The Idiot

that nothing remained for me but to open that door. I did so and went into the next room.

This room was still smaller and narrower than the previous one, so that I did not even know where to turn in it; a narrow single bed in the corner took up terribly much space; the rest of the furniture consisted of three simple chairs heaped with all sorts of rags and a very simple wooden kitchen table in front of an old oilcloth sofa, so that it was almost impossible to pass between the table and the bed. The same iron night-light with a tallow candle as in the other room burned on the table, and on the bed squealed a tiny baby, maybe only three weeks old, judging by its cry; it was being "changed," that is, put into a clean diaper, by a sick and pale woman, young-seeming, in extreme négligé, and perhaps just beginning to get up after her confinement; but the baby would not be quiet and cried in anticipation of the lean breast. On the sofa another child slept, a three-year-old girl, covered, it seemed, with a tailcoat. By the table stood a gentleman in a very shabby frock coat (he had already taken his coat off and it was lying on the bed), unwrapping the blue paper in which about two pounds of wheat bread and two small sausages were wrapped. On the table, besides that, there was a teapot with tea and some scattered pieces of black bread. An unlocked suitcase showed from under the bed, and two bundles with some rags stuck out.

In short, there was terrible disorder. It seemed to me, at first glance, that both of them—the gentleman and the lady—were decent people, but reduced by poverty to that humiliating state in which disorder finally overcomes every attempt to struggle with it and even reduces people to the bitter necessity of finding in this disorder, as it increases daily, some bitter and, as it were, vengeful sense of pleasure.

When I came in, this gentleman, who had come in just before me and was unwrapping his provisions, was talking rapidly and heatedly with his wife; she, though she had not yet finished swaddling the baby, had already begun to whimper; the news must have been bad, as usual. The face of this gentleman, who was about twenty-eight by the look of it, swarthy and dry, framed in black side-whiskers, with his chin shaved till it gleamed, struck me as rather respectable and even agreeable; it was sullen, with a sullen gaze, but with some morbid tinge of a pride that was all too easily irritated. When I came in, a strange scene took place.

There are people who take extreme pleasure in their irritable

touchiness, and especially when it reaches (which always happens very quickly) the ultimate limit in them; in that instant it even seems they would rather be offended than not offended. Afterwards these irritable people always suffer terrible remorse, if they are intelligent, naturally, and able to realize that they had become ten times angrier than they should have. For some time this gentleman looked at me in amazement, and his wife in fright, as if it were dreadfully outlandish that anyone should come into their room; but suddenly he fell upon me almost in a rage; I had not yet managed to mumble even a couple of words, but he, especially seeing that I was decently dressed, must have considered himself dreadfully offended that I dared to look so unceremoniously into his corner and see all his hideous situation, which he was so ashamed of himself. Of course, he was glad of the chance to vent his anger for all his misfortunes at least on someone. There was a moment when I even thought he would start fighting; he grew pale, like a woman in hysterics, and frightened his wife terribly.

"How dare you come in like that? Out!" he shouted, trembling and even barely articulating the words. But suddenly he saw his wallet in my hand.

"It seems you dropped it," I said as calmly and drily as I could. (Anyhow, that was the only proper way.)

The man stood before me totally frightened and for some time was as if unable to understand anything; then he quickly clutched his side pocket, opened his mouth in horror, and struck himself on the forehead with his hand.

"God! Where did you find it? How on earth?"

I explained in the briefest terms and as drily as I could how I had picked up the wallet, how I had run and called out to him, and how, finally, by guessing and almost groping my way, I had run after him up the stairs.

"Oh, God!" he cried, turning to his wife. "All our documents are in it, all my last instruments, everything . . . oh, my dear sir, do you know what you have done for me? I'd have perished!"

I had taken hold of the door handle meanwhile, so as to leave without replying; but I was out of breath myself and suddenly my agitation broke out in such a violent fit of coughing that I could barely stay on my feet. I saw how the gentleman rushed in all directions to find an empty chair for me, finally seized all the rags on one chair, threw them on the floor, and hurriedly offered me the chair and carefully sat me down on it. But my coughing went

on and did not let up for about three more minutes. When I recovered, he was sitting next to me on another chair, from which he had probably also thrown the rags on the floor, and was studying me intently.

"You seem to be . . . suffering?" he said in the tone in which doctors usually speak when they approach a patient. "I myself am a . . . medical man" (he did not say "doctor"), and having said that, he pointed to the room with his hand for some reason, as if protesting against his present situation. "I see that you . . ."

"I have consumption," I said as curtly as possible and stood up.

He also jumped up at once.

"Maybe you exaggerate and . . . if measures are taken . . ."

He was very bewildered and still as if unable to come to his senses; the wallet stuck out of his left hand.

"Oh, don't worry," I interrupted again, taking hold of the door handle, "last week —n examined me" (again I put —n into it) "and my case is decided. Excuse me . . ."

I was again about to open the door and leave my embarrassed, grateful, and crushed-with- shame doctor, but just then the cursed cough seized me again. Here my doctor insisted that I again sit down to rest; he turned to his wife, and she, without leaving her place, spoke a few friendly words of gratitude. She became very embarrassed as she did so, and color even played over her dry, pale yellow cheeks. I stayed, but with a look which showed every second that I was terribly afraid of being in their way (as was proper). Remorse finally tormented my doctor, I could see that.

"If I . . ." he began, constantly breaking off and jumping to another subject, "I'm so grateful to you, and so guilty before you . . . I . . . you see . . ." and again he pointed to the room, "at the present moment my situation . . ."

"Oh," I said, "there's nothing to see; it's a well-known thing; you must have lost your job, and you've come to explain things and look for another job?"

"How . . . did you know?" he asked in surprise.

"It's obvious at first glance," I said with unintentional mockery. "Many people come here from the provinces with hopes, go running around, and live like this."

He suddenly began speaking heatedly, his lips trembling; he complained, talked, and, I confess, got me carried away; I sat there for almost an hour. He told me his story, a very ordinary one, by the way. He had been a provincial doctor, had occupied a

government post, but then some intrigues had started, which his wife was even mixed up in. He had shown his pride, his hot temper; a change had occurred in the provincial government to the advantage of his enemies; there had been sabotage, complaints; he had lost his job and on his last means had come to Petersburg for an explanation; in Petersburg, to be sure, they did not listen to him for a long time, then they heard him out, then responded with a refusal, then lured him with promises, then responded with severity, then told him to write something in explanation, then refused to accept what he had written, told him to petition—in short, it was already the fifth month that he had been running around, everything had been eaten up, his wife's last clothes had been pawned, and now the baby had been born and, and . . . "today came the final negative response to my petition, and I have almost no food, nothing, my wife has given birth. I . . . I . . ."

He jumped up from his chair and turned away. His wife wept in the corner, the baby began squealing again. I took out my notebook and started writing in it. When I finished and got up, he was standing before me and looking at me with timorous curiosity.

"I've written down your name," I said to him, "well, and all the rest: the place of work, the name of your governor, the days, the months. I have a friend from my school days, Bakhmutov, and his uncle, Pyotr Matveevich Bakhmutov, an actual state councillor,¹⁵ who serves as the director . . ."

"Pyotr Matveevich Bakhmutov!" my medical man cried out, all but trembling. "But it's on him that almost everything depends!"

Indeed, in my medical man's story and in its denouement, to which I inadvertently contributed, everything came together and got settled as if it had been prepared that way on purpose, decidedly as in a novel. I told these poor people that they should try not to place any hopes in me, that I myself was a poor high-school student (I exaggerated the humiliation on purpose; I finished my studies long ago and am not a student), and that they need not know my name, but that I would go at once to Vassilievsky Island, to see my friend Bakhmutov, and as I knew for certain that his uncle, an actual state councillor, a bachelor, and with no children, decidedly adored his nephew and loved him to the point of passion, seeing in him the last bearer of his name, "maybe my friend will be able to do something for you—and for me, of course—through his uncle . . ."

"If only I could be allowed to explain things to his excellency!

If only I could be vouchsafed the honor of explaining it verbally!" he exclaimed, trembling as if in fever and with flashing eyes. He did say vouchsafed. Having repeated once more that the thing would probably be a flop and turn out to be all nonsense, I added that if I did not come to see them the next morning, it would mean that the matter was ended and they had nothing to expect. They saw me off, bowing, they were nearly out of their minds. I will never forget the expressions on their faces. I hired a cab and headed at once for Vassilievsky Island.

In school, over the course of several years, I was constantly at enmity with this Bakhmutov. Among us he was considered an aristocrat, or at least I called him one: he was excellently dressed, drove around in his own carriage, did not show off in the least, was always a wonderful comrade, was always remarkably cheerful and sometimes even very witty, though none too long on intelligence, despite the fact that he was always first in the class; while I was never first in anything. All our classmates liked him, except for me alone. He approached me several times during those several years; but each time I sullenly and irritably turned my back on him. Now I had not seen him for about a year; he was at the university. When, towards nine o'clock, I entered his room (with great ceremony: I was announced), he met me at first with surprise, even quite ungraciously, but he cheered up at once and, looking at me, suddenly burst into laughter.

"But why did you take it into your head to call on me, Terentyev?" he cried with his usual sweet casualness, sometimes bold but never offensive, which I so loved in him and for which I so hated him. "But what's wrong," he cried in fear, "you're quite ill!"

Coughing tormented me again, I fell into a chair and was barely able to catch my breath.

"Don't worry, I have consumption," I said. "I've come to you with a request."

He sat down in surprise, and I at once told him the doctor's whole story and explained that he himself, having great influence on his uncle, might be able to do something.

"I will, I certainly will, I'll assault my uncle tomorrow; and I'm even glad, and you told it all so well . . . But still, Terentyev, why did you take it into your head to turn to me?"

"So much of it depends on your uncle, and besides, Bakhmutov, you and I were always enemies, and since you are a noble man, I thought you would not refuse an enemy," I added with irony.

"Like Napoleon turning to England!"¹⁶ he cried, bursting into laughter. "I'll do it, I'll do it! I'll even go right now if I can!" he hastened to add, seeing that I was getting up seriously and sternly from my chair.

And in fact the matter, quite unexpectedly, got settled for us in the best possible way. A month and a half later our medical man obtained a new post, in another province, was given travel money and even financial assistance. I suspect that Bakhmutov, who began calling on them frequently (while I, because of that, purposely stopped seeing them and received the doctor, who kept running by, almost drily)—Bakhmutov, I suspect, even persuaded the doctor to accept a loan from him. I saw Bakhmutov a couple of times during those six weeks, we met for a third time when we saw the doctor off. Bakhmutov arranged a farewell party at his own house, in the form of a dinner with champagne, at which the doctor's wife was also present; she left very soon, however, to go to the baby. It was at the beginning of May, the evening was bright, the enormous ball of the sun was sinking into the bay. Bakhmutov saw me home; we crossed the Nikolaevsky Bridge; we were both a bit drunk. Bakhmutov spoke of his delight that the matter had ended so well, thanked me for something, explained how pleasant it was for him now, after this good deed, insisted that all the credit was mine, and that what many now taught and preached about the meaninglessness of individual good deeds was wrong. I also wanted terribly to talk.

"Whoever infringes upon individual 'charity,'" I began, "infringes upon man's nature and scorns his personal dignity. But the organizing of 'social charity' and the question of personal freedom are two different questions and are not mutually exclusive. Individual goodness will always abide, because it is a personal need, a living need for the direct influence of one person on another. In Moscow there lived an old man, a 'general,' that is, an actual state councillor, with a German name; all his life he dragged himself around to jails and prisoners; every group of exiles to Siberia knew beforehand that 'the little old general' would visit them on Sparrow Hills. He did it all seriously and piously in the highest degree; he arrived, walked along the rows of exiles, who surrounded him, stopped before each one, asked each one about his needs, hardly ever admonished anyone, called them all 'dear hearts.' He gave them money, sent them necessary things—leg wrappings, foot-cloths, pieces of linen, sometimes brought pious tracts and gave

them to all who were literate, fully convinced that they would read them on the way, and that the literate ones would read to the illiterate. He rarely asked about their crimes, though he would listen when a prisoner began talking. He placed all the criminals on an equal footing, he made no distinctions. He talked with them as with brothers, but in the end they themselves came to regard him as a father. If he noticed some woman exile with a baby in her arms, he would go up to her, caress the child, snap his fingers to make the child laugh. He did this for many years, till his own death; it reached the point where he was known over the whole of Russia and the whole of Siberia, that is, to all the criminals. I was told by someone who had been in Siberia that he himself had witnessed how the most hardened criminals remembered the general, and yet, when he visited them, he would rarely give them more than twenty kopecks each. True, they did not remember him all that warmly or in any very serious way. Some one of those 'unfortunates,' who had killed some twelve souls, who had stabbed six children solely for his own pleasure (they say there were such men), suddenly, out of the blue, at some point, and maybe only once in all of twenty years, would suddenly sigh and say: 'And what's with the little old general now, can he still be alive?' He might even smile as he said it—and that was all. But how do you know what seed had been sown forever in his soul by this 'little old general' whom he had not forgotten in twenty years? How do you know, Bakhmutov, what meaning this communion of one person with another will have in the destiny of the person communed with? . . . Here the whole of life stands before us and a countless number of ramifications that are hidden from us. The best chess player, the sharpest of them, can calculate only a few moves ahead; one French player, who could calculate ten moves ahead, was written about as a wonder. And how many moves are there, and how much is unknown to us? In sowing your seed, in sowing your 'charity,' your good deed in whatever form it takes, you give away part of your person and receive into yourself part of another's; you mutually commune in each other; a little more attention, and you will be rewarded with knowledge, with the most unexpected discoveries. You will be bound, finally, to look at your work as a science; it will take in the whole of your life and maybe fill the whole of it. On the other hand, all your thoughts, all the seeds you have sown, which you may already have forgotten, will take on flesh and grow; what was received from you will be passed on to

someone else. And how do you know what share you will have in the future outcome of human destiny? And if the knowledge and the whole life of this work finally raises you so high that you are able to plant a tremendous seed, to bequeath a tremendous thought to mankind, then . . ." And so on, I talked a lot then.

"And to think that it is you to whom life has been denied!" Bakhmutov cried with burning reproach against someone.

