The Idiot (Vintage Classics)

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  But the prince’s uneasiness was growing minute by minute. He wandered through the park, absentmindedly looking around, and stopped in surprise when he came to the green in front of the vauxhall and saw a row of empty benches and music stands for the orchestra. The place struck him and for some reason seemed terribly ugly. He turned back and straight down the path he had taken to the vauxhall the day before with the Epanchins, which brought him to the green bench appointed to him for the meeting, sat down on it, and suddenly laughed out loud, which at once made him terribly indignant. His anguish continued; he would have liked to go away somewhere … He did not know where. Above him in the tree a little bird was singing, and he started searching for it with his eyes among the leaves; suddenly the bird flew away from the tree, and at that moment for some reason he recalled the “little fly” in a “hot ray of sunlight,” of which Ippolit had written that even this fly “knows its place and participates in the general chorus, and he alone was a castaway.” This phrase had struck him earlier, and he remembered it now. A long-forgotten memory stirred in him and suddenly became clear all at once.

  It was in Switzerland, during the first year of his treatment, even during the first months. He was still quite like an idiot then, could not even speak properly, and sometimes did not understand what was required of him. Once he went into the mountains on a clear, sunny day, and wandered about for a long time with a tormenting thought that refused to take shape. Before him was the shining sky, below him the lake, around him the horizon, bright and infinite, as if it went on forever. For a long time he looked and suffered. He remembered now how he had stretched out his arms to that bright, infinite blue and wept. What had tormented him was that he was a total stranger to it all. What was this banquet, what was this great everlasting feast, to which he had long been drawn, always, ever since childhood, and which he could never join? Every morning the same bright sun rises; every morning there is a rainbow over the waterfall; every evening the highest snowcapped mountain, there, far away, at the edge of the sky, burns with a crimson flame; every “little fly that buzzes near him in a hot ray of sunlight participates in this whole chorus: knows its place, loves it, and is happy”; every little blade of grass grows and is happy! And everything has its path, and everything knows its path, goes with a song and comes back with a song; only he knows nothing, understands nothing, neither people nor sounds, a stranger to everything and a castaway. Oh, of course, he could not speak then with these words and give voice to his question; he suffered blankly and mutely; but now it seemed to him that he had said it all then, all those same words, and that Ippolit had taken the words about the “little fly” from him, from his own words and tears of that time. He was sure of it, and for some reason his heart throbbed at this thought …

  He dozed off on the bench, but his anxiousness continued in his sleep. Before falling asleep, he remembered that Ippolit would kill a dozen people, and he smiled at the absurdity of the suggestion. Around him there was a beautiful, serene silence, with only the rustling of leaves, which seemed to make it still more silent and solitary. He had a great many dreams, and all of them anxious, so that he kept shuddering. Finally a woman came to him; he knew her, knew her to the point of suffering; he could have named her and pointed to her any time, but—strangely—she now seemed to have a different face from the one he had always known, and he was painfully reluctant to recognize her as that woman. There was so much repentance and horror in this face that it seemed she was a terrible criminal who had just committed a horrible crime. A tear trembled on her pale cheek; she beckoned to him with her hand and put her finger to her lips, as if cautioning him to follow her more quietly. His heart stood still; not for anything, not for anything did he want to recognize her as a criminal; yet he felt that something horrible was just about to happen, for the whole of his life. It seemed she wanted to show him something, not far away, there in the park. He got up to follow her, and suddenly someone’s bright, fresh laughter rang out close by; someone’s hand was suddenly in his hand; he grasped this hand, pressed it hard, and woke up. Before him, laughing loudly, stood Aglaya.

  VIII

  SHE WAS LAUGHING, but she was also indignant.

  “Asleep! You were asleep!” she cried with scornful surprise. “It’s you!” murmured the prince, not quite recovered yet and recognizing her with surprise. “Ah, yes! Our meeting … I was sleeping here.”

  “So I saw.”

  “Did no one else wake me up except you? Was there no one here except you? I thought there was … another woman here …”

  “There was another woman here?!”

  He finally recovered himself completely.

  “It was only a dream,” he said pensively, “strange, such a dream at such a moment … Sit down.”

  He took her by the hand and sat her on the bench; he sat down beside her and fell to thinking. Aglaya did not begin a conversation, but only studied her interlocutor intently. He also kept glancing at her, but at times it was as if he did not see her before him at all. She was beginning to blush.

  “Ah, yes!” the prince gave a start. “Ippolit shot himself!”

  “When? At your place?” she said, but with no great surprise. “Yesterday evening, I believe, he was still alive? How could you fall asleep here after all that?” she cried with unexpected animation.

  “But he didn’t die, the pistol didn’t fire.”

  At Aglaya’s insistence the prince had to retell right then, and even in great detail, the whole story of the past night. She kept hurrying him as he told it, yet she herself interrupted him continually with questions, almost all of them beside the point. Among other things, she listened with great curiosity to what Evgeny Pavlovich had said, and several times even asked the prince to repeat it.

