The Idiot (73 page)

‘All this appeared to me in fragments, perhaps in the midst of real delirium, sometimes even in images, for a whole hour and a half after Kolya’s departure. Is it possible for an image to contain that which has no image? For at times I seemed to see, in some strange and impossible form, that infinite force, that blind, dark and speechless creature. I remember someone taking me by the arm, a candle in his hands, and showing me some sort of enormous and repulsive tarantula, assuring me that this was that same dark, blind and all-powerful creature, and laughing at my indignation. In my room, in front of the icon, a small lamp is always lit for the night - a dim and paltry light, and yet one can make out everything, and under the lamp it is even possible to read. I think that at first it was some time before one in the morning; I could not sleep at all and lay with my eyes open; suddenly the door of my room opened, and Rogozhin came in.

‘He came in, shut the door, looked at me without saying anything and quietly went over to the chair in the corner that s
tands almost under the lamp. I was very surprised and watched in expectation; Rogozhin leaned his elbows on the small table and began to stare at me in silence. Some two or three minutes passed like this, and I remember that his silence offended me and annoyed me greatly. Why would he not speak? That he had come so late seemed strange to me, of course, but I remember that I was not really, in the end, all that surprised by it. Even the contrary: though I hadn’t expressed my idea clearly to him that morning, I knew that he understood it; and of course, this idea was of such a kind that one might come to talk about it once again, even though it was very late. I had a fair idea that he would come in order to do this. We had parted that morning on rather hostile terms, and I even remember that a couple of times he looked at me rather mockingly. It was this same mockery that I read in his stare now, and it was this that offended me. But from the very first, of the fact that this really was Rogozhin, and not an apparition, not delirium, I had no doubt at all. It did not even enter my mind.

‘Meanwhile he continued to sit and look at me with that same ironic smile. I angrily turned round in bed, also leaned my elbows on my pillow, and deliberately resolved not to say anything either, even if we spent the whole time sitting like that. For some reason I categorically wanted him to begin first. I think about twenty minutes passed like that. Suddenly the thought presented itself to me: what if this was not Rogozhin, but an apparition?

‘Neither in my illness nor ever before have I ever seen a ghost; but it had always seemed to me, while yet a boy, and even now, that is, recently, that if I ever saw a ghost I would die on the spot, even in spite of the fact that I do not believe in ghosts. But when the thought came to me that this was not Rogozhin, but only a ghost, I remember I was not frightened at all. Not only that, it even made me angry. It was also strange that the resolution of the question “was it Rogozhin himself, or a ghost?” somehow did not interest me or trouble me, as I think it ought to have; I believe I was thinking about something else at the time. I was, for example, far more interested to know why Rogozhin, who in the morning had been wearing a domestic dressing gown and slippers, was now wearing a tailcoat, a white waistcoat and a white tie. I also had the fleeting thought that if this was a ghost and I was not afraid of it, then why should I not get up, go over to it and ascertain this for myself? Perhaps, however, I did not dare and was afraid. But no sooner had I thought that I was afraid, than ice seemed to pass through my whole body; I felt a chill in my spine, and my knees trembled. At that very instant, as though having guessed that I was afraid, Rogozhin unbent the arm he had been leaning on, straightened up and opened his mouth, as though preparing to laugh; he was looking at me intently. Rabid fury took possession of me to the point where I decidedly wanted to throw myself upon him, but as I had vowed that I would not be the first to speak, I remained on the bed, particularly as I was still not certain whether it was Rogozhin or not.

‘I don’t remember for certain how long this went on; neither can I remember whether I lost consciousness at times, or not. Only that, at last, Rogozhin got up, surveyed me just as slowly and attentively as before, when he had come in, but stopped smiling and quietly, almost on tiptoe, went over to the door, opened it, closed it behind him and went out. I did not get up from the bed; I don’t remember how long I continued to lie there with my eyes open, thinking all the time; God knows what I was thinking about; I also don’t remember losing consciousness. The next morning I woke up to a knocking at the door after nine. I have an arrangement that if I haven’t opened the door by nine, or shouted for tea, Matryona must knock. When I opened the door to her, the thought at once presented itself to me: how could he have come in when the door was locked? I made inquiries and was convinced that it was impossible for the real Rogozhin to come in, because all our doors are locked at night.

