Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (415 page)

CHAPTER 7

WHILE HE was enjoying himself, watching Aglaia as she talked to Prince N. and “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch, suddenly the elderly anglomaniac, who was entertaining the “dignitary” in another corner and with animation telling him some story, uttered the name of Nikolay Andreyevitch Pavlishtchev. Myshkin turned quickly in their direction and began to listen.

They were discussing public affairs and some disturbances on estates in the province. There must have been something amusing about the anglomaniac’s account for the old man began laughing at last at the little sallies of the speaker.

He was telling smoothly, and, as it were, peevishly drawling his words, with soft emphasis on the vowel sounds, how he had been obliged as a direct result of recent legislation to sell a splendid estate of his in the province and for half its value, too, though he was in no need of money, and at the same time to keep an estate that had gone to ruin, was encumbered, and a subject of litigation, and had even to spend money to do so. “To avoid another lawsuit about the Pavlishtchev estate, I ran away from them. Another inheritance or two of that kind and I shall be ruined. I should have come in for nine thousand acres of excellent land, however.”

“Why, of course . . . Ivan Petrovitch is a relation of the late Nikolay Andreyevitch . . . you made a search for relations, I believe,” General Epanchin, who happened to be near and noticed Myshkin’s marked attention to the conversation, said to him in an undertone.

He had till then been entertaining the general who was the head of his department, but he had for some time been noticing Myshkin’s conspicuous isolation, and was becoming uneasy. He wanted to bring him to a certain extent into the conversation and in that way show him off and introduce him a second time to the “great personages.”

“Lyov Nikolayevitch was left on the death of his parents a ward of Nikolay Andreyevitch Pavlishtchev,” he put in, meeting Ivan Petrovitch’s eye.

“De-lighted to hear it,” observed the latter. “And I remember it well, indeed. When Ivan Fyodorovitch introduced us just now, I knew you at once, and from your face, too. You’ve changed very little, indeed, though you were only ten or eleven when I saw you. There is something one remembers about your features ...”

“Did you see me when I was a child?” Myshkin asked, with great surprise.

“Yes, very long ago,” Ivan Petrovitch went on. “At Zlatoverhovo, where you used to live at my cousin’s. In old days I used to go pretty often to Zlatoverhovo. Don’t you remember me? You might very likely not remember. . . . “Vbu were then . . . you had some sort of illness then, so much so that I was very much struck on one occasion.”

“I don’t remember at all,” Myshkin asserted with warmth.

A few more words of explanation, perfectly calm on the part of Ivan Petrovitch, and betraying great agitation on the part of Myshkin, followed, and it appeared that the two elderly maiden ladies, kinswomen of Pavlishtchev, who had lived on his estate, Zlatoverhovo, and by whom Myshkin had been brought up, were also cousins of Ivan Petrovitch’s. The latter was as unable as every one else to explain what induced Pavlishtchev to take so much trouble over his protege, the little prince. “It hadn’t, in fact, occurred to me to be curious about that,” but yet, it appeared that he had an excellent memory, for he remembered how severe his elder cousin, Marfa Nikitishna had been with her little pupil, “so that on one occasion I stood up for you and attacked her system of education. For the rod, and nothing but the rod with an invalid child . . . you’ll admit . . ,” and how tender the younger sister, Natalya Nikitishna, was to the poor child. . . . “They are both,” he went on, “in X Province now (though I’m not sure whether they’re both living) where Pavlishtchev left them an extremely nice little property. I believe Marfa Nikitishna wanted to go into a convent, but I won’t be sure, I may be thinking of some one else. . . . “Vfes, I heard that the other day, about a doctor’s wife.”

Myshkin listened to this with eyes shining with delight and emotion. With great warmth he declared that he should never forgive himself for not having seized an opportunity to seek out and visit the ladies who had brought him up, though he had been for six months in the central provinces. He had been meaning to set off every day, but had been continually occupied with other matters. . . . But that now he was determined ... he would certainly . . . even though it were to X Province. . . . “So you know Natalya Nikitishna? What a fine, what a saintly nature! But, Marfa Nikitishna, too . . . forgive me . . . but I think you are mistaken about Marfa Nikitishna! She was severe, but . . . how could she help losing patience . . . with such an idiot as I was then. Ha-ha! “Vbu know I was a complete idiot. Ha-ha! Though . . . you saw me then, and . . . how is it that I don’t remember you, tell me please? So you ... my God! are you really a relation of Nikolay Andreyevitch Pavlishtchev?”

“I as-sure you I am,” said Ivan Petrovitch, with a smile, scrutinising Myshkin.

