The Idiot (Vintage Classics)

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Lebedev’s dacha was no more than three hundred paces from the Epanchins’. Lizaveta Prokofyevna’s first unpleasant impression at the prince’s was to find him surrounded by a whole company of guests, not to mention that she decidedly hated two or three persons in that company; the second was her surprise at the sight of the completely healthy-looking, smartly dressed, and laughing young man coming to meet them, instead of a dying man on his deathbed, as she had expected to find him. She even stopped in perplexity, to the extreme delight of Kolya, who, of course, could have explained perfectly well, before she set off from her dacha, that precisely no one was dying, nor was there any deathbed, but who had not done so, slyly anticipating Mrs. Epanchin’s future comic wrath when, as he reckoned, she was bound to get angry at finding the prince, her sincere friend, in good health. Kolya was even so indelicate as to utter his surmise aloud, to definitively annoy Lizaveta Prokofyevna, whom he needled constantly and sometimes very maliciously, despite the friendship that bound them.

  “Wait, my gentle sir, don’t be in such a hurry, don’t spoil your triumph!” Lizaveta Prokofyevna replied, settling into the armchair that the prince offered her.

  Lebedev, Ptitsyn, and General Ivolgin rushed to offer chairs to the girls. The general offered Aglaya a chair. Lebedev also offered a chair to Prince Shch., even the curve of his back managing to show an extraordinary deference. Varya and the girls exchanged greetings, as usual, with rapture and whispering.

  “It’s true, Prince, that I thought to find you all but bedridden, so greatly did I exaggerate in my worry, and—I wouldn’t lie for anything—I felt terribly vexed just now at your happy face, but, by God, it was only for a moment, till I had time to reflect. When Ireflect, I always act and speak more intelligently; you do, too, I suppose. But to speak truly, I might be less glad of my own son’s recovery, if I had one, than I am of yours; and if you don’t believe me about that, the shame is yours, not mine. And this malicious brat allows himself even worse jokes with me. He seems to be your protégé; so I’m warning you that one fine day, believe me, I shall renounce the further satisfaction of enjoying the honor of his acquaintance.”

  “What fault is it of mine?” Kolya shouted. “However much I insisted that the prince was almost well now, you’d have refused to believe it, because it was far more interesting to imagine him on his deathbed.”

  “Will you be staying with us long?” Lizaveta Prokofyevna turned to the prince.

  “The whole summer, and perhaps longer.”

  “And you’re alone? Not married?”

  “No, not married,” the prince smiled at the naïvety of the barb sent his way.

  “You’ve no reason to smile; it does happen. I was referring to the dacha. Why didn’t you come to stay with us? We have a whole wing empty; however, as you wish. Do you rent it from him? This one?” she added in a half-whisper, nodding towards Lebedev. “Why is he grimacing all the time?”

  Just then Vera came outside to the terrace, with the baby in her arms as usual. Lebedev, who had been cringing by the chairs, decidedly unable to figure out what to do with himself but terribly reluctant to leave, suddenly fell upon Vera, waved his arms at her to chase her from the terrace, and, forgetting himself, even stamped his feet at her.

  “Is he crazy?” Mrs. Epanchin suddenly added.

  “No, he …”

  “Drunk, maybe? It’s not pretty company you keep,” she snapped, taking in the remaining guests at a glance. “What a sweet girl, though! Who is she?”

  “That’s Vera Lukyanovna, the daughter of this Lebedev.”

  “Ah!… Very sweet. I want to make her acquaintance.”

  But Lebedev, who had heard Lizaveta Prokofyevna’s praises, was already dragging his daughter closer in order to introduce her.

  “Orphans, orphans!” he dissolved, approaching. “And this baby in her arms is an orphan, her sister, my daughter Lyubov, born in most lawful wedlock of the newly departed Elena, my wife, who died six weeks ago in childbed, as it pleased the Lord … yes, sir … in place of a mother, though she’s only a sister and no more than a sister … no more, no more …”

  “And you, my dear, are no more than a fool, forgive me. Well, enough, I suppose you realize that yourself,” Lizaveta Prokofyevna suddenly snapped in extreme indignation.

  “The veritable truth!” Lebedev bowed most respectfully and deeply.

