The Idiot (Vintage Classics)

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  He thought about that, sitting on a bench under a tree in the Summer Garden. It was around seven o’clock. The garden was deserted; something dark veiled the setting sun for a moment. It was sultry; it was like the distant foreboding of a thunderstorm. There was a sort of lure in his contemplative state right then. His memories and reason clung to every external object, and he liked that: he kept wanting to forget something present, essential, but with the first glance around him he at once recognized his dark thought again, the thought he had wanted so much to be rid of. He remembered talking earlier with a waiter in the hotel restaurant, over dinner, about an extremely strange recent murder, which had caused much noise and talk. But as soon as he remembered it, something peculiar suddenly happened to him again.

  An extraordinary, irrepressible desire, almost a temptation, suddenly gripped his whole will. He got up from the bench and walked out of the garden straight to the Petersburg side. Earlier, on the Neva embankment, he had asked some passerby to point out to him the Petersburg side across the river. It had been pointed out to him, but he had not gone there then. And in any case there was no point in going today; he knew that. He had long known the address; he could easily find the house of Lebedev’s relation; but he knew almost certainly that he would not find her at home. “She must have gone to Pavlovsk; otherwise Kolya would have left something at the Scales, as we arranged.” And so, if he set off now, it was not, of course, in order to see her. A different, dark, tormenting curiosity tempted him. A new, sudden idea had come into his head …

  But for him it was all too sufficient that he had set off and knew where he was going: a moment later he was walking along again, almost without noticing the way. It at once became terribly disgusting and almost impossible for him to think further about his “sudden idea.” With tormentingly strained attention, he peered into everything his eyes lighted upon, he looked at the sky, at the Neva. He addressed a little child he met. It may have been that his epileptic state was intensifying more and more. The thunderstorm, it seemed, was actually approaching, though slowly. Distant thunder had already begun. It was becoming very sultry …

  For some reason, just as one sometimes recalls an importunate musical tune, tiresome to the point of silliness, he now kept recalling Lebedev’s nephew, whom he had seen earlier. The strange thing was that he kept coming to his mind as the murderer Lebedev had mentioned when introducing the nephew to him. Yes, he had read about that murderer very recently. He had read and heard a great deal about such things since his arrival in Russia; he followed them persistently. And earlier he had even become much too interested in his conversation with the waiter about that murder of the Zhemarins. The waiter had agreed with him, he remembered that. He remembered the waiter, too. He was by no means a stupid fellow, grave and cautious, but “anyhow, God knows what he is. It’s hard to figure out new people in a new land.” He was beginning, however, to believe passionately in the Russian soul. Oh, he had endured so much, so much that was quite new to him in those six months, and unlooked-for, and unheard-of, and unexpected! But another man’s soul is murky, and the Russian soul is murky; it is so for many. Here he had long been getting together with Rogozhin, close together, together in a “brotherly” way—but did he know Rogozhin? And anyhow, what chaos, what turmoil, what ugliness there sometimes is in all that! But even so, what a nasty and all-satisfied little pimple that nephew of Lebedev’s is! But, anyhow, what am I saying? (the prince went on in his reverie). Was it he who killed those six beings, those six people? I seem to be mixing things up … how strange it is! My head is spinning … But what a sympathetic, what a sweet face Lebedev’s elder daughter has, the one who stood there with the baby, what an innocent, what an almost childlike expression, and what almost childlike laughter! Strange that he had almost forgotten that face and remembered it only now. Lebedev, who stamps his feet at them, probably adores them all. But what is surest of all, like two times two, is that Lebedev also adores his nephew!

  But anyhow, what was he doing making such a final judgment of them—he who had come only that day, what was he doing passing such verdicts? Lebedev himself had set him a problem today: had he expected such a Lebedev? Had he known such a Lebedev before? Lebedev and Du Barry—oh, Lord! Anyhow, if Rogozhin kills, at least he won’t kill in such a disorderly way. There won’t be this chaos. A tool made to order from a sketch and six people laid out in complete delirium!25 Does Rogozhin have a tool made from a sketch … does he have … but … has it been decided that Rogozhin will kill?! The prince gave a sudden start. “Isn’t it a crime, isn’t it mean on my part to make such a supposition with such cynical frankness?” he cried out, and a flush of shame all at once flooded his face. He was amazed, he stood as if rooted to the road. He remembered all at once the Pavlovsk station earlier, and the Nikolaevsk station earlier, and his direct question to Rogozhin about the eyes, and Rogozhin’s cross that he was now wearing, and the blessing of his mother, to whom Rogozhin himself had brought him, and that last convulsive embrace, Rogozhin’s last renunciation earlier on the stairs—and after all that to catch himself constantly searching for something around him, and that shopwindow, and that object … what meanness! And after all that he was now going with a “special goal,” with a specific “sudden idea”! Despair and suffering seized his whole soul. The prince immediately wanted to go back to his hotel; he even turned around and set off; but a minute later he stopped, pondered, and went back the way he had been going.