  “Well, enough, we must hurry,” she concluded, having heard it all, “we can only stay here for an hour, till eight o’clock, because at eight o’clock I must be at home without fail, so they won’t know I’ve been sitting here, and I’ve come on business; I have a lot to tell you. Only you’ve got me all thrown off now. About Ippolit, I think his pistol was bound not to fire, it’s more suited to him. But are you sure he really wanted to shoot himself and there was no deception in it?”

  “No deception at all.”

  “That’s more likely, too. So he wrote that you should bring me his confession? Why didn’t you bring it?”

  “But he didn’t die. I’ll ask him.”

  “Bring it without fail, and there’s no need to ask. He’ll probably be very pleased, because it may be that his purpose in shooting himself was so that I should read his confession afterwards. Please, Lev Nikolaich, I beg you not to laugh at my words, because it may very well be so.”

  “I’m not laughing, because I’m sure myself that in part it may very well be so.”

  “You’re sure? Do you really think so, too?” Aglaya suddenly became terribly surprised.

  She questioned him quickly, spoke rapidly, but seemed to get confused at times and often did not finish; she kept hurrying to warn him about something; generally she was extraordinarily anxious, and though she looked at him very bravely and with a sort of defiance, she was perhaps also a little frightened. She was wearing a most ordinary and simple dress, which was very becoming to her. She often started, blushed, and sat on the edge of the bench. She was very surprised when the prince agreed that Ippolit shot himself so that she should read his confession.

  “Of course,” the prince explained, “he wanted not only you but the rest of us also to praise him …”

  “How do you mean, praise him?”

  “I mean it’s … how shall I tell you? It’s very hard to say. Only he surely wanted everyone to stand around him and tell him that they love and respect him very much, and start begging him to remain alive. It may well be that he had you in mind most of all, since he mentioned you at such a moment … though he may not have known himself that he had you in mind.”

  “That I don’t understand at all: had m
e in mind, but didn’t know he had me in mind. Though I think I do understand: do you know that I myself, even when I was still a thirteen-year-old girl, thought at least thirty times of poisoning myself, and of writing all about it in a letter to my parents, and I also thought of how I would lie in the coffin, and they would all weep over me and accuse themselves for being so cruel to me … Why are you smiling again?” she added quickly, frowning. “And what do you think to yourself when you dream alone? Maybe you imagine you’re a field marshal and have crushed Napoleon?”

  “Well, on my word of honor, that’s just what I do think about, especially as I’m falling asleep,” laughed the prince, “only it’s not Napoleon I crush but the Austrians.”

  “I have no wish to joke with you, Lev Nikolaich. I will go to see Ippolit myself; I ask you to warn him. And on your side I find all this very bad, because it’s very rude to look at and judge a man’s soul the way you’re judging Ippolit. You have no tenderness, only truth, that makes it unfair.”

  The prince reflected.

  “I think you’re being unfair to me,” he said. “I don’t find anything bad in his thinking that way, because everyone is inclined to think that way; besides, maybe he didn’t think at all, but merely wanted … he wanted to meet people for the last time, to deserve their respect and love; those are very good feelings, only somehow nothing turned out right; it’s his sickness, and something else as well! Anyhow, with some people everything always turns out right, and with others it’s like nothing in the world …”

  “You probably added that about yourself,” Aglaya observed.

  “Yes, about myself,” replied the prince, not noticing any malice in the question.

  “Only, all the same, I should never have fallen asleep in your place; it means that wherever you snuggle up, you fall asleep at once; that’s not very nice on your part.”

  “But I didn’t sleep all night, then I walked and walked, got to the music …”

  “What music?”

  “Where they played yesterday, and then I came here, sat down, thought and thought, and fell asleep.”

  “Ah, so that’s how it was? That changes everything in your favor … And why did you go to the music?”

  “I don’t know, I just …”

  “All right, all right, later; you keep interrupting me, and what do I care if you went to the music? Who was that woman you dreamed about?”

  “It was … about … you saw her …”

  “I understand, I understand very well. You’re very much … How did you dream of her, what did she look like? However, I don’t want to know anything,” she suddenly snapped in vexation, “don’t interrupt me …”

  She waited a while, as if gathering her courage or trying to drive her vexation away.

  “Here’s the whole matter I invited you for: I want to propose that you be my friend. Why do you suddenly stare at me like that?” she added almost with wrath.

  The prince was indeed peering at her intently at that moment, noticing that she had again begun to blush terribly. On such occasions, the more she blushed, the more she seemed to be angry with herself for it, as showed clearly in her flashing eyes; usually she would transfer her wrath a moment later to the one she was talking with, whether or not it was his fault, and begin to quarrel with him. Knowing and feeling her wildness and shyness, she usually entered little into conversation and was more taciturn than the other sisters, sometimes even much too taciturn. When, especially on such ticklish occasions, she absolutely had to speak, she would begin the conversation with an extraordinary haughtiness and as if with a sort of defiance. She always felt beforehand when she was beginning or about to begin to blush.

  “Perhaps you don’t want to accept my proposal?” she glanced haughtily at the prince.

  “Oh, no, I do, only it’s quite unnecessary … that is, I never thought there was any need to propose such a thing,” the prince was abashed.