At that moment we were standing on the bridge, leaning on the handrail, and looking at the Neva.

"And do you know what's just come into my head?" I said, bending still further over the handrail.

"Not to throw yourself into the river?" cried Bakhmutov, almost in fright. Perhaps he had read my thought in my face.

"No, for the time being it's just the following reflection: here I'm left now with two or three months to live, maybe four; but, for instance, when I have only two months left, and I want terribly to do a good deed that would require work, running around and petitioning, something like our doctor's affair, I would in that case have to renounce the deed for lack of sufficient time and look for another 'good deed,' a smaller one, which would be within my means (if I should happen to have the urge to do good deeds). You must agree, it's an amusing thought."

Poor Bakhmutov was very alarmed about me; he went with me as far as my home and was so delicate that he never once tried to comfort me and was silent nearly all the way. Taking leave of me, he warmly pressed my hand and asked permission to visit me. I answered him that if he came to me as a "comforter" (because even if he was silent, he would still be coming as a comforter, I explained that to him), then it meant that each time he would be reminding me still more of death. He shrugged his shoulders, but he agreed with me; we parted rather politely, something I had not even expected.

But that evening and that night the first seed of my "ultimate conviction" was sown. I greedily seized upon this new thought, greedily analyzed it in all its windings, in all its aspects (I did not sleep all night), and the more I delved into it, the more I received it into myself, the more frightened I was. A dreadful fear came over me finally and did not leave me during the days that followed. Sometimes, thinking about this constant fear of mine, I would quickly freeze from a new terror: from this fear I was able to conclude that my "ultimate conviction" had lodged itself all too

seriously in me and was bound to reach its resolution. But I lacked resolve for that resolution. Three weeks later it was all over, and the resolve came, but owing to a very strange circumstance.

Here in my explanation I am noting down all these numbers and dates. For me, of course, it will make no difference, but now (and maybe only at this moment) I want those who will judge my act to be able to see clearly from what logical chain of conclusions my "ultimate conviction" came. I just wrote above that the final resolution, which I lacked for the accomplishing of my "ultimate conviction," came about in me, it seems, not at all as a logical conclusion, but from some strange jolt, a certain strange circumstance, perhaps quite unconnected with the course of events. About ten days ago Rogozhin came to see me on business of his own, which I need not discuss here. I had never seen Rogozhin before, but I had heard a lot about him. I gave him all the information he needed, and he quickly left, and as he had come only for information, the business between us should have ended there. But he interested me greatly, and I spent that whole day under the influence of strange thoughts, so that I decided to call on him myself the next day, to return the visit. Rogozhin was obviously not glad to see me, and even hinted "delicately" that there was no point in our continuing the acquaintance; but all the same I spent a very curious hour, as he probably did, too. There was this contrast between us, which could not fail to tell in both of us, especially me: I was a man whose days were already numbered, while he was living the fullest immediate life, in the present moment, with no care for "ultimate" conclusions, numbers, or anything at all that was not concerned with what . . . with what . . . well, say, with what he's gone crazy over; may Mr. Rogozhin forgive me this expression of, shall we say, a bad writer, who is unable to express his thought. Despite all his ungraciousness, it seemed to me that he was a man of intelligence and could understand a great deal, though he had little interest in extraneous things. I gave him no hint of my "ultimate conviction," but for some reason it seemed to me that he guessed it as he listened to me. He said nothing, he is terribly taciturn. I hinted to him, as I was leaving, that in spite of all the differences between us and all the contrasts—les extrémités se touchent*¹⁷ (I explained it to him in Russian), so that he himself might not be so far from my "ultimate conviction" as it seemed.

* Extremes meet.

To this he responded with a very sullen and sour grimace, stood up, fetched my cap for me himself, pretending that I was leaving on my own, and quite simply led me out of his gloomy house on the pretext of politely seeing me off. His house struck me; it resembles a graveyard, but he seems to like it, which, however, is understandable: such a full, immediate life as he lives is too full in itself to need any setting.

This visit to Rogozhin was very exhausting for me. Besides, I had been feeling unwell since morning; by evening I was very weak and lay in bed, and at times felt very feverish and even momentarily delirious. Kolya stayed with me till eleven o'clock. However, I remember everything that he said and that we talked about. But when my eyes closed at moments, I kept picturing Ivan Fomich, who had supposedly received millions in cash. He did not know where to put it, racked his brains over it, trembled from fear that it might be stolen from him, and finally seemed to decide to bury it in the ground. I finally advised him, instead of burying such a heap of gold in the ground for nothing, to cast it into a little gold coffin for the "frozen" child, and to dig the child up for that purpose. Surikov took this mockery of mine with tears of gratitude and at once set about realizing the plan. It seems I spat and left him there. Kolya assured me, when I had completely come to my senses, that I had not been asleep at all, but had been talking with him the whole time about Surikov. At moments I was in great anguish and confusion, so that Kolya left in alarm. When I got up to lock the door after him, I suddenly remembered the picture I had seen that day at Rogozhin's, in one of the gloomiest rooms of his house, above the door. He himself had shown it to me in passing; I think I stood before it for about five minutes. There was nothing good about it in the artistic respect; but it produced a strange uneasiness in me.

This picture portrays Christ just taken down from the cross. It seems to me that painters are usually in the habit of portraying Christ, both on the cross and taken down from the cross, as still having a shade of extraordinary beauty in his face; they seek to preserve this beauty for him even in his most horrible suffering. But in Rogozhin's picture there is not a word about beauty; this is in the fullest sense the corpse of a man who had endured infinite suffering before the cross, wounds, torture, beating by the guards, beating by the people as he carried the cross and fell down under it, and had finally suffered on the cross for six hours (at least

according to my calculation). True, it is the face of a man who has only just been taken down from the cross, that is, retaining in itself a great deal of life, of warmth; nothing has had time to become rigid yet, so that the dead man's face even shows suffering as if he were feeling it now (the artist has caught that very well); but the face has not been spared in the least; it is nature alone, and truly as the dead body of any man must be after such torments. I know that in the first centuries the Christian Church already established that Christ suffered not in appearance but in reality, and that on the cross his body, therefore, was fully and completely subject to the laws of nature. In the picture this face is horribly hurt by blows, swollen, with horrible, swollen, and bloody bruises, the eyelids are open, the eyes crossed; the large, open whites have a sort of deathly, glassy shine. But, strangely, when you look at the corpse of this tortured man, a particular and curious question arises: if all his disciples, his chief future apostles, if the women who followed him and stood by the cross, if all those who believed in him and worshipped him had seen a corpse like that (and it was bound to be exactly like that), how could they believe, looking at such a corpse, that this sufferer would resurrect? Here the notion involuntarily occurs to you that if death is so terrible and the laws of nature are so powerful, how can they be overcome? How overcome them, if they were not even defeated now, by the one who defeated nature while he lived, whom nature obeyed, who exclaimed: "Talitha cumi" and the girl arose, "Lazarus, come forth" and the dead man came out?¹⁸ Nature appears to the viewer of this painting in the shape of some enormous, implacable, and dumb beast, or, to put it more correctly, much more correctly, strange though it is—in the shape of some huge machine of the most modern construction, which has senselessly seized, crushed, and swallowed up, blankly and unfeelingly, a great and priceless being—such a being as by himself was worth the whole of nature and all its laws, the whole earth, which was perhaps created solely for the appearance of this being alone! The painting seems precisely to express this notion of a dark, insolent, and senselessly eternal power, to which everything is subjected, and it is conveyed to you involuntarily. The people who surrounded the dead man, none of whom is in the painting, must have felt horrible anguish and confusion on that evening, which at once smashed all their hopes and almost their beliefs. They must have gone off in terrible fear, though each carried within himself a tremendous thought that could never be torn out of him.

And if this same teacher could have seen his own image on the eve of the execution, would he have gone to the cross and died as he did? That question also comes to you involuntarily as you look at the painting.

All this came to me in fragments, perhaps indeed through delirium, sometimes even in images, for a whole hour and a half after Kolya left. Can something that has no image come as an image? But it was as if it seemed to me at moments that I could see that infinite power, that blank, dark, and dumb being, in some strange and impossible form. I remember it seemed as if someone holding a candle led me by the hand and showed me some huge and repulsive tarantula and started assuring me that this was that dark, blank, and all-powerful being, and laughed at my indignation. In my room a little lamp is always lighted before the icon at night— the light is dim and negligible, but nevertheless you can see everything, and close to the lamp you can even read. I think it was already going on one o'clock; I was completely awake and lay with open eyes; suddenly the door of my room opened, and Rogozhin came in.

He came in, closed the door, silently looked at me, and quietly went to the corner, to the table that stands almost under the icon lamp. I was very surprised and watched in expectation; Rogozhin leaned his elbow on the little table and started looking at me silently. Two or three minutes passed that way, and I remember that his silence greatly offended and vexed me. Why did he not want to speak? The fact that he had come so late seemed strange to me, of course, yet I remember that I was not so greatly astonished by that in itself. Even the opposite: though I had not spoken my thought out clearly to him in the morning, I know he had understood it; and that thought was of such kind that, apropos of it, of course, one might come for another talk, even though it was very late. And so I thought he had come for that. In the morning we had parted somewhat hostilely, and I even remember him glancing at me very mockingly a couple of times. That mockery, which I could now read in his glance, was what offended me. That it actually was Rogozhin himself, and not a vision, not delirium, I at first did not doubt in the least. I did not even think of it.

Meanwhile he went on sitting and looking at me with the same smile. I turned over spitefully on my bed, also leaned my elbow on the pillow, and decided to be silent on purpose, even if we sat like that the whole time. For some reason I absolutely wanted him to

begin first. I think about twenty minutes passed that way. Suddenly a thought occurred to me: what if it is not Rogozhin, but only a vision?

Neither during my illness nor before it have I ever once seen a single apparition; but it always seemed to me, when I was still a boy, and even now, that is, recently, that if I should see an apparition just once, I would die right on the spot, even though I do not believe in apparitions. But as soon as it occurred to me that it was not Rogozhin, but only an apparition, I remember that I wasn't frightened in the least. Not only that, but it even made me angry. Another strange thing was that the answer to the question whether it was an apparition or Rogozhin himself somehow did not interest or trouble me as much as it would seem it should have; it seems to me that I was thinking about something else then. For some reason I was much more interested in why Rogozhin, who had been wearing a dressing gown and slippers earlier, was now in a tailcoat, a white waistcoat, and a white tie. The thought also flashed: if this is an apparition, and I am not afraid of it, why not get up, go over to it, and make sure myself? It may be, however, that I didn't dare and was afraid. But I just had time to think I was afraid, when suddenly it was as if ice passed all over my body; I felt cold in my back, and my knees trembled. At that very moment, as if he had guessed that I was afraid, Rogozhin drew back the arm he had been leaning on, straightened up, and began to extend his mouth, as if getting ready to laugh; he looked at me point-blank. I was so infuriated that I decidedly wanted to fall upon him, but as I had sworn that I would not begin speaking first, I stayed in bed, the more so as I was not sure whether it was Rogozhin himself or not.

I do not remember for certain how long this went on; nor do I remember for certain whether I had moments of oblivion or not. Only, in the end Rogozhin got up, looked me over as slowly and attentively as before, when he came in, but stopped grinning and quietly, almost on tiptoe, went to the door, opened it, closed it, and was gone. I did not get out of bed; I don't remember how long I lay there thinking with open eyes; God knows what I was thinking about; I also don't remember how I became oblivious. The next morning I woke up when they knocked at my door, past nine o'clock. I had arranged it so that if I myself did not open the door by nine o'clock and call for tea to be served, Matryona herself should knock for me. When I opened the door to her, the thought

immediately occurred to me: how could he have come in if the door was locked? I made inquiries and became convinced that the real Rogozhin could not have come in, because all our doors are locked for the night.

This particular case, which I have described in such detail, was the reason why I became completely "resolved." Which means that what contributed to my definitive resolve was not logic, not logical conviction, but revulsion. It is impossible to remain in a life that assumes such strange, offensive forms. This apparition humiliated me. I am unable to submit to a dark power that assumes the shape of a tarantula. And it was only at twilight, when I finally sensed in myself the definitive moment of full resolution, that I felt better. That was only the first moment; for the second moment I went to Pavlovsk, but that has already been sufficiently explained.

VII

I had a small pocket pistol, I acquired it when I was still a child, at that ridiculous age when one suddenly begins to like stories about duels, about highway robberies, about how I, too, would be challenged to a duel, and how nobly I would stand facing the pistol. A month ago I examined it and prepared it. I found two bullets in the box with it, and enough powder in the powder horn for three shots. It is a trashy pistol, doesn't shoot straight, and is accurate only up to fifteen paces; but, of course, it would shove your skull sideways if you put it right to your temple.

I decided to die in Pavlovsk, at sunrise, and to do it in the park, so as not to trouble anyone in the dacha. My "Explanation" will sufficiently explain the whole matter to the police. Fanciers of psychology and those who feel the need can deduce whatever they like from it. However, I would not want this manuscript to be made public. I ask the prince to keep one copy for himself and to convey the other copy to Aglaya Ivanovna Epanchin. Such is my will. I bequeath my skeleton to the Medical Academy for the benefit of science.

I recognize no judges over me and know that I am now beyond all judicial power. Not long ago I was amused by a certain supposition: what if I should suddenly take it into my head now to kill whomever I like, even a dozen people at once, or to do something most terrible, that is simply considered the most terrible thing in

the world, what a quandary the court would find itself in before me, with my two- or three-week term and with torture and the rack abolished! I would die comfortably in their hospital, in warmth, and with an attentive doctor, and perhaps be much more comfortable and warm than in my own house. I don't understand why the same thought doesn't occur to people in the same situation as mine, if only as a joke? However, maybe it does occur to them; there are lots of merry people to be found among us, too.

But if I do not recognize any judgment over me, I know all the same that I will be judged, once I have become a deaf and speechless defendant. I do not want to go without leaving a word of reply—a free word, not a forced one—not to justify myself—oh, no! I have nothing to ask forgiveness for from anyone—but just because I myself want it so.

