The Idiot (40 page)

‘When I’m with you, you trust me, but when I’m not there, you at once cease to trust me and suspect me again. You take after your father!’ the prince answered, smiling in friendly fashion and trying to conceal his emotion.

‘I trust your voice when I’m sitting with you like this. But I mean, I realize we can’t be viewed as equals, you and I ...’

‘Why did you add that? And now you’re irritable again,’ said the prince, looking at Rogozhin in wonder.

‘Well where that’s concerned, brother, no one asks us our opinion,’ the other replied. ‘Where that’s concerned, the decision is taken without us. We also love different in different ways, we differ in everything,’ he continued quietly and after a silence. ‘You say you love her out of pity. There’s no such pity for her in me. And she hates me more than anything. I dream about her every night now: it’s always that she’s with another man, laughing at me. It’s like that, brother. She’ll go to the altar with me, but she never gives me a thought, it’s as though she were changing a shoe. Would you believe it, I haven’t seen her for five days, because I don’t dare to go to her. She’ll ask: “Why have you come?” She’s shamed me enough ...’

‘Shamed you? What do you mean?’

‘As if you didn’t know! Why, it was you she ran away to “from the altar”, you said it yourself just now.’

‘You don’t believe that she ...’

‘She shamed me with that officer in Moscow, Zemtyuzhnikov, wasn’t it? I know for certain that she did, and it was after she herself had fixed the day of the wedding.’

‘It cannot be!’ exclaimed the prince.

‘I know it for a fact,’ Rogozhin stated with conviction. ‘What, you think she’s not like that? Don’t try to tell me she’s not like that, brother. That’s just nonsense. She may not be like that with you, and would probably be horrified at the notion, but with me that’s exactly what she’s like. It’s true, you know. She looks on me as the very lowest of riff-raff. With Keller, that officer, the boxer, I know for a fact that she told stories in order to make fun of me ... And you don’t know what she did to me in Moscow! And the money, all the money I’ve given her ...’

‘But... how can you marry her now? ... What will it be like afterwards?’ the prince asked in horror.

Rogozhin gave the prince a grim and terrible look and made no reply.

‘I haven’t been at her house for five days,’ he continued, after a moment of silence. ‘I’m always afraid she’ll throw me out. “I’m still my own mistress,” she says; “if I want to, I’ll kick you out altogether and go abroad” (she’s already told me that, that she’ll go abroad,’ he observed as if in parenthesis, and looking the prince in the eye with an air of special significance); sometimes, it’s true, she just tries to chivvy me, she finds everything about me comical for some reason. Other times she just frowns and scowls, doesn’t say a word; that’s what I’m really afraid of. The other day, I thought: I’ll never go and see her empty-handed - but that just made her laugh, and then she even got angry. She gave her room-maid Katya a shawl I’d got for her, I bet she’d never seen one like it, even though she’d lived in luxury before. And as for when the wedding is to be, I can’t even mention it. What kind of a bridegroom is it who’s simply too frightened to arrive? So I sit here, and when I can’t bear it any more I go past her house secretly and in stealth, or hide around a corner somewhere. The other night I watched near her gate almost until daybreak - I thought there was something going on that night. But you know, she looked out of the window: “What would you have done with me, if you’d seen me deceiving you?” she said. I couldn’t help myself, but said: “You know what.”’

‘But what does she know?’

‘How would I know?’ Rogozhin began to laugh angrily. ‘In Moscow I couldn’t catch her with anyone, though I spent a long time trying. One day I went to her and said: “You promised to go to the altar with me, you’re entering an honest family, and do you know what you are now? Is that the kind of woman you are?” I said.

‘You said that to her?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well?’

“‘I don’t think I’d even hire you as a lackey, let alone be your wife,” she said. “Then I won’t leave, and that’s the end of it!” “Well, I’ll just summon Keller and tell him to throw you out,” she said. And I hurled myself on her and beat her black and blue right there and then.’

‘It cannot be!’ exclaimed the prince.