  “And what did you think? Why would I have invited you here? What do you have in mind? However, maybe you consider me a little fool, as they all do at home?”

  “I didn’t know they considered you a fool. I … I don’t.”

  “You don’t? Very intelligent on your part. The way you put it is especially intelligent.”

  “In my opinion, you may even be very intelligent at times,” the prince went on. “Earlier you suddenly said something very intelligent. You said of my doubt about Ippolit: ‘There’s only truth in it, and that makes it unfair.’ I’ll remember that and think about it.”

  Aglaya suddenly flushed with pleasure. All these changes took place in her extremely openly and with extraordinary swiftness. The prince also rejoiced and even laughed with joy, looking at her.

  “Now listen,” she began again, “I’ve been waiting for you a long time, in order to tell you all this, I’ve been waiting ever since you wrote me that letter from there, and even earlier … You already heard half of it from me yesterday: I consider you a most honest and truthful man, the most honest and truthful of all, and if they say your mind … that is, that you’re sometimes sick in your mind, it isn’t right; I’ve decided and argued about it, because though you are in fact sick in your mind (you won’t, of course, be angry at that, I’m speaking from a higher point), the main mind in you is better than in any of them, such as they would never even dream of, because there are two minds: the main one and the non-main one. Well? Isn’t that so?”

  “Maybe so,” the prince barely uttered; his heart trembled and pounded terribly.

  “I just knew you’d understand,” she went on gravely. “Prince Shch. and Evgeny Pavlych don’t understand anything about these two minds, neither does Alexandra, but imagine: maman did.”

  “You’re very much like Lizaveta Prokofyevna.”

  “How’s that? Can it be?” Aglaya was surprised.

  “By God, it’s so.”

  “I thank you,” she said after some thought. “I’m very glad that I’m like maman. So you respect her very much?” she added, quite unaware of the naïvety of the question.

  “Very, very much, and I’m glad you’ve understood it so directly.”

  “I’m glad, too, because I’ve noticed that people sometimes … laugh at her. But now hear the main thing: I’ve thought for a long time, and I’ve finally chosen you. I don’t want them to laugh at me at home; I don’t want them to consider me a little fool; I don’t want them to tease me … I understood it all at once and flatly refused Evgeny Pavlych, because I don’t want them to be constantly marrying me off! I want … I want … well, I want to run away from home, and I’ve chosen you to help me.”

  “To run away from home!” the prince cried.

  “Yes, yes, yes, to run away from home!” she cried suddenly, blazing up with extraordinary wrath. “I don’t, I don’t want them to be eternally making me blush there. I don’t want to blush either before them, or before Prince Shch., or before Evgeny Pavlych, or before anybody, and so I’ve chosen you. I want to talk about everything with you, everything, even the main thing, whenever I like; and you, for your part, must hide nothing from me. I want to talk about everything with at least one person as I would with myself. They suddenly started saying that I was waiting for you and that I loved you. That was before you arrived, and I didn’t show them your letter; but now they all say it. I want to be brave and not afraid of anything. I don’t want to go to their balls, I want to be useful. I wanted to leave long ago. They’ve kept me bottled up for twenty years, and they all want to get me married. When I was fourteen I already thought of running away, though I was a fool. Now I have it all worked out and was waiting for you, to ask you all about life abroad. I’ve never seen a single gothic cathedral, I want to be in Rome, I want to examine all the learned collections, I want to study in Paris; all this past year I’ve been preparing and studying, and I’ve read a great many books; I’ve read all the forbidden books. Alexandra and Adelaida have read all the books; they’re allowed but I’m forbidden, they supervise me. I don’t
want to quarrel with my sisters, but I announced to my father and mother long ago that I want to change my social position completely. I’ve decided to occupy myself with education, and I’m counting on you, because you said you loved children. Can we occupy ourselves with education together, if not now, then in the future? We’ll be useful together; I don’t want to be a general’s daughter … Tell me, are you a very learned man?”

  “Oh, not at all.”

  “That’s a pity, and I thought … what made me think that? You’ll guide me all the same, because I’ve chosen you.”

  “This is absurd, Aglaya Ivanovna.”

  “I want it, I want to run away from home!” she cried, and again her eyes flashed. “If you don’t agree, then I’ll marry Gavrila Ardalionovich. I don’t want to be considered a loathsome woman at home and be accused of God knows what.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” the prince nearly jumped up from his place. “What do they accuse you of? Who accuses you?”

  “At home, everybody, my mother, my sisters, my father, Prince Shch., even your loathsome Kolya! If they don’t say it outright, they think it. I told them all so to their faces, my mother and my father. Maman was ill for the whole day; and the next day Alexandra and papa told me I didn’t understand what I was babbling myself and what kind of words I’d spoken. At which point I just snapped at them that I already understood everything, all the words, that I was not a little girl, that I had read two novels by Paul de Kock22 on purpose two years ago in order to learn about everything. When she heard that, maman nearly fainted.”

  A strange thought suddenly flashed in the prince’s head. He looked intently at Aglaya and smiled.