Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (396 page)

Suddenly Ippolit leapt up, as though he had been thrust from his seat,

“The sun has risen,” he cried to Myshkin, seeing the treetops lighted up, and pointing to them as though to a marvel. “It has risen!”

“Why, did you think it wasn’t going to rise?” observed Ferdyshtchenko.

“It will be baking hot again, all day,” muttered Ganya, with careless annoyance, stretching and yawning, with his hat in his hands. “What if there’s a month of this drought! . . . Are we going or not, Ptitsyn?”

Ippolit listened with an astonishment that approached stupefaction. He suddenly turned fearfully pale and began trembling all over.

“You act your indifference very awkwardly to insult me,” he said, staring at Ganya. “You’re a cur!”

“Well, that’s beyond anything, to let oneself go like that!” roared Ferdyshtchenko. “What phenomenal feebleness!”

“He’s simplya fool,” said Ganya.

Ippolit pulled himself together a little.

“I understand, gentlemen,” he began, trembling as before, and stuttering at every word— “that I may deserve your personal resentment, and ... I’m sorry I’ve distressed you with these ravings (he pointed to the manuscript), or rather I’m sorry that I haven’t distressed you at all”... (he smiled stupidly). “Have I distressed you, Yevgeny Pavlovitch?” he darted across to him with the question. “Did I distress you or not, tell me?”

“It was rather drawn out, still it was ...”

“Speak out! Don’t tell lies for once in your life!” Ippolit insisted, trembling.

“Oh! It’s absolutely nothing to me! I beg you to be so good as to leave me alone.”

“Vfevgeny Pavlovitch turned awaydisdainfully.

“Good-night, prince,” said Ptitsyn, going up to Myshkin.

“But he’s going to shoot himself directly! What are you thinking of? Look at him,” cried Vera, and she flew to Ippolit in great alarm; she even clutched at his arms. “Why, he said he would shoot himself at sunrise! What are you about!”

“He won’t shoot himself!” several voices, among them Ganya’s, muttered malignantly.

“Gentlemen, take care!” cried Kolya, and he, too, caught at Ippolit’s arm. “Only look at him. Prince, prince, what are you thinking of?”

Ippolit was surrounded by Vera, Kolya, Keller and Burdovsky. They all caught hold of him.

“He has the right ... the right . . .” Burdovsky murmured, though he, too, seemed quite beside himself.

“Excuse me, prince, what arrangements do you propose to make?” said Lebedyev, going up to Myshkin. He was drunk and so enraged that he was insolent.

“What arrangements?”

“No, sir; excuse me; I’m the master of the house, though I don’t wish to be lacking in respect to you. . . . Granting that you are master here too, still I don’t care in my own house....”

“He won’t shoot himself! The wretched boy is fooling!” General Ivolgin cried unexpectedly, with indignation and aplomb.

“Bravo, general!” Ferdyshtchenko applauded.

“I know he won’t shoot himself, qeneral, honoured general, but all the same ... seeing I’m master of the house.”

“Listen, I say. Mr. Terentyev,” said Ptitsyn suddenly, holding out his hand to Ippolit, after saying good-bye to Myshkin. “I believe you speak in your manuscript of your skeleton and leave it to the Academy? You mean your own skeleton, your bones you mean, isn’t it?”

“Yes, my bones....”

“That’s all right then. I asked for fear there should be a mistake; I’ve been told there was such a case.”

“How can you tease him?” cried Myshkin suddenly.

“You’ve made him cry,” added Ferdyshtchenko.

But Ippolit was not crying. He tried to move from his place, but the four standing about him seized his hands at once. There was a sound of laughter.

“That’s what he’s been after, that they should hold his hands; that’s what he read his confession for,” observed Rogozhin. “Good-bye, prince. Ech, we’ve been sitting too long — my bones ache.”

“If you really did mean to shoot yourself, Terentyev,” laughed “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch— “after such compliments, if I were you, I should make a point of not doing it, to tease them.”

“They’re awfully eager to see me shoot myself!” cried Ippolit, flying out at his words.

He spoke as though he were attacking some one. “They’re annoyed that they won’t see it.”

“So you think they won’t see it? I’m not egging you on; quite the contrary; I think it’s very likely you will shoot yourself. The great thing is not to lose your temper. . ,” said “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch in a patronizing drawl.

