Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (368 page)

and you depress me more than ever by the way you are always waving your hands and walking about on tiptoe.”

Myshkin hinted at the fact that, though Lebedyev chased away all his household on the pretext that quiet was necessary for the invalid, he had been coming in himself every minute, and always first opened the door, poked his head in, looked about the room, as though he wished to make sure that he was there and had not run away, and then slowly, on tiptoe, with stealthy steps, approached the armchair, so that he sometimes startled his lodger. He was continually inquiring if he wanted anything, and when Myshkin began asking him at last to leave him alone, he turned away obediently without a word, stole on tiptoe to the door, waving his hands at every step, as though to say that he had only just looked in, that he would not say a word, that he had already gone out and would not come back; yet within ten minutes, or at most a quarter of an hour, he would reappear. The fact that Kolya had free access to Myshkin was a source of the deepest mortification and even of resentful indignation to Lebedyev. Kolya noticed that Lebedvev used to stand at the door for half an hour at a time listening to what he and Myshkin were talking about, and of course he informed Myshkin of the fact.

“You seem to have appropriated me, since you keep me under lock and key,” Myshkin protested. “At the villa, anyway, I want it to be different; and, let me tell you, I shall see anyone I like and go anywhere I choose.”

“Without the faintest doubt!” Lebedyev protested, waving his hands.

Myshkin scanned him intently from head to foot.

“And have you brought the little cupboard here that was hanging at the head of your bed?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Have you left it there?”

“It was impossible to bring it, I should have to wrench it from the wall.... It’s fixed firmly, firmly.”

“But perhaps there’s another one like it here?”

“A better one — a better one! It was there when I bought the villa.”

“A-ah! Who was it you wouldn’t admit to see me an hour ago?”

“It. . . it was the general. It’s true I didn’t let him in,

and he ought not to come. I have a great respect for that man, prince, he ... he is a great man. Don’t you believe me? Well, you will see; but yet. . . it’s better, illustrious prince, for you not to receive him.”

“But why so, allow me to ask? And why are you standing on tiptoe now, Lebedyev, and why do you always approach me as though you wanted to whisper a secret in my ear?”

“I am abject, abject, I feel it,” Lebedyev replied unexpectedly, striking himself on the chest with feeling. “And won’t the general be too hospitable for you?”

“Too hospitable?”

“Yes, hospitable. To begin with, he is intending to live with me; that he might do, but he is always in extremes, he is claiming to be a relation at once. We’ve been into the question of relationship several times already; it appears that we are connected by marriage. You are a second cousin of his too, on the mother’s side; he explained it to me only yesterday. If you are his cousin, then you and I must be relations too, illustrious prince. That’s no matter, it’s a trifling weakness; but he assured me just now that all his life, ever since he was an ensign up to the eleventh of June last year, he had never sat down to dinner with less than two hundred people at his table. He went so far at last as to say they never got up from the table, so they had dinner and supper and tea for fifteen hours out of four-and-twenty for thirty years on end without a break, so that they scarcely had the time to change the tablecloths. One would get up and go, and another would come, and on holidays there would be as many as three hundred, and on the thousandth anniversary of the foundation of Russia he counted seven hundred people. It’s a passion with him; such assertions are a very bad symptom. One is quite afraid to have such hospitable people in one’s house, and I’ve been thinking, ‘Won’t a man like that be too hospitable for you and me?’”

“But you are on excellent terms with him, I believe?”

“We are like brothers, and I take it as a joke. Let us be connections. What does it matter? It’s an honour to me. Even through the two hundred people at dinner and the thousandth anniversary of Russia I can see he is a very remarkable man. I mean it sincerely. “Vbu have spoken about secrets just now —

that is, that I approach you every time as if I had a secret to tell you; and as it happens there is a secret. A person you know of has just sent word that she would very much like to have an interview with you in secret.”

“Why in secret? Not at all. I’ll go and see her myself today, if you like.”

“Not at all, not at all!” Lebedyev waved his hands in protest. “It’s not what you suppose that she is afraid of. By the way, the monster comes every day to ask after your health. Did you know it?”

“You really call him ‘monster’ so often it makes me quite suspicious.”

