Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (360 page)

But from the time of the “general’s mishap,” as Kolya expressed it — and, in fact, from the time of his sister’s marriage — Kolya had got quite out of hand and things had come to such a pass that he rarely even slept at home. They heard that he had made a number of new acquaintances; moreover, he became far too well known in the debtors’ prison. Nina Alexandrovna could not get on there without him; at home now they did not even worry him with questions. Varya, who had been so severe with him before, did not pester him now with the slightest inquiry about his wanderings; and, to the surprise of the rest of the household, Ganya, in spite of his hypochondria, sometimes talked and behaved in quite a friendly way to him; and this was something quite new, for Ganya at twenty-seven had naturally never taken any friendly interest in his fifteen-year-old brother. He had treated him rudely and had insisted on all the family’s being severe with him,

and was always threatening to pull his ears, which drove Kolya “beyond the utmost limits of human endurance.” One might have imagined that Kolya had become positively indispensable to Ganya. He had been somewhat impressed by Ganya’s returning that money; for that he was ready to forgive him a great deal.

Three months had passed since Myshkin’s departure, when the Ivolgin family heard that Kolya had suddenly made the acquaintance of the Epanchins and had been made very welcome by the young ladies. Varya soon heard of this, though it was not through her that Kolya came to know them, but of his own accord. The Epanchins gradually grew fond of him. Lizaveta Prokofyevna did not take to him at all at first, but afterwards she began to make much of him “for his frankness and because he doesn’t flatter.” That Kolya did not flatter was perfectly true. He managed to be quite independent and on a perfectly equal footing with them, though he sometimes read books and papers to Madame Epanchin; but he was always ready to be of use. Once or twice, however, he quarrelled seriously with Lizaveta Prokofyevna and told her that she was a despot and that he would not set foot again in her house. The first time the quarrel arose on “the woman question,” and the second time there was a difference of opinion as to the best time of the year for catching green-finches. Strange as it may appear, two days after the quarrel, Madame Epanchin sent a note round to him by a footman begging him to come. Kolya did not stand on his dignity and went at once. Aglaia alone, for some reason, had no liking for him and kept him at a distance. Yet it was Aglaia that he was destined to astonish. At Easter he seized an opportunity when they were alone, and handed her a letter, saying nothing but that he was told to give it to her alone. Aglaia stared menacingly at the “conceited little upstart,” but Kolya went out without waiting further. She opened the letter and read:

Once you honoured me with your confidence. Perhaps you have quite forgotten me now. How has it happened that I am writing to you? I donl know, but I felt an irresistible desire to remind you, just you, of my existence. How often I

have wanted you all three — But of all three I saw only you. / need you — / need you very much. I have nothing to write to you about myself, have nothing to tell. That’s not what I want to do; I have a great desire that you should be happy. Are you happy? That was all I wanted to say to you.

Your brother, L. Myshkin.

Reading that brief and rather incoherent letter, Aglaia flushed all over and fell to musing. It would be hard to say what she was thinking of. Among other things she asked herself whether she should show it to any one. She felt somehow ashamed to. But she ended by throwing the letter into her table drawer with a strange and ironical smile. But the next day she took it out again and put it into a thick, strongly bound book (she always did this with her papers so that she might find them more readily when she wanted them). And not till a week after did she happen to notice what the book was. It was “Don Quixote de la Mancha.” Aglaia burst out laughing for some unknown reason. It is not known whether she showed the note to her sisters.

But even while she was reading the letter she wondered: can that conceited and boastful puppy be chosen as a correspondent by the prince, and perhaps his only correspondent here? With a show of exaggerated carelessness she began to cross-examine Kolya. But though the boy was always quick to take offence, this time he did not in the least notice her carelessness. Very briefly and rather drily he explained that, although he had given Myshkin his permanent address when the latter was leaving Petersburg and had offered to do what he could for him, this was the first commission he had given him, and the first letter he had received from him; and in support of his words he showed her a letter addressed to him from Myshkin. Aglaia did not scruple to read it. The letter to Kolya ran as follows:

Dear Kolya, will you be so good as to give the enclosed sealed letter to Aglaia Ivanovna? Hoping you are all well,

Your loving, L. Myshkin.

