Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (373 page)

agree. I tell him so to his face every day, but yet in half of it he was right. Publicity is the legal right of all, and therefore of Burdovsky. He must answer himself for his absurdities. As for my protesting in the name of all against the presence of your friends, I think it necessary to inform you, gentlemen, that I protested simply to assert our rights, but in reality we positively prefer that there should be witnesses, and on our way here we all four agreed that whoever your witnesses might be, if even they were your friends, they could not fail to recognise Burdovsky’s claim (because it’s a mathematical certainty) so that it’s even better that these witnesses are your friends; it will make the truth even more evident.”

“That’s true, we agreed about that,” Lebedyev’s nephew assented.

“But why did you begin by making such a fuss and outcry about it, if you wanted it?” asked Myshkin in surprise.

“And as for the article, prince,” put in the boxer, becoming agreeably excited and desperately anxious to put in his word (it might be suspected that the presence of the ladies had a strong and unmistakable effect on him) “as for the article, I

confess that I am the author of it, though my sick friend, whom I am accustomed to excuse on account of his affliction, has just criticised it. But I wrote and I published it in the journal of a friend in the form of a letter. Only the verses are not mine and really come from the pen of a well-known satirist. I only read it through to Mr. Burdovsky, and not all of it, and he at once agreed to let me publish it, but you can see for yourself that I could have published it without his consent. The right to publicity is the right of all, and it’s an honourable and beneficial right. I hope you, prince, are progressive enough not to deny that....”

“I am not going to deny anything, but you must admit that your article ...”

“Is severe, you mean? But you know it’s for the public benefit, so to say, and, besides, how can one let such a flagrant case pass? So much the worse for the guilty, but the public benefit before everything. As for a little inaccuracy, hyperbole so to say, you will admit that what matters most is the motive; the object, the intention comes first. What matters is the beneficial example and one can go into the individual case afterwards. And besides there’s the style and the comic value of it — and in fact,

everybody writes like that, as you know yourself. Ha-ha!”

“But you are quite on a false track, I assure you, gentlemen,” cried Myshkin. “\bu published that article on the supposition that nothing would induce me to satisfy Mr. Burdovsky and so you tried to frighten me and revenge yourselves. But how do you know — I may have decided to satisfy Mr. Burdovsky’s claim. I tell you plainly before every one here that I will...”

“Come, that’s a wise and generous saying from a wise and very generous man!” announced the boxer.

“Heavens!” broke from Lizaveta Prokofyevna.

“This is insufferable,” muttered the general.

“Allow me, friends, allow me, I’ll explain the case,” Myshkin besought them. “\bur agent and representative, Tchebarov, came to see me five weeks ago, Mr. Burdovsky. \bur description of him, Mr. Keller, is much too flattering,” Myshkin added, addressing the boxer, and suddenly laughing. “I didn’t like him at all. I realised from the first moment that this Tchebarov was at the bottom of it and that, to speak candidly, he had taken advantage of your simplicity, Mr. Burdovsky, to set you on to making this claim.”

“You’ve no right to ... I... am not simple ... it’s .. .” Burdovsky stuttered in excitement.

“You’ve no sort of right to make such suppositions,” Lebedyev’s nephew put in sententiously.

“This is insulting in the highest degree,” squeaked Ippolit, “the supposition is insulting, false and irrelevant!”

“I am sorry, gentlemen, I am sorry,” Myshkin apologised hurriedly, “please excuse me; it’s because I thought it might be better for us to be perfectly open with one another; but it’s for you to decide, as you please! I told Tchebarov that, as I was not in Petersburg, I would at once authorise a friend to go into the case, and would let you, Mr. Burdovsky, know. I tell you plainly, gentlemen, that the case struck me as simply a swindle, just because of Tchebarov’s share in it. . . . Oh, don’t take offence, gentlemen! For goodness’ sake, don’t take offence,” Myshkin cried in alarm, seeing again the signs of resentment in Burdovsky and of excitement and protest in his friends. “It can have no reference to you if I do say the case was a swindle. I didn’t know any one of you personally then, I didn’t even know your names; I only judged by Tchebarov; I speak generally because ... if only you knew how horribly I’ve been taken in, since I came into my fortune!”

“Prince, you are wonderfully naive,” Lebedyev’s nephew observed ironically.

“Besides, you are a prince and a millionaire! You may possibly be kind-hearted and simple, but even if you are, you can’t be an exception to the general law,” Ippolit declared.

