The Idiot (7 page)

The dark-haired man whistled and began to laugh.

A conversation ensued. The willingness of the fair-haired young man in the Swiss cloak to answer every question from his swarthy neighbour was remarkable, and he appeared to have no inkling of the utterly casual, inappropriate and idle nature of some of the questions. In replying he declared, among other things, that he had not been in Russia for a long time, four years or more, and that he had been sent abroad because of an illness, some strange nervous illness, akin to epilepsy or St Vitus’s dance, with tremors and convulsions. As he listened to him, the swarthy man grinned several times; he laughed especially when to the question: ‘Well, and did they cure you?’ the fair-haired man replied: ‘No, they didn’t.’

‘Heh! You probably paid them a lot of money for nothing, and here we still go on believing in them,’ the swarthy man observed caustically.

‘Very true!’ said a shabbily dressed gentleman who was sitting near by, some sort of minor official hardened in the work of the civil service, aged about forty, strongly built, with a red nose and a face covered in blackheads, as he joined the conversation: ‘Very true, sir, all they do is use up all Russia’s strength for their own benefit and give nothing in return!’

‘Oh, but in my own case you’re very mistaken,’ the Swiss patient rejoined in a quiet and conciliatory voice. ‘Of course, I can’t argue, for there are many things I don’t know, but my doctor gave me the money for my fare here out of the last he had, having supported me at his own expense for almost two years.’

‘Why? Was there no one to pay for you?’ asked the swarthy man.

‘Well, you see, Mr Pavlishchev, who was supporting me, died two years ago; then I wrote to Mrs Yepanchin, the general’s wife, a distant rel
ation of mine in St Petersburg, but received no reply. And so that’s why I’ve returned.’

‘Returned where, exactly?’

‘You mean, where will I stay? ... Well, I don’t really know yet ... that is...’

‘You haven’t decided yet?’

And both listeners again burst into laughter.

‘And I suppose all your worldly possessions are in that bundle?’ asked the swarthy man.

‘I’m willing to bet on that,’ the red-nosed official said with a look of extreme satisfaction, ‘and that he has nothing in the luggage van, though poverty’s no sin, we mustn’t omit to point that out.’

This also turned out to be true: the fair-haired young man admitted it at once, and with unexpected haste.

‘Your bundle does have a certain significance, however,’ the official continued, once they had finished laughing (remarkably enough, the owner of the bundle himself eventually began to laugh as he surveyed them, which increased their merriment), ‘and though I’m willing to bet there are no gold coins in it, no foreign bags of Napoléons d’or and Friedrichs d‘or, let alone Dutch
arapchiki,
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all of which may be deduced if only by the gaiters that are wrapped round your foreign shoes, still ... if one were to add to your bundle a relative such as the general’s lady, Mrs Yepanchin, then it would take on a rather different meaning, in the event, of course, that Mrs Yepanchin really is a relation of yours, and you’re not mistaken, because of absentmindedness ... something that’s very, very common in people, well, because of ... an over-abundance of imagination.’

‘Oh, you’ve guessed right again,’ the fair-haired young man rejoined, ‘though I really am almost mistaken, because she’s scarcely a relation at all; and indeed I really wasn’t at all surprised when I received no reply from her. That was what I expected.’

‘You wasted your money on the postage stamp. Hmm ... well, at least you’re honest and sincere about it, and that’s to be commended! Hmm ... As for General Yepanchin, sir, we know him for the simple reason that he’s well known;
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and also the late Mr Pavlishchev, who supported you in Switzerland, he was also well known, sir, if he was Nikolai Andreyevich Pavlishchev, because there were two cousins. The other one still lives in the Crimea, but Nikolai Andreyevich, the deceased, was a much respected man and had connections, owned four thousand souls in his day, sir ...’

‘That’s right, his name was Nikolai Andreyevich Pavlishchev.’ And, having offered his reply, the young man gave this Mr Know-all a fixed and searching look.

