Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (358 page)

“Yours, my joy! Yours, my queen!”

“Then all stand back, I may do what I like! Don’t interfere! Ferdyshtchenko, make up the fire!”

“Nastasya Filippovna, I can’t raise my hands to it,” answered Ferdyshtchenko, dumbfounded.

“Ech!” cried Nastasya Filippovna. She snatched up the tongs, separated two smouldering chunks of wood, and as soon as the fire flared up, she flung the bundle into it.

There was an outcry from all the party; many even crossed themselves.

“She’s gone out of her mind! She is mad!” they shouted.

“Oughtn’t we . . . oughtn’t we ... to tie her up?” the general whispered to Ptitsyn, “or send for the . . . She is mad, isn’t she, isn’t she?”

“N-no, perhaps it isn’t quite madness,” Ptitsyn whispered, trembling and white as a handkerchief, unable to take his eyes off the smouldering roll of notes.

“She is mad! She’s mad, isn’t she?” the general persisted to Totsky.

“As I told you, she is a woman of glaring effects,” muttered Afanasy Ivanovitch, also somewhat pale.

“But come, you know, it’s a hundred thousand!”

“Good heavens!” was heard on all sides. Every one crowded round the fireplace, everyone pressed forward to see, every one exclaimed. Some even jumped on chairs to look over each other’s heads. Darya Alexeyevna whisked away into the other room and whispered in alarm with Katya and Pasha. The beautiful German had fled.

“Madam! Royal lady! Omnipotent lady!” wailed Lebedyev, crawling on his knees in front of Nastasya Filippovna, stretching out his hands to the fire. “A hundred thousand — a hundred thousand! I saw the notes myself, they were rolled up before me. Lady! Gracious lady! Tell me to pick them out! I’ll get right in, I’ll put my grey head in! . . . My wife is sick and bedridden; I’ve thirteen children, all orphans; I buried my father last week, he had nothing to eat, Nastasya Filippovna!”

And he tried to get to the fire.

“Get away!” cried Nastasya Filippovna, shoving him off. “All stand back! Ganya, why are you standing still? Don’t be shy, pick it out! It’s your luck!”

But Ganya had suffered too much that day and was not ready for this last unexpected ordeal. The crowd parted in front of him and he remained face to face with Nastasya Filippovna, three steps from her. She was standing close by the fire, waiting, with intent, glowing eyes fixed upon him. Ganya stood in his evening dress with his arms folded and his gloves and hat in his hand, gazing mutely at the fire. A frenzied smile strayed on his chalk-white face. It is true that he couldn’t take his eyes off the fire, off the smouldering roll of notes; but something new seemed to have risen up in his soul: he seemed to have vowed to endure the ordeal. He did not move from his place. In a few instants it became clear to everyone that he was not going to touch the notes.

“I say, if it’s burnt they’ll all cry shame on you!” Nastasya Filippovna shouted to him. “You’ll hang yourself afterwards! lam in earnest.”

The fire which had flamed up at first between two smouldering brands was smothered by the bundle being thrown onto it. But a little blue flame still lingered on the lower side at the end of one log. At last the long thin tongue of flame licked the bundle too; the fire caught it and ran upwards at the corners. Suddenly the whole bundle flared up in the fireplace and a bright flame shot up. Every one drew a deep breath.

“Lady!” Lebedyev vociferated again, pushing forward; but Rogozhin dragged and pushed him back once more.

Rogozhin seemed petrified in a fixed stare at Nastasya Filippovna. He could not take his eyes off her; he was drunk with delight, he was in the seventh heaven.

“That’s like a queen!” he kept repeating, addressing himself to everyone near. “That’s style!” he kept shouting, beside himself. “Which of you pickpockets would do a thing like that, eh?”

Myshkin looked on, mournful and silent.

“I’d pull it out with my teeth for a paltry thousand,” suggested Ferdyshtchenko.

“I could pull it out with my teeth too,” the fisted gentleman groaned in the rear, in genuine despair. “D-damn it all! It’s burning, it’s all on fire!” he shouted, seeing the flame.

“It’s burning — it’s burning!” they all cried with one voice, almost every one making a dash to the fire.

“Ganya, don’t show off! For the last time I say it!”

“Pick it out!” roared Ferdyshtchenko, rushing to Ganya in a positive frenzy and pulling him by the sleeve. “Pull it out, you conceited jackanapes! It’ll be burnt! Oh, d-damn you!”

Ganya pushed Ferdyshtchenko violently away, turned, and walked to the door. But before he had taken two steps, he staggered and fell in a heap on the floor.

“Fainting!” they cried.