“Possibly, gentlemen, very possibly,” Myshkin said hurriedly, “though I don’t know what general law you are speaking of. But let me go on and don’t take offence about nothing; I swear I haven’t the faintest wish to insult you. And really, gentlemen, one can’t say one word sincerely without your being offended at once! But in the first place, it was a great shock to hear of the existence of a son of Pavlishtchev, and in such a terrible situation, as Tchebarov explained to me. Pavlishtchev was my benefactor and my father’s friend. Ach, why did you write such falsehoods about my father in your article, Mr. Keller? There never was any misappropriation of the company’s money, nor ill-treatment of subordinates — of that I am absolutely convinced — and how could you lift your hand to write such a calumny? And what you’ve said about Pavlishtchev is past all endurance. You speak of that noble man as a frivolous libertine, with as much boldness and positiveness as though you were really speaking the truth, and yet he was one of the most virtuous men in the world! He was a remarkably learned man, he used to correspond with numbers of distinguished men of science, and he spent a great deal of money for the advancement of science. As for his heart and his benevolence, oh, no doubt you were quite right in saying that I was almost an idiot at that time and had no understanding of anything (though I could talk Russian and could understand it), but I can now appreciate all I remember at its true value ...”

“Excuse me,” Ippolit squeaked, “isn’t this too sentimental? We are not children. You meant to come straight to the point; it’s going on for ten, remember that.”

“Very well, gentlemen,” Myshkin agreed at once. “After mv first mistrustfulness, I decided that I miqht have made a mistake and that Pavlishtchev might really have had a son. But I was very much amazed that that son should so readily, that is, I mean so publicly, give away the secret of his birth and disgrace his mother’s name. For even at that time Tchebarov threatened me with publicity....”

“How ridiculous!” cried Lebedyev’s nephew.

“You’ve no right . . . you’ve no right!” cried Burdovsky.

“The son is not responsible for the immoral conduct of his father and the mother is not to blame,” Ippolit shrieked hotly.

“All the more reason for sparing her, I should have thought,” Myshkin ventured timidly.

“You are not simply naive, prince, you go beyond that, perhaps,” Lebedyev’s nephew sneered spitefully.

“And what right had you!” Ippolit squeaked in a most unnatural voice.

“None whatever, none whatever,” Myshkin hurriedly put in. “\bu are right there, I admit it, but I couldn’t help it. And I said to myself at once, at the time, that I ought not to let my personal feeling come into the case, for if I consider myself bound to satisfy Mr. Burdovsky’s demands for the sake of my feeling for Pavlishtchev, I ought to satisfy them in any case, that is, whether I respected or did not respect Mr. Burdovsky. I only began about this, gentlemen, because it did all the same seem to me unnatural for a son to betray his mother’s secret so publicly ... in fact it was chiefly on that ground that I made up my mind that Tchebarov was a scoundrel and had egged Mr. Burdovsky on to such a fraud by deceit.”

“But this is intolerable!” broke from his visitors, some of whom even leapt up from their seats.

“Gentlemen, it was just because of that I decided that poor Mr. Burdovsky must be a simple and helpless person, easily imposed upon by swindlers, and therefore I was all the more bound to help him as a ‘son of Pavlishtchev” — first, by opposing Mr. Tchebarov, secondly, by my friendly good offices and guidance, and thirdly, I decided to give him ten thousand roubles, that is all that by my reckoning Pavlishtchev could have spent upon me.”

“What, only ten thousand!” shouted Ippolit.

“Well, prince, you are not at all good in arithmetic or else you are too good at it, though you do pretend to be a simpleton,” cried Lebedyev’s nephew.

“I won’t agree to take ten thousand,” said Burdovsky.

“Antip, take it!” the boxer prompted him in a clear and rapid whisper, bending across to him over the back of Ippolit’s chair. “Take it, and afterwards we shall see.”

“Listen, Mr. Myshkin,” shrieked Ippolit, “understand that we are not fools, not vulgar fools, as we are probably thought to be by all your visitors, and by these ladies who sneer at us so indignantly, and especially by that grand gentleman” — he pointed to “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch— “whom I have not, of course, the honour of knowing, though I believe I have heard something about him.”

