Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (414 page)

“Did you go to Lizaveta Prokofyevna in the condition you’re in now?” Myshkin inquired with disgust.

“No, I was fresher, more decent. It was only after my humiliation that I got... into this state.”

“Well, that’s enough. Leave me.”

But he had to repeat this request several times before he could induce his visitor to go. Even after he had opened the door, he came back on tip-toe into the middle of the room and gesticulated with his hands to show how to open the letter. He did not venture to put his advice into words. Then he went out with a suave and amiable smile.

All this had been extremely painful to hear. What was most evident was one striking fact: that Aglaia was in great trouble, great uncertainty, in great distress about something. (“From jealousy,” Myshkin whispered to himself.) It was evident also that she was being worried by ill-intentioned people, and what was very strange was that she trusted them in this way. No doubt that inexperienced but hot and proud little head was hatching some special schemes, perhaps ruinous, and utterly wild. Myshkin was greatly alarmed, and in his perturbation did not know what to decide upon. There was no doubt he must do something, he felt that. He looked once more at the address on the sealed letter. Oh, he had no doubt and no uneasiness on that side, for he trusted her. What made him uneasy about that letter was somethinq different. He did not trust Gavril Ardalionovitch. And yet he was on the point of deciding to restore him the letter himself, and he even left the house with that object, but he changed his mind on the way. Almost at Ptitsyn’s door, by good fortune he met Kolya, and charged him to put the letter into his brother’s hands as though it had come straight from Aglaia Ivanovna. Kolya asked no questions and delivered it, so that Ganya had no suspicion that the letter had halted so many times upon its journey. Returning home, Myshkin asked Vera Lebedyev to come to him, told her what was necessary, and set her mind at rest, for she had been all this time hunting for the letter, and was in tears. She was horrified when she learned that her father had carried off the letter. (Myshkin found out from her afterwards that she had more than once helped Rogozhin and Aglaia Ivanovna in secret, and it had never occurred to her that she could be injuring Myshkin in doing so.)

And Myshkin was at last so upset that when, two hours later, a messenger from Kolya ran in with the news of his father’s illness, for the first minute the prince could not grasp what was the matter. But this event restored him by completely distracting his attention. He stayed at Nina Alexandrovna’s (where the invalid, of course, had been carried) right up to the evening. He was scarcely of any use, but there are people whom one is, for some reason, glad to have about one in times of grief. Kolya was terribly distressed, he cried hysterically, but was continually being sent on errands: he ran for a doctor and hunted up three; ran to the chemist’s and to the barber’s. They succeeded in resuscitating the general, but he did not regain his senses. The doctors opined that the patient was in any case in danger. Varya and Nina Alexandrovna never left the sick man’s side. Ganya was disconcerted and overcome, but would not go upstairs, and seemed afraid to see the invalid; he wrung his hands, and in incoherent and disconnected talk with Myshkin he let drop the phrase, “What a calamity, and to come at such a moment!”

Myshkin fancied he understood what he meant by “such a moment.” Myshkin did not find Ippolit at Ptitsyn’s. Lebedyev, who after the morning’s “explanation” had slept all day without waking, ran in towards evening. Now he was almost sober and shed genuine tears over the sick man, as though he had been his own brother. He blamed himself aloud without explaining why, and would not leave Nina Alexandrovna, assuring her every moment that “he, he was the cause of it; he and no one else . .. simply from agreeable curiosity,” and that the “departed” (so he persisted in calling the still living general) was positively “a man of genius!” He insisted with great seriousness on his genius, as though it might be of extraordinary service at that moment. Seeing his genuine tears, Nina Alexandrovna said to him at last with a note of reproach, and almost with cordiality, “Well, God bless you! Don’t cry. Come, God will forgive you!” Lebedyev was so much impressed by these words and the tone of them that he was unwilling to leave her side all the evening (and all the following days, from early morning till the hour of the general’s death, he spent in their house). Twice during the day a messenger came from Lizaveta Prokofyevna to inquire after the invalid.

When at nine o’clock in the evening Myshkin made his appearance in the Epanchins’ drawing-room, which was already full of guests, Lizaveta Prokofyevna at once began questioning him sympathetically and minutely about the patient, and replied with dignity to Princess Byelokonsky’s inquiry, “What patient, and who is Nina Alexandrovna?” Myshkin was much pleased at this. Explaining the position to Madame Epanchin he spoke “splendidly,” as Aglaia’s sisters said afterwards, “modestly, quietly, with dignity and without gestures or too many words.” He walked in admirably, was perfectly dressed, and farfrom falling down on the slippery floor, as they had all been afraid the day before, evidently made a favourable impression on everyone.