‘It was this peculiar incident, which I have described in such detail, that was the reason for my “deciding” so completely. Thus, my final decision was made possible not by logic, not by a logical conviction, but by revulsion. It’s impossible to remain in a life that takes such strange forms, which offend me. That apparition had humiliated me. I am not able to submit to a dark force that takes the form of a tarantula. And only when, at twilight now, I at last experienced within myself the final moment of complete decision, did I feel better. It was only the first part of the moment; the second part of it was when I went to Pavlovsk, but that has already been explained enough.’

‘I had a small pocket pistol, I obtained it when I was a boy, at that silly age when one suddenly becomes fond of stories about duels and the assaults of bandits, or about myself being challenged to a duel and standing nobly facing the pistol. A month before, I examined it and got it ready. In the drawer where it lay I found two bullets, and enough powder in the horn for three charges. It’s a hopeless pistol, one can’t aim straight with it and it only has a range of about fifteen paces; but of course, one can remove one’s skull with it if one puts it to one’s temple.

‘I proposed to die in Pavlovsk, going into the park at sunrise in order not to upset anyone at the dacha. My “Explanation” would explain the whole affair sufficiently to the police. Those who are interested in psychology, and anyone else, may conclude from it whatever they please. However, I should not like this manuscript to be put in the public domain. I ask the prince to retain one copy for himself and to entrust another copy to Aglaya Ivanovna Yepanchina. Such is my wish. I bequeath my skeleton to the Medical Academy for the benefit of science.

‘I recognize no judges over me and know that I am now beyond the power of any court. Not long ago I was amused by the proposition: what if I were to suddenly take it into my head to kill anyone I liked, perhaps ten people at once, or commit some atrocity, something considered the most atrocious thing in the world, then what a quandary the court would be faced with, given my two or three weeks left to live and the fact that ordeals and torture are no longer part of our legal system? I would die comfortably in their hospital, in warmth and with an attentive doctor, and, perhaps, far more comfortably than at home. I don’t know why people in my position don’t have the same idea, if only for a joke. But perhaps they do, however; even among us, there is no shortage of cheerful people.

‘But even if I recognize no judges over me, I none the less know that I shall be judged when I am a deaf and voiceless defendant. I do not want to go without leaving a word in my defence - a word that is free, and not compelled - not in order to justify myself - oh no! I have no need to ask anyone’s forgiveness for anything - but simply because I myself wish it.

‘Here, to start with, is a strange thought: who, by what right, in the name of what motive, would take it into his head to question my right to these two or three weeks I have left? What business is it of any court? Just who requires me not only to be condemned to death, but also to wait on my best behaviour for my sentence to be carried out? Does anyone really want that? For the sake of morality? I also realize that if, in the flower of health and strength, I were to take my own life, which “might be of benefit to my neighbour”, etcetera, morality might reproach me, according to the old rigmarole, for having disposed of my life wi
thout permission, or for something else which only it knows. But now, now when my sentence has been read out to me? What kind of morality is it that even demands, in addition to one’s life, one’s last gasp as one surrenders the last atom of life, listening to the comfortings of the prince, who in his Christian arguments will not fail to arrive at the happy thought that, really, it is even for the best that you should die? (Christians like him always arrive at that idea: it’s their favourite hobby-horse.) And what is their aim with their ridiculous “Pavlovsk trees”? To sweeten the final hours of my life? Do they really not understand that the more I forget myself, the more I give myself up to this last phantom of life and love with which they want to shield me from my Meyer’s wall and all that is so openly and simply written on it, the more unhappy they make me? What use to me are your nature, your Pavlovsk Park, your sunrises and sunsets, your blue sky and your all-satisfied faces, when the whole of this feast, which has no end, began by considering me alone superfluous? What is there for me in all this beauty, when at each minute, each second, I’m now compelled to be aware that even this tiny housefly buzzing around me in the sunbeam now, even it is a participant in all this feast and chorus, knows its place, loves it and is happy, while I alone am an outcast, and it’s only because of my cowardice that I’ve been unwilling to realize that before now! Oh, after all, I know how the prince and all of them would like to bring me to the point where, instead of all these “perfidious and hate-filled” speeches, I would sing, for the sake of good behaviour and triumphant morality the renowned and classical stanza of Millevoix:
¹