“It’s ridiculous to trust a chit like you!” Aglaia said huffily, handing Kolya back his letter; and she walked contemptuously by him.

This was more than Kolya could endure, when he had even asked Ganya, without telling him why, to lend him his new green scarf for the occasion. He was bitterly offended.

CHAPTER 2

It WAS the beginning of June and the weather had been unusually fine in Petersburg for a whole week. The Epanchins had a luxurious summer villa of their own at Pavlovsk. Lizaveta Prokofyevna became suddenly excited and bestirred herself, and after less than two days of bustle they moved there.

Two or three days after they had left, Prince Lyov Nikolayevitch Myshkin arrived by a morning train from Moscow. No one met him at the station, but as he got out of the carriage he suddenly had a vision of strange glowing eyes fixed upon him in the crowd that met the train. When he looked more attentively, he could not discover them again. It could only have been a fancy, but it left an unpleasant impression. And apart from that, Myshkin was sad and thoughtful and seemed worried about something.

The cab drove up to a hotel near Liteyny. The hotel was by no means a good one, and Myshkin took two small, dark and badly furnished rooms in it. He washed and changed his clothes, asked for nothing, and went out hurriedly, as though afraid of losing time or of not finding some one at home.

If anyone who had known him six months before, on his first arrival in Petersburg, had seen him now, he might well have thought him greatly changed for the better in appearance. Yet this was scarcely true. It was only his dress that was quite different; his clothes were all new and had been cut by a good Moscow tailor. But there was something wrong even with his clothes: they were rather too fashionable (as clothes always are from conscientious but not very talented tailors), yet worn by a man who was obviously indifferent to his appearance; so that anyone too prone to laughter might perhaps have found something to smile at in Myshkin’s appearance. But people will laugh at all sorts of things.

Myshkin took a cab and drove to Peski. He had no difficulty in finding a small wooden house in one of the streets there. To his surprise it turned out to be a pretty little house, clean, kept in excellent order, and with a front garden full of flowers. The windows on the street were open, and from them came the continuous sound of a harsh voice, as though some one were reading aloud or making a speech; the voice was sometimes interrupted by a chorus of ringing laughter. Myshkin went into the yard, mounted the steps and asked for Mr. Lebedyev.

“He is in there,” answered the cook who opened the door to him, with her sleeves tucked up to her elbows. She pointed to the “drawing-room.”

The drawing-room had walls covered with dark blue paper and was furnished neatly with some effort at smartness — that is, it contained a sofa and a round table, a bronze clock under a glass case, a narrow looking-glass on the wall, and a small old-fashioned chandelier hanging by a bronze chain from the ceiling and adorned with lustres. In the middle of the room, with his back to the door, stood Mr. Lebedyev himself. He was wearing a waistcoat, but had discarded his coat in deference to the weather, and, striking himself on the chest, he was declaiming bitterly on some subject. His audience consisted of a boy of fifteen with a merry and intelligent face and a book in his hands; a young girl about twenty, dressed in mourning and carrying a baby in her arms; a girl of thirteen, also in mourning, who was laughing violently with her mouth wide open; and another very strange-looking figure lying on the sofa, a rather handsome, dark lad of twenty with thick long hair, large black eyes, and with just a hint of beard and whiskers on his face. He seemed to be frequently interrupting Lebedyev in his harangue and arguing with him; and this no doubt was what provoked the laughter of the others.

“Lukyan Timofeyitch! Lukyan Timofeyitch, I say! Look here! ... Well, botheration take you!”

And, waving her hands, the cook went out red with anger.

Lebedyev looked round, and seeing Myshkin, stood for some time as though thunderstruck. Then he rushed to him with an ingratiating smile, but before he reached him he stood still again, murmuring:

“ll-il-illustrious prince!”

But suddenly, as though unable to rise to the position, he turned round and, apropos of nothinq,

rushed first at the girl in mourning with the baby in her arms, so that she was startled and drew back; but he left her at once and flew at the younger girl, who was standing in the doorway leading into the next room with traces of laughter still on her smiling lips. She was scared by his shout and bolted to the kitchen. Lebedyev stamped his feet at her to add to her alarm, but meeting the eye of Myshkin, who looked on embarrassed, he brought out in explanation:

“To show... respect. He-he-he!”