“You can feel no sort of suspicion — no sort of suspicion at all,” said Lebedyev, hurriedly dismissing the subject. “I only wanted to explain that a certain person is not afraid of him, but of something very different, very different.”

“Why, of what? Tell me quickly!” Myshkin questioned impatiently, looking at Lebedyev’s mysterious contortions.

“That’s the secret.” And Lebedyev laughed.

“Whose secret?”

“Your secret. You forbade me yourself to speak of it before you, most illustrious prince,” Lebedyev muttered; and having thoroughly enjoyed the fact that he had excited his hearer’s curiosity to painful impatience, he suddenly concluded: “She is afraid of Aglaia Ivanovna.”

Myshkin frowned and was silent for a minute.

“Oh dear, Lebedyev, I’ll give up your villa!” he said suddenly. “Where are the Ptitsyns, Gavril Ardalionovitch? You’ve enticed them away too.”

“They are coming — they are coming. And even General Ivolgin after them. I’ll open all the doors and I’ll call my daughters too — every one, every one, at once, at once,” Lebedyev whispered in alarm, brandishing his arms and rushing from one door to another.

At that moment Kolya entered the verandah from the street and announced that visitors — Madame Epanchin and her three daughters — were just coming to call.

“Shall I admit the Ptitsyns and Gavril Ardalionovitch, or not? Shall I admit the general or not?” said Lebedyev, skipping up, impressed by the news.

“Why not? Let anyone come who likes. I assure you, Lebedyev, you’ve had some wrong idea about my attitude from the very beginning; you are making a mistake all the time. I have not the slightest reason for hiding and concealing myself from anyone,” laughed Myshkin.

Looking at him, Lebedyev felt it his duty to laugh too. In spite of his great agitation, he also seemed extremely pleased.

The news brought by Kolya was true. He had come only a few steps in advance of the Epanchins to announce their arrival, so that the visitors arrived on the verandah from both sides at once: the Epanchins from the street, and the Ptitsyns, Ganya, and General Ivolgin from indoors.

The Epanchins had only just heard from Kolya that Myshkin was ill and that he was in Pavlovsk. Till then Madame Epanchin had been in painful perplexity. Two days before, the general had passed on Myshkin’s card to his family. The sight of that card awakened in Lizaveta Prokofyevna a firm conviction that Myshkin would promptly follow it to Pavlovsk to call on them. It was in vain that her daughters assured her that a man who had not written for six months would perhaps be far from being in such a hurry now, and that he very likely had a great deal to do in Petersburg apart from them. How could they know what he was about? Madame Epanchin was positively angry at these remarks and was ready to wager that Myshkin would make his appearance next day at latest, though even that would be rather late! The next day she had been expecting him all the morning; they expected him to dinner, to spend the evening, and when it got quite dark Lizaveta Prokofyevna was cross with everything and quarrelled with every one, making of course no allusion to Myshkin as the occasion of quarrel. Not one word was spoken of him on the third day either. When at dinner Aglaia let drop the remark that maman was angry because the prince had not come — to which her father immediately replied that it was not his fault — Lizaveta Prokofyevna got up and left the table in wrath. At last towards evening Kolya arrived and gave them a full description of all Myshkin’s adventures so far as he knew them. Lizaveta Prokofyevna was triumphant, but yet Kolya came in for a good scolding. “He hangs about here for days toqether and there’s no qettinq rid of him,

and now he might at least have let us know, if he did not think fit to come himself.” Kolya was on the point of being angry at the words “no getting rid of him,” but he put it off for another time; if the phrase had not been too offensive, he would perhaps have forgiven it altogether, for he was so pleased with Lizaveta Prokofyevna’s agitation and anxiety on hearing of Myshkin’s illness. She insisted for a long time on the necessity of sending a special messenger to Petersburg to get hold of a medical celebrity of the first magnitude and to carry him away by the first train. But her daughters dissuaded her from this. They were unwilling, however, to be left behind by their mamma when she instantly got ready to visit the invalid.

“He is on his death-bed,” said Lizaveta Prokofyevna in a fluster, “and fancy our standing on ceremony! Is he a friend of the family or not?”

“But we mustn’t rush in before we know how the land lies,” observed Aglaia.