“Dear lady, it will be burnt!” wailed Lebedyev.

“It’ll burn for nothing!” they were roaring on all sides.

“Katya, Pasha, water for him, spirit!” shouted Nastasya Filippovna.

She picked up the tongs and pulled out the notes. All the outside wrappings were burnt and in ashes, but it could be seen at once that the inside of the roll was untouched. The bundle was wrapped up in three thicknesses of newspaper and the notes were unhurt. Everyone breathed more freely.

“Only a poor little thousand spoiled perhaps and the rest are all safe,” Lebedyev commented with great feeling.

“It’s all his! The whole roll is his! Do you hear, friends?” Nastasya Filippovna declared, laying the roll of notes beside Ganya. “He wouldn’t do it, he stood the test, so his vanity is even qreater than his love of money. It’s no matter, he’ll come to. But for this he might have murdered some one. . . . There, he’s coming to himself. General, Ivan Petrovitch, Darya Alexeyevna, Katya, Pasha, Rogozhin, do you hear? The notes are his — Ganya’s. I give it him to do as he likes with, as compensation for. . . whatever it is! Tell him! Let it lie there by him. . . . Rogozhin, march! Good-bye, prince! You are the first man I have seen in my life! Good-bye, Afanasy Ivanovitch, mercit’

The crowd of Rogozhin’s followers passed through the rooms to the front door after Rogozhin and Nastasya Filippovna, with hubbub, clamour and shouts. In the hall the maids gave her her fur coat; the cook Marfa ran in from the kitchen. Nastasya Filippovna kissed them all.

“But can you be leaving us altogether, dear lady? But where are you going? And on your birthday, too, such a day!” the weeping girls asked, kissing her hands.

“To the gutter, Katya — you heard that’s my proper place — or else to be a washerwoman. I’ve done with Afanasy Ivanovitch. Greet him for me, and don’t remember evil against me....”

Myshkin rushed headlong to the street door, where all the party were getting into four troikas with bells. General Epanchin succeeded in overtaking him on the staircase.

“Pray think what you are doing, prince!” he said, seizing his arm. “Give it up! You see what she is. I speak as a father.”

Myshkin looked at him, but without uttering a word broke away and ran downstairs.

At the street door, from which the troikas had just started, the general saw Myshkin call the first sledge and shout to the driver: “To Ekaterinhof; follow the troikas!” Then the general’s grey horse drew up and the general drove home with new hopes and plans and the pearls, which in spite of everything he had not forgotten to take with him. Among his plans the fascinating figure of Nastasya Filippovna flitted two or three times. The general sighed.

“I am sorry — genuinely sorry. She is a lost woman! A mad woman! .. . But the prince is not for Nastasya Filippovna now ... so it’s perhaps a good thing it’s turned out as it has.”

A few edifying words summing up the situation were uttered by two guests of Nastasya Filippovna’s, who decided to walk a little way.

“Do you know, Afanasy Ivanovitch, they say something of the sort is done among the Japanese,” observed Ivan Petrovitch Ptitsyn. “They say any one who has received an insult goes to his enemy and says, ‘\bu have wronged me, and in revenge I’ve come to cut open my stomach before you,’ and with those words actually does rip open his stomach before his enemy, and probably feels great satisfaction in doing so, as though it really were a vengeance. There are strange people in the world, Afanasy Ivanovitch!”

“And you think there was something of the sort in this case, too?” Totsky responded, with a smile. “Hm! . . . That’s clever, though . . . and you’ve made an excellent comparison. But you’ve seen for yourself, my dear Ivan Petrovitch, that I’ve done all I could; I can’t do more than I can, you’ll admit. But you must admit too that that woman has some first-rate points .. . some brilliant qualities. I felt tempted to cry out to her, if only I could have demeaned myself to do it in that Bedlam, that she herself is my best apology for all her accusations. Who wouldn’t have been fascinated sometimes by that woman so that he would forget reason and . . . everything? “Vbu see, that lout Rogozhin plumped down his load of money at her feet! True, all that happened just now was something ephemeral, romantic and unseemly; but there was colour in it and originality, you must admit that. My God, what might not be made of such a character, with such beauty! But in spite of all effort, in spite of her education even — it’s all lost! She is an uncut diamond — I’ve said so several times.”

And Afanasy Ivanovitch sighed deeply.