“Allow me, gentlemen, you misunderstand me again!” Myshkin addressed them in agitation. “In the first place you, Mr. Keller, in your article have described my fortune very inaccurately; I didn’t inherit millions at all. I’ve only perhaps an eighth or a tenth part of what you suppose, and in the next place, tens of thousands were not spent on me in Switzerland. Schneider was paid six hundred roubles a year and he only received that for the first three years, and Pavlishtchev never went to Paris to find pretty governesses, that’s a calumny again. In my opinion very much less than ten thousand was spent on me altogether, but I propose to give ten thousand, and you’ll admit that I could not offer Mr. Burdovsky more in payment of what’s due to him, even if I were awfully fond of him, and I could not do so from a feeling of delicacy alone, just because it’s paying what is due and not making him a present. I don’t know how you can fail to understand that, gentlemen; but still I did mean later on, by my friendship and active sympathy, to compensate the unhappy Mr. Burdovsky, who has evidently been deceived, for he could not otherwise have agreed to anything so low as, for instance, publishing this scandal about his mother in Mr. Keller’s article. . . . But why are you getting angry again, gentlemen? We shall completely misunderstand each other. Why, it’s turned out to be as I thought! I am convinced now by what I see myself that my guess was correct,” Myshkin tried eagerly to persuade them, anxious to pacify their excitement, and not noticing that he was only increasing it.

“Convinced now of what?” Thev fell upon him almost in a fury.

“Why, in the first place, I’ve had time to see clearly what Mr. Burdovsky is myself, I see now myself what he is. . . . He is an innocent man, taken in by every one! A helpless man . . . and therefore I ought to spare him, and in the second place, Gavril Ardalionovitch — to whom the case has been entrusted and from whom I heard nothing for a long time, because I was travelling, and afterwards was for three days ill in Petersburg — has just now, an hour ago, at our first interview, told me that he has seen through Tchebarov’s schemes, that he has proofs, and that Tchebarov is just what I took him to be. I know, gentlemen, that many people look upon me as an idiot and, owing to my reputation for giving away money freely, Tchebarov thought that he could easily impose upon me, and he reckoned just on my feeling for Pavlishtchev. But the chief point is — hear me out, gentlemen, hear me out! — the chief point is that it appears now that Mr. Burdovsky is not a son of Pavlishtchev at all. Gavril Ardalionovitch has just told me, and he assures me that he has positive proof of it. Well, what do you think of that! One can scarcely believe it after all the to-do that has been made! And listen, there are positive proofs! I can’t believe it yet, I don’t believe it myself, I assure you I am still doubting, because Gavril Ardalionovitch has not had time to give me all the details yet, but that Tchebarov is a scoundrel there can be no doubt at all now! He has imposed upon poor Mr. Burdovsky and on all of you, gentlemen, who have so nobly come to support your friend (for he obviously needs support, I understand that, of course!); he has imposed upon all of you, and has involved you all in a fraudulent business, for you know it really is fraud, it’s swindling!”

“How swindling? . . . Not the son of Pavlishtchev? How is it possible?” exclamations were heard on all sides.

All Burdovsky’s party were in inexpressible perturbation.

“Yes, of course, it’s swindling! For if Mr. Burdovsky turns out to be not the son of Pavlishtchev, his claim is simply fraudulent (that is, of course, if he knew the truth); but the fact is he has been deceived, that’s why I insist on his character’s being cleared; that’s why I say that he deserves to be pitied for his simplicity, and can’t be left without help; if it were not so, he would be a scoundrel too. But I am convinced that he did not understand! I was just in the same state before I went to Switzerland; I too, used to mutter incoherently — one tries to express oneself and can’t. Understand that I can sympathise very well because I am almost the same, so I may be allowed to speak of it. And all the same — although there is no ‘son of Pavlishtchev,’ and it all turns out to be humbug — I haven’t changed my mind and am ready to give up ten thousand in memory of Pavlishtchev. Before Mr. Burdovsky came on the scene I meant to devote ten thousand to founding a school in memory of Pavlishtchev, but it makes no difference now whether it’s for a school or for Mr. Burdovsky, for though Mr. Burdovsky is not the son of Pavlishtchev, he is almost as good as a son of his, because he has been so wickedly deceived; he genuinely believed himself to be the son of Pavlishtchev! Listen to Gavril Ardalionovitch, friends, let us make an end of this, don’t be angry, don’t be excited, sit down! Gavril Ardalionovitch will explain everything to us directly, and I confess I shall be very glad to hear all the details myself. He says he has even been to Pskov to see your mother, Mr. Burdovsky, who hasn’t died at all, as they’ve made you say in the article. ... Sit down, gentlemen, sit down!”