“There’s no need of all this . . .” Myshkin was beginning.

“One minute — one minute — one minute ... like a hurricane!”

And Lebedyev vanished quickly from the room. Myshkin looked with surprise at the girl, at the boy, and at the figure on the sofa; they were all laughing. Myshkin laughed too.

“He’s gone to put his coat on,” said the boy.

“How annoying!” Myshkin began, “and I expected . .. Tell me, is he ...”

“You think he is drunk?” cried a voice from the sofa. “Not a bit of it! Three or four glasses, five perhaps; but what’s that? — the regular thing.”

Myshkin turned to the voice from the sofa, but the girl began speaking, and, with a most candid air on her charming face, she said:

“He never drinks much in the morning. If you have come to see him on business, you had better speak to him now, it’s the best time. When he comes back in the evening, he is sometimes drunk; though now he more often cries in the evening and reads the Bible to us, for it’s only five weeks since mother died.”

“He ran away because it was hard for him to answer you,” laughed the young man on the sofa. “I’ll bet anything that he is cheating you already and is hatching something now.”

“Only five weeks! Only five weeks!” Lebedyev said, coming back with his coat on, blinking and pulling his handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe his tears. “We are alone in the world!”

“But why have you come in all in rags?” said the girl. “Why, behind the door there lies your new coat. Didn’t you see it?”

“Hold your tongue, dragon-fly!” Lebedyev shouted at her. “Oo, you!” He stamped his feet at her.

But this time she only laughed.

“Why are you trying to frighten me? I am not Tanya. I shall not run away. But you will wake Lubotchka and frighten her into convulsions. . . . What’s the use of shouting?”

“God forbid! Don’t say such a thing!” Lebedyev was terribly alarmed all at once, and flying up to the baby, who was asleep in his daughter’s arms, made the sign of the cross over it several times with a frightened face. “God save and preserve her! That’s my baby-daughter, Lubov,” he added, addressing Myshkin, “born in most lawful wedlock of my newly departed wife Elena, who died in childbirth. And this is my daughter Vera in mourning. And that — that — oh, that...”

“What! he can’t go on?” cried the young man. “Go on, don’t be shy!”

“Your excellency,” Lebedyev cried with a sort of rush, “have you read in the papers of the murder of the Zhemarin family?”

“Yes,” answered Myshkin with some surprise.

“Well, that’s the actual murderer of the Zhemarin family, there he is!”

“What do you mean?” said Myshkin.

“That is, allegorically speaking, the future second murderer of a future Zhemarin family, if such there be. He is preparing himself for it....”

Everybody laughed. It occurred to Myshkin that Lebedyev really might be playing the fool because he foresaw the questions he would ask, and, not knowing what answer to make, was trying to gain time.

“He is a rebel! He is plotting!” shouted Lebedyev, as though unable to restrain himself. “Tell me, can I, have I the right to recognise such a foul-mouthed fellow, such a strumpet, so to speak, and monster, as my own nephew, the only son of my deceased sister Anisya?”

“Oh, shut up, you drunken fellow! Would you believe it, prince, he’s going in for being a lawyer now — pleads cases in the court. He’s become so eloquent, he talks in high-flown language to his children at home. He made a speech before the justices of peace five days ago, and whom do you think he defended? Not a poor woman who begged and besought him to, who had been robbed by a rascally moneylender of five hundred roubles, all she had in the world, but that very moneylender, a Jew called Zaidler, just because he promised him fifty roubles....”

“Fifty roubles if I won the case, only five if I lost it,” Lebedyev explained suddenly in quite a different tone, as though he had not been shouting at all.

“Well, he made a fool of himself, of course. Things are different nowadays; they only laughed at him. But he was awfully pleased with himself. ‘Remember, O judges who are no respecters of persons,’ says he, ‘that a sorrowful, bedridden old man living by his honest toil is losing his last crust of bread. Remember the wise words of the lawgiver: “Let mercy prevail in the court.”’ And, would you believe it, he says over that very speech to us here every morning, word for word, just as he spoke it? Just before you came in, he was reading it for the fifth time, he was so pleased with it. He is licking his lips over it. And now he wants to defend some one else. \bu are Prince Myshkin, I believe? Kolya told me he had never met any one cleverer than you in the world.