‘But believe me, believe me, innocent people, that even in this well-behaved stanza, in this academic blessing to the world in French verse there is so much hidden bile, so much irreconcilable rhymed hatred, that even the poet himself has, perhaps, fallen into the trap and mistaken that hatred for tears of emotion, and so died, peace to his ashes! You should be aware that there is a limit to the shame of the awareness of one’s own insignificance and weakness, beyond which a man cannot go, and at which point he begins to take an enormous pleasure in his very shame ... Well, of course, humility is a mighty force in that sense, I admit that - though not in the sense in which religion takes humility as a force.

‘Religion! I admit the existence of eternal life, and have perhaps always admitted its existence. Let us allow that the spark of consciousness was lit by the will of a higher power, let us allow that it looked round at the world and said: “I am!”, and let us allow that it was suddenly instructed by that higher power to destroy itself, because for some reason - and the reason was not even explained - that was just how it was up there, let us
allow that, I admit all that, but there still remains the eternal question: why is my meekness demanded in all this? Could I not simply be devoured without being required to praise what has devoured me? Will someone up there really be offended that I’m unwilling to wait for two weeks? I don’t believe that; and it’s far more probable to suppose that my insignificant life, the life of an atom, was required in order to complete some universal harmony of the whole, some plus and minus, some sort of contrast, etcetera, etcetera, in just the same way as every day the sacrifice of the lives of large numbers of creatures is required, without whose death the rest of the world would not be able to carry on (though one must observe that this in itself is not a very generous notion). But let us allow that it is so! I agree that otherwise without, that is, our constant devouring of one another, it would be quite impossible to organize the world; I’m even ready to admit that I understand nothing of that organization; but on the other hand, I do know this for certain: if I’ve been allowed to perceive that “I am”, what does it matter to me that mistakes have been made in the organization of the world, and that without those mistakes it could not carry on? If that is so, who is going to judge me, and for what? Whatever you say, all of this is impossible and unjust.

‘And yet never, in spite of all my wish to do so, was I able to imagine that there was no life to come, or no Providence. The most likely thing is that all of that exists, but that we don’t understand anything of the life to come or its laws. But if that is so difficult, and even quite impossible to understand, then must I really answer for the fact that I’m unable to make sense of the unfathomable? To be sure, they say - and the prince, of course, concurs with them - that here obedience is necessary, that one must obey without arguing, out of sheer decorum, and that I will certainly be rewarded for my meekness in the world to come. We greatly belittle Providence by ascribing our own conceptions to it, out of annoyance that we cannot understand it. But again, if it’s impossible to understand it, then, I repeat, it’s also difficult to answer for what man has not been given to understand. And if that is so, then how can I be judged for not having been able to understand the true will and laws of Providence? No, let us leave religion alone.

‘And in any case, enough. When I reach these lines, the sun will probably rise and “begin to resound in the sky”, and its enormous, immeasurable power will pour down on all that is beneath it. Let it be so! I shall die looking straight at the source of strength and life, and I shall not want this life! If I’d had the power not to be born, I would probably not have accepted existence on such ridiculous terms. But I still have the power to die, though what I’m giving back are days that are already numbered. Not much power in that, and not much of a mutiny, either.