Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (424 page)

A hum of voices greeted her appearance. For the first moment, it is true, there were sounds of laughter, applause, even perhaps hisses, but within a moment another note was heard.

“What a beauty!” they exclaimed in the crowd.

“She’s not the first and she won’t be the last.”

“She’ll cover it all up with the wedding ring.”

“You won’t find a beauty like that again in a hurry. Hurrah!” cried those standing nearest.

“A princess! For a princess like that I’d sell my soul,” cried a clerk. ‘“One night at the price of a life!’” he quoted.

Nastasya Filippovna certainly was as white as a handkerchief when she came out, but her great black eyes glowed upon the crowd like burning coals. The crowd could not stand against them. Indignation was transformed into cries of enthusiasm. The door of the carriage was already open, Keller had already offered the bride his arm, when suddenly she uttered a cry and rushed straight into the crowd. All who were accompanying her were petrified with amazement. The crowd parted to make way for her, and five or six paces from the steps Rogozhin suddenly appeared. Nastasya Filippovna had caught his eyes in the crowd. She rushed at him like a mad creature and seized him by both arms.

“Save me! Take me away! Where you will, at once!”

Rogozhin seized her in his arms and almost carried her to the carriage. Then in a flash he pulled out a hundred-rouble note and gave it to the driver.

“To the railway station, and if you catch the train, there’s another hundred for you.”

And he leapt into the carriage after Nastasya Filippovna and closed the door. The coachman did not hesitate for one moment and whipped up his horses. Keller pleaded afterwards that he was taken by surprise: “Another second and I should have come to, and I wouldn’t have let them go!” he explained, describing the adventure. He and Burdovsky would have taken another carriage that stood by and have rushed off in pursuit, but reflected as he was starting that “it was in any case too late, and one couldn’t bring her back by force!”

“And the prince won’t wish it!” decided Burdovsky, greatly agitated.

Rogozhin and Nastasya Filippovna galloped to the station in time. After they had got out of the carriage, and when Rogozhin was on the point of stepping into the train he had time to stop a girl who was wearing an old but decent dark mantle and a silk kerchief on her head.

“Would you like fifty roubles for your mantle?” he cried, suddenly holding out the money to the girl. While she was still lost in amazement and trying to take it in, he had already thrust the fifty-rouble note into her hand, pulled off the mantle and kerchief, and flung them on the shoulders and head of Nastasya Filippovna. Her gorgeous array was too conspicuous, would have attracted attention on the journey, and it was only afterwards that the girl understood why her old and worthless mantle had been bought at so much profit to herself.

A rumour of what had happened reached the church with astounding rapidity. When Keller hurried to the prince, numbers of people whom he did not know rushed up to question him. There was loud talking, shaking of heads, and even laughter. No one left the church. Every one waited to see how the bridegroom would take the news. He turned pale, but received the news quietly, saying hardly anything.

“I was afraid, but yet I didn’t think this would happen. . . .”And then, after a brief silence, he added: “However... in her condition . . . this is the natural order of things.” This comment even Keller spoke of afterwards as “unexampled philosophy”

Myshkin came out of the church apparently calm and confident, so at least many people noticed and said afterwards. He seemed very anxious to get home and to be alone, but he was not allowed. He was followed into his room by several of the guests who had been invited — Ptitsyn, Gavril Ardalionovitch, and the doctor, who, like the others, seemed indisposed to go home. Moreover, the whole house was literally besieged by an idle crowd. From the verandah Myshkin could hear Keller and Lebedyev in angry dispute with some persons who were complete strangers, though they seemed to be of good position, and were bent on entering the verandah at any cost. Myshkin went out to the disputants, inquired what was the matter, and politely waving aside Lebedyev and Keller, he courteously addressed a stout, grey-headed gentleman who was standing on the steps at the head of a group of others, and invited him to honour him with a visit. The gentleman was somewhat disconcerted, but came in all the same, and after him came a second and a third. Out of the whole crowd seven or eight came in, trying to be as much at their ease as possible in doing so. But it turned out that no more were eager to join them, and they soon began censuring those intruders, who sat down, while a conversation sprang up and tea was offered. All this was done very modestly and decorously, to the considerable surprise of the new arrivals. There were, of course, some attempts to enliven the conversation and turn it to the theme lying uppermost in their minds. A few indiscreet questions were asked, a few risky remarks made. Myshkin answered every one so simply and cordially, yet with so much dignity, with such confidence in the good breeding of his guests, that indiscreet questions died away of themselves. Little by little the conversation became almost serious. One gentleman, catching at a word, suddenly swore with intense indignation that he would not sell his property, whatever happened; that on the contrary he would hang on and on and that “enterprise was better than money.”

