The Idiot (37 page)

In the middle of this drawing room, which was papered with dark blue wallpaper and furnished neatly and somewhat pretentiously, that is to say, with a round table and a sofa, a bronze clock under a glass cover,
a narrow mirror in the space between the two windows and a small, extremely ancient chandelier with crystal pendants, hanging on a bronze chain from the ceiling, stood Mr Lebedev himself, who, with his back to the prince as he entered, in his waistcoat, but without his jacket, summer style, was striking his chest and bitterly orating on some subject or other. His listeners were: a boy of about fifteen, with a rather cheerful and intelligent face and a book in his hands, a young girl of about twenty, in mourning attire with a babe in arms, a girl of thirteen, also in mourning, who laughed a great deal, her mouth gaping dreadfully as she did so, and, lastly, a very strange listener indeed, a fellow of about twenty who lay on the sofa, rather handsome, darkish, with long, thick hair, large black eyes, and feeble efforts at sideburns and a beard. This listener seemed frequently to interrupt and argue with the orating Lebedev; this was probably what the rest of the audience were laughing at.

‘Lukyan Timofeich, Lukyan Timofeich! For heaven’s sake! Look this way! ... Well, to the devil with you, then!’

And the cook went away with a wave of her arms, and so angry that she even blushed all over.

Lebedev turned round and, catching sight of the prince, stood for some time as if struck by lightning, then rushed over to him with an obsequious smile, but on the way seemed to freeze again, saying:

‘M-m-most illustrious Prince!’

But then suddenly, still as though he were unable to regain his self-control, he turned and, for no apparent reason, first rounded on the girl in mourning with the babe in her arms, so that she staggered backwards a little in surprise; then, however, at once abandoning her, he turned on the thirteen-year-old girl who was standing in the doorway of the next room and was still smiling, the remnants of her recent laughter still on her lips. She could not endure his shouting and at once made a bolt for the kitchen; Lebedev even stamped his feet after her, as an added warning, but meeting the gaze of the prince, who was staring in bewilderment, said by way of explanation:

‘To make her ... show some respect, heh-heh-heh!’

‘There’s really no need for you to ...’ the prince began.

‘One moment, one moment, one moment ... in two shakes of a lamb’s tail!’

And Lebedev quickly vanished from the room. The prince looked in astonishment at the girl, the boy and the fellow lying on the sofa; they were all laughing. The prince also began to laugh.

‘He’s gone to put on his frock coat,’ said the boy.

‘How vexing this all is,’ the prince began, ‘and I thought ... tel
l me, is he ...’

‘Drunk, you mean?’ cried a voice from the sofa. ‘Not on your life! Maybe three or four glasses, well, or five, but for him that’s — discipline.’

The prince was about to address the voice from the sofa, but the girl began to speak, and with a look of the utmost candour on her pretty face said:

‘He never drinks much in the morning; if you’ve come to see him on some business matter, do it now. Now’s the time to catch him. It’s only when he comes back in the evening that he’s drunk; and even then he’s more likely to cry all night and read aloud to us from Holy Scripture, because our mother died five weeks ago.’

‘He probably ran away because he found it hard to answer you,’ the young man from the sofa began to laugh. ‘I bet he’s already working out how to swindle you right now.’

‘Only five weeks! Only five weeks!’ Lebedev chimed in, returning now in his frock coat, blinking and pulling from his pocket a handkerchief to wipe away the tears. ‘Orphans!’

‘But why have you come out dressed in those old rags?’ said the girl. ‘I mean, you’ve a brand new frock coat hanging behind the door, didn’t you see it, or what?’

‘Be quiet, vixen!’ Lebedev shouted at her. ‘Oh, you bad girl!’ He began to stamp his feet at her. But this time she merely burst out laughing.

‘What are you trying to frighten me for? I’m not Tanya, you know, I won’t run away. But you’ll wake up Lyubochka, and give her convulsions, too ... why are you shouting?’

‘Sh-sh-sh! Curse that tongue of yours ...’ Lebedev said suddenly in fearful alarm, rushing up to the child that slept in his daughter’s arms and making the sign of the cross over it several times with a frightened look. ‘Lord preserve her, Lord protect her! This is my own baby, my daughter Lyubov,’ he said, turning to the prince, ‘and she was born in the most lawful wedlock to my lately deceased wife Yelena, who died in childbirth. And this little sprout is my daughter Vera, dressed in mourning ... And this, this, oh, this ...’