PART TWO

CHAPTER 1

Two DAYS after the strange incident at Nastasya Filippovna’s party with which we concluded the first part of our story, Prince Myshkin was hurrying on his way to Moscow to receive his unexpected fortune. It was said that there might be other reasons for his hasty departure; but of this and of Myshkin’s adventures during his absence from Petersburg we can give little information. Myshkin was away just six months, and even those who had reason to be interested in his fate could find out very little at that time. Though rumours did reach them indeed at rare intervals, they were for the most part strange ones and almost always contradictory. The Epanchin family, of course, took more interest in Myshkin than any one else, though he went away without even taking leave of them. General Epanchin did see him two or three times; they had some serious conversation. But though the general saw him, he did not mention it to his family. And indeed at first, for almost a month after Myshkin had gone, his name was avoided by the Epanchins altogether. Only Madame Epanchin had pronounced at the very beginning “that she had been cruelly mistaken in the prince.” Then two or three days later she added vaguely, not mentioning Myshkin’s name, “that the most striking thing in her life was the way she was continually being mistaken in people.” And finally, ten days later, she wound up by adding sententiously when she was vexed with her daughters, “We have made mistakes enough. We’ll have no more of them.”

We must add that for some time there was rather an unpleasant feeling in the house. There was a sense of oppression, of strain, of some unspoken dissension; every one wore a frown. The general was busy day and night, absorbed in his work. His household hardly got a glimpse of him; he had rarely been seen more active and occupied, especially in his official work. As for the young ladies, no word was spoken by them openly. Perhaps even when they were alone together, very little was said. They were proud, haughty girls and reserved even with one another, though they understood each other not only at a word but at a glance, so that sometimes there was no need to say much.

There was only one conclusion that might have been drawn by a disinterested observer, if there had happened to be such a one — namely, that to judge from the above-mentioned facts, few as they were, Myshkin had succeeded in making a marked impression on the Epanchin family, though he had only been once among them, and then for a short time. Perhaps the feeling he had inspired was simply curiosity aroused by certain eccentric adventures of Myshkin’s. However that might be, the impression remained.

Little by little, the rumours that had circulated about the town were lost in the darkness of uncertainty. A story was told indeed of some little prince who was a simpleton (no one could be sure of his name), who had suddenly come into a vast fortune and married a Frenchwoman, a notorious dancer of the cancan from the Chateau-de-Fleurs in Paris. But others declared that it was a general who had come in for a fortune, and that the man who had married the notorious French cancan dancer was a young Russian merchant of untold wealth, and that at his wedding, from pure bravado, he had when drunk burnt in a candle lottery tickets to the value of seven hundred thousand roubles. But all these rumours soon died away, a result to which circumstances greatly contributed. All Rogozhin’s followers, for instance, many of whom might have had something to say, had all gone in his wake to Moscow, a week after an awful orgy at the Ekaterinhof Vauxhall, in which Nastasya Filippovna took part. The few persons who were interested in the subject learnt from certain reports that Nastasya Filippovna had run off and disappeared the day after this orgy, and she seems to have been traced to Moscow; so that Rogozhin’s departure to Moscow seemed to fall in with this rumour.

There were rumours too with regard to Gavril Ardalionovitch Ivolgin, who was also pretty well known in his own circle. But something happened to him which quickly softened and in the end completely stopped all unpleasant stories about him: he fell seriously ill and unable to go to his office, much less into society. He recovered after a month’s illness, but for some reason resigned his position in the office of the joint stock company and was replaced by another man. He had not once been to the Epanchins’ house either; so another clerk undertook the duties of secretary to the general. Gavril Ardalionovitch’s enemies might have assumed that he was so crestfallen at all that had happened to him as to be ashamed to go out into the street; but he was really ill, and sank into a state of hypochondria; he grew moody and irritable. Varvara Ardalionovna was married to Ptitsyn that winter. All who knew them put the marriage down to the fact that Ganya was unwilling to return to his duties, and was not only unable to keep his family, but was even in need of assistance and almost of care himself.

It may be observed in parenthesis that no mention was made in the Epanchin family of Gavril Ardalionovitch either, as though such a man had never been seen in their house, nor had indeed existed in the world at all. “Vfet meantime everyone in the family learnt — and very shortly indeed — one remarkable fact concerning him. On the fatal night after his unpleasant experience with Nastasya Filippovna, Ganya did not go to bed on returning home, but awaited Myshkin’s return with feverish impatience. Myshkin, who had gone to Ekaterinhof, came home at six o’clock next morning. Then Ganya went into his room and laid on the table before him the roll of scorched notes presented to him by Nastasya Filippovna while he lay fainting. He begged Myshkin to give this present back to her at the first opportunity. When Ganya went into Myshkin’s room, he was in a hostile and almost desperate mood; but some words must have been exchanged between them, after which Ganya stayed two hours with Myshkin, sobbing bitterly all the time. They parted on affectionate terms.