“There, my dear sir, you have my system of economy, and I don’t mind your knowing it.” As he was addressing Myshkin, the latter warmly commended his intention, though Lebedyev whispered in his ear that this gentleman had neither house nor home, and never had had a property of any kind. Almost an hour passed, tea was finished, and after tea the visitors began to be ashamed to stay longer. The doctor and the grey-headed gentleman took a warm farewell of Myshkin, and they all said good-bye with noisy heartiness. Good wishes were expressed, and the opinion that “it was no use grieving, and that maybe it was all for the best,” and so on. Attempts were made, indeed, to ask for champagne, but the older guests checked the younger ones. When all were gone, Keller bent over to Lebedyev and informed him, “You and I would have made a row, had a fight, disgraced ourselves, have dragged in the police; but he’s made a lot of new friends — and what friends! I know them!” Lebedyev, who was a little “elevated,” sighed, and articulated, “Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.’ I said so about him before, but now I’ll add that God has saved the babe himself from the bottomless pit, He and His saints!”

At last, about half-past ten, Myshkin was left alone. His head was aching. Kolya had helped him change his wedding clothes for his everyday suit, and was the last to leave. They parted very warmly. Kolya did not speak about what had happened, but promised to come early next day. He bore witness afterwards that Myshkin had given him no hint at their last parting, and so concealed his intentions even from him. Soon there was scarcely anyone left in the house. Burdovsky went off to Ippolit’s. Keller and Lebedyev went away too. Only Vera Lebedyev remained for some time in Myshkin’s rooms, hurriedly restoring them to their usual order. As she went out, she glanced at Myshkin. He was sitting with both elbows on the table and his head hidden in his hands. She went softly up to him and touched him on the shoulder. Myshkin looked at her in surprise, and for a minute seemed trying to remember. But recollecting and recognising everything, he suddenly became extremely agitated, though all he did was to beg Vera very earnestly to knock at his door early next morning, at seven o’clock, in time to catch the first train. Vera promised. Myshkin begged her eagerly not to speak of this to anyone. She promised that too, and at last when she opened the door to go Myshkin stopped her for the third time, and took her hands, kissed them, then kissed her on her forehead, and with rather a “peculiar” air, said, “Til to-morrow!” So at least Vera described it afterwards. She went away in great anxiety about him. She felt rather more cheerful in the morning, when at seven o’clock she knocked at his door as agreed and informed him that the train for Petersburg would leave in a quarter of an hour. It seemed to her that he answered her quite in good spirits, and even with a smile. He had hardly undressed that night, though he had slept. He thought he might be back that day. It appeared therefore that he had thought it possible and necessary to tell no one but her at that moment that he was going to town.

CHAPTER 11

An HOUR later he was already in Petersburg and soon after nine he was ringing at Rogozhin’s door. He went in at the visitors’ entrance and for a long time there was no answer. At last the door of the flat occupied by Rogozhin’s mother was opened and a trim-looking old servant appeared.

“Parfyon Semyonovitch is not at home,” she announced from the door. “Whom do you want?”

“Parfyon Semyonovitch!”

“He is not at home.”

The old servant looked at Myshkin with wild curiosity.

“Tell me, anyway, did he sleep at home last night? And ... did he come back alone yesterday?”

The old woman went on looking at him but made no reply.

“Wasn’t Nastasya Filippovna with him here . . . last night?”

“But allow me to ask who may you be pleased to be?”

“Prince Lyov Nikolayevitch Myshkin, we are very intimate friends.”

“He is not at home.”

The woman dropped her eyes.

“And Nastasya Filippovna?”

“I know nothing about that.”

“Stay, stay! When is he coming back?”

“We know nothing of that either.”

The door was closed.

Myshkin determined to come back in an hour’s time. Glancing into the yard he saw the porter.

“Is Parfyon Semyonovitch at home?”

