventh heaven.

  “There’s a queen for you!” he repeated every moment, turning around to whoever was there. “That’s the way to do it!” he cried out, forgetting himself. “Who among you rogues would pull such a stunt, eh?”

  The prince watched ruefully and silently.

  “I’ll snatch it out with my teeth for just one thousand!” Ferdyshchenko offered.

  “I could do it with my teeth, too!” the fist gentleman, who was standing behind them all, rasped in a fit of decided despair. “D-devil take it! It’s burning, it’ll burn up!” he cried, seeing the flame.

  “It’s burning, it’s burning!” they all cried in one voice, almost all of them also straining towards the fireplace.

  “Ganya, stop faking, I tell you for the last time!”

  “Go in!” Ferdyshchenko bellowed, rushing to Ganya in a decided frenzy and pulling him by the sleeve. “Go in, you little swaggerer! It’ll burn up! Oh, cur-r-rse you!”

  Ganya shoved Ferdyshchenko aside forcefully, turned, and went towards the door; but before going two steps, he reeled and crashed to the floor.

  “He fainted!” they cried all around.

  “Dearest lady, it’ll burn up!” Lebedev screamed.

  “Burn up for nothing!” the roaring came from all sides.

  “Katya, Pasha, fetch him water, spirits!” Nastasya Filippovna cried, seized the fire tongs and snatched the packet out.

  The outer paper was nearly all charred and smoldering, but it could be seen at once that the inside was not damaged. The packet had been wrapped in three layers of newspaper, and the money was untouched. Everyone breathed more easily.

  “Maybe just one little thousand is damaged a tiny bit, but the rest is untouched,” Lebedev said tenderly.

  “It’s all his! The whole packet is his! Do you hear, gentlemen?” Nastasya Filippovna proclaimed, placing the packet beside Ganya. “He didn’t go in after it, he held out! So his vanity is still greater than his lust for money. Never mind, he’ll come to! Otherwise he might have killed me … There, he’s already recovering. General, Ivan Petrovich, Darya Alexeevna, Katya, Pasha, Rogozhin, do you hear? The packet is his, Ganya’s. I grant him full possession of it as a reward for … well, for whatever! Tell him that. Let it lie there beside him … Rogozhin, march! Farewell, Prince, I’ve seen a man for the first time! Farewell, Afanasy Ivanovich, merci!”

  The whole of Rogozhin’s crew, with noise, clatter, and shouting, raced through the rooms to the exit, following Rogozhin and Nastasya Filippovna. In the reception room the maids gave her her fur coat; the cook Marfa came running from the kitchen. Nastasya Filippovna kissed them all.

  “Can it be, dearest lady, that you’re leaving us for good? But where will you go? And on such a day, on your birthday!” the tearful maids asked, weeping and kissing her hands.

  “I’ll go to the street, Katya, you heard, that’s the place for me, or else I’ll become a washerwoman! Enough of Afanasy Ivanovich! Give him my regards, and don’t think ill of me …”

  The prince rushed headlong for the front gate, where they were all getting into four troikas with little bells. The general overtook him on the stairs.

  “Good heavens, Prince, come to your senses!” he said, seizing him by the arm. “Drop it! You see what she’s like! I’m speaking as a father …”

  The prince looked at him, but, without saying a word, broke away and ran downstairs.

  At the front gate, from which the troikas had just driven off, the general saw the prince catch the first cab and shout, “To Ekaterinhof, follow those troikas!” Then the general’s little gray trotter pulled up and took the general home, along with his new hopes and calculations and the aforementioned pearls, which the general had all the same not forgotten to take with him. Amidst his calculations there also flashed once or twice the seductive image of Nastasya Filippovna; the general sighed:

  “A pity! A real pity! A lost woman! A madwoman!… Well, sir, but what the prince needs now is not Nastasya Filippovna …”

  A few moralizing and admonishing words of the same sort were also uttered by two other interlocutors from among Nastasya Filippovna’s guests, who had decided to go a little way on foot.

  “You know, Afanasy Ivanovich, they say something of the sort exists among the Japanese,” Ivan Petrovich Ptitsyn was saying. “An offended man there supposedly goes to the offender and says to him: ‘You have offended me, for that I have come to rip my belly open before your eyes,’ and with those words he actually rips his belly open before his offender’s eyes, no doubt feeling an extreme satisfaction, as if he had indeed revenged himself. There are strange characters in the world, Afanasy Ivanovich!”

  “And you think it was something of that sort here, too?” replied Afanasy Ivanovich with a smile. “Hm! Anyhow, you’ve wittily … and the comparison is excellent. You saw for yourself, however, my dearest Ivan Petrovich, that I did all I could; I cannot do the impossible, wouldn’t you agree? You must also agree, however, that there are some capital virtues in this woman … brilliant features. I even wanted to cry out to her just now, if only I could have allowed myself to do it in that bedlam, that she herself was my best defense against all her accusations. Well, who wouldn’t be captivated by this woman on occasion to the point of forgetting all reason … and the rest? Look, that boor Rogozhin came lugging a hundred thousand to her! Let’s say everything that happened there tonight was ephemeral, romantic, indecent, but, on the other hand, it was colorful, it was original, you must agree. God, what might have come from such a character and with such beauty! But, despite all my efforts, even education—all is lost! A diamond in the rough—I’ve said it many times …”

  And Afanasy Ivanovich sighed deeply.

  * Léon is going away, Léon is going away forever!

  † Warning to the reader.

  ‡ My husband is mistaken.

  § If it’s not true …

  ‖ It’s something new.

  a He who laughs last laughs best.

  b To pass the time.<
br />
  c Prowess.

  d Parlor game.

  e Embarrassment of riches.

  f Of the true stock.

  PART TWO

  I

  A COUPLE OF DAYS after the strange adventure at Nastasya Filippovna’s party, with which we ended the first part of our story, Prince Myshkin hastened to leave for Moscow on the business of receiving his unexpected inheritance. It was said then that there might have been other reasons for such a hasty departure; but of that, as well as of the prince’s adventures in Moscow and generally in the course of his absence from Petersburg, we can supply very little information. The prince was away for exactly six months, and even those who had certain reasons to be interested in his fate could find out very little about him during all that time. True, some sort of rumors reached some of them, though very rarely, but these were mostly strange and almost always contradicted each other. The greatest interest in the prince was shown, of course, in the house of the Epanchins, to whom he had even had no time to say good-bye as he was leaving. The general, however, had seen him then, even two or three times; they had discussed something seriously. But if Epanchin himself had seen him, he had not informed his family of it. And, generally, at first, that is, for nearly a whole month after the prince’s departure, talk of him was avoided in the Epanchins’ house. Only the general’s wife, Lizaveta Prokofyevna, voiced her opinion at the very beginning, “that she had been sadly mistaken about the prince.” Then after two or three days she added, though without mentioning the prince now, but vaguely, that “the chiefest feature of her life was to be constantly mistaken about people.” And finally, ten days later, being vexed with her daughters over something, she concluded with the utterance: “Enough mistakes! There will be no more of them!” We cannot help noting here that for a long time a certain unpleasant mood existed in their house. There was something heavy, strained, unspoken, quarrelsome; everyone scowled. The general was busy day and night, taken up with his affairs; rarely had anyone seen him so busy and active—especially with official work. The family hardly managed to catch a glimpse of him. As for the Epanchin girls, they, of course, said nothing openly. It may be that they said very little even when they were by themselves. They were proud girls, arrogant, and sometimes bashful even among themselves, but nevertheless they understood each other not only from the first word but even from the first glance, so that sometimes there was no need to say much.