‘What have you stopped for?’ cried the young man. ‘Go on, don’t be embarassed.’

‘Your excellency!’ Lebedev suddenly exclaimed with a kind of rush. ‘Have you had occasion to follow the murder of the Zhemarin family in the newspaper?’
³

‘I have,’ said the prince with some surprise.

‘Well, this is the real murderer of the Zhemarin family, he’s the man himself!’

‘What do you mean?’ asked the prince.

‘Figuratively speaking, of course, the future second murderer of the second Zhemarin family, if there turns out to be one. He’s preparing himself for it ...’

They all laughed. It occurred to the prince that Lebedev might very well be prevaricating and cringing because, anticipating the prince’s questions, he did not know how to reply to them, and was stalling for time.

‘He’s a man in revolt! He’s brewing conspiracies!’ shouted Lebedev, as though no longer able to contain himself. ‘Well, can I, well, have I the right to consider such a slanderer, such a monster and whore of cruelty, one might even say, as my own nephew, as the only son of my sister Anisa, now deceased?’

‘Oh stop it, you drunken man! Would you believe it, Prince, now he’s taken it into his head to take up the profession of lawyer, and is attending trials at the courts; he’s studying eloquence, and talks to his children at home in high-flown language all the time. He spoke before the magistrates five days ago. And who had he undertaken to defend: not the old woman who begged and beseeched him and whom a scoundrel of a moneylender had robbed, five hundred roubles he’d taken from her, all that she owned, but the moneylender, some Yid called Zaydler, all because he’d promised him him fifty roubles ...’

‘Fifty roubles if I won, and only five if I lost,’ Lebedev suddenly exclaimed in a voice that was completely different from the one in which he had spoken hitherto, and as though he had never been shouting at all.

‘Well, and he put his foot in it, of course, things are not how they used to be, after all, they just laughed at him. But my, how pleased with himself he was; remember, he said, impartial gentlemen judges, that a melancholy senior citizen, without the use of his legs, living by honest toil, is deprived of his last piece of bread; remember the wise words of the legislator: ‘Let mercy reign in the courts.’
⁴
And would you believe: every morning he repeats the same speech to us, exactly as he gave it there; it’s the fifth time today; he was even reciting it just before you arrived, that’s how pleased he is with it. He’s preening himself in delight. And he’s going to defend someone else as well. I believe you’re Prince Myshkin? Kolya told me about you, he said he’d never met anyone cleverer in all the world ...’

‘And there isn’t! There isn‘t! There isn’t anyone cleverer in all the world!’ Lebedev at once chimed in.

‘Well, this one, I think, is lying. One loves you, but the other is trying to curry favour with you; and I don’t intend to flatter you, let me tell you that now. But you’re not without sense: so judge between him and me. I say, would you like the prince to judge between us?’ he said turning to his uncle. ‘I’m rather glad that you’ve turned up, Prince!’

‘Yes, I would!’ Lebedev cried determinedly, casting an involuntary glance at his audience, which was beginning to draw closer again.

‘But what’s going on here?’ said the prince, frowning.

He really did have a headache and, moreover, he was growing more and more convinced that Lebedev was trying to pull the wool over his eyes, glad that the essential business was being postponed.

‘Exposition of the matter. I’m his nephew, about that he did not lie, though he lies all the time. I haven’t graduated yet, but I want to graduate and shall insist on doing so, for I have character. And meanwhile, in order to exist, I’m going to take a job on the railway at twenty-five roub
les. I will admit, moreover, that he has helped me on two or three occasions. I had twenty roubles, and I lost them. Well, would you believe it, Prince, I was so vile, so base, that I lost them, too!’

‘To a villain, a villain who ought not to have been paid!’ cried Lebedev.

‘Yes, a villain, but one who had to be paid,’ the young man went on. ‘And that he’s a villain, I will bear testimony to that, and not only because he gave you a drubbing, Prince; he’s an officer who was dismissed from the service, a retired lieutenant from the old Rogozhin gang who teaches boxing now. Now that Rogozhin’s dispersed them, they’re roaming about all over the place. But what’s worst of all is that I knew he was a villain, a rogue and a wretched little thief, and yet I sat down to play cards with him, and, playing my last rouble (we were playing
palki
),
⁵
I thought to myself: if I lose, I’ll go to Uncle Lukyan, I’ll bow to him - he won’t refuse. Now that is baseness, that really is baseness! That is conscious vileness!’