“I only see now that I made a fearful mistake in reading them my ‘Explanation,’” said Ippolit, looking at Yevgeny Pavlovitch with a sudden trustfulness, as though asking the confidential advice of a friend.

“It’s an absurd position, but... I really don’t know what to advise you,” answered “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch, smiling.

Ippolit bent a stern, persistent gaze at him, and did not answer. It might have been supposed that he was unconscious at some moments.

“No, excuse me, it’s a strange way of doing things,” said Lebedyev. ‘“I’ll shoot myself in the park,’” says he, ‘“so as not to upset anyone.’ That’s his notion, that he won’t upset anyone if he goes down three steps a few feet into the park.”

“Gentlemen ..,” began Myshkin.

“No, allow me, honoured prince,” Lebedyev interrupted, furiously, “as you can see for yourself that it’s not a joke, and as half your guests at least are of the same opinion, and are convinced that, after what he has said, he will feel bound in honour to shoot himself, I, as master of the house, and as a witness of it, call upon you to assist me!”

“What’s to be done, Lebedyev? I am ready to assist you.”

“I’ll tell you what. In the first place he must give up the pistol he boasted about before us all, and all the ammunition too. If he gives it up, I consent to let him stay the night in this house, in consideration of his invalid state, under my own supervision, of course. But to-morrow he must certainly go about his business. Excuse me, prince! If he won’t give up his weapon, I shall at once take hold of him, I on one side, the general on the other, and send at once to inform the police; and then the affair can be left for the police to deal with. Mr. Ferdyshtchenko, as a friend, will go for them.”

An uproar followed. Lebedyev was excited, and threw aside all restraint. Ferdyshtchenko prepared to go for the police. Ganya insisted frantically that no one meant to shoot himself. Yevgeny Pavlovitch said nothing.

“Prince, have you ever jumped from a belfry?” Ippolit whispered to him, suddenly.

“N-no,” answered Myshkin, naively.

“Did you imagine that I did not foresee all this hatred!” Ippolit whispered again, looking at Myshkin with flashing eyes, as though he really expected an answer from him.

“Enough!” he cried, suddenly, to the whole party. “It’s my fault . . . more than anyone’s. Lebedyev, here’s the keys (he took out his purse and from it a steel ring with three or four keys upon it). “Here, the last but one. . . . Kolya will show you. . . . Kolya, where is Kolya?” cried he, looking at Kolya, and not seeing him. “\fes . . . he’ll show you. He packed my bag with me, yesterday. Take him, Kolya. In the prince’s study, under the table ... is my bag . . . with this key ... at the bottom in a little box ... my pistol and powder-horn. He packed it himself, Mr. Lebedvev; he’ll show vou. But on condition that to-

morrow, early, when I start for Petersburg, you’ll give me back my pistol. Do you hear? I do it for the prince, not for you.”

“Well, that’s better,” said Lebedyev, snatching at the key; and, laughing viciously, he ran into the next room.

Kolya would have remained, he tried to say something, but Lebedyev drew him away.

Ippolit looked at the laughing revellers. Myshkin noticed that his teeth were chattering, as though he were in a terrible chill.

“What wretches they all are!” Ippolit whispered to Myshkin, in a frenzy.

When he spoke to Myshkin, he bent right over and whispered to him.

“Leave them. You’re very weak....”

“In a minute, in a minute. ... I’m going in a minute.”

Suddenly he put his arms round Myshkin.

“You think I am mad perhaps?” He looked at him strangely, laughing.

“No, but you....”

“In a minute, in a minute, be quiet; don’t say anything, stand still. I want to look you in the eyes. ... Stand like that, and let me look. I say good-bye to man.”

He stood and looked fixedly at Myshkin for ten seconds without speaking. Very pale, his hair soaked with sweat, he caught somehow strangely at Myshkin’s hand with his as though afraid to let him go.

“Ippolit, Ippolit, what is the matter with you?” cried Myshkin.

“Directly.... Enough.... I’m going to bed. I’ll have one drink to greet the sun. ... I want to, I want to . . . let me be.”

He quickly caught up a glass from the table, sprang up from his seat, and in one instant he was at the verandah steps. Myshkin was about to run after him, but it happened, as though by design, that, at that moment “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch held out his hand to say good-bye to him. One second after, there was a general outcry on the verandah. Then followed a minute of extreme consternation.