Sitting down and looking round, he for his part noticed at once that the company were not in the least like the bogies with which Aglaia had tried to frighten him, nor the nightmare figures of his last night’s dreams. For the first time in his life he saw a tiny corner of what is called by the dreadful name “society.” For some time past certain projects, considerations and inclinations had made him eager to penetrate into that enchanted circle, and so he was deeply interested by his first impression of it. This first impression was fascinating. It somehow seemed to him at once as thouqh these people were, so to speak, born to be together; as though it were not a “party” and no guests had been invited that evening to the Epanchins’; that these were all “their own people,” and that he himself had long been their devoted friend and shared their thoughts, and was now returning to them after a brief separation. The charm of elegant manners, of simplicity, and of apparent frankness was almost magical. It could never have entered his head that all this simple frankness and nobility, wit, and refined personal dignity was perhaps only an exquisite artistic veneer. The majority of the guests, in spite of their prepossessing exterior, were rather empty-headed people, who were themselves unaware, however, that much of their superiority was mere veneer, for which they were not responsible indeed, as they had adopted it unconsciously and by inheritance. Myshkin, carried away by the charm of his first impression, had no inclination to suspect this. He saw, for instance, that this important and aged dignitary, who might have been his grandfather, ceased speaking in order to listen to an inexperienced young man like himself; and not only listened to him, but evidently valued his opinion, was so cordial, so genuinely kind to him, and yet they were strangers, meeting for the first time. Perhaps the refinement of this courtesy was what produced the most effect on Myshkin’s eager sensitiveness. He was perhaps prejudiced and predisposed to favourable impression.

And yet all these people — though of course they were “friends of the family” and one another — were by no means such great friends either of the family or of one another as Myshkin took them to be, as soon as he met them and was introduced to them. There were persons of the party who would never on any account have recognised the Epanchins as their equals. There were persons who absolutely detested one another: old Princess Byelokonsky had always “despised” the wife of the “old dignitary”; while the latter for her part had anything but friendly feelings for Lizaveta Prokofyevna. This “dignitary,” her husband, who for some reason had been a patron of the Epanchins from their youth up, and was the leading figure present, was a personage of such vast consequence in the eyes of Ivan Fyodorovitch that the latter was incapable of any sensation except reverence and awe in his presence, and he would have had a genuine contempt for himself if he could for one moment have put himself on an equal footing with him, and have thought of him as less than the Olympian Jove. There were people who had not met one another for some years, and felt nothing but indifference if not dislike for one another: yet they greeted each other now as though they had only met yesterday in the most friendly and intimate company. “Vfet the party was not a large one. Besides Princess Byelokonsky and the “old dignitary” — who really was a person of consequence — and his wife, there was in the first place a very solid military general, a count, or baron with a German name — a man of extraordinary taciturnity, with a reputation for a marvellous acquaintance with affairs of government, and almost with a reputation for learning — one of those Olympian administrators who know “everything,” except perhaps Russia itself; a man who once in five years made some “extraordinarily profound” remark, which inevitably became a proverb and penetrated even to the loftiest circles; one of those governing officials who usually, after an extremely, even strangely protracted term of service,

die possessed of large fortunes and high honours in leading positions, though they have never performed any great exploits, and in fact have always a certain aversion for exploits. This general was next above Ivan Fyodorovitch in the service, and the latter in the zeal of his grateful heart and through a peculiar form of vanity regarded him too as his patron. Yet the general by no means considered himself Ivan Fyodorovitch’s patron. He treated him with absolute coolness, and, though he gladly availed himself of his numerous services, he would have replaced him by another official at once, if any consideration, even the most trivial, had called for such exchange. There was too an elderly and important gentleman who was supposed to be a relation of Lizaveta Prokofyevna’s, though this was quite untrue — a man of high rank and position, of birth and fortune. He was stout, and enjoyed excellent health; he was a great talker, and had the reputation of a discontented man (though only in the most legitimate sense of the word), even a splenetic man (though even this was agreeable in him), with the tricks of the English aristocracy and with English tastes (as reqards roast beef, harness, footmen and so on). He was a great friend of the “dignitary,” and amused him. Moreover, Lizaveta Prokofyevna for some reason cherished the strange idea that this elderly gentleman (a somewhat frivolous person with a distinct weakness for the female sex) might suddenly take it into his head to make Alexandra happy with the offer of his hand. Below this top and most solid layer of the assembly came the younger guests, though these too were conspicuous for extremely elegant qualities. To this group belonged Prince S. and “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch, and, moreover, the well-known and fascinating Prince N. who had seduced and fascinated female hearts all over Europe, a man of five-and-forty though still of handsome appearance, and a wonderful story-teller; a man whose large fortune was to some extent dissipated and who usually lived abroad. There were people too who made up, indeed, a third special stratum, not belonging themselves to the “inner circle” of society, though, like the Epanchins, they could sometimes be met in that circle. Through a certain sense of fitness which always guided them, the Epanchins liked on the rare occasions of their giving parties to mix the highest society with persons of a rather lower grade, with select representatives of the “middling kind” of people. The Epanchins were praised indeed for doing so, and it was said of them that they understood their position and were people of tact, and they were proud of being thought so. One of the representatives of this “middling sort” was that evening a colonel of engineers, a serious man, a very intimate friend of Prince S. by whom he had been introduced to the Epanchins. He was silent in society, however, and wore on the big forefinger of his right hand a large and conspicuous ring, probably presented to him. There was present too a poet of German origin, but a Russian poet, and perfectly presentable, moreover, so that he could be introduced into good society without apprehension. He was of handsome, though for some reason repulsive, appearance. He was eight-and-thirty, and was irreproachably dressed. He belonged to an intensely bourgeois but intensely respectable German family. He was successful in taking advantage of every opportunity, gaining the patronage of persons in high places and retaining their favour. He had at one time made a verse translation of some important work of some important German poet, was adroit in dedicating his translations, and adroit in boasting of his friendship with a celebrated but deceased Russian poet (there’s a perfect crowd of writers who love to record in print their friendship with great and deceased writers), and he had been quite recently brought to the Epanchins by the wife of the “old dignitary.” This lady was celebrated for her patronage of literary and learned men, and had even actually procured one or two writers a pension through powerful personages with whom she had influence. She really had influence of a sort. She was a lady of five-and-forty (and therefore a very young wife for so aged a man as her husband), who had been a beauty and still, like many ladies at forty-five, had a mania for dressing far too gorgeously. She was of small intelligence, and her knowledge of literature was very dubious. But the patronage of literary men was as much a mania with her as was gorgeous array. Many books and translations had been dedicated to her. Two or three writers had, with her permission, printed letters they had written to her on subjects of the greatest importance....