First of all, there is a strange thought here: who, in the name of what right, in the name of what motive, would now take it into his head to dispute my right to these two or three weeks of my term? What court has any business here? Who precisely needs that I should not only be sentenced, but should graciously keep to the term of my sentence? Can it really be that anyone needs that? For the sake of morality? If, in the bloom of health and strength, I were to make an attempt on my life, which "could be useful to my neighbor," and so on, then I could understand that morality might reproach me, out of old habit, for having dealt with my life arbitrarily, or whatever. But now, now, when the term of the sentence has been read out to me? What sort of morality needs, on top of your life, also your last gasp, with which you give up the last atom of life, listening to the consolations of the prince, who is bound to go as far in his Christian reasoning as the happy thought that, essentially, it's even better that you're dying. (Christians like him always get to that idea: it's their favorite hobbyhorse.) And what do they want to do with their ridiculous "Pavlovsk trees"? Sweeten the last hours of my life? Don't they understand that the more oblivious I become, the more I give myself up to that last phantom of life and love with which they want to screen my Meyer's wall from me, with all that is written on it so frankly and simple-heartedly, the more unhappy they will make me? What do I need your nature for, your Pavlovsk park, your sunrises and sunsets, your blue sky, and your all-contented faces, when this whole banquet, which has no end, began by counting me alone as superfluous? What do I care about all this beauty, when every minute, every second, I must

and am forced to know that even this tiny fly that is now buzzing near me in a ray of sunlight, even it participates in this banquet and chorus, knows its place, loves it, and is happy, while I alone am a castaway, and only in my pusillanimity did not want to understand it till now! Oh, don't I know how the prince and all of them would like to drive me to the point where, instead of all these "perfidious and spiteful" speeches, I would sing, out of good behavior and for the triumph of morality, the famous and classical strophe of Millevoye:¹⁹

O, puissent voir votre beauté sacrée

Tant d'amis sourds à mes adieux!

Qu'ils meurent pleins de jours, que leur mort soit pleurée,

Qu'un ami leur ferme les yeux!*

But believe me, believe me, simple-hearted people, in this well-behaved strophe, in this academic blessing of the world in French verse, there is lodged so much hidden bile, so much implacable spite indulging itself in rhymes, that even the poet himself, perhaps, was duped and took this spite for tears of tenderness, and died with that—may he rest in peace! Know that there is a limit to disgrace in the consciousness of one's own nonentity and weakness, beyond which man cannot go and at which he begins to take a tremendous pleasure in the disgrace itself . . . Well, of course, humility is a tremendous force in this sense, I admit that—though not in the sense in which religion takes humility for a force.

Religion! I do admit eternal life and perhaps have always admitted it. Let consciousness be lit up by the will of a higher power, let it look at the world and say: "I am!" and let the higher power suddenly decree its annihilation, because for some reason—or even without explaining for what reason—that is needed: let it be so, I admit all that, but again comes the eternal question: why is my humility needed here? Isn't it possible simply to eat me, without demanding that I praise that which has eaten me? Can it be that someone there will indeed be offended that I don't want to wait for two weeks? I don't believe it; and it would be much more likely to suppose that my insignificant life, the life of an atom, was simply needed for the fulfillment of some universal harmony as a whole,

*O, may they behold your sacred beauty / So many friends deaf to my farewells! / May they die full of days, may their death be wept, / May a friend close their eyes!

for some plus and minus, for some sort of contrast, and so on and " so forth, just as daily sacrifice requires the lives of a multitude of beings, without whose death the rest of the world could not stand (though it must be noted that this is not a very magnanimous thought in itself). But so be it! I agree that it was quite impossible to arrange the world otherwise, that is, without the ceaseless devouring of each other; I even agree to admit that I understand nothing of this arrangement; but on the other hand, I know this for certain: if I have once been given the consciousness that "I am," what business is it of mine that the world has been arranged with mistakes and that otherwise it cannot stand? Who is going to judge me after that, and for what? Say what you will, all this is impossible and unjust.

And meanwhile, even in spite of all my desire, I could never imagine to myself that there is no future life and no providence. Most likely there is all that, but we don't understand anything about the future life and its laws. But if it is so difficult and even completely impossible to understand it, can it be that I will have to answer for being unable to comprehend the unknowable? True, they say, and the prince, of course, along with them, that it is here that obedience is necessary, that one must obey without reasoning, out of sheer good behavior, and that I am bound to be rewarded for my meekness in the other world. We abase providence too much by ascribing our own notions to it, being vexed that we can't understand it. But, again, if it's impossible to understand it, then, I repeat, it is hard to have to answer for something it is not given to man to understand. And if so, how are they going to judge me for being unable to understand the true will and laws of providence? No, we'd better leave religion alone.

But enough. When I get to these lines, the sun will probably already be risen and "resounding in the sky," and a tremendous, incalculable force will pour out on all that is under the sun. So be it! I will die looking straight into the wellspring of force and life, and I will not want this life! If it had been in my power not to be born, I probably would not have accepted existence on such derisive conditions. But I still have the power to die, though I'm giving back what's already numbered. No great power, no great rebellion either.

A last explanation: I am by no means dying because I cannot endure these three weeks; oh, I would have strength enough, and if I wanted to, I could be sufficiently comforted by the very

consciousness of the offense done to me; but I am not a French poet and do not want such comforting. Finally, there is the temptation: nature has so greatly limited my activity by her three-week sentence that suicide may be the only thing I still have time to begin and end of my own will. So, maybe I want to use my last opportunity of matter . . .doing something? A protest is sometimes no small

The "Explanation" was over; Ippolit finally stopped . . .

There is in extreme cases that degree of ultimate cynical frankness, when a nervous man, irritated and beside himself, no longer fears anything and is ready for any scandal, even glad of it; he throws himself at people, having at the same time an unclear but firm goal of certainly leaping from a belfry a minute later and thus resolving at once all misunderstandings, in case they turn up along the way. An imminent exhaustion of physical strength is usually an indication of this state. The extreme, almost unnatural tension that had so far sustained Ippolit had reached that ultimate degree. In himself this eighteen-year-old boy, exhausted by illness, seemed as weak as a trembling leaf torn from a tree; but he no sooner looked around at his listeners—for the first time during the last hour—than the same haughty, almost contemptuous and offensive revulsion showed at once in his eyes and smile. He hurried with his defiance. But his listeners were also totally indignant. They were all getting up from the table with noise and vexation. Fatigue, wine, and tension had heightened the disorderliness and, as it were, the filth of the impressions, if it may be so expressed.

Suddenly Ippolit jumped quickly from his chair, as if torn from his place.

"The sun has risen!" he cried, seeing the glowing treetops and pointing them out to the prince like a miracle. "It's risen!"²⁰

"And did you think it wouldn't, or what?" observed Ferdyshchenko.

"Another whole day of torrid heat," Ganya muttered with careless vexation, hat in hand, stretching and yawning. "Well, there may be a month of drought like this! . . . Are we going or not, Ptitsyn?"

Ippolit listened with an astonishment that reached the point of stupefaction; suddenly he turned terribly pale and began to shake all over.

"You're very clumsily affecting your indifference in order to insult

me," he addressed Ganya, looking at him point-blank. "You're a scoundrel!"

"Well, devil knows, a man shouldn't unbutton himself like that!" shouted Ferdyshchenko. "What phenomenal weakness!"

"Simply a fool," said Ganya.

Ippolit restrained himself somewhat.

"I understand, gentlemen," he began, trembling and faltering at each word as before, "that I may deserve your personal vengeance and . . . I'm sorry that I wore you out with this raving" (he pointed to the manuscript), "though I'm sorry I didn't wear you out completely . . ." (he smiled stupidly). "Did I wear you out, Evgeny Pavlych?" he suddenly jumped over to him with the question. "Did I wear you out, or not? Speak!"

"It was a bit drawn out, but anyhow . . ."

"Say it all! Don't lie for at least once in your life!" Ippolit commanded, trembling.

"Oh, it decidedly makes no difference to me! Do me a favor, I beg you, leave me in peace," Evgeny Pavlovich squeamishly turned away.

"Good night, Prince," Ptitsyn went over to the prince.

"But he's going to shoot himself now, don't you see? Look at him!" cried Vera, and she rushed to Ippolit in extreme fright and even seized his hands. "He said he'd shoot himself at sunrise, don't you see?"

"He won't shoot himself!" several voices muttered gloatingly, Ganya's among them.

"Watch out, gentlemen!" Kolya cried, also seizing Ippolit by the hand. "Just look at him! Prince! Prince, don't you see?"

Vera, Kolya, Keller, and Burdovsky crowded around Ippolit; all four seized him with their hands.

"He has the right, the right! . . ." muttered Burdovsky, who nevertheless looked quite lost.

"Excuse me, Prince, what are your orders?" Lebedev went up to the prince, drunk and spiteful to the point of impudence.

"What orders?"

"No, sir; excuse me, sir; I'm the host, sir, though I do not wish to show a lack of respect for you. Let's grant that you, too, are the host, but I don't want any of that in my own house ... So there, sir."

"He won't shoot himself; it's a boyish prank," General Ivolgin cried unexpectedly with indignation and aplomb.

"Bravo, General!" Ferdyshchenko picked up.

"I know he won't shoot himself, General, my much-esteemed General, but all the same ... for I'm the host."

"Listen, Mr. Terentyev," Ptitsyn said suddenly, having taken leave of the prince and holding his hand out to Ippolit, "in your notebook I believe you mention your skeleton and bequeath it to the Academy? It's your skeleton, your very own, that is, your own bones, that you're bequeathing?"

"Yes, my own bones . . ."

"Aha. Because there might be a mistake: they say there already was such a case."

"Why do you tease him?" the prince cried suddenly.

"You've driven him to tears," added Ferdyshchenko.

But Ippolit was not crying at all. He tried to move from his place, but the four people standing around him suddenly all seized him by the arms. There was laughter.

"That's what he was getting at, that people should hold him by the arms; that's why he read his notebook," observed Rogozhin. "Good-bye, Prince. We've sat enough; my bones ache."

"If you actually intended to shoot yourself, Terentyev," laughed Evgeny Pavlovich, "then if I were in your place, after such compliments, I would deliberately not shoot myself, so as to tease them."

"They want terribly to see how I shoot myself!" Ippolit reared up at him.

He spoke as if he were attacking him.

"They're vexed that they won't see it."

"So you, too, think they won't see it?"

"I'm not egging you on; on the contrary, I think it's quite possible that you will shoot yourself. Above all, don't get angry . . ." Evgeny Pavlovich drawled, drawing the words out patronizingly.

"Only now do I see that I made a terrible mistake in reading them this notebook!" said Ippolit, looking at Evgeny Pavlovich with such an unexpectedly trusting air as if he were asking friendly advice from a friend.

"The situation is ridiculous, but. . . really, I don't know what to advise you," Evgeny Pavlovich replied, smiling.

Ippolit sternly looked at him point-blank, not tearing his eyes away, and said nothing. One might have thought he was totally oblivious at moments.

"No, excuse me, sir, look at the way he does it, sir," said Lebedev.

"'I'll shoot myself,' he says, 'in the park, so as not to trouble anybody'! So he thinks he won't trouble anybody if he goes three steps down into the garden."

"Gentlemen . . ." the prince began.

"No, sir, excuse me, sir, my much-esteemed Prince," Lebedev latched on furiously, "since you yourself are pleased to see that this is not a joke and since at least half of your guests are of the same opinion and are sure that now, after the words that have been spoken here, he certainly must shoot himself out of honor, then I, being the host, announce in front of witnesses that I am asking you to be of assistance!"

"What needs to be done, Lebedev? I'm ready to assist you."

"Here's what: first of all, he should immediately hand over his pistol, which he boasted about to us, with all the accessories. If he hands it over, then I agree to allow him to spend this one night in this house, in view of his ill condition, and, of course, under supervision on my part. But tomorrow let him go without fail wherever he likes—forgive me, Prince! If he doesn't hand over his weapon, then I at once, immediately, seize him by one arm, the general by the other, and also at once send somebody to notify the police, and then the matter passes over to the police for consideration, sir. Mr. Ferdyshchenko will go, sir, being an acquaintance."

Noise broke out; Lebedev was excited and already overstepping the limits; Ferdyshchenko was preparing to go to the police; Ganya furiously insisted that no one was going to shoot himself. Evgeny Pavlovich was silent.

"Prince, have you ever leaped from a belfry?" Ippolit suddenly whispered to him.

"N-no . . ." the prince answered naively.

"Do you really think I didn't foresee all this hatred?" Ippolit whispered again, flashing his eyes, and looking at the prince as if he indeed expected an answer from him. "Enough!" he cried suddenly to the whole public. "I'm to blame . . . most of all! Lebedev, here's the key" (he took out his wallet and from it a steel ring with three or four little keys on it), "this one, the next to last . . . Kolya will show you . . . Kolya! Where's Kolya?" he cried, looking at Kolya and not seeing him, "yes . . . he'll show you; he and I packed my bag yesterday. Take him, Kolya; in the prince's study, under the table . . . my bag . . . with this key, at the bottom, in the little box . . . my pistol and the powder horn. He packed it himself yesterday, Mr. Lebedev, he'll show you; so long as you give me back the pistol

early tomorrow, when I go to Petersburg. Do you hear? I'm doing it for the prince, not for you."

"Well, that's better!" Lebedev snatched the key and, smiling venomously, ran to the other room.

Kolya stopped, was about to say something, but Lebedev pulled him after him.

Ippolit was looking at the laughing guests. The prince noticed that his teeth were chattering as if in a most violent chill.

"What scoundrels they all are!" Ippolit again whispered frenziedly to the prince. When he spoke to the prince, he kept leaning towards him and whispering.

"Let them be; you're very weak ..."

"One moment, one moment . . . I'll go in a moment."

He suddenly embraced the prince.

"Maybe you find me crazy?" He looked at him, laughing strangely.

"No, but you ..."

"One moment, one moment, be quiet; don't say anything; stand there ... I want to look in your eyes . . . Stand like that, let me look. Let me say good-bye to Man."

He stood and looked at the prince motionlessly and silently for about ten seconds, very pale, his temples moist with sweat, and somehow clutching at the prince strangely with his hand, as if afraid to let him go.

"Ippolit, Ippolit, what's the matter?" cried the prince.