This was what had happened. On reaching the verandah steps, Ippolit had stopped short, with his left hand holding the glass and his right hand in his coat pocket. Keller afterwards declared that Ippolit had that hand in his righthand pocket before, while he was talking to Myshkin, and clutching at his shoulder and his collar with his left hand, and that right hand in his pocket, so Keller declared, had first raised a faint suspicion in him. However that may have been, some uneasiness made him run after Ippolit. But he was too late. He only saw something suddenly shining in Ippolit’s right hand, and at the same second, a little pocket pistol was against his temple. Keller rushed to seize his hand, but, at that second, Ippolit pressed the trigger. There was the sound of the sharp, short click of the trigger, but no shot followed. When Keller seized Ippolit, the young man fell into his arms, apparently unconscious, perhaps really imagining that he was killed. The pistol was already in Keller’s hand. Ippolit was held up, a chair was brought. They sat him down on it, and all crowded round, shouting and asking questions. All had heard the click of the trigger, and saw the man alive without a scratch. Ippolit himself sat, not understanding what was going on, staring blankly at all around him. Lebedyev and Kolya ran up at that instant.

“Did it miss fire?” people were asking.

“Perhaps it was not loaded?” others surmised.

“It was loaded,” Keller pronounced, examining the pistol, “but...”

“Can it have missed fire?”

“There was no cap in it,” Keller announced.

It is hard to describe the piteous scene that followed. The general pause of the first moment was quickly succeeded by laughter. Some of the party positively roared, and seemed to find a malignant pleasure in the position. Ippolit sobbed as though he were in hysterics, wrung his hands, rushed up to every one, even to Ferdyshtchenko, whom he clutched with both hands, swearing that he had forgotten, “forgotten quite accidentally and not on purpose,” to put in the cap; that “he had all the caps here, in his waistcoat pocket, a dozen of them (he showed them to everyone about him). But he hadn’t put them in before, for fear of its going off by accident in his pocket; that he had counted on always having time to put a cap in, and he had suddenly forgotten it.” He rushed up to Myshkin, to “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch, besought Keller to give him back the pistol, that he miqht show them all that “his honour, his honour” . . . that he was now “dishonoured forever.”

He fell unconscious at last. He was carried into Myshkin’s study and Lebedyev, completely sobered, sent at once for a doctor, while he himself remained by the invalid’s bedside with his daughter, his son, Burdovsky, and the general. When Ippolit had been carried out unconscious, Keller stood in the middle of the room, and with positive inspiration pronounced, dwelling on every word, and emphasizing it so that all might hear.

“Gentlemen! If any one of you ever once insinuates in my presence that the cap was forgotten intentionally, and maintains that the unhappy young man was acting a farce, he will have to deal with me.”

But no one answered him. The guests were at last leaving in a crowd and in haste. Ptitsyn, Ganya, and Rogozhi n set off together.

Myshkin was much surprised that Yevgeny Pavlovitch had changed his mind and was going away without speaking to him.

“You wanted to speak to me when the others had gone, didn’t you?” he asked him.

“Just so,” said Yevgeny Pavlovitch, suddenly sitting down and making Myshkin sit beside him. “But now I have changed my mind for a time. I confess that I have had rather a shock, and so have you. My thoughts are in a tangle. Besides, what I want to discuss with you is too important a matter to me and to you too. “Vbu see, prince, for once in my life, I want to do something absolutely honest, that is, something absolutely without any ulterior motive; and, well, I think I’m not quite capable of doing anything perfectly honest at this moment, and you too perhaps . . . and so . . . well, we’ll discuss it later. Perhaps the matter will be made more plain later to both of us, if we wait another three days which I shall spend now in Petersburg.”

Then he got up from his chair again, so that it seemed strange he should have sat down. Myshkin fancied, too, that “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch was annoyed and irritated, that there was a hostile look in his eyes which had not been there before.

“By the way, are you going to the patient now?”

“Yes.... I’m afraid,” said Myshkin.

“Don’t be afraid. He’ll live another six weeks, and he may even get well here. But the best thing you can do is to get rid of him to-morrow.”

“Perhaps I really did egg him on by . . . not saying anything. He may have thought I didn’t believe he would shoot himself? What do you think, Yevgeny Pavlovitch?”

“Not at all. It’s too good-natured of you to worry about it. I’ve heard tell of such things, but I’ve never in real life seen a man shoot himself on purpose to win applause, or from spite because he was not applauded for it. And, what’s more, I wouldn’t have believed in such an open exhibition of feebleness. But you’d better get rid of him to-morrow all the same.”