“Very well, then, don’t come. You will do well indeed; if Yevgeny Pavlovitch comes, there will be no one to receive him.”

At those words Aglaia, of course, set off at once with the others; though indeed she had intended to do so before. Prince S. who had been sitting with Adelaida, at her request instantly agreed to escort the ladies. He had been much interested when he heard of Myshkin from the Epanchins before, at the very beginning of his acquaintance with them. It appeared that he was acquainted with him; that they had met somewhere lately and had spent a fortnight together in some little town three months before. Prince S. had told them a great deal about Myshkin, indeed, and had spoken of him in a very friendly way; so it was with genuine pleasure that he went to call on him. General Epanchin was not at home that evening; Yevgeny Pavlovitch had not yet arrived either.

It was not more than three hundred paces to Lebedyev’s villa. Lizaveta Prokofyevna’s first disappointment was to find quite a party of visitors with Myshkin, to say nothing of the fact that among them were two or three persons for whom she had a positive hatred. Her second disappointment was the surprise of finding a young man to all appearance in perfect health and fashionably dressed, who came to meet them laughing, instead of the invalid whom she had expected to find on his death-bed. She actually stopped short in bewilderment, to the intense delight of Kolya, who of course might perfectly well have explained before she set out that no one was dying and that it was not a case of a death-bed. But he had not explained it, slyly foreseeing the comic wrath of Madame Epanchin when, as he reckoned, she would certainly be angry at finding Myshkin, for whom she had real affection, in good health. Kolya was so tactless, indeed, as to speak of his surmise aloud, so as to put the finishing touch to Lizaveta Prokofyevna’s irritation. He was always sparring with her, and sometimes very maliciously, in spite of their affection for one another.

“Wait a bit, my young friend, don’t be in a hurry! Don’t spoil your triumph,” answered Lizaveta Prokofyevna, sitting down in the armchair that Myshkin set for her.

Lebedyev, Ptitsyn and General Ivolgin flew to put chairs for the young ladies. General Ivolgin gave Aglaia a chair. Lebedyev set a chair for Prince S. too, expressing profound respectfulness by the very curve of his back as he did so. Varya greeted the young ladies as usual in an ecstatic whisper.

“It’s the truth, prince, that I expected to find you almost in bed. I exaggerated things so in my fright, and I am not going to tell a lie about it. I felt dreadfully vexed just now at the sight of your happy face, but I swear it was only for a minute, before I had time to think. I always act and speak more sensibly when I have time to think. I think it’s the same with you. And yet really I should be less pleased perhaps at the recovery of my own son than I am at yours; and if you don’t believe me, the shame is yours and not mine. And this spiteful boy dares to play worse jokes than this at my expense. I believe he is a protege of yours; so I warn you that one fine morning I shall deny myself the pleasure of enjoying the honour of his further acquaintance.”

“But what have I done?” cried Kolya. “However much I had assured you that the prince was almost well again, you would not have been willing to believe me, because it was much more interesting to imagine him lying on his death-bed.”

“Have you come to us for long?” Lizaveta Prokofyevna asked Myshkin.

“The whole summer, and perhaps longer.”

“You are alone, aren’t you? Not married?”

“No, not married,” Myshkin smiled at the simplicity of the taunt.

“There’s nothing to smile at; it does happen. I was thinking of this villa. Why haven’t you come to us? We have a whole wing empty. But do as you like. Have you hired it from him? That person?” she added in an undertone, nodding at Lebedyev. “Why does he wriggle about like that?”

At that moment Vera came out of the house on to the verandah as usual with the baby in her arms. Lebedyev, who was wriggling around the chairs at a complete loss what to do with himself and desperately anxious not to go, immediately flew at Vera. He gesticulated at her and chased her off the verandah and, forgetting himself, even stamped with his feet.

“He is mad?” observed Madame Epanchin suddenly.

“No, he is ...”

“Drunk, perhaps? Your party is not attractive,” she snapped, after glancing at the other guests also. “But what a nice girl, though! Who is she?”

“That’s Vera Lukyanovna, the daughter of Lebedyev here.”

“Ah! . . . She is very sweet. I should like to make her acquaintance.”

But Lebedyev, hearing Madame Epanchin’s words of approval, was already dragging his daughter forward to present her.