“Yes.”

“How is it I was told just now that he was not at home?”

“Did his servant tell you that?”

“No, the servant at his mother’s. I rang at Parfyon Semyonovitch’s, but there was no answer.”

“Perhaps he’s gone out,” the porter commented.

“You see, he doesn’t say. And sometimes he takes the key away with him; the rooms are locked up for three days at a time.”

“Do you know for a fact that he was at home yesterday?”

“Yes, he was. Sometimes he goes in at the front door and one doesn’t see him.”

“And was Nastasya Filippovna with him yesterday?”

“That I can’t say. She doesn’t often come; I think we should know if she had been.”

Myshkin went out and for some time walked up and down the pavement lost in thought. The windows of the rooms occupied by Rogozhin were all closed; the windows of the part inhabited by his mother were almost all open. It was a hot, bright day. Myshkin crossed to the pavement on the other side of the street and stopped to look once more at the windows. They were not only closed, but almost everywhere hung with white curtains.

He stood still a moment, and strange to say it suddenly seemed to him that the corner of one curtain was lifted and he caught a glimpse of Rogozhin’s face, a momentary glimpse and it vanished. He waited a little longer and resolved to go back and ring again, but on second thought he put it off for one hour. “And who knows perhaps it was only my fancy....”

What decided him was that he was in haste to get to the Izamailovsky Polk, to the lodging Nastasya Filippovna had lately occupied. He knew that when, at his request, she had left Pavlovsk three weeks before, she had settled in the house of a friend of hers, the widow of a teacher, an estimable lady with a family, who let well-furnished rooms, and in fact almost made her living by doing so. It was highly probable that, when Nastasya Filippovna moved for the second time to Pavlovsk, she had kept her lodging; it was very likely in any case that she had spent the night at those lodgings where Rogozhin, of course, would have brought her that evening. Myshkin took a cab. On the way it struck him that he ought to have begun by doing this, because it was unlikely she should have gone at night straight to Rogozhin’s. He remembered the porter’s words that Nastasya Filippovna did not often come. If she did not at any time come often, what would have induced her to stav at Roqozhin’s now? Comfortinq himself with these reflections, Myshkin reached the lodgings at last more dead than alive.

To his great amazement at the widow’s they had heard nothing of Nastasya Filippovna either that day or the day before, but they all ran out to stare at him, as at a wonder. The lady’s numerous family — all girls of every age between seven and fifteen — ran out after their mother and surrounded Myshkin, gaping. They were followed by a lean, yellow-faced aunt, and last of all the grandmother, a very aged lady in spectacles. The lady of the house earnestly begged him to go in and sit down, which Myshkin did. He saw at once that they knew quite well who he was and that his wedding was to have taken place the day before, and that they were dying to ask about the wedding and about the marvellous fact that he was inquiring of them for the woman, who should have been at that moment with him at Pavlovsk, but had too much delicacy to ask. In brief outlines he satisfied their curiosity about the wedding. Cries and exclamations of wonder and dismay followed, so that he was obliged to tell almost the whole story, in outline only, of course. Finally, the council of the sage and agitated ladies determined that the first thing certainly was to knock at Rogozhin’s till he got an answer and to find out positively from him about everything. If he were not at home (and that he must ascertain for certain), or if he were unwilling to say, the prince should go to a German lady living with her mother at Semyonovsky Polk, who was a friend of Nastasya Filippovna’s; possibly Nastasya Filippovna, in her excitement and desire to conceal herself, might have passed the night with them.

Myshkin got up completely crushed; they said afterwards that he had turned fearfully pale; indeed, his legs were almost giving way under him. At last, through the terrible shrill patter of their voices, he made out that they were arranging to act with him and were asking for his address in town. He had no address, it appeared; they advised him to put up at some hotel. Myshkin thought a moment and gave the address of the hotel he had stayed at before, the one where he had had a fit five weeks before. Then he set off again to Rogozhin’s. This time he failed to get an answer, not only from Rogozhin’s, but even from his mother’s flat. Myshkin went in search of the porter and with some difficulty found him in the yard; the porter was busy and hardly answered him, hardly looked at him in fact. “Vfet he asserted positively that Parfyon Semyonovitch had gone out very early in the morning, had gone to Pavlovsk, and would not be home that day.