And all this society Myshkin took for true coin, for pure gold without alloy. All these people were too, as though of set purpose, in the happiest frame of mind that evening, and very well pleased with themselves. They all without exception knew that they were doing the Epanchins a great honour by their visit. But, alas! Myshkin had no suspicion of such subtleties. He did not suspect, for instance, that, while the Epanchins were contemplating so important a step as the decision of their daughter’s future, they would not have dared to omit exhibiting him, Prince Lyov Nikolayevitch, to the old dignitary who was the acknowledged patron of the family. Though the old dignitary for his part would have borne with perfect equanimity the news of the most awful calamity having befallen the Epanchins, he would certainly have been offended if the Epanchins had betrothed their daughter without his advice and, so to speak, without his leave. Prince N. that charming, unquestionably witty and open-hearted man, was firmly persuaded that he was something like a sun that had risen that night to shine upon the Epanchins’ drawing-room. He regarded them as infinitely beneath him, and it was just this open-hearted and generous notion which prompted his wonderfully charming ease and friendliness with the Epanchins. He knew very well that he would have to tell some story to delight the company, and led up to it with positive inspiration. When Myshkin heard the story afterwards, he felt that he had never heard anything like such brilliant humour and such marvellous gaiety and naivete almost touching, on the lips of such a Don Juan as Prince N. If he had only known how old and hackneyed that story was, how it was known by heart, worn threadbare, stale, and a weariness in every drawing-room, and only at the innocent Epanchins’ passed for a novelty, for an impromptu, genuine and brilliant reminiscence of a splendid and brilliant man! Even the little German poet, although he behaved with great modesty and politeness, was ready to believe that he was conferring an honour on the family by his presence. But Myshkin saw nothing of the other side, noticed no undercurrent. This was a mischance that Aglaia had not foreseen. She was looking particularly handsome that evening. The three young ladies were dressed for the evening, but not over smartly, and wore their hair in a particular style. Aglaia was sitting with Yevgeny Pavlovitch, and was talking to him and making jokes with exceptional friendliness, “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch was behaving more sedately than usual, also perhaps from respect to the dignitaries. He was already well known in society, however; he was quite at home there, though he was so young. He arrived at the Epanchins’ that evening with crape on his hat, and Princess Byelokonsky remarked with approbation on it. Some fashionable young men would not under such circumstances have put on mourning for such an uncle. Lizaveta Prokofyevna too was pleased at it, though she seemed on the whole preoccupied. Myshkin noticed that Aglaia looked at him intently once or twice, and he fancied she was satisfied with him. By degrees he began to feel very happy. His recent “fantastical” ideas and apprehensions after his conversation with Lebedyev seemed to him now, when he suddenly, at frequent intervals, recalled them, an inconceivable, incredible, even ridiculous dream! (His chief, though unconscious, impulse and desire had been all day to do something to make him disbelieve that dream!) He spoke little and only in answer to questions, and finally was silent altogether; he sat still and listened, but was evidently enjoying himself extremely. By degrees something like an inspiration was beginning to work within him too, ready to break out at the first opportunity.... He began talking, indeed, by chance in answer to questions, and apparently quite without any special design.