‘I tell you: it happened,’ Rogozhin confirmed quietly, but with glittering eyes. ‘For a day and half I didn’t sleep, didn’t eat, didn’t drink, didn’t leave her room, knelt before her: “I’ll die,” I said, “I won’t leave until you forgive me, and if you have me thrown out, I’ll drown myself: because - what will I be without you now?” She was like a madwoman all that day, now weeping, now preparing to kill me with a knife, now cursing at me. She summoned Zalyozhev, Keller and Zemtyuzhnikov, pointed me out to them, and put me to shame. “Let’s all go to the theatre in a company this evening, gentleman, let him sit here, if he doesn’t want to leave, I’m not tied to him. And they will serve you tea here while I’m gone, Parfyon Semyonych, you must be hungry today.” She returned from the theatre alone: “They’re wretched cowards and scoundrels, they’re afraid of you, and they try to frighten me: he really won’t go away, they say, he’ll cut your throat. Well, now I’m going to the bedroom, and I won’t lock the door after me: that’s how afraid of you I am! I want you to know and see that! Have you had tea?” “No,” I say, “and I’m not going to.” “I could understand it if your honour were at stake, but this doesn’t suit you at all.” And she did as she said she would, and didn’t lock the door. In the morning she came out and laughed: “Have gone out of your mind?” she said. “You’ll starve to death like this, won’t you?” “Forgive me,” I said. “I don’t want to forgive you, I’m not going to marry you, and that’s it. Have you really been sitting in this armchair all night, not sleeping?” “That’s right,” I said, “I haven’t slept.” “How clever! And you’re not going to have tea or dinner again?” “I told you I won’t-forgive me!” “This really doesn’t suit you,” she said, “if only you knew, it’s like a saddle on a cow. You’re not thinking of trying to frighten me, are you? What do I care if you sit here starving; that’s how much you frighten me!” She lost her temper, but not for long, began nagging me again. And then I found myself wondering at her for having no malice towards me. I mean, she remembers any harm that’s done to her by others, she remembers it for a long time! Then it occurred to me that she had such a low opinion of me that she couldn’t even feel much malice towards me. And it’s true. “Do you know,” she said, “who the Pope is?” “I’ve heard of him,” I said. “Parfyon Semyonych,” she said, “you haven’t studied history.” “I haven’t studied anything,” I said. “Well,” she said, “I’ll give you something to read: there once was a Pope who got angry with an Emperor,
⁴
and the Emperor knelt outside his palace for three days without eating or drinking, barefoot, because the Pope wouldn’t forgive him; what do you suppose that Emperor thought about as he knelt for those three days and what vows did he make? ... But wait,” she said, “I’l
l read it to you myself!” She jumped up and fetched a book: “It’s poetry,” she said, and began to read me a poem about how during those three days this Emperor vowed to avenge himself on the Pope. “Don’t you like it, Parfon Semyonych?” “It’s all true,” I said, “what you read.” “Aha, you say it’s true, that means perhaps you’re vowing that ‘when she marries me I’ll remind her of all this and then I’ll make fun of her!”’ “I don’t know,” I said, “perhaps that’s the way I’m thinking.” “What do you mean, you don’t know?” “Just as I say,” I said, “I don’t know, that’s not what I’m thinking about just now.” “And what are you thinking about just now?” “That you’ll get up and walk past and I’ll look at you and watch you go; your dress will rustle, my heart will sink, and you’ll go out of the room, I’ll remember your every word and the voice you said them in, and what you said; all last night I couldn’t think about anything, just kept listening to you breathing in your sleep and stirring once or twice ...” “But don’t you think and remember,” she began to laugh, “about how you beat me?” “Perhaps I do,” I said, “I don’t know.” “And what if I don’t forgive you and don’t marry you?” “I told you, I’ll drown myself.” “I think you may kill me before you do that...” She said it, and thought. Then she got angry and left. After an hour she came back to me, looking gloomy. “I’ll marry you, Parfyon Semyonych,” she said, “and not because I’m afraid of you but because I have to go to my ruin anyway. I mean, what better way is there? Sit down,” she said, “they’ll bring you some dinner in a moment. And if I marry you,” she added, “I’ll be a faithful wife to you, don’t have any doubt about that and don’t worry about it.” Then she was silent for a bit, and said: “At least you’re not a lackey; I used to think you were a complete lackey.” Then she fixed the day for the wedding, but a week later she ran away from me to Lebedev. When I arrived, she said: “I’m not rejecting you completely; I just want to wait a little longer, as long as I want, because I’m still my own mistress. You can wait, too, if you like.” That’s how things are between us now ... What do you think of all that, Lev Nikolayevich?’

‘What do you think of it?’ the prince retorted, looking sadly at Rogozhin.

‘Do I look as though I could think!’ he blurted out. He was about to add something else, but fell silent in hopeless anguish.

The prince got up and made to leave again.

‘I won’t interfere, all the same,’ he said quietly, almost reflectively, as though replying to some inner, concealed thought of his own.