  “Listen, Mr. Lebedev, is it true what they say of you, that you interpret the Apocalypse?” asked Aglaya.

  “The veritable truth … fifteen years now.”

  “I’ve heard of you. They wrote about you in the newspapers, I believe?”

  “No, that was about another interpreter, another one, ma’am, but that one died, and I remained instead of him,” said Lebedev, beside himself with joy.

  “Do me a favor, explain it to me one of these days, since we’re neighbors. I understand nothing in the Apocalypse.”

  “I can’t help warning you, Aglaya Ivanovna, that it’s all mere charlatanism on his part, believe me,” General Ivolgin, who had been waiting as if on pins and needles and wished with all his might to somehow start a conversation, suddenly put in quickly. He sat down beside Aglaya Ivanovna. “Of course, dacha life has its rights,” he went on, “and its pleasures, and the method of such an extraordinary intrus* for interpreting the Apocalypse is an undertaking like any other, and even a remarkably intelligent undertaking, but I … It seems you are looking at me in astonishment? General Ivolgin, I have the honor of introducing myself. I used to carry you in my arms, Aglaya Ivanovna.”

  “Delighted. I know Varvara Ardalionovna and Nina Alexandrovna,” Aglaya murmured, trying as hard as she could to keep from bursting out laughing.

  Lizaveta Prokofyevna flared up. Something that had long been accumulating in her soul suddenly demanded to be let out. She could not stand General Ivolgin, with whom she had once been acquainted, but very long ago.

  “You’re lying, my dear, as usual, you never carried her in your arms,” she snapped at him indignantly.

  “You’ve forgotten, maman, he really did, in Tver,” Aglaya suddenly confirmed. “We lived in Tver then. I was six years old, I remember. He made me a bow and arrow, and taught me how to shoot, and I killed a pigeon. Remember, you and I killed a pigeon together?”

  “And he brought me a cardboard helmet and a wooden sword then, and I remember it!” Adelaida cried out.

  “I remember it, too,” Alexandra confirmed. “You all quarreled then over the wounded pigeon and were made to stand in the corner; Adelaida stood like this in the helmet and with the sword.”

  The general, in announcing to Aglaya that he had carried her in his arms, had said it just so, only in order to start a conversation, and solely because he almost always started a conversation with young people in that way, if he found it necessary to make their acquaintance. But this time it so happened, as if by design, that he had told the truth and, as if by design, had forgotten that truth himself. So that now, when Aglaya suddenly confirmed that the two of them had shot a pigeon together, his memory suddenly lit up, and he remembered it all himself, to the last detail, as an old person often remembers something from the distant past. It is hard to say what in this memory could have had such a strong effect on the poor and, as usual, slightly tipsy general; but he was suddenly extraordinarily moved.

  “I remember, I remember it all!” he cried. “I was a staff-captain then. You were such a tiny, pretty little girl. Nina Alexandrovna … Ganya … I was received … in your house. Ivan Fyodorovich …”

  “And see what you’ve come to now!” Mrs. Epanchin picked up. “Which means that all the same you haven’t drunk up your noble feelings, since it affects you so! But you’ve worn out your wife. Instead of looking after your children, you’ve been sitting in debtors’ prison. Leave us, my dear, go somewhere, stand in a corner behind a door and have a good cry, remembering your former innocence, and perhaps God will forgive you. Go, go, I’m telling you seriously. There’s nothing bett
er for mending your ways than recalling the past in repentance.”

  But there was no need to repeat that she was speaking seriously: the general, like all constantly tippling people, was very sentimental, and, like all tippling people who have sunk too low, he could not easily bear memories from the happy past. He got up and humbly walked to the door, so that Lizaveta Prokofyevna felt sorry for him at once.

  “Ardalion Alexandrych, my dear!” she called out behind him. “Wait a minute! We’re all sinners; when you’re feeling less remorse of conscience, come and see me, we’ll sit and talk about old times. I myself may well be fifty times more of a sinner than you are; well, good-bye now, go, there’s no point in your …” She was suddenly afraid that he might come back.

  “Don’t follow him for now,” the prince stopped Kolya, who had made as if to run after his father. “Or else he’ll get vexed after a moment, and the whole moment will be spoiled.”