"One moment . . . enough . . . I'll lie down. I'll drink one gulp , to the sun's health ... I want to, I want to, let me be!"

He quickly snatched a glass from the table, tore from the spot, and an instant later was on the steps of the terrace. The prince was about to run after him, but it so happened that, as if on purpose, at that same moment Evgeny Pavlovich held out his hand to say good-bye. A second passed, and suddenly a general cry arose on the terrace. Then came a moment of extreme disarray.

Here is what happened:

Having gone right to the steps of the terrace, Ippolit stopped, holding the glass in his left hand, his right hand thrust into the right side pocket of his coat. Keller insisted later that Ippolit had kept that hand in his right pocket before as well, while he was talking with the prince and clutching at his shoulder and collar with his left hand, and this right hand in the pocket, Keller insisted, had supposedly aroused a first suspicion in him. Be that as it may, a

certain uneasiness made him also run after Ippolit. But he, too, was late. He saw only how something suddenly flashed in Ippolit's right hand, and in that same second the small pocket pistol was pressed to his temple. Keller rushed to seize his hand, but in that same second Ippolit pulled the trigger. The sharp, dry click of the trigger rang out, but no shot followed. As Keller put his arms around Ippolit, the latter collapsed as if unconscious, perhaps indeed imagining that he was killed. The pistol was already in Keller's hand. Ippolit was picked up, a chair was brought, he was seated, and everyone crowded around, everyone shouted, everyone asked questions. Everyone had heard the click of the trigger and now saw the man alive, not even scratched. Ippolit himself sat, not understanding what was happening, and looked at everyone around him with senseless eyes. Lebedev and Kolya came running at that moment.

"A misfire?" some asked.

"Maybe it's not loaded?" others tried to guess.

"It is loaded!" Keller announced, examining the pistol, "but. . ."

"A misfire, then?"

"There wasn't any cap," Keller declared.

It is hard to describe the pitiful scene that followed. The initial and general alarm quickly gave way to laughter; some even guffawed, finding a malicious pleasure in it. Ippolit sobbed as if in hysterics, wrung his hands, rushed to everyone, even to Ferdyshchenko, seized him with both hands, and swore to him that he had forgotten, "had forgotten quite by chance and not on purpose" to put a cap in, that "the caps are all here in his waistcoat pocket, about ten of them" (he showed them to everyone around him), that he had not put one in earlier for fear it might accidentally go off in his pocket, that he had reckoned he would always have time to put one in when necessary, and had suddenly forgotten. He rushed to the prince, to Evgeny Pavlovich, he implored Keller to give him the pistol, so that he could prove it to them all right then, that "his honor, honor" . . . that he was now "dishonored forever! ..."

In the end he really fell unconscious. They carried him to the prince's study, and Lebedev, completely sobered, immediately sent for the doctor and stayed at the sick boy's bedside, along with his daughter, his son, Burdovsky, and the general. When the unconscious Ippolit was taken out, Keller stepped to the middle of the room and announced for everyone to hear, distinctly and emphasizing each word, in decided inspiration:

"Gentlemen, if any of you doubts once more, aloud, in my presence, whether the cap was forgotten on purpose, and begins to maintain that the unfortunate young man was only putting on a show—that person will have to deal with me."

No one answered him. The guests finally left in a crowd and hurriedly. Ptitsyn, Ganya, and Rogozhin went off together.

The prince was very surprised that Evgeny Pavlovich had changed his mind and was leaving without having a talk with him.

"Didn't you want to talk to me once everyone was gone?" he asked him.

"So I did," said Evgeny Pavlovich, suddenly sitting down on a chair and sitting the prince down next to him, "but for the time being I've changed my mind. I'll confess to you that I'm somewhat perplexed, and you are, too. My thoughts are confused; besides, the matter I wanted to talk over with you is all too important for me, and for you, too. You see, Prince, I would like at least once in my life to do a completely honest deed, that is, completely without second thoughts, but I think that right now, at this moment, I'm not quite capable of a completely honest deed, and perhaps you're not either . . . so . . . and . . . well, we'll talk later. Perhaps the matter will gain in clarity, both for me and for you, if we wait those three days which I shall now be spending in Petersburg."

Here he got up from his chair again, which made it strange that he had sat down at all. It also seemed to the prince that Evgeny Pavlovich was displeased and irritated and looked about hostilely, and his gaze was not at all what it had been yesterday.

"By the way, are you going to the sufferer now?"

"Yes . . . I'm afraid," said the prince.

"Don't be afraid; he'll probably live another six weeks and may even recover here. But the best thing would be to send him away tomorrow."

"Maybe I really forced his hand by . . . not saying anything; maybe he thought that I, too, doubted that he would shoot himself? What do you think, Evgeny Pavlych?"

"No, no. It's too kind of you to be still worried. I've heard of it, but I've never seen in real life how a man can purposely shoot himself in order to be praised, or out of spite at not being praised. Above all, this sincerity of weakness is not to be believed! But you should still send him away tomorrow."

"You think he'll shoot himself again?"

"No, he won't shoot himself now. But you should beware of these homegrown Lacenaires²¹ of ours! I repeat to you that crime is all too common a resort for such giftless, impatient, and greedy nonentities."

"Is he a Lacenaire?"

"The essence is the same, though the line may be different. You'll see whether this gentleman isn't capable of doing in a dozen souls merely for a joke,' just as he read earlier in his 'Explanation.' Now those words won't let me sleep."

"Perhaps you're worrying too much."

"You're amazing, Prince. Don't you believe he's capable now of killing a dozen souls?"

"I'm afraid to answer you; it's all very strange, but . . ."

"Well, as you wish, as you wish!" Evgeny Pavlovich concluded irritably. "Besides, you're such a brave man; only don't get yourself included in that dozen."

"Most likely he won't kill anybody," said the prince, looking pensively at Evgeny Pavlovich.

The man laughed maliciously.

"Good-bye, it's time to go! And did you notice that he bequeathed a copy of his 'Confession' to Aglaya Ivanovna?"

"Yes, I did and . . . I'm thinking about it."

"Do so, in case of those dozen souls," Evgeny Pavlovich laughed again and left.

An hour later, already past three o'clock, the prince went down into the park. He had tried to fall asleep at home, but could not, because of the violent beating of his heart. At home, however, everything was settled and peaceful, as far as possible; the sick boy had fallen asleep, and the doctor had come and had declared that there was no special danger. Lebedev, Kolya, and Burdovsky lay down in the sick boy's room to take turns watching over him; there was therefore nothing to fear.

But the prince's uneasiness was growing minute by minute. He wandered through the park, absentmindedly looking around, and stopped in surprise when he came to the green in front of the vauxhall and saw a row of empty benches and music stands for the orchestra. The place struck him and for some reason seemed terribly ugly. He turned back and straight down the path he had taken to the vauxhall the day before with the Epanchins, which brought him to the green bench appointed to him for the meeting, sat down on it, and suddenly laughed out loud, which at once

made him terribly indignant. His anguish continued; he would have liked to go away somewhere . . . He did not know where. Above him in the tree a little bird was singing, and he started searching for it with his eyes among the leaves; suddenly the bird flew away from the tree, and at that moment for some reason he recalled the "little fly" in a "hot ray of sunlight," of which Ippolit had written that even this fly "knows its place and participates in the general chorus, and he alone was a castaway." This phrase had struck him earlier, and he remembered it now. A long-forgotten memory stirred in him and suddenly became clear all at once.

It was in Switzerland, during the first year of his treatment, even during the first months. He was still quite like an idiot then, could not even speak properly, and sometimes did not understand what was required of him. Once he went into the mountains on a clear, sunny day, and wandered about for a long time with a tormenting thought that refused to take shape. Before him was the shining sky, below him the lake, around him the horizon, bright and infinite, as if it went on forever. For a long time he looked and suffered. He remembered now how he had stretched out his arms to that bright, infinite blue and wept. What had tormented him was that he was a total stranger to it all. What was this banquet, what was this great everlasting feast, to which he had long been drawn, always, ever since childhood, and which he could never join? Every morning the same bright sun rises; every morning there is a rainbow over the waterfall; every evening the highest snowcapped mountain, there, far away, at the edge of the sky, burns with a crimson flame; every "little fly that buzzes near him in a hot ray of sunlight participates in this whole chorus: knows its place, loves it, and is happy"; every little blade of grass grows and is happy! And everything has its path, and everything knows its path, goes with a song and comes back with a song; only he knows nothing, understands nothing, neither people nor sounds, a stranger to everything and a castaway. Oh, of course, he could not speak then with these words and give voice to his question; he suffered blankly and mutely; but now it seemed to him that he had said it all then, all those same words, and that Ippolit had taken the words about the "little fly" from him, from his own words and tears of that time. He was sure of it, and for some reason his heart throbbed at this thought . . .

He dozed off on the bench, but his anxiousness continued in his sleep. Before falling asleep, he remembered that Ippolit would

kill a dozen people, and he smiled at the absurdity of the suggestion. Around him there was a beautiful, serene silence, with only the rustling of leaves, which seemed to make it still more silent and solitary. He had a great many dreams, and all of them anxious, so that he kept shuddering. Finally a woman came to him; he knew her, knew her to the point of suffering; he could have named her and pointed to her any time, but—strangely— she now seemed to have a different face from the one he had always known, and he was painfully reluctant to recognize her as that woman. There was so much repentance and horror in this face that it seemed she was a terrible criminal who had just committed a horrible crime. A tear trembled on her pale cheek; she beckoned to him with her hand and put her finger to her lips, as if cautioning him to follow her more quietly. His heart stood still; not for anything, not for anything did he want to recognize her as a criminal; yet he felt that something horrible was just about to happen, for the whole of his life. It seemed she wanted to show him something, not far away, there in the park. He got up to follow her, and suddenly someone's bright, fresh laughter rang out close by; someone's hand was suddenly in his hand; he grasped this hand, pressed it hard, and woke up. Before him, laughing loudly, stood Aglaya.

VIII

She was laughing, but she was also indignant. "Asleep! You were asleep!" she cried with scornful surprise. "It's you!" murmured the prince, not quite recovered yet and recognizing her with surprise. "Ah, yes! Our meeting ... I was sleeping here."

"So I saw.

"Did no one else wake me up except you? Was there no one here except you? I thought there was . . . another woman here ..."

"There was another woman here?!"

He finally recovered himself completely.

"It was only a dream," he said pensively, "strange, such a dream at such a moment ... Sit down."

He took her by the hand and sat her on the bench; he sat down beside her and fell to thinking. Aglaya did not begin a conversation,

but only studied her interlocutor intently. He also kept glancing at her, but at times it was as if he did not see her before him at all. She was beginning to blush.

"Ah, yes!" the prince gave a start. "Ippolit shot himself!"

"When? At your place?" she said, but with no great surprise. "Yesterday evening, I believe, he was still alive? How could you fall asleep here after all that?" she cried with unexpected animation.

"But he didn't die, the pistol didn't fire."

At Aglaya's insistence the prince had to retell right then, and even in great detail, the whole story of the past night. She kept hurrying him as he told it, yet she herself interrupted him continually with questions, almost all of them beside the point. Among other things, she listened with great curiosity to what Evgeny Pavlovich had said, and several times even asked the prince to repeat it.

"Well, enough, we must hurry," she concluded, having heard it all, "we can only stay here for an hour, till eight o'clock, because at eight o'clock I must be at home without fail, so they won't know I've been sitting here, and I've come on business; I have a lot to tell you. Only you've got me all thrown off now. About Ippolit, I think his pistol was bound not to fire, it's more suited to him. But are you sure he really wanted to shoot himself and there was no deception in it?"

"No deception at all."

"That's more likely, too. So he wrote that you should bring me his confession? Why didn't you bring it?"

"But he didn't die. I'll ask him."

"Bring it without fail, and there's no need to ask. He'll probably be very pleased, because it may be that his purpose in shooting himself was so that I should read his confession afterwards. Please, Lev Nikolaich, I beg you not to laugh at my words, because it may very well be so."

"I'm not laughing, because I'm sure myself that in part it may very well be so."

"You're sure? Do you really think so, too?" Aglaya suddenly became terribly surprised.

She questioned him quickly, spoke rapidly, but seemed to get confused at times and often did not finish; she kept hurrying to warn him about something; generally she was extraordinarily anxious, and though she looked at him very bravely and with a sort of defiance, she was perhaps also a little frightened. She

was wearing a most ordinary and simple dress, which was very becoming to her. She often started, blushed, and sat on the edge of the bench. She was very surprised when the prince agreed that Ippolit shot himself so that she should read his confession.

"Of course," the prince explained, "he wanted not only you but the rest of us also to praise him ..."

"How do you mean, praise him?"

"I mean it's . . . how shall I tell you? It's very hard to say. Only he surely wanted everyone to stand around him and tell him that they love and respect him very much, and start begging him to remain alive. It may well be that he had you in mind most of all, since he mentioned you at such a moment . . . though he may not have known himself that he had you in mind."

"That I don't understand at all: had me in mind, but didn't know he had me in mind. Though I think I do understand: do you know that I myself, even when I was still a thirteen-year-old girl, thought at least thirty times of poisoning myself, and of writing all about it in a letter to my parents, and I also thought of how I would lie in the coffin, and they would all weep over me and accuse themselves for being so cruel to me . . . Why are you smiling again?" she added quickly, frowning. "And what do you think to yourself when you dream alone? Maybe you imagine you're a field marshal and have crushed Napoleon?"

"Well, on my word of honor, that's just what I do think about, especially as I'm falling asleep," laughed the prince, "only it's not Napoleon I crush but the Austrians."

"I have no wish to joke with you, Lev Nikolaich. I will go to see Ippolit myself; I ask you to warn him. And on your side I find all this very bad, because it's very rude to look at and judge a man's soul the way you're judging Ippolit. You have no tenderness, only truth, that makes it unfair."

The prince reflected.

"I think you're being unfair to me," he said. "I don't find anything bad in his thinking that way, because everyone is inclined to think that way; besides, maybe he didn't think at all, but merely wanted ... he wanted to meet people for the last time, to deserve their respect and love; those are very good feelings, only somehow nothing turned out right; it's his sickness, and something else as well! Anyhow, with some people everything always turns out right, and with others it's like nothing in the world . . ."