These Mr Know-alls are sometimes encountered, even rather frequently, at a certain level of society. They know everything; all the restless curiosity of their mind and faculties is irrepressibly aimed in one direction, because of the absence of any more important opinions or interests in life,
as a contemporary thinker would say. However, this ‘knowing everything’ refers to a rather narrow area: where such-and-such a person works, who his friends are, how much he is worth, where he was governor, who he is married to, how much his wife’s dowry was, who his cousin is, and his second cousin, etcetera, etcetera, and all that kind of thing. For the most part these know-alls have worn elbows and earn a salary of seventeen roubles a month. The people of whom they know all the details could never, of course, imagine the interests that guide them, and yet many of these know-alls derive positive consolation from this knowledge, which is equivalent to a whole science, finding self-respect and even the loftiest spiritual fulfilment in it. And it is a seductive science, too. I have seen scholars, men of letters, poets, political activists, seeking and achieving their highest ambitions and goals in this science, even making it the sole foundation of their careers.

Throughout this entire conversation the swarthy young man yawned, looked aimlessly out of the window and awaited the end of the journey with impatience. He seemed distracted, really very distracted, well nigh agitated, and his behaviour was even becoming rather strange: from time to time he would listen and then not listen, look and then look the other way, laugh and then seem unaware of what he was laughing at.

‘But permit me to ask with whom I have the honour ...’ the gentleman with the blackheads said, suddenly addressing the fair-haired young man with the bundle.

‘Prince Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin,’ the other replied with complete and instant readiness.

‘Prince Myshkin? Lev Nikolayevich? I don’t know that one, sir. In fact I’ve never heard of him, sir,’ the official answered, reflectively. ‘I don’t mean the name, of course, the name is a historic one, you’ll find it in Karamzin’s
History,
it must be there, no, I mean the person, sir, and somehow one doesn’t encounter any Prince Myshkins anywhere, not even stories about them at second hand, sir.’

‘Oh, of course not!’ the prince replied at once. ‘There aren’t any Prince Myshkins now at all, except for me; I think I’m the last. And as for our forefathers, some of them were only smallholders. My father was a sub-lieutenant in the army, by the way, a military cadet. And so I really don’t know how Mrs Yepanchin managed to become a Princess Myshkin, the last of her kind, too ...’

‘Heh-heh-heh! The last of her kind! Heh-heh! That was well put,’ the official giggled.

The swarthy man also smiled. The fair-haired man was slightly surprised that he had succeeded in making a witty remark, even though it was really rather a bad one.

‘But imagine, I said it quite without thinking,’ he explained, at last, in surprise.

‘Of course, of course, sir,’ the official cheerfully confirmed.

‘And so, Prince, did you study the sciences with that professor?’ the swarthy man asked suddenly.

‘Yes ... I did ...’

‘You know, I’ve never studied anything.’

‘Oh, I just dabbled in a couple of things,’ the prince added, almost in apology. ‘They couldn’t teach me systematically because of my illness.’

‘Do you know the Rogozhins?’ the swarthy man asked quickly.

‘No, I don’t, not at all. But then, I know very few people in Russia. Are you a Rogozhin?’

‘Yes, I’m a Rogozhin, Parfyon.’

‘Parfyon? Not the Rogozhins who ...’ the official began, with increasing solemnity.

‘Yes, them,’ the swarthy man interrupted rudely and impatiently, without ever once having actually addressed the official with the blackheads, his remarks addressed only to the prince.

‘But... How can this be?’ the official was astonished to the point of stupor, his eyes very nearly starting out of his head; the whole of his face at once began to collapse into a kind of servile reverence, something even resembling fear - ‘Your father is the same Semyon Parfyonovich Rogozhin, the hereditary distinguished burgher,
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who passed away a month ago, leaving capital of two and a half million?’

‘And how do you know that he left net capital of two and a half million?’ the swarthy man interrupted, this time not even deigning to glance at the official. ‘Will you look at him (he winked at the prince, to draw his attention), what do they think they’ll gain by crawling like vermin? But it’s true that my father died, and I came home from Pskov a month later, almost without a pair of boots to my name. Neither my scoundrel of a brother nor my mother sent money or word - nothing! As if I were a dog! In Pskov I was in bed for a whole month with a fever! ...’

‘And now you’ll receive a nice little million and a bit, at the very least. Good heavens!’ the official threw up his hands.

‘Well, what does it have to do with him, I ask you, if you please!’ Rogozhin said, nodding towards him again in irritation and hostility. ‘Why, I wouldn’t give you a copeck, not even if you walked on your hands in front of me.’

‘And I will, I will.’

‘Would you believe it! And I won’t give you anything, not a thing, not even if you dance for a week!’