“Oh, I didn’t say that because I . . . doubted it. . . and, in fact, how could I doubt it. . . Ha-ha! ... in the least? But I only mean that Nikolay Andreyevitch Pavlishtchev was such a splendid man! A most noble-hearted man, I assure you!”

Myshkin was not exactly breathless but “choking with good-heartedness,” as Adelaida expressed it next day to her betrothed, Prince S.

“Mercy on us,” laughed Ivan Petrovitch. “Why shouldn’t I be a relation of a noble-hearted man, even?”

“Oh, my goodness!” cried Myshkin, overcome with confusion and growing more and more hurried and eager. “I... I’ve said something stupid again, but. .. that’s bound to happen because I ... I ... I ... but that’s out of place again! And of what consequence am I, pray, beside such interests, such vast interests? And by comparison with such a noble-hearted man! For you know, he really was a noble man, wasn’t he? Wasn’t he?”

Myshkin was positively trembling all over. Why he was suddenly so agitated, why he was in such a state of ecstasy and emotion quite irrelevant and as it seemed out of all proportion with the subject of conversation, it was difficult to decide. He was in such a state of mind and he almost seemed to feel the warmest and liveliest gratitude to some one for something, perhaps to Ivan Petrovitch himself, if not to the whole company. He was “bubbling over” with happiness. Ivan Petrovitch began at last staring at him more fixedly, the “dignitary” too began looking at him with great intentness. Princess Byelokonsky looked wrathfully at Myshkin and tightened her lips. Prince N. Yevgeny Pavlovitch, Prince S. the young ladies, all broke off their conversation and listened. Aglaia seemed frightened, Lizaveta Prokofyevna’s heart failed her. They, too, the mother and daughters, had behaved strangely: they had foreseen and decided that it would be better for Myshkin to sit still and be silent the whole evening. But as soon as they saw him sitting in complete solitude, perfectly satisfied with his position, they were at once dreadfully upset. Alexandra had been on the point of going to him across the room and tactfully joining the company, that is Prince N.’s group, near Princess Byelokonsky. And now that Myshkin had begun talking of his own accord they were even more perturbed.

“You are right in saying that he was a most excellent man,” Ivan Petrovitch pronounced impressively, with no smile now. “Yes, yes, he was an excellent man! Excellent, and worthy,” he added, after a pause. “Worthy one may say, of all respect,” he added more impressively, after a third pause. “And ... and it is very agreeable to see on your part.

“Wasn’t it that Pavlishtchev that there was a queer story about . . . with the abbe ... the abbe . . . I’ve forgotten which abbe . . . only everybody was talking about it at one time,” the “dignitary” brought out as though recollecting something.

“With the Abbe Goureau, a Jesuit,” Ivan Petrovitch recalled. “\fes, there you have our most excellent and worthy people. Because he was after all a man of family and fortune, a kammerherr, if he had . . . chosen to remain in the service. . . . And then he suddenly threw up the service to go over to the Roman Church and become a Jesuit, and almost openly, with a sort of enthusiasm. It’s true, he died in the nick of time ... everybody said so....”

Myshkin was beside himself.

“Pavlishtchev . . . Pavlishtchev, went over to the Roman Church? Impossible!” he cried in horror.

“‘Impossible,’ indeed!” Ivan Petrovitch drawled solidly.

“That’s saying a good deal, and you must admit, dear prince . . . However you have such a high opinion of the deceased. ... He certainly was a most good-natured man, and to that I chiefly attribute the success of that rascal Goureau. But ask me what a fuss and bother I had afterwards over that affair. .. especially with that very Goureau. Only fancy,” he turned suddenly to the old man, “they even tried to put in a claim under the will, and I was forced to have recourse to the most, that is, to vigorous measures . . . to bring them to their senses ... for they’re first-rate at that kind of thing. Won-der-ful people! But, thank goodness! it all happened in Moscow. I went straight to the court, and we soon ... brought them to their senses.”

“You wouldn’t believe how you grieve and astonish me,” cried Myshkin.

“I am sorry. But as a matter of fact, all this was after all a trifling business and would have ended in smoke as such things always do: I’m convinced of it. Last summer,” he went on, turning to the old man, “Countess K. I am told, went into some Catholic convent abroad. Russians never can hold out if once they come under the influence of those . . . rogues . . . especially abroad.”

“It all comes from our . . . weariness,” the old dignitary mumbled authoritatively. “And their manner of proselytising is . . . skilful and peculiar to them. . .. They know how to scare people. They gave me a good scare, too, I assure you, in Vienna in 1832. But I wouldn’t surrender, I ran away from them. Ha-ha! I really did run away from them ...”