"You probably added that about yourself," Aglaya observed.

"Yes, about myself," replied the prince, not noticing any malice in the question.

"Only, all the same, I should never have fallen asleep in your place; it means that wherever you snuggle up, you fall asleep at once; that's not very nice on your part."

"But I didn't sleep all night, then I walked and walked, got to the music . . ."

"What music?"

"Where they played yesterday, and then I came here, sat down, thought and thought, and fell asleep."

"Ah, so that's how it was? That changes everything in your favor . . . And why did you go to the music?"

"I don't know, I just . . ."

"All right, all right, later; you keep interrupting me, and what do I care if you went to the music? Who was that woman you dreamed about?"

"It was . . . about . . . you saw her . . ."

"I understand, I understand very well. You're very much . . . How did you dream of her, what did she look like? However, I don't want to know anything," she suddenly snapped in vexation, "don't interrupt me ..."

She waited a while, as if gathering her courage or trying to drive her vexation away.

"Here's the whole matter I invited you for: I want to propose that you be my friend. Why do you suddenly stare at me like that?" she added almost with wrath.

The prince was indeed peering at her intently at that moment, noticing that she had again begun to blush terribly. On such occasions, the more she blushed, the more she seemed to be angry with herself for it, as showed clearly in her flashing eyes; usually she would transfer her wrath a moment later to the one she was talking with, whether or not it was his fault, and begin to quarrel with him. Knowing and feeling her wildness and shyness, she usually entered little into conversation and was more taciturn than the other sisters, sometimes even much too taciturn. When, especially on such ticklish occasions, she absolutely had to speak, she would begin the conversation with an extraordinary haughtiness and as if with a sort of defiance. She always felt beforehand when she was beginning or about to begin to blush.

"Perhaps you don't want to accept my proposal?" she glanced haughtily at the prince.

"Oh, no, I do, only it's quite unnecessary . . . that is, I never thought there was any need to propose such a thing," the prince was abashed.

"And what did you think? Why would I have invited you here? What do you have in mind? However, maybe you consider me a little fool, as they all do at home?"

"I didn't know they considered you a fool. I ... I don't."

"You don't? Very intelligent on your part. The way you put it is especially intelligent."

"In my opinion, you may even be very intelligent at times," the prince went on. "Earlier you suddenly said something very intelligent. You said of my doubt about Ippolit: 'There's only truth in it, and that makes it unfair.' I'll remember that and think about it."

Aglaya suddenly flushed with pleasure. All these changes took place in her extremely openly and with extraordinary swiftness. The prince also rejoiced and even laughed with joy, looking at her.

"Now listen," she began again, "I've been waiting for you a long time, in order to tell you all this, I've been waiting ever since you wrote me that letter from there, and even earlier . . . You already heard half of it from me yesterday: I consider you a most honest and truthful man, the most honest and truthful of all, and if they say your mind . . . that is, that you're sometimes sick in your mind, it isn't right; I've decided and argued about it, because though you are in fact sick in your mind (you won't, of course, be angry at that, I'm speaking from a higher point), the main mind in you is better than in any of them, such as they would never even dream of, because there are two minds: the main one and the non-main one. Well? Isn't that so?"

"Maybe so," the prince barely uttered; his heart trembled and pounded terribly.

"I just knew you'd understand," she went on gravely. "Prince Shch. and Evgeny Pavlych don't understand anything about these two minds, neither does Alexandra, but imagine: maman did."

"You're very much like Lizaveta Prokofyevna."

"How's that? Can it be?" Aglaya was surprised.

"By God, it's so."

"I thank you," she said after some thought. "I'm very glad that I'm like maman. So you respect her very much?" she added, quite unaware of the naivety of the question.

"Very, very much, and I'm glad you've understood it so directly."

"I'm glad, too, because I've noticed that people sometimes . . . laugh at her. But now hear the main thing: I've thought for a long time, and I've finally chosen you. I don't want them to laugh at me at home; I don't want them to consider me a little fool; I don't want them to tease me ... I understood it all at once and flatly refused Evgeny Pavlych, because I don't want them to be constantly marrying me off! I want ... I want . . .well, I want to run away from home, and I've chosen you to help me."

"To run away from home!" the prince cried.

"Yes, yes, yes, to run away from home!" she cried suddenly, blazing up with extraordinary wrath. "I don't, I don't want them to be eternally making me blush there. I don't want to blush either before them, or before Prince Shch., or before Evgeny Pavlych, or before anybody, and so I've chosen you. I want to talk about everything with you, everything, even the main thing, whenever I like; and you, for your part, must hide nothing from me. I want to talk about everything with at least one person as I would with myself. They suddenly started saying that I was waiting for you and that I loved you. That was before you arrived, and I didn't show them your letter; but now they all say it. I want to be brave and not afraid of anything. I don't want to go to their balls, I want to be useful. I wanted to leave long ago. They've kept me bottled up for twenty years, and they all want to get me married. When I was fourteen I already thought of running away, though I was a fool. Now I have it all worked out and was waiting for you, to ask you all about life abroad. I've never seen a single gothic cathedral, I want to be in Rome, I want to examine all the learned collections, I want to study in Paris; all this past year I've been preparing and studying, and I've read a great many books; I've read all the forbidden books. Alexandra and Adelaida have read all the books; they're allowed but I'm forbidden, they supervise me. I don't want to quarrel with my sisters, but I announced to my father and mother long ago that I want to change my social position completely. I've decided to occupy myself with education, and I'm counting on you, because you said you loved children. Can we occupy ourselves with education together, if not now, then in the future? We'll be useful together; I don't want to be a general's daughter . . . Tell me, are you a very learned man?"

"Oh, not at all."

"That's a pity, and I thought . . . what made me think that? You'll guide me all the same, because I've chosen you."

"This is absurd, Aglaya Ivanovna."

"I want it, I want to run away from home!" she cried, and again her eyes flashed. "If you don't agree, then I'll marry Gavrila Ardalionovich. I don't want to be considered a loathsome woman at home and be accused of God knows what."

"Are you out of your mind?" the prince nearly jumped up from his place. "What do they accuse you of? Who accuses you?"

"At home, everybody, my mother, my sisters, my father, Prince Shch., even your loathsome Kolya! If they don't say it outright, they think it. I told them all so to their faces, my mother and my father. Maman was ill for the whole day; and the next day Alexandra and papa told me I didn't understand what I was babbling myself and what kind of words I'd spoken. At which point I just snapped at them that I already understood everything, all the words, that I was not a little girl, that I had read two novels by Paul de Kock²² on purpose two years ago in order to learn about everything. When she heard that, maman nearly fainted."

A strange thought suddenly flashed in the prince's head. He looked intently at Aglaya and smiled.

It was even hard for him to believe that this was the same haughty girl sitting before him who had once so proudly and arrogantly read Gavrila Ardalionovich's letter to him. He could not understand how such an arrogant, stern beauty could turn out to be such a child, who even now might actually not understand all the words.

"Have you always lived at home, Aglaya Ivanovna?" he asked. "I mean to say, you haven't gone anywhere, to any kind of school, never studied at an institute?"

"I've never gone anywhere; I've always sat at home, bottled up, and I'll get married right out of the bottle. Why are you smiling again? I notice that you, too, seem to be laughing at me and to be on their side," she added, with a menacing frown. "Don't make me angry, I don't know what's the matter with me as it is . . . I'm sure you've come here completely convinced that I'm in love with you and was inviting you to a tryst," she snapped irritably.

"I actually was afraid of that yesterday," the prince blurted out simple-heartedly (he was very embarrassed), "but today I'm sure that you . . ."

"What!" Aglaya cried, and her lower lip suddenly trembled. "You were afraid that I . . . you dared to think that I . . . Lord! Maybe you suspected that I invited you here in order to lure you into my nets, and then they would find us here and force you to marry me . . ."

"Aglaya Ivanovna! Aren't you ashamed? How could such a dirty thought be born in your pure, innocent heart? I'll bet you yourself don't believe a word you've said and . . . you don't know what you're saying!"

Aglaya sat stubbornly looking down, as if she herself was frightened at what she had said.

"I'm not ashamed at all," she murmured. "How do you know my heart is innocent? How did you dare to send me a love letter then?"

"A love letter? My letter—a love letter? That letter was most respectful, that letter poured from my heart at the most painful moment of my life! I remembered about you then as of some sort of light²³ . . . I . . ."

"Well, all right, all right," she suddenly interrupted, no longer in the same tone at all, but in complete repentance and almost in alarm; she even bent towards him, still trying not to look straight at him, and made as if to touch his shoulder, to ask him more convincingly not to be angry, "all right," she added, terribly shamefaced, "I feel that I used a very stupid expression. I did it just like that... to test you. Take it as if I hadn't said it. And if I offended you, forgive me. Please don't look straight at me, turn your head. You said it was a very dirty thought: I said it on purpose to needle you. Sometimes I myself am afraid of what I want to say, and then suddenly I say it. You said just now that you wrote that letter at the most painful moment of your life ... I know what moment it was," she said softly, again looking at the ground.

"Oh, if only you could know everything!"

"I do know everything!" she cried with new agitation. "You lived in the same rooms for a whole month then with that loathsome woman you ran away with . . ."

She did not blush now but turned pale as she said it, and she suddenly got up from her place, as if forgetting herself, but, recollecting herself, she at once sat down; her lower lip went on trembling for a long time. The silence went on for about a minute. The prince was terribly struck by the suddenness of her outburst and did not know what to ascribe it to.

"I don't love you at all," she suddenly snapped out.

The prince did not reply; again there was a minute of silence.

"I love Gavrila Ardalionovich . . ." she said in a quick patter, but barely audibly and bowing her head still more.

"That's not true," said the prince, almost in a whisper.

"You mean I'm lying? It is true; I gave him my promise, two days ago, on this same bench."

The prince was alarmed and thought for a moment.

"That's not true," he said resolutely, "you've made it all up."

"How wonderfully polite. Know that he has mended his ways; he loves me more than life itself. He burned his hand in front of me just to prove that he loves me more than life itself."

"Burned his hand?"

"Yes, his hand. Believe it or don't—it's all the same to me."

The prince fell silent again. There was no joking in Aglaya's words; she was angry.

"What, did he bring a candle here with him, if it happened here? Otherwise I can't imagine . . ."

"Yes ... a candle. What's so incredible?"

"Whole or in a candlestick?"

"Well, yes . . . no . . . half a candle ... a candle end ... a whole candle—it's all the same, leave me alone! . . . And he brought matches, if you like. He lit the candle and held his finger over the flame for a whole half hour; can't that be?"

"I saw him yesterday; there was nothing wrong with his fingers."

Aglaya suddenly burst out laughing, just like a child.

"You know why I lied to you just now?" she suddenly turned to the prince with the most childlike trustfulness and with laughter still trembling on her lips. "Because when you lie, if you skillfully put in something not quite usual, something eccentric, well, you know, something that happens quite rarely or even never, the lie becomes much more believable. I've noticed that. Only with me it came out badly, because I wasn't able to . . ."

Suddenly she frowned again, as if recollecting herself.

"If," she turned to the prince, looking at him gravely and even sadly, "if I read to you that time about the 'poor knight,' it was because I wanted ... to praise you for one thing, but at the same time I wanted to stigmatize you for your behavior and to show you that I know everything ..."

"You're very unfair to me . . . and to that unfortunate woman, of whom you just spoke so terribly, Aglaya."

"Because I know everything, everything, that's why I spoke like that! I know that, six months ago, you offered her your hand in front of everybody. Don't interrupt, you can see I'm speaking without commentaries. After that she ran away with Rogozhin; then you lived with her in some village or town, and she left you for

someone else." (Aglaya blushed terribly.) "Then she went back to Rogozhin, who loves her like . . . like a madman. Then you, who are also a very intelligent man, came galloping after her here, as soon as you learned she was back in Petersburg. Yesterday evening you rushed to her defense, and just now you saw her in a dream . . . You see, I know everything; isn't it for her, for her, that you came here?"

"Yes, for her," the prince replied softly, bowing his head sadly and pensively, and not suspecting with what flashing eyes Aglaya glanced at him, "for her, just to find out... I don't believe she can be happy with Rogozhin, though ... in short, I don't know what I could do for her here and how I could help, but I came."

He gave a start and looked at Aglaya; she was listening to him with hatred.

"If you came without knowing why, you must love her very much," she said at last.

"No," replied the prince, "no, I don't love her. Oh, if you knew with what horror I remember the time I spent with her!"

A shudder even went through his body at these words.

"Tell me everything," said Aglaya.

"There's nothing in it that you shouldn't hear. Why it is precisely you that I wanted to tell it to, and you alone—I don't know; maybe because I indeed loved you very much. This unfortunate woman is deeply convinced that she is the most fallen, the most depraved being in all the world. Oh, don't disgrace her, don't cast a stone.²⁴ She has tormented herself all too much with the awareness of her undeserved disgrace! And what is she guilty of, oh my God! Oh, in her frenzy she cries constantly that she does not acknowledge her guilt, that she is the victim of people, the victim of a debaucher and a villain; but whatever she tells you, know that she is the first not to believe it herself and that, on the contrary, she believes with all her conscience that she herself ... is the guilty one. When I tried to dispel this darkness, her suffering reached such a degree that my heart will never be healed as long as I remember that terrible time. It's as if my heart was pierced through forever. She ran away from me, and do you know why? Precisely to prove to me alone that she is base. But the most terrible thing here is that she herself may not have known that she wanted to prove it to me alone, but ran away because inwardly she felt she absolutely had to do something disgraceful, in order to tell herself then and there: 'So now you've committed some new disgrace, that means you're a

base creature!' Oh, perhaps you won't understand this, Aglaya! You know, there may be some terrible, unnatural pleasure for her in this constant awareness of disgrace, a sort of revenge on someone. Sometimes I managed to bring her to a point where she seemed to see light around her; but she would become indignant at once and go so far as to reproach me bitterly for putting myself far above her (when it never entered my mind), and she finally told me straight out, in response to my proposal of marriage, that she asked no one for supercilious compassion, or for help, or to be 'raised up to his level.' You saw her yesterday; do you really think she's happy with that company, that it's her kind of society? You don't know how developed she is and what she can understand! She even surprised me sometimes!"