  Yes, and now he was on the Petersburg side, he was near the house; it was not with the former goal that he was going there now, not with any “special idea”! And how could it be! Yes, his illness was coming back, that was unquestionable; the fit might certainly come on him today. It was from the fit that all this darkness came, from the fit that the “idea” came as well! Now the darkness was dispersed, the demon was driven away, doubts did not exist, there was joy in his heart! And—it was so long since he had seen her, he had to see her, and … yes, he wished he could meet Rogozhin now, he would take him by the hand, and they would walk together … His heart was pure; was he any rival of Rogozhin? Tomorrow he would go himself and tell Rogozhin he had seen her; had he not flown here, as Rogozhin put it earlier, only in order to see her? Maybe he would find her at home, it was not certain that she was in Pavlovsk!

  Yes, all this had to be clearly set down now, so that they could all clearly read in each other, so that there would be none of these dark and passionate renunciations, like Rogozhin’s renunciation earlier, and let it all come about freely and … brightly. Is Rogozhin not capable of brightness? He says he loves her in a different way, that there is no compassion in him, “no such pity.” True, he added later that “your pity is maybe still worse than my love”—but he was slandering himself. Hm, Rogozhin over a book—isn’t that already “pity,” the beginning of “pity”? Isn’t the very presence of this book a proof that he is fully conscious of his relations with her? And his story today? No, that’s deeper than mere passion. Does her face inspire mere passion? And is that face even capable of inspiring passion now? It inspires suffering, it seizes the whole soul, it … and a burning, tormenting memory suddenly passed through the prince’s heart.

  Yes, tormenting. He remembered how he had been tormented recently, when for the first time he began to notice signs of insanity in her. What he experienced then was nearly despair. And how could he abandon her, when she then ran away from him to Rogozhin? He ought to have run after her himself, and not waited for news. But … can it be that Rogozhin still hasn’t noticed any insanity in her?… Hm … Rogozhin sees other reasons for everything, passionate reasons! And what insane jealousy! What did he mean to say by his suggestion today? (The prince suddenly blushed and something shook, as it were, in his heart.)

  Anyhow, why recall it? There was insanity on both sides here. And for him, the prince, to love this woman passionately—was almost unthinkable, would almost be cruelty, inhumanity. Yes, yes! No, Rogozhin was slandering himself; he has an
immense heart, which is capable of passion and compassion. When he learns the whole truth and when he becomes convinced of what a pathetic creature this deranged, half-witted woman is—won’t he then forgive her all the past, all his suffering? Won’t he become her servant, her brother, friend, providence? Compassion will give meaning and understanding to Rogozhin himself. Compassion is the chief and perhaps the only law of being for all mankind. Oh, how unpardonably and dishonorably guilty he was before Rogozhin! No, it’s not that “the Russian soul is murky,” but the murkiness was in his own soul, if he could imagine such a horror. For a few warm and heartfelt words in Moscow, Rogozhin called him brother, while he … But this is illness and delirium! It will all be resolved!… How gloomily Rogozhin said today that he was “losing his faith”! The man must be suffering greatly. He says he “likes looking at that painting”; he doesn’t like it, it means he feels a need. Rogozhin is not only a passionate soul; he’s a fighter after all: he wants to recover his lost faith by force. He needs it now to the point of torment … Yes! to believe in something! to believe in somebody! But still, how strange that Holbein painting is … Ah, this is the street! And this should be the house, yes, it is, No. 16, “house of Mrs. Filissov, collegiate secretary’s widow.” Here! The prince rang and asked for Nastasya Filippovna.

  The woman of the house herself told him that Nastasya Filippovna had left for Darya Alexeevna’s place in Pavlovsk that morning “and it may even happen, sir, that the lady will stay there for several days.” Mrs. Filissov was a small, sharp-eyed, and sharp-faced woman of about forty, with a sly and intent gaze. To her question as to his name—a question to which she seemed intentionally to give a tinge of mysteriousness—the prince at first did not want to reply; but he came back at once and insisted that his name be given to Nastasya Filippovna. Mrs. Filissov received this insistence with increased attention and with an extraordinarily secretive air, which was evidently intended to indicate that “you needn’t worry, I’ve understood, sir.” The prince’s name obviously impressed her greatly. The prince looked at her distractedly, turned, and went back to his hotel. But he left looking not at all the same as when he had rung at Mrs. Filissov’s door. Again, and as if in one instant, an extraordinary change came over him: again he walked along pale, weak, suffering, agitated; his knees trembled, and a vague, lost smile wandered over his blue lips: his “sudden idea” had suddenly been confirmed and justified, and—again he believed in his demon!