“I heard, my dear sir, that you ran away from Vienna to Paris with the beauty, Countess Levitzky, and that was why you flung up your post, not to escape from the Jesuits,” Princess Byelokonsky put in suddenly.

“Well, you see, it was from a Jesuit; it turns out after all that it was from a Jesuit,” the old dignitary retorted, laughing at the agreeable recollection. “You seem to be very religious, which one doesn’t often meet with nowadays in a young man,” he added, turning genially to Prince Lyov Nikolayevitch, who was listening open-mouthed and still amazed.

The old man evidently wanted to study Myshkin more closely. He had for some reason become an object of interest to him.

“Pavlishtchev was a clear-headed man and a Christian, a genuine Christian,” Myshkin brought out suddenly. “How could he have accepted a faith . . . that’s unchristian? Catholicism is as good as an unchristian religion!” he added, suddenly, looking about him with flashing eyes as though scanning the whole company.

“Come, that’s too much!” muttered the old man, and he looked with surprise at General Epanchin.

“How do you mean Catholicism is an unchristian religion,” said Ivan Petrovitch, turning round in his chair. “What is it then?”

“An unchristian religion in the first place!” Myshkin began, in extreme agitation and with excessive abruptness. “And in the second place Roman Catholicism is even worse than atheism itself, in my opinion! “Vfes, that’s my opinion! Atheism only preaches a negation, but Catholicism goes further: it preaches a distorted Christ, a Christ calumniated and defamed by themselves, the opposite of Christ! It preaches the Antichrist, I declare it does, I assure you it does! This is the conviction I have long held, and it has distressed me, mvself. . . . Roman Catholicism cannot hold its position without universal political supremacy, and cries: ‘Non possumus!’ To my thinking Roman Catholicism is not even a religion, but simply the continuation of the Western Roman Empire, and everything in it is subordinated to that idea, faith to begin with. The Pope seized the earth, an earthly throne, and grasped the sword; everything has gone on in the same way since, only they have added to the sword lying, fraud, deceit, fanaticism, superstition, villainy. They have trifled with the most holy, truthful, sincere, fervent feelings of the people; they have bartered it all, all for money, for base earthly power. And isn’t that the teaching of Antichrist? How could atheism fail to come from them? Atheism has sprung from Roman Catholicism itself. It originated with them themselves. Can they have believed themselves? It has been strengthened by revulsion from them; it is begotten by their lying and their spiritual impotence. Atheism! Among us it is only the exceptional classes who don’t believe, those who, as Yevgeny Pavlovitch splendidly expressed it the other day, have lost their roots. But over there, in Europe, a terrible mass of the people themselves are beginning to lose their faith — at first from darkness and lying, and now from fanaticism and hatred of the church and Christianity.”

Myshkin paused to take breath. He had been talking fearfully fast. He was pale and breathless. They all glanced at one another, and at last the old dignitary simply burst out laughing. Prince N. drew out his lorgnette, and took a prolonged stare at Myshkin. The German poet crept out of his corner, and moved nearer to the table, with a spiteful smile on his face.

“You are exaggerating very much,” Ivan Petrovitch drawled with an air of being bored, and even rather ashamed of something. “There are representatives of that Church who are virtuous and worthy of all respect....”

“I have said nothing about individual representatives of the Church. I was speaking of Roman Catholicism in its essence. I am speaking of Rome. Can a Church disappear altogether? I never said that!”

“I agree. But all that’s well known and — irrelevant, indeed, and ... it’s a theological question ...”

“Oh, no, no! It’s not only a theological question, I

assure you it’s not! It concerns us much more closely than you think. That’s our whole mistake, that we can’t see that this is not exclusively a theological question! Why, socialism too springs from Catholicism and the Catholic idea! Like its brother atheism, it comes from despair in opposition to Catholicism on the moral side, to replace the lost moral power of religion, to quench the spiritual thirst of parched humanity, and to save them not by Christ but also by violence. That, too, is freedom through violence, that, too, is union through sword and blood. ‘Don’t dare to believe in God, don’t dare to have property and individuality, fratemite ou la mort, two millions of heads!’ By their works ye shall know them — as it is said. And don’t imagine that all this is so harmless and without danger for us. Oh, we need to make resistance at once, at once! Our Christ whom we have kept and they have never known must shine forth and vanquish the West. Not letting ourselves be slavishly caught by the wiles of the Jesuits, but carrying our Russian civilisation to them, we ought to stand before them and not let it be said among us, as it was just now, that their preaching is skilful.”