"And did you also preach her such . . . sermons?"

"Oh, no," the prince went on pensively, not noticing the tone of the question, "I was silent most of the time. I often wanted to speak, but I really didn't know what to say. You know, on certain occasions it's better not to speak at all. Oh, I loved her; oh, I loved her very much . . . but then . . . then . . . then she guessed everything."

"What did she guess?"

"That I only pitied her and ... no longer loved her."

"How do you know, maybe she really fell in love with that . . . landowner she went off with?"

"No, I know everything; she only laughed at him."

"And did she ever laugh at you?"

"N-no. She laughed out of spite; oh, she reproached me terribly then, in anger—and suffered herself! But . . . then . . . oh, don't remind me, don't remind me of it!"

He covered his face with his hands.

"And do you know that she writes me letters almost every day?"

"So it's true!" the prince cried in anxiety. "I heard it, but I still didn't want to believe it."

"Who did you hear it from?" Aglaya roused herself fearfully.

"Rogozhin told me yesterday, only not quite clearly."

"Yesterday? Yesterday morning? When yesterday? Before the music or after?"

"After, in the evening, past eleven o'clock."

"Ahh, well, if it's Rogozhin . . . And do you know what she writes to me in those letters?"

"Nothing would surprise me; she's insane."

"Here are the letters" (Aglaya took from her pocket three letters

in three envelopes and threw them down in front of the prince). "For a whole week now she's been imploring, persuading, luring me into marrying you. She . . . ah, yes, she's intelligent, though she's insane, and you say rightly that she's much more intelligent than I am . . . she writes to me that she's in love with me, that every day she looks for a chance of seeing me at least from afar. She writes that you love me, that she knows it, that she noticed it long ago, and that you spoke with her about me there. She wants to see you happy; she's sure that only I can make you happy . . . She writes so wildly . . . strangely ... I haven't shown anyone these letters, I was waiting for you. Do you know what it means? Can you guess anything?"

"It's madness; it's proof that she's insane," said the prince, and his lips trembled.

"You're not crying, are you?"

"No, Aglaya, no, I'm not crying," the prince looked at her.

"What am I to do about it? What do you advise me? I cannot keep receiving these letters!"

"Oh, let her be, I implore you!" the prince cried. "What can you do in this darkness; I'll make every effort so that she doesn't write to you anymore."

"If so, then you're a man with no heart!" cried Aglaya. "Can't you see that it's not me she's in love with, but you, you alone that she loves! Can it be that you've managed to notice everything in her, but didn't notice that? Do you know what these letters mean? It's jealousy; it's more than jealousy! She ... do you think she'll really marry Rogozhin, as she writes here in these letters? She'll kill herself the very day after we get married!"

The prince gave a start; his heart sank. But he looked at Aglaya in surprise: it was strange for him to admit that this child had long been a woman.

"God knows, Aglaya, I'd give my life to bring back her peace and make her happy, but... I can't love her now, and she knows it!"

"Sacrifice yourself, then, it suits you so well! You're such a great benefactor. And don't call me Aglaya' . . . Earlier, too, you called me simply Aglaya' . . . You must resurrect her, it's your duty, you must go away with her again to pacify and soothe her heart. Anyway, you do love her!"

"I can't sacrifice myself like that, though I did want to once and . . . maybe still want to. But I know for certain that she'll perish with me, and that's why I'm leaving her. I was to see her tonight

at seven o'clock; maybe I won't go now. In her pride she'll never forgive me my love—and we'll both perish! It's unnatural, but everything here is unnatural. You say she loves me, but is this love? Can there be such a love, after what I've already endured? No, there's something else here, but not love!"

"How pale you've grown!" Aglaya suddenly became alarmed.

"Never mind; I didn't sleep enough; I feel weak, I... we actually did talk about you then, Aglaya."

"So it's true? You really could talk with her about me and . . . and . how could you love me, if you'd seen me only once?"

"I don't know how. In my darkness then I dreamed . . . perhaps I thought I'd seen a new dawn. I don't know how it was that you were the first one I thought of. I wrote you the truth then, that I didn't know. It was all only a dream, from the horror of that time ... I began to study then; I wouldn't have come back here for three years . . ."

"So you came for her sake?"

And something trembled in Aglaya's voice.

"Yes, for her sake."

Two minutes of gloomy silence passed on both sides. Aglaya got up from her place.

"If you say," she began in an unsteady voice, "if you yourself believe that this . . . your woman ... is insane, then I have nothing to do with her insane fantasies ... I ask you, Lev Nikolaevich, to take these three letters and throw them at her from me! And if she dares," Aglaya suddenly cried, "if she dares once more to send me even a single line, tell her that I will complain to my father, and she will be taken to the madhouse . . ."

The prince jumped up and stared in alarm at Aglaya's sudden rage; and all at once it was as if a mist fell before him . . .

"You can't feel that way . . . it's not true!" he murmured.

"It is true! True!" Aglaya cried, almost forgetting herself.

"What is true? How is it true?" a frightened voice was heard close by.

Before them stood Lizaveta Prokofyevna.

"It's true that I'm going to marry Gavrila Ardalionovich! That I love Gavril Ardalionovich and am eloping from the house with him tomorrow!" Aglaya fell upon her. "Do you hear? Is your curiosity satisfied? Are you pleased?"

And she ran home.

"No, my dear man, you're not leaving now," Lizaveta Prokofyevna

stopped the prince. "Do me a service, kindly come home and explain yourself to me . . . This is such a torment, and I didn't sleep all night as it is . . ." The prince followed after her.

IX

On entering her house, Lizaveta Prokofyevna stopped in the very first room; she could not go any further and lowered herself onto the couch, quite strengthless, forgetting even to invite the prince to sit down. It was a rather large room, with a round table in the middle, a fireplace, a multitude of flowers on what-nots by the windows, and with another glass door to the garden in the far wall. Adelaida and Alexandra came in at once, looking at the prince and their mother questioningly and with perplexity.

The girls usually got up at around nine o'clock in the country; only Aglaya, during the last two or three days, had taken to getting up a little earlier and going for a stroll in the garden, but all the same not at seven o'clock, but at eight or even a bit later. Lizaveta Prokofyevna, who indeed had not slept all night because of her various worries, got up at around eight o'clock, on purpose to meet Aglaya in the garden, supposing that she was already up; but she did not find her either in the garden or in her bedroom. At this point she became definitively alarmed and awakened her daughters. They learned from the maid that Aglaya Ivanovna had gone out to the park before seven. The girls smiled at this new fantasy of their fantastic little sister's and observed to their mama that if she went looking for her in the park, Aglaya might get angry, and that she was probably now sitting with a book on the green bench, which she had already spoken of three days ago and over which she had almost quarreled with Prince Shch., because he did not find anything special in the location of this bench. Coming upon the meeting and hearing her daughter's strange words, Lizaveta Prokofyevna was terribly frightened, for many reasons; but, now that she had brought the prince home with her, she felt cowardly at having begun the business: "Why shouldn't Aglaya have met and conversed with the prince in the park, even, finally, if it was a previously arranged meeting?"

"Don't imagine, my dear Prince," she finally pulled herself together, "that I've dragged you here today for an interrogation . . .

After yesterday evening, dear heart, I might not have wanted to meet you for a long time ..."

She faltered slightly.

"But all the same you'd like very much to know how Aglaya Ivanovna and I met today?" the prince finished quite calmly.

"Well, and what if I would!" Lizaveta Prokofyevna flared up at once. "I'm not afraid of speaking directly. Because I'm not offending anyone and have never wished to offend ..."

"Good heavens, even without any offense you naturally want to know; you're her mother. Aglaya Ivanovna and I met today by the green bench at exactly seven o'clock in the morning following her invitation yesterday. In her note yesterday evening, she informed me that she had to see me and speak to me about an important matter. We met and spent a whole hour discussing things of concern to Aglaya Ivanovna alone, and that is all."

"Of course it is all, my dear man, and without any doubt it is all," Lizaveta Prokofyevna pronounced with dignity.

"Splendid, Prince!" said Aglaya, suddenly coming into the room. "I thank you with all my heart for considering me unable to stoop to lying. Is that enough for you, maman, or do you intend to inquire further?"

"You know that up to now I have never had occasion to blush before you . .. though you might have been glad if I had," Lizaveta Prokofyevna replied didactically. "Good-bye, Prince; forgive me for having troubled you. And I hope you remain assured of my unfailing respect for you."

The prince bowed at once to both sides and silently went out. Alexandra and Adelaida smiled and whispered something to each other. Lizaveta Ivanovna gave them a stern look.

"It's only because the prince bowed so wonderfully, maman," Adelaida laughed. "Sometimes he's a perfect sack, but now suddenly he's like . . . like Evgeny Pavlych."

"Delicacy and dignity are taught by one's own heart, not by a dancing master," Lizaveta Prokofyevna concluded sententiously and went to her rooms upstairs without even glancing at Aglaya.

When the prince returned home, at around nine o'clock, he found Vera Lukyanovna and the maid on the terrace. They were tidying and sweeping up together after yesterday's disorder.

"Thank God we finished before you came!" Vera said joyfully.

"Good morning. My head is spinning a little; I slept poorly; I'd like to sleep."

"Here on the terrace like yesterday? Very well. I'll tell everyone not to wake you up. Papa has gone somewhere."

The maid went out; Vera followed her, but then came back and worriedly went over to the prince.

"Prince, have pity on this . . . unfortunate boy; don't send him away today."

"I wouldn't do that for anything; it will be as he likes."

"He won't do anything now, and . . . don't be severe with him."

"Oh, no, why would I?"

"And . . . don't laugh at him; that's the most important thing."

"Oh, certainly not!"

"It's stupid of me to say that to a man like you," Vera blushed. "And though you're tired," she laughed, half turning to leave, "you have such nice eyes at this moment . . . happy eyes."

"Happy, really?" the prince asked with animation and laughed joyfully.

But Vera, simple-hearted and unceremonious as a young boy, suddenly became embarrassed, blushed all the more, and, still laughing, hastily left the room.

"Such a . . . nice girl . . ." the prince thought and forgot about her at once. He went to the corner of the terrace, where there was a couch with a little table in front of it, sat down, covered his face with his hands, and went on sitting for some ten minutes; suddenly he thrust his hand hastily and anxiously into his side pocket and took out the three letters.

But the door opened again and Kolya came in. The prince seemed glad that he had to put the letters back into his pocket and postpone the moment.

"Well, quite an event!" said Kolya, sitting on the couch and going straight to the subject, like all his fellows. "How do you look at Ippolit now? Without respect?"

"Why should . . . but I'm tired, Kolya . . . Besides, it's too sad to start about that again . . . How is he, though?"

"Asleep, and he'll go on sleeping for another couple of hours. I understand; you didn't sleep at home, you walked in the park . . . agitation, of course . . . what else!"

"How do you know that I walked in the park and didn't sleep at home?"

"Vera just said so. She insisted that I not come in; I couldn't help it, for a moment. I've spent these two hours watching at his bedside; now it's Kostya Lebedev's turn. Burdovsky left. Lie down,

then, Prince. Good . . . well, good day! Only, you know, I'm really struck!"

"Of course ... all this . . ."

"No, Prince, no; I'm struck by the confession. Above all by the place where he speaks about providence and the future life. There's a gi-gan-tic thought there!"

The prince gazed affectionately at Kolya, who had certainly come only to talk the sooner about the gigantic thought.

"But the main thing, the main thing is not in the thought alone, but in the whole situation! If it had been written by Voltaire, Rousseau, Proudhon,²⁵ I'd read it, make note of it, but I wouldn't be struck to such a degree. But a man who knows for certain that he has ten minutes left, and who speaks like that—oh, that's proud! That's the highest independence of personal dignity, that means a direct challenge . . . No, it's gigantic strength of spirit! And after that to maintain that he didn't put the cap in on purpose—it's mean, unnatural! And, you know, he deceived us yesterday, he tricked us: I never packed his bag with him and never saw the pistol; he packed everything himself, and then he suddenly got me confused. Vera says you're letting him stay here; I swear there won't be any danger, especially since we never leave him for an instant."

"And who of you was there during the night?"

"Kostya Lebedev, Burdovsky, and I; Keller stayed for a while and then went to sleep at Lebedev's, because we had no bed. Ferdyshchenko also slept at Lebedev's; he left at seven. The general is always at Lebedev's; he also left just now . . . Lebedev may come to see you presently; he's been looking for you, I don't know why, he asked twice. Shall I let him in or not, since you're going to bed? I'm also going to sleep. Ah, yes, there's something I might tell you; the general surprised me earlier: Burdovsky woke me up after six for my turn on duty, even almost at six; I stepped out for a minute and suddenly met the general, still so drunk that he didn't recognize me; stood in front of me like a post; the moment he came to his senses, he simply fell on me: 'How's the sick boy?' he says. 'I was on my way to find out about the sick boy . . .' I reported to him, well—this and that. 'That's all fine,' he says, 'but I was on my way, mainly, which is why I got up, to warn you; I have reasons to think that not everything can be said in front of Mr. Ferdyshchenko, and . . . one must restrain oneself.' Can you understand that, Prince?"

"Really? However . . . it's all the same to us."

"Yes, undoubtedly it's all the same, we're not Masons!²⁶ So that I even wondered why the general was coming at night on purpose to wake me up for that."

"Ferdyshchenko left, you say?"

"At seven. He stopped to see me on his way; I was on duty! He said he was going to spend the rest of the night at Vilkin's—there's this drunk named Vilkin! Well, I'm going! And here is Lukyan Timofeich . . . The prince wants to sleep, Lukyan Timofeich; about-face!"

"Just for one minute, my much-esteemed Prince, on a certain matter which is significant in my eyes," the entering Lebedev said in a half-whisper, stiffly and in a sort of heartfelt tone, and bowed gravely. He had just returned and had not even had time to stop at his own quarters, so that he still had his hat in his hand. His face was preoccupied and had a special, extraordinary tinge of personal dignity. The prince invited him to sit down.

"You asked for me twice? Perhaps you're still worried about yesterday's . . ."

"About that boy yesterday, you mean, Prince? Oh, no, sir; yesterday my thoughts were in disarray . . . but today I no longer intend to countercarrate your intentions in any way."