‘Do you know what I’m going to say to you?’ Rogozhin said in sudden animation, and his eyes began to glitter. ‘I don’t understand why you’re yielding to me like this. Or have you fallen out of love with her altogether? Before you were in anguish; I mean, I could see. So why have you come here at the gallop now? Out of pity? (And his face was contorted in a malicious, mocking smile.) Heh-heh!’

‘You think I’m trying to deceive you?’ the prince asked.

‘No, I trust you; it’s just that I don’t understand any of this. What’s more certain than anything is that your pity is even stronger than my love!’

Something hostile, that wanted to express itself at once at any cost, ignited in his face.

‘You know, it’s hard to distinguish your love from rage,’ the prince smiled, ‘and when it passes, things may get even worse. I say this to you now, brother Parfyon ...’

‘I’ll cut her throat, you mean?’

The prince started.

‘You’ll hate her intensely for this love you feel, and for all this torment you’re accepting now. To me, the most astonishing thing is that she can be going to marry you again. When I heard of it yesterday - I could scarcely believe it, and I felt so unhappy. I mean, she has rejected you and fled from the altar twice, and that means she has a foreboding! ... What does she want from you now? Your money? That’s nonsense. In any case, I daresay you’ve already spent a lot of that. Is it really just in order to find a husband? Then she could easily find someone besides you. Anyone would be better than you, because to put it bluntly you may cut her throat, and she understands that only too well now, perhaps. That you love her so deeply? Yes, perhaps it’s that ... I have heard that there are those who seek just that sort of love ... only ...’

The prince paused and reflected.

‘Why are you smiling at father’s portrait again?’ asked Rogozhin, observing with exceeding closeness every change, every fleeting line on the prince’s face.

‘Why was I smiling? Well, it crossed my mind that if this disaster had not happened to you, if this love had not taken place, then you might have become exactly like your father, and in a very short time, too. You’d have settled down silently alone in this house with your meek and obedient wife, with few and stern words, not trusting a single person, and having no need of that at all, merely making money silently and gloomily. At the very most, you’d have praised the old books now and then, and acquired an interest in crossing yourself with two fingers,
⁵
and that only in your old age ...’

‘Mock all you want. She told me exactly the same thing recently, also when she was looking at that portrait! Astonishing, how the two of you see eye to eye in everything now ...’

‘Has she been to see you here, then?’ the prince asked with curiosity.

‘Yes, she has. She looked at the portrait for a long time, asked me questions about my late father. “You would have been just like him,” she smiled to me eventually. “Parfyon Semyonych, you have strong passions, passions of a kind that would have taken you straight to Siberia, to penal labour, if you hadn’t also had intelligence, because you have a lot of intelligence,” she said (that’s what she said, would you believe it? That’s the first time I heard her say such a thing!). “You would soon have given up all this tomfoolery. And as you’re a completely uneducated man, you’d have started to pile up money, and, like your father, you’d have settled down in this house with its
skoptsy;
you might even have
gone over to their faith yourself in the end, and you’d have loved your money so much that you’d have piled up not two but ten millions, and died of starvation on your money-sacks, because for you everything is passion, you turn everything into a passion.” That’s exactly what she said, almost exactly in those words. She had never spoken like that to me before! I mean, she always talks to me about nonsensical things or mocks me; whereas here she laughed to begin with, but then got very gloomy; she went all over this house, examining it, and seemed to be frightened of it. “I’ll change all this,” I say, “and have it decorated, or maybe I’ll buy another house in time for the wedding.” “No, no,” she said, “don’t change anything here, we’ll live like this. I want to live beside your mother,” she said, “when I become your wife.” I took her to see my mother - she was respectful to her, as though she were her own daughter. Even before this, for two years actually, Mother had not been in full command of her reason (she’s ill), but after the death of my father she became just like a little infant, never saying anything: she’s lost the use of her legs and just bows from her chair to everyone she sees; I think if one didn’t feed her, she wouldn’t notice for three days. I took mother’s right hand, folded it: “Bless her, Mother,” I said, “she’s going to go to the altar with me”; so she kissed Mother’s hand with feeling, “I expect your mother has endured much sorrow,” she said. She saw I had this book: “What have you started to read
Russian History
for?” (Yet she herself once said to me in Moscow: “You ought to educate yourself a bit, read Solovyov’s
Russian History,
I mean, you don’t know anything.”) “It will do you good,” she said, “go on, and read it. I’ll write you a little list of the books you ought to read first of all; would you like me to?” And never, never before had she talked like that to me, so that she even astonished me; for the first time I breathed like a living human being.’