  But had it been confirmed? Had it been justified? Why this trembling again, this cold sweat, this gloom and inner cold? Was it because he had just seen those eyes again? But had he not left the Summer Garden with the sole purpose of seeing them? That was what his “sudden idea” consisted in. He insistently wanted to see “today’s eyes,” so as to be ultimately certain that he would meet them there without fail, near that house. That had been his convulsive desire, and why, then, was he so crushed and astounded now, when he really saw them? As if he had not expected it! Yes, they were those same eyes (and there was no longer any doubt that they were the same!) that had flashed at him that morning, in the crowd, as he was getting off the train at the Nikolaevsk station; the same eyes (perfectly the same!) whose flashing gaze he had caught later that day behind his back, as he was sitting in a chair at Rogozhin’s. Rogozhin had denied it; he had asked with a twisted, icy smile: “Whose eyes were they?” And a short time ago, at the Tsarskoe Selo station, when he was getting on the train to go to Aglaya and suddenly saw those eyes again, now for the third time that day—the prince had wanted terribly to go up to Rogozhin and tell him “whose eyes they were”! But he had run out of the station and recovered himself only in front of the cutler’s shop at the moment when he was standing and evaluating at sixty kopecks the cost of a certain object with a staghorn handle. A strange and terrible demon had fastened on to him definitively, and would no longer let him go. This demon had whispered to him in the Summer Garden, as he sat oblivious under a linden tree, that if Rogozhin had needed so much to keep watch on him ever since morning and catch him at every step, then, learning that he was not going to Pavlovsk (which, of course, was fatal news for Rogozhin), Rogozhin would unfailingly go there, to that house on the Petersburg side, and would unfailingly keep watch there for him, the prince, who had given him his word of honor that morning that he “would not see her” and that “he had not come to Petersburg for that.” And then the prince rushes convulsively to that house, and what if he actually does meet Rogozhin there? He saw only an unhappy man whose inner state was dark but quite comprehensible. This unhappy man was not even hiding now. Yes, earlier for some reason Rogozhin had denied it and lied, but at the station he had stood almost without hiding. It was even sooner he, the prince, who was hiding, than Rogozhin. And now, at the house, he stood on the other side of the street, some fifty steps away, at an angle, on the opposite sidewalk, his arms crossed, and waited. This time he was in full view and it seemed that he deliberately wanted to be in view. He stood like an accuser and a judge, and not like … And not like who?

  And why had he, the prince, not gone up to him now, but turned away from him as if noticing nothing, though their eyes had met? (Yes, their eyes had met! and they had looked at each other.) Hadn’t he wanted to take him by the hand and go there with him? Hadn’t he wanted to go to him tomorrow and tell him that he had called on her? Hadn’t he renounced his demon as he went there, halfway there, when joy had suddenly filled his soul? Or was there in fact something in Rogozhin, that is, in today’s whole image of the man, in the totality of his words, movements, actions, glances, something that might justify the prince’s terrible foreboding and the disturbing whisperings of his demon? Something visible in itself, but difficult to analyze and speak about, impossible to justify by sufficient reasons, but which nevertheless produced, despite all this difficulty and impossibility, a perfectly whole and irrefutable impression, which involuntarily turned into the fullest conviction?…

  Conviction—of what? (Oh, how tormented the prince was by the monstrosity, the “humiliation” of this conviction, of “this base foreboding,” and how he blamed himself!) “Say then, if you dare, of what?” he said ceaselessly to himself, in reproach and defiance. “Formulate, dare to express your whole thought, clearly, precisely, without hesitation! Oh, I am dishonorable!” he repeated with indignation and with a red face. “With what eyes am I to look at this man now all my life! Oh, what a day! Oh, God, what a nightmare!”

  There was a moment, at the end of this long and tormenting way from the Petersburg side, when an irrepressible desire suddenly took hold of the prince—to go right then to Rogozhin’s, to wait for him, to embrace him with shame, with tears, to tell him everything and be done with it all at once. But he was already standing by his hotel … How he had disliked this hotel earlier—the corridors, the whole building, his room—disliked them at first sight; several times that day he had remembered with a sort of special revulsion that he would have to go back there … “How is it that, like an ailing woman, I believe in every foreboding today!” he thought with irritable mockery, stopping at the gate. A new, unbearable surge of shame, almost despair, riveted him to the spot, at the very entrance to the gateway. He stopped for a moment. This sometimes happens with people: unbearable, unexpected memories, especially in connection with shame, ordinarily stop one on the spot for a moment. “Yes, I’m a man without heart and a coward!” he repeated gloomily, and impulsively started walking, but … stopped again …

  In this gateway, which was dark to begin with, it was at that moment very dark: the storm cloud came over, swallowing up the evening light, and just as the prince was nearing the house, the cloud suddenly opened and poured down rain. And at the moment when he set off impulsively, after a momentary pause, he was right at the opening of the gateway, right at the entrance to it from the street. And suddenly, in the depths of the gateway, in the semidarkness, just by the door to the stairs, he saw a man. This man seemed to be waiting for something, but flashed quickly a
nd vanished. The prince could not make the man out clearly and, of course, could not tell for certain who he was. Besides, so many people might pass through there. It was a hotel, and there was a constant walking and running up and down the corridors. But he suddenly felt the fullest and most irrefutable conviction that he had recognized the man and that the man was most certainly Rogozhin. A moment later the prince rushed after him into the stairway. His heart stood still. “Now everything will be resolved!” he said to himself with great conviction.