  “That’s true, let him be; go in half an hour,” Lizaveta Prokofyevna decided.

  “That’s what it means to tell the truth for once in your life—it moved him to tears!” Lebedev ventured to paste in.

  “Well, and you must be a fine one, too, my dear, if what I’ve heard is true,” Lizaveta Prokofyevna pulled him up short at once.

  The mutual position of all the guests gathered at the prince’s gradually defined itself. The prince, naturally, was able to appreciate and did appreciate the full extent of the concern shown for him by Mrs. Epanchin and her daughters and, of course, told them frankly that he himself, before their visit, had intended to call on them today without fail, despite his illness and the late hour. Lizaveta Prokofyevna, glancing at his guests, replied that this wish could be realized even now. Ptitsyn, a courteous and extremely accommodating young man, very soon got up and withdrew to Lebedev’s wing, hoping very much to take Lebedev himself along with him. The latter promised to follow him soon; meanwhile Varya fell to talking with the girls and stayed. She and Ganya were very glad of the general’s departure; Ganya himself also soon followed Ptitsyn out. During the few minutes he had spent on the terrace with the Epanchins, he had behaved modestly, with dignity, and had not been taken aback in the least by the determined glances of Lizaveta Prokofyevna, who had twice looked him up and down. Actually, those who had known him before might have thought him quite changed. That pleased Aglaya very much.

  “Was it Gavrila Ardalionovich who just left?” she suddenly asked, as she sometimes liked to do, loudly, sharply, interrupting other people’s conversation with her question, and not addressing anyone personally.

  “Yes, it was,” replied the prince.

  “I barely recognized him. He’s quite changed and … greatly for the better.”

  “I’m very glad for him,” said the prince.

  “He was very ill,” Varya added with joyful sympathy.

  “How is he changed for the better?” Lizaveta Prokofyevna asked in irascible perplexity and all but frightened. “Where do you get that? There’s nothing better. What precisely seems better to you?”

  “There’s nothing better than ‘the poor knight’!” proclaimed Kolya, who had been standing all the while by Lizaveta Prokofyevna’s chair.

  “I think the same myself,” Prince Shch. said and laughed.

  “I’m of exactly the same opinion,” Adelaida proclaimed solemnly.

  “What ‘poor knight’?” Mrs. Epanchin asked, looking around in perplexity and vexation at all the speakers, but, seeing that Aglaya had blushed, she added testily: “Some sort of nonsense! What is this ‘poor knight’?”

  “As if it’s the first time this brat, your favorite, has twisted other people’s words!” Aglaya replied with haughty indignation.

  In each of Aglaya’s wrathful outbursts (and she was often wrathful), almost each time, despite all her ostensible seriousness and implacability, there showed so much that was still childish, impatiently schoolgirlish and poorly concealed, that it was sometimes quite impossible to look at her without laughing, to the great vexation of Aglaya, incidentally, who could not understand why they laughed and “how could they, how dared they laugh.” Now, too, the sisters laughed, as did Prince Shch., and even Prince Lev Nikolaevich himself smiled, and for some reason also blushed. Kolya laughed loudly and triumphantly. Aglaya turned seriously angry and became twice as pretty. Her embarrassment, and her vexation with herself for this embarrassment, were extremely becoming to her.

  “As if he hasn’t twisted enough words of yours,” she added.

  “I base myself on your own exclamation!” Kolya cried. “A month ago you were looking through Don Quixote and exclaimed those words, that there is nothing better than the ‘poor knight.’ I don’t know who you were talking about then—Don Quixote, Evgeny Pavlych, or some other person—but only that you were speaking about someone, and the conversation went on for a long time …”

  “I see, dear boy, that you allow yourself too much with your guesses,” Lizaveta Prokofyevna stopped him with vexation.

  “Am I the only one?” Kolya would not keep still. “Everybody was talking then, and they still do; just now Prince Shch. and Adelaida Ivanovna, and everybody said they were for the ‘poor knight,’ which means that this ‘poor knight’ exists and is completely real, and in my opinion, if it weren’t for Adelaida Ivanovna, we’d all have known long ago who the ‘poor knight’ is.”

  “What did I do wrong?” Adelaida laughed.