‘Now that is conscious vileness!’ Lebedev repeated.

‘Now don’t crow, wait a moment,’ cried the nephew, touchily. ‘He’s actually rather pleased. I came to see him here, Prince, and confessed to everything; I acted decently, I didn’t spare myself; I cursed myself before him, for all I was worth, everyone here was a witness. In order to take up this job on the railway I shall have to kit myself out somehow, for I’m all in rags. Here, look at my boots! I can’t turn up at the job like this, and if I don’t turn up when I’m supposed to, someone else will get the job, and then I’ll be back at square one again, and when will I ever find another job? I’m only asking him for fifteen roubles now, and I promise I’ll never ask him again and, on top of that, during the first three months I’ll pay back the whole debt to him, right down to the last copeck. I’ll keep my word. I’m able to live on bread and kvass for whole months on end, for I have character. For three months I’ll get seventy-five roubles. With the old money, I’ll only owe him thirty-five roubles, so I’ll have enough to pay him. Well, let him fix any interest he likes, the devil take it! He knows me, doesn’t he? Ask him, Prince: before, when he helped me, did I pay him or didn’t I? So why doesn’t he want to lend to me now? He’s angry with me because I paid that lieutenant; there’s no other reason! That’s what this man is like - he’ll give neither to himself, nor to others!’

‘And he won’t go away!’ exclaimed Lebedev. ‘He lies on the sofa here and won’t go away.’

‘That’s what I told you. I won’t go away until you give it to me. Are you smiling, Prince? I believe you think I am in the wrong?’

‘I’m not smiling, but in my view you are indeed somewhat in the wrong,’ the prince volunteered reluctantly.

‘Then say it straight, that I’m totally in the wrong, don’t beat about the bush; what do you mean, “somewhat”?’

‘If you like, then you’re totally in the wrong.’ ‘If I like! That’s comical! Do you really think I don’t know that to act like that is questionable, that the money is his, that he has the freedom to do what he likes wit
h it, while I for my part am merely exercising force? But you don’t know much about life, Prince ... If you don’t teach them a lesson, you won’t get anywhere. You have to teach them. I mean, my conscience is clear; in all good conscience, I won’t involve him in any loss, I’ll return the money with interest. He’s also obtained moral satisfaction: he’s seen me humiliated. So what more does he want? What good is he if he’s no use to anyone? For pity’s sake, what does he do himself? Ask him what he gets up to with other people, and how he swindles them. How did he get this house? And I’ll put my head on the block if he hasn’t already swindled you and hasn’t already thought about how he could swindle you some more! You smile, you don’t believe it?’

‘I don’t think all this is quite relevant to your case,’ observed the prince.

‘I’ve been lying here for three days now, and I’ve seen enough!’ the young man shouted, not listening. ‘Imagine, this angel here, this girl, who is now orphaned, my cousin, his daughter, he’s suspicious of her, goes looking for lovers in her room every night! He comes in here on the sly, looks under the sofa I’m lying on, too. He’s gone mad with suspicion; sees thieves in every corner. Keeps leaping up at all hours of the night, examining the windows to see if they’re properly closed, trying the doors, looking inside the stove, and on and on like that more than half a dozen times a night. Pleads the defence of swindlers in court, but gets up about three times every night, right here in this room, on his knees, knocking his forehead on the floor for half an hour at a time, and who does he not pray for, who do you think he mourns when he’s drunk? He was praying for the repose of the soul of the Countess Du Barry,
⁶
I heard it with my own ears; Kolya also heard it: he’s gone completely mad!’

‘You see, you hear how he heaps infamy on me, Prince?’ Lebedev exclaimed, flushing and really beside himself now. ‘But what he doesn’t know is while I may be a drunkard and a vagrant, a robber and an evildoer, there is one thing I can be proud of, and that is that that scoffer there, when he was still an infant, I wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and washed him in the tub, and sat up at nights never sleeping a wink, with my sister Anisya who was widowed and destitute, and I was destitute as well, looked after them both when they were ill, stole firewood from the yardkeeper downstairs, sang songs to him and snapped my fingers for him, with hunger in my belly, and look at what I nursed him into, there he is now, laughing at me! And what business is it of yours, if I did once cross my forehead for the repose of the Countess Du Barry? Prince, three days ago I read her biography in an encyclopedia. Well, do you know what she was like,
la Du Barry
? Tell me, do you know or don’t you?’