"Counter . . . what did you say?"

"I said countercarrate; it's a French word,²⁷ like many other words that have entered the Russian language; but I don't especially insist on it."

"What is it with you today, Lebedev, you're so grave and decorous, and enunciate so distinctly," the prince smiled.

"Nikolai Ardalionovich!" Lebedev addressed Kolya in an all but affectionate voice, "having to inform the prince of a matter essentially of concern ..."

"Ah, yes, naturally, naturally, it's none of my business! Goodbye, Prince!" Kolya left at once.

"I like the child for his quick wits," Lebedev said, looking at his back, "a nimble boy, though an importunate one. It is a great misfortune that I have experienced, my much-esteemed Prince, yesterday evening or today at dawn ... I hesitate to specify the exact time."

"What is it?"

"The disappearance of four hundred roubles from my side pocket, my much-esteemed Prince; I've been marked!" Lebedev added with a sour smile.

"You lost four hundred roubles? That's a pity."

"And especially if one is a poor man who lives nobly by his own labor."

"Of course, of course. How did it happen?"

"On account of wine, sir. I am turning to you as to providence, my much-esteemed Prince. I received the sum of four hundred roubles in silver from a debtor yesterday at five o'clock in the afternoon and came here by train. I had the wallet in my pocket. Having changed from my uniform²⁸ into a frock coat, I transferred the money to the frock coat, with a view to keeping it with me, counting on handing it over that same evening on a certain request ... as I was expecting an agent."

"By the way, Lukyan Timofeich, is it true that you put a notice in the newspaper that you lend money for gold and silver objects?"

"Through an agent; my name wasn't mentioned, nor was my address. Having insignificant capital and in view of my growing family, you must agree that an honest percentage . . ."

"Well, yes, yes; I merely wanted to know; excuse me for interrupting."

"The agent did not come. Meanwhile the unfortunate young man was brought; I was already under the influence, after dinner; those guests came, we had . . . tea, and ... I waxed merry, to my undoing. And when, at a late hour, this Keller came and announced your celebration and your orders about the champagne, I, my dear and much-esteemed Prince, having a heart (which you have probably noticed by now, for I deserve it), having a heart which is, I do not say sensitive, but grateful, and I am proud of it—I, for the greater solemnity of the impending meeting and in expectation of personally offering my congratulations, decided to go and exchange my old rags for my uniform, which I had taken off on my return, and so I did, as you probably noticed, Prince, seeing me in my uniform all evening. In changing my clothes, I forgot the wallet in my frock coat . . . Verily, when God wishes to punish a man, he first deprives him of reason.²⁹ And it was only today, at half-past seven, on awakening, that I jumped up like a half-wit and snatched my frock coat first thing—only an empty pocket! Not a trace of the wallet."

"Ah, that's unpleasant!"

"Precisely unpleasant; and you with your genuine tact have just found the suitable expression," Lebedev added, not without insidiousness.

"How is it, though . . ." the prince pondered, beginning to worry, "no, this is serious."

"Precisely serious—you've sought out yet another word, Prince, to signify ..."

"Oh, enough, Lukyan Timofeich, what was there to seek out? The words aren't important. . . Do you suppose that, in a drunken state, you might have dropped it out of your pocket?"

"I might have. Everything is possible in a drunken state, as you have so sincerely expressed it, my much-esteemed Prince! But I beg you to consider, sir: if I dropped the wallet out of my pocket while changing my frock coat, the dropped object should be lying there on the floor. Where is that object, sir?"

"You didn't stuff it into a desk drawer somewhere?"

"I've looked all over, rummaged everywhere, the more so as I never hid it anywhere or opened any drawer, which I remember distinctly."

"Did you look in the little cupboard?"

"First thing, sir, and even several times today . . . And how could I have put it into the little cupboard, my truly-esteemed Prince?"

"I confess, Lebedev, this worries me. So someone found it on the floor?"

"Or stole it from the pocket! Two alternatives, sir."

"This worries me very much, because who precisely . . . That's the question!"

"Without any doubt, that is the main question; you find words and thoughts and define the situation with astonishing precision, illustrious Prince."

"Ah, Lukyan Timofeich, stop your mockery, there's . . ."

"Mockery!" cried Lebedev, clasping his hands.

"Well, well, all right, I'm not angry, there's something else here . . . I'm afraid for people. Whom do you suspect?"

"A most difficult and . . . most complicated question! I cannot suspect my maid: she was sitting in her kitchen. Nor my own children ..."

"Hardly!"

"That means it was someone among the guests, sir."

"But is that possible?"

"It is totally and in the highest degree impossible, but it must certainly be so. I agree, however, to allow, and am even convinced, that if there was a theft, it was carried out not in the evening,

when we were all together, but at night or even towards morning, by someone who stayed overnight."

"Ah, my God!"

"Burdovsky and Nikolai Ardalionovich I naturally exclude; they never entered my quarters, sir."

"Hardly, and even if they had! Who spent the night with you?"

"Counting me, there were four who spent the night, in two adjacent rooms: me, the general, Keller, and Mr. Ferdyshchenko. Which means it's one of us four, sir!"

"Three, that is; but who?"

"I included myself for the sake of fairness and order; but you must agree, Prince, that I couldn't rob myself, though such things have happened in the world . . ."

"Ah, Lebedev, this is so tedious!" the prince cried impatiently. "To business, why drag it out! . . ."

"So three remain, sir, and first of all Mr. Keller, an unstable man, a drunk man, and on certain occasions a liberal, that is, with regard to the pocket, sir; in everything else his inclinations are, so to speak, more old chivalric than liberal. He slept here at first, in the sick boy's room, and it was only at night that he moved over to us, on the pretext that it was hard to sleep on the bare floor."

"Do you suspect him?"

"I did, sir. When I jumped up like a half-wit past seven in the morning and slapped myself on the forehead, I at once woke up the general, who was sleeping the sleep of the innocent. After considering the strange disappearance of Ferdyshchenko, which in itself aroused our suspicion, we both decided at once to search Keller, who was lying there like . . . like . . . almost like a doornail, sir. We searched him thoroughly: not a centime in his pockets, and not even a single pocket without holes in it. A blue, checked cotton handkerchief, sir, in indecent condition. Then a love note from some serving girl, with demands for money and threats, and the scraps of the feuilleton already familiar to you, sir. The general decided he was innocent. To obtain full information, we woke him up; we had a hard time jostling him; he was barely able to understand what it was all about; a gaping mouth, a drunken look, an absurd and innocent, even stupid, expression—it wasn't he, sir!"

"Well, I'm so glad!" the prince sighed joyfully. "I was so afraid for him!"

"Afraid? Does that mean you have reasons to be?" Lebedev narrowed his eyes.

"Oh, no, I just said it," the prince checked himself. "It was stupid of me to say I was afraid. Kindly don't tell anyone, Lebedev . . ."

"Prince, Prince! Your words are in my heart . . . deep in my heart! A grave, sir! . . ." Lebedev said rapturously, pressing his hat to his heart.

"All right, all right! ... So it's Ferdyshchenko? That is, I mean to say, you suspect Ferdyshchenko?"

"Who else?" Lebedev said quietly, looking intently at the prince.

"Well, yes, naturally . . . who else . . . that is, once again, what evidence is there?"

"There is evidence, sir. First of all, his disappearance at seven o'clock or even before seven o'clock in the morning."

"I know, Kolya told me he came and said he was going to spend the rest of the night at ... I forget whose place, some friend's."

"Vilkin, sir. So Nikolai Ardalionovich told you already?"

"He didn't say anything about the theft."

"He doesn't know, for I have so far kept the matter a secret. And so, he goes to Vilkin; you might think, what's so puzzling about a drunk man going to see another drunk man just like himself, even though it's the wee hours of the morning and without any reason at all, sir? But it's here that the trail begins: on his way out, he leaves the address . . . Now follow the question, Prince: why did he leave the address? . . . Why does he purposely go to Nikolai Ardalionovich, making a detour, sir, and tell him, 'I'm going to spend the rest of the night at Vilkin's'? And who is interested in his leaving and going precisely to Vilkin's? Why announce it? No, there's a subtlety here, a thievish subtlety! It means: 'Look here, I'm not concealing my tracks, what kind of thief am I after that? Would a thief announce where he's going?' An excessive concern about diverting suspicion and, so to speak, wiping away his tracks in the sand . . . Do you understand me, my much-esteemed Prince?"

"I understand, I understand very well, but is that enough?"

"A second piece of evidence, sir: the trail turned out to be false, and the address he gave was inexact. An hour later, that is, at eight o'clock, I was already knocking on Vilkin's door; he lives here, on Fifth Street, sir, I'm even acquainted with him. There wasn't any Ferdyshchenko there. Though I did get out of the maid—she's completely deaf, sir—that an hour earlier someone had actually knocked, and even rather hard, so that he broke the bell. But the maid didn't open the door, not wishing to waken Mr. Vilkin, and maybe not wanting to get out of bed herself. It happens, sir."

"And that is all your evidence? It's not much."

"But, Prince, who else should I suspect, just think?" Lebedev concluded sweetly, and something sly showed in his smile.

"Why don't you look around the rooms once more and in all the drawers!" the prince said worriedly, after some thought.

"I did, sir!" Lebedev sighed still more sweetly.

"Hm! . . . and why, why did you have to change that frock coat!" the prince exclaimed, pounding the table in vexation.

"A question from an old comedy, sir. But, my most good-natured Prince! You take my misfortune too much to heart! I don't deserve it. That is, by myself I don't deserve it; but you also suffer for the criminal . . . for the worthless Mr. Ferdyshchenko?"

"Well, yes, yes, you've really got me worried," the prince interrupted him absentmindedly and with displeasure. "And so, what do you intend to do ... if you're so sure it's Ferdyshchenko?"

"Prince, much-esteemed Prince, who else is there, sir?" Lebedev squirmed with ever-increasing sweetness. "The unavailability of anyone else to point to and the, so to speak, perfect impossibility of suspecting anyone besides Mr. Ferdyshchenko, is, so to speak, more evidence against Mr. Ferdyshchenko, a third piece! For, again, who else is there? Can I really suspect Mr. Burdovsky, heh, heh, heh?"

"Ah, no, what nonsense!"

"Or the general, finally, heh, heh, heh?"

"What a wild idea!" the prince said almost crossly, turning impatiently on his seat.

"Wild it is! Heh, heh, heh! And the man did make me laugh, the general, I mean, sir! He and I set out this morning hot on the trail to Vilkin, sir . . . and I must point out to you that the general was even more struck than I was when I woke him up first thing after the disappearance, so that he even changed countenance, turned red, then pale, and in the end suddenly arrived at such bitter and noble indignation that I even never expected such a degree, sir. A most noble man! He lies incessantly, out of weakness, but he's a man of the loftiest feelings, and with that a man of little understanding, inspiring complete trust by his innocence. I've already told you, my much-esteemed Prince, that I not only have a soft spot for him, but even love him, sir. He suddenly stops in the middle of the street, opens his frock coat, offers his chest: 'Search me,' he says, 'you searched Keller, why don't you search me? Justice demands it!' he says. The man's arms and legs are

trembling, he's even turning pale, he has a menacing look. I laughed and said: 'Listen, General,' I said, 'if somebody else said it about you, I'd take my head off with my own hands, put it on a big platter, and offer it myself to all who doubt: "Here," I'd say, "see this head, so with this same head of mine I vouch for him, and not only with the head, but I'd even go through fire." That's how ready I am to vouch for you!' At this point he threw himself into my arms, right in the middle of the street, sir, became tearful, trembled and pressed me to his heart so tightly I could hardly clear my throat: 'You,' he says, 'are the only friend I have left in my misfortunes!' A sentimental man, sir! Well, naturally, on our way he told me an appropriate story about how, in his youth, he had once been suspected of having stolen five hundred thousand roubles, but that the very next day he had thrown himself into the flames of a burning house and saved the count who suspected him and Nina Alexandrovna, who was a young girl then. The count embraced him, and thus his marriage to Nina Alexandrovna came about, and the very next day the box with the lost money was found in the ruins of the burned-down house; it was made of iron, after an English design, with a secret lock, and had somehow fallen through the floor, so that no one noticed, and it was found only owing to the fire. A complete lie, sir. But when he spoke of Nina Alexandrovna, he even started sniveling. A most noble person, Nina Alexandrovna, though she's cross with me."

"You're not acquainted?"

"Nearly not, sir, but I wish with my whole soul that I were, if only so as to vindicate myself before her. Nina Alexandrovna has a grudge against me for supposedly corrupting her husband with drink. But I not only don't corrupt him, but sooner curb him; it may be that I keep him away from more pernicious company. What's more, he's my friend, sir, and, I confess to you, I'm not ever going to leave him, sir, that is, even like this, sir: where he goes, I go, because you can't get anywhere with him except through sentimentality. He doesn't even visit his captain's widow at all now, though secretly he pines for her and even occasionally groans over her, especially each morning, when he gets up and puts his boots on—why precisely then I don't know. He has no money, sir, that's the trouble, and it's quite impossible to go to her without money. Has he asked you for money, my most-esteemed Prince?"

"No, he hasn't."

"He's ashamed. He was going to: he even confessed to me that

he intended to trouble you, but he's ashamed, sir, since you gave him a loan just recently, and he supposed, besides, that you wouldn't give him anything. He poured it all out to me as a friend."

"And you don't give him money?"

"Prince! Much-esteemed Prince! Not only money, but for this man even, so to speak, my life ... no, however, I don't want to exaggerate, not my life, but if, so to speak, it's a fever, or some abscess, or even a cough—then, by God, I'd be ready to endure it, if there's a very big need; for I consider him a great but lost man! There, sir; and not only money, sir!"

"So you give him money?"

"N-no, I've never given him money, sir, and he knows himself that I won't, but it's solely with a view to restraining and reforming him. Now he wants to tag after me to Petersburg; you see, I'm going to Petersburg, sir, hot on Ferdyshchenko's trail, because I know for certain that he's already there, sir. My general is just seething, sir; but I suspect he'll slip away from me in Petersburg in order to visit the captain's widow. I confess, I'll even let him go on purpose, since we've already arranged to go in different directions immediately upon arrival, the better to catch Mr. Ferdyshchenko. So I'll let him go and then suddenly, out of the blue, I'll find him with the captain's widow—essentially in order to shame him as a family man and a man generally speaking."