  “You didn’t want to draw his portrait—that’s what! Aglaya Ivanovna asked you then to draw a portrait of the ‘poor knight’ and even told you the whole subject for a painting she had thought up, don’t you remember the subject? You didn’t want to …”

  “How could I paint it, and whom? The subject says about this ‘poor knight’:

  From his face the visor

  He ne’er raised for anyone.

  What sort of face could it be, then? What should I paint—a visor? An anonymity?”

  “I don’t understand anything, what’s this about a visor?” Mrs. Epanchin was growing vexed and beginning to have a very good idea of who was meant by the name (probably agreed upon long ago) of the “poor knight.” But she exploded particularly when Prince Lev Nikolaevich also became embarrassed and finally as abashed as a ten-year-old boy. “Will there be no end to this foolishness? Are you going to explain this ‘poor knight’ to me or not? Is there some terrible secret in it that I can’t even go near?”

  But they all just went on laughing.

  “Quite simply, there’s a strange Russian poem,” Prince Shch. finally mixed in, obviously wishing to hush things up quickly and change the subject, “about a ‘poor knight,’ a fragment with no beginning or end.28 Once, about a month ago, we were all laughing together after dinner and, as usual, suggesting a subject for Adelaida Ivanovna’s future painting. You know that our common family task has long consisted in finding subjects for Adelaida Ivanovna’s paintings. It was then that we hit upon the ‘poor knight,’ I don’t remember who first …”

  “Aglaya Ivanovna!” cried Kolya.

  “That may be, I agree, only I don’t remember,” Prince Shch. went on. “Some laughed at this subject, others declared that nothing could be loftier, but in order to portray the ‘poor knight’ there had in any case to be a face. We began going through the faces of all our acquaintances, but none was suitable, and the matter ended there; that’s all; I don’t understand why Nikolai Ardalionovich suddenly thought of bringing it all up again. What was funny once, and appropriate, is quite uninteresting now.”

  “Because there’s some new sort of foolishness implied in it, sarcastic and offensive,” Lizaveta Prokofyevna snapped.

  “There isn’t any foolishness, only the deepest respect,” Aglaya suddenly declared quite unexpectedly in a grave and serious voice, having managed to recover completely and overcome her former embarrassment. Moreover, by certain tokens it could be supposed, looking at her, that she herself was now glad that the joke had gone further and further, and that this
turnabout had occurred in her precisely at the moment when the prince’s embarrassment, which was increasing more and more and reaching an extreme degree, had become all too noticeable.

  “First they laugh dementedly, and then suddenly the deepest respect appears! Raving people! Why respect? Tell me right now, why does this deepest respect of yours appear so suddenly out of the blue?”

  “The deepest respect because,” Aglaya went on as seriously and gravely, in answer to her mother’s almost spiteful question, “because this poem directly portrays a man capable of having an ideal and, second, once he has the ideal, of believing in it and, believing in it, of blindly devoting his whole life to it. That doesn’t always happen in our time. In the poem it’s not said specifically what made up the ideal of the ‘poor knight,’ but it’s clear that it was some bright image, ‘an image of pure beauty,’29 and instead of a scarf the enamored knight even wore a rosary around his neck. True, there’s also some sort of dark, unexpressed motto, the letters A.N.B., that he traced on his shield …”

  “A.N.D.,” Kolya corrected.30

  “But I say A.N.B., and that’s how I want to say it,” Aglaya interrupted with vexation. “Be that as it may, it’s clear that it made no difference to this ‘poor knight’ who his lady was or what she might do. It was enough for him that he had chosen her and believed in her ‘pure beauty,’ and only then did he bow down to her forever; and the merit of it is that she might have turned out later to be a thief, but still he had to believe in her and wield the sword for her pure beauty. It seems the poet wanted to combine in one extraordinary image the whole immense conception of the medieval chivalrous platonic love of some pure and lofty knight; naturally, it’s all an ideal. But in the ‘poor knight’ that feeling reached the ultimate degree—asceticism. It must be admitted that to be capable of such feeling means a lot and that such feelings leave a deep and, on the one hand, a very praiseworthy mark, not to mention Don Quixote. The ‘poor knight’ is that same Don Quixote, only a serious and not a comic one. At first I didn’t understand and laughed, but now I love the ‘poor knight’ and, above all, respect his deeds.”