‘Then don’t give me anything! That’s what I deserve; don’t give me anything! But I’ll dance. I’ll leave my wife and my little children, and I’ll dance in front of you. And crawl, crawl!’

‘Confound you!’ the swarthy man spat. ‘Five weeks ago I was like you,’ he said, turning to the prince, ‘ran away from my father to my aunt in Pskov with nothing but a bundle; and I caught a fever there and had to lie in bed, and he died while I was away. He had a stroke. May his soul find peace
in eternity, but before that he’d nearly beaten me to death! Would you believe it, Prince, I swear to God! If I hadn’t run away when I did, he’d have killed me on the spot.’

‘Did you do something to make him angry?’ the prince responded, studying the millionaire in the sheepskin with particular curiosity. But although the million roubles and the receipt of an inheritance might have been remarkable in themselves, it was something else that had struck the prince and aroused his interest; and indeed, Rogozhin himself was for some reason particularly eager to converse with the prince, though his need for such conversation was, it seemed, more automatic than intentional; stemming more from distraction than from genuine feeling; from alarm, from agitation, just so as to have someone to look at, and something to exercise his tongue about. He still seemed to be in an ague, or at least a fever. As for the official, he hovered very close to Rogozhin, not daring to breathe, catching and weighing each word as though in search of a diamond.

‘He just got angry, and perhaps he had good reason for that,’ Rogozhin answered, ‘but it was my brother who really annoyed me. One can’t blame Mother, she’s getting on in years, reads the Lives of the Saints, sits with the old women, and whatever brother Senka decides is right as far as she’s concerned. But why didn’t he tell me in time? We know why, sir! It’s true that I was unconscious at the time. Also, they say that a telegram was sent. But the telegram was delivered to my aunt. And she’s been a widow for thirty years, and sits around with the holy fools from morning to night. Like a nun, like a nun, but worse. The telegram frightened her and, without opening it, she took it to the police station and that’s where it remains to this day. In the event, Konyov, Vasily Vasilyich, lent a helping hand, wrote to me with all the details. At night my brother cut the gold tassels off the brocade covering of my father’s coffin: “They cost a vast amount of money,” he said. I mean, he could go to Siberia if I wanted him sent there, because that’s sacrilege. Hey you, scarecrow buffoon!’ he turned to the official. ‘What does the law say: is it sacrilege?’

‘Oh yes, it’s sacrilege! Sacrilege!’ the official at once agreed.

‘One could be sent to Siberia for it?’

‘Yes indeed, to Siberia, Siberia! Straight to Siberia!’

‘They still think I’m ill,’ Rogozhin continued to the prince, ‘but without a word to anyone I boarded the train in secret, and off I went: “Open the gates, dear brother Semyon Semyonych!” He said bad things about me to our dear dead father, I know that. Well, I really did annoy father over Nastasya Filippovna, that’s true. It was all my fault. Sin led me astray.’

‘Because of Nastasya Filippovna?’ the official babbled obsequiously, as if he were putting two and two together.

‘Oh come, you don’t know her too!’ Rogozhin shouted at him in exasperation.

‘I do!’ the official replied triumphantly.

‘Get away with you! There are lots of Nastasya Filippovnas! And you’re an insolent creature, too, I’ll tell you that! You know, I had a feeling some creature like this would start latching on to me!’ he continued to the prince.

‘But perhaps I do know her, sir!’ the official was agitated. ‘Lebedev knows! Your Grace, you saw fit to reproach me, but what if I can prove it? The same Nastasya Filippovna because of whom your father chastised you with a hazel rod, and Nastasya Filippovna is a Barashkov, even a high-born lady, in a sense, and also a princess of a kind, and consorts exclusively with a certain Totsky, Afanasy Ivanovich, a landowner and important capitalist, a board member of companies and societies, and great friends on that account with General Yepanchin ...’

‘Aha, so that’s it!’ Rogozhin said at last in genuine surprise. ‘Confound it and damn it, he really does know.’

‘He knows everything! Lebedev knows everything! Your Grace, I travelled around with Alexashka Likhachov for two months, and also after the death of his father, and so I know it all, all the nooks and crannies, and it got to the point where he couldn’t take a step without Lebedev. Now he’s in prison, in the debtors’ wing, but back then I had occasion to make the acquaintance of Armance and Coralie, and Princess Patskaya and Nastasya Filippovna, too, and I had occasion to learn a great many things.’