"Only don't make noise, Lebedev, for God's sake don't make noise," the prince said in a low voice, greatly worried.

"Oh, no, sir, essentially just so as to shame him and see what kind of face he makes—for one can learn a lot by the face, my much-esteemed Prince, and especially with such a man! Ah, Prince! Great as my own trouble is, even now I cannot help thinking about him and about the reforming of his morals. I have a special request to make of you, my much-esteemed Prince, I even confess that this is essentially why I have come, sir: you are already acquainted with the house and have even lived with them, sir; what if you, my most good-hearted Prince, should decide to assist me in this, essentially just for the sake of the general and his happiness . . ."

Lebedev even pressed his hands together as if in supplication.

"What is it? How can I assist? I assure you that I would like very much to understand you fully, Lebedev."

"It is solely in that assurance that I have come to you! It may be possible to work through Nina Alexandrovna; by observing

and, so to speak, keeping a constant watch on his excellency, in the bosom of his own family. I, unfortunately, am not acquainted, sir . . . then, too, Nikolai Ardalionovich, who adores you, so to speak, from the bosom of his young soul, could perhaps be of help here ..."

"N-no . . . Nina Alexandrovna in this business . . . God forbid! Not Kolya either . . . However, maybe I still haven't understood you, Lebedev."

"But there's nothing at all to understand here!" Lebedev even jumped in his chair. "Sensitivity and tenderness alone, alone— that's all the medicine our sick man needs. Will you allow me, Prince, to consider him a sick man?"

"It even shows your delicacy and intelligence."

"I shall explain it to you, for the sake of clarity, with an example taken from practice. See what kind of man he is, sir: here he now has a certain weakness for this captain's widow, whom he cannot go to without money and at whose place I intend to catch him today, for the sake of his own happiness, sir; but suppose it wasn't only the captain's widow, but he was even to commit a real crime— well, some very dishonest act (though he's totally incapable of that)—then, too, I say only noble tenderness, so to speak, will get anywhere with him, for he is a most sensitive man, sir! Believe me, he won't last five days, he'll let it out himself, start weeping, and confess everything—especially if we act skillfully and nobly, through your and his family's supervision of all his, so to speak, traits and steps . . . Oh, my most good-hearted Prince!" Lebedev jumped up even in some sort of inspiration, "I am not affirming that it was certainly he ... I am ready, so to speak, to shed all my blood for him right now, though you must agree that intemperance, and drunkenness, and the captain's widow, and all of it taken together, could drive him to anything."

"I am, of course, always ready to assist in such a purpose," the prince said, standing up, "only, I confess to you, Lebedev, I'm terribly worried; tell me, do you still ... in short, you yourself say that you suspect Mr. Ferdyshchenko."

"And who else? Who else, my most sincere Prince?" Lebedev again pressed his hands together sweetly, and with a sweet smile.

The prince frowned and got up from his place.

"You see, Lukyan Timofeich, it would be a terrible thing to be mistaken. This Ferdyshchenko ... I have no wish to speak ill of him . . . but this Ferdyshchenko . . . that is, who knows, maybe

he's the one! ... I mean to say that he may be more capable of it than . . . than the other man."

Lebedev was all eyes and ears.

"You see," the prince was becoming confused and frowned more and more as he paced up and down the room, trying not to raise his eyes to Lebedev, "I've been given to understand . . . I've been told about Mr. Ferdyshchenko, that he is supposedly, besides everything else, a man in whose presence one must restrain oneself and not say anything . . . superfluous—understand? By which I mean that perhaps he actually is more capable than the other man . . . so as to make no mistake—that's the main thing, understand?"

"And who told you that about Mr. Ferdyshchenko?" Lebedev simply heaved himself up.

"It's just a whisper; anyhow, I don't believe it myself . . . it's terribly vexing that I've been forced to tell you about it, I assure you, I don't believe it myself . . . it's some sort of nonsense . . . Pah, what a stupid thing for me to do!"

"You see, Prince," Lebedev was even shaking all over, "it's important, it's all too important now, that is, not concerning Mr. Ferdyshchenko, but concerning how this information came to you." As he said this, Lebedev was running up and down after the prince, trying to get in step with him. "Look here, Prince, I'll now inform you: when the general and I were going to this Villein's, after he told me about the fire, and seething, naturally, with wrath, he suddenly began hinting the same thing to me about Mr. Ferdyshchenko, but it was so without rhyme or reason that I involuntarily asked him certain questions, as a result of which I became fully convinced that this information was nothing but his excellency's inspiration . . . Essentially, so to speak, from good-heartedness alone. For he lies solely because he cannot control his feelings. Now kindly see, sir: if he was lying, and I'm sure of that, how could you have heard of it, too? Understand, Prince, that it was a momentary inspiration of his—who, then, informed you of it? It's important, sir, it's . . . it's very important, sir, and ... so to speak . . ."

"Kolya just told it to me, and he was told earlier by his father, whom he met sometime at six o'clock or after, in the front hall, when he stepped out for something."

And the prince recounted everything in detail.

"Well, sir, that's what we call a trail, sir," Lebedev laughed inaudibly, rubbing his hands. "It's just as I thought, sir! It means that his excellency purposely interrupted his sleep of the innocent

before six o'clock in order to go and wake up his beloved son and inform him of the extreme danger of being neighborly with Mr. Ferdyshchenko! What a dangerous man Mr. Ferdyshchenko must be in that case, and how great is his excellency's parental concern, heh, heh, heh! . . ."

"Listen, Lebedev," the prince was definitively confused, "listen, act quietly! Don't make noise! I beg you, Lebedev, I beseech you ... In that case I swear I'll assist you, but so that nobody knows, so that nobody knows!"

"I assure you, my most good-hearted, most sincere, and most noble Prince," Lebedev cried in decided inspiration, "I assure you that all this will die in my most noble heart. With quiet steps, together, sir! With quiet steps, together! I'd even shed all my blood . . . Most illustrious Prince, I am mean in soul and spirit, but ask any scoundrel even, not only a mean man: who is it better to deal with, a scoundrel like himself, or a most noble man like you, my most sincere Prince? He will reply that it is with a most noble man, and in that is the triumph of virtue! Good-bye, my much-esteemed Prince! With quiet steps . . . quiet steps . . . and together, sir."

X

The prince finally understood why he went cold every time he touched those three letters and why he had put off the moment of reading them all the way till evening. When, that morning, he had fallen into a heavy sleep on his couch, still without resolving to open any one of those three envelopes, he again had a heavy dream, and again that same "criminal woman" came to him. She again looked at him with tears glistening on her long lashes, again called him to follow her, and again he woke up, as earlier, painfully trying to remember her face. He wanted to go to her at once, but could not; at last, almost in despair, he opened the letters and began to read.

These letters also resembled a dream. Sometimes you dream strange dreams, impossible and unnatural; you wake up and remember them clearly, and are surprised at a strange fact: you remember first of all that reason did not abandon you during the whole course of your dream; you even remember that you acted extremely cleverly and logically for that whole long, long time when you were

surrounded by murderers, when they were being clever with you, concealed their intentions, treated you in a friendly way, though they already had their weapons ready and were only waiting for some sort of sign; you remember how cleverly you finally deceived them, hid from them; then you realize that they know your whole deception by heart and merely do not show you that they know where you are hiding; but you are clever and deceive them again— all that you remember clearly. But why at the same time could your reason be reconciled with such obvious absurdities and impossibilities, with which, among other things, your dream was filled? Before your eyes, one of your murderers turned into a woman, and from a woman into a clever, nasty little dwarf—and all that you allowed at once, as an accomplished fact, almost without the least perplexity, and precisely at the moment when, on the other hand, your reason was strained to the utmost, displaying extraordinary force, cleverness, keenness, logic? Why, also, on awakening from your dream and entering fully into reality, do you feel almost every time, and occasionally with an extraordinary force of impression, that along with the dream you are leaving behind something you have failed to fathom? You smile at the absurdity of your dream and feel at the same time that the tissue of those absurdities contains some thought, but a thought that is real, something that belongs to your true life, something that exists and has always existed in your heart; it is as if your dream has told you something new, prophetic, awaited; your impression is strong, it is joyful or tormenting, but what it is and what has been told you—all that you can neither comprehend nor recall.

It was almost the same after these letters. But even without opening them, the prince felt that the very fact of their existence and possibility was already like a nightmare. How did she dare write to her, he asked, wandering alone in the evening (sometimes not even remembering himself where he was walking). How could she write about that, and how could such an insane dream have been born in her head? But that dream had already been realized, and what was most astonishing for him was that, while he was reading these letters, he almost believed himself in the possibility and even the justification of that dream. Yes, of course, it was a dream, a nightmare, and an insanity; but there was also something in it that was tormentingly actual and painfully just, which justified the dream, the nightmare, and the insanity. For several hours in a row he was as if delirious with what he had read, continually

recalled fragments, lingered over them, reflected on them. Sometimes he even wanted to tell himself that he had sensed and foreseen it all before; it even seemed to him as if he had read it all long, long ago and that everything he had yearned for since then, everything he had suffered over and been afraid of—all of it was contained in these letters read long ago.

"When you open this letter" (so the first one began), "you will first of all look at the signature. The signature will tell you everything and explain everything, so that I need not justify myself before you or explain anything to you. If I were even slightly your equal, you might be offended at such boldness; but who am I and who are you? We are two such opposites, and I am so far out of rank with you, that I could not offend you in any way, even if I wanted to."

Further on in another place she wrote:

"Do not consider my words the morbid rapture of a morbid mind, but for me you are—perfection! I have seen you, I see you every day. I do not judge you; it is not by reason that I have come to consider you perfection; I simply believe it. But there is also a sin in me before you: I love you. Perfection cannot be loved, perfection can only be looked at as perfection, isn't that so? And yet I am in love with you. Love equates people, but don't worry, I have never equated myself with you even in my innermost thoughts. I have written: 'don't worry'; but how could you worry? ... If it were possible, I would kiss the prints of your feet. Oh, I am not trying to make us equals . . . Look at the signature, quickly look at the signature!"

"I notice, however" (she wrote in another letter), "that I am uniting him with you, and have not yet asked whether you love him. He loved you after seeing you only once. He remembered you as 'light'; those were his own words, I heard them from him. But even without words I understood that you were his light. I lived by him for a whole month, and here I understood that you love him as well; you and he are one for me."

"How is it" (she also wrote) "that I walked past you yesterday, and you seemed to blush? It cannot be, I must have imagined it. Even if they bring you to the filthiest den and show you naked vice, you should not blush; you cannot possibly be indignant over an offense. You may hate all those who are mean and base, but not for your own sake, but for others, for those who are offended. No one can offend you. You know, it seems to me that you should

even love me. You are the same for me as for him: a bright spirit; an angel cannot hate, and cannot not love. Can one love everyone, all people, all one's neighbors? I have often asked myself that question. Of course not, and it is even unnatural. In an abstract love for mankind, one almost always loves oneself. It is impossible for us, but you are another matter: how could there be anyone you do not love, when you cannot compare yourself with anyone and when you are above any offense, above any personal indignation? You alone can love without egoism, you alone can love not for yourself but for the one you love. Oh, how bitter it would be for me to learn that you feel shame or wrath because of me! That would be the ruin of you: you would at once become equal to me .. .

"Yesterday, after meeting you, I came home and thought up a painting. Artists all paint Christ according to the Gospel stories; I would paint him differently: I would portray him alone—the disciples did sometimes leave him alone. I would leave only a small child with him. The child would be playing beside him, perhaps telling him something in his child's language. Christ had been listening to him, but now he has become pensive; his hand has inadvertently, forgetfully, remained on the child's blond head. He gazes into the distance, at the horizon; a thought as great as the whole world reposes in his eyes; his face is sad. The child has fallen silent, leaning his elbow on his knees, and, his cheek resting on his hand, has raised his little head and pensively, as children sometimes become pensive, gazes intently at him. The sun is setting . . . That is my painting! You are innocent, and all your perfection is in your innocence. Oh, remember only that! What do you care about my passion for you? You are mine now, I shall be near you all my life ... I shall die soon."

Finally, in the very last letter there was:

"For God's sake, do not think anything about me; do not think, also, that I humiliate myself by writing to you like this or that I am one of those who take pleasure in humiliating themselves, even though it is only out of pride. No, I have my own consolations; but it is hard for me to explain that to you. It would be hard for me to say it clearly even to myself, though it torments me. But I know that I cannot humiliate myself even in a fit of pride. Nor am I capable of self-humiliation out of purity of heart. And that means I do not humiliate myself at all.

"Why do I want to unite the two of you: for your sake or for my own? For my own, naturally, then everything will be resolved

for me, I told myself that long ago ... I have heard that your sister Adelaida once said of my portrait that one could overturn the world with such beauty. But I have renounced the world; do you find it funny to hear that from me, meeting me in lace and diamonds, with drunkards and scoundrels? Pay no attention to that, I almost do not exist now and I know it; God knows what lives in me in place of me. I read that every day in two terrible eyes that constantly look at me, even when they are not before me. Those eyes are silent now (they are always silent), but I know their secret. His house is gloomy, dreary, and there is a secret in it. I am sure that hidden in a drawer he has a razor, wound in silk, like the one that Moscow murderer had; that one also lived in the same house with his mother and also tied silk around his razor in order to cut a certain throat. All the while I was in their house, it seemed to me that somewhere, under the floorboards, maybe even hidden by his father, there was a dead man wrapped in oilcloth, like the one in Moscow, and surrounded in the same way by bottles of Zhdanov liquid,³⁰ I could even show you the corner. He is always silent; but I know he loves me so much that by now he cannot help hating me. Your wedding and my wedding will come together: that is how he and I have decided it. I have no secrets from him. I could kill him out of fear . . . But he will kill me first... he laughed just now and says I'm raving. He knows I'm writing to you."

And there was much, much more of the same sort of raving in these letters. One of them, the second, was on two sheets of stationery, of large format, in small handwriting.

The prince finally left the somber park, in which he had wandered for a long time, as he had the day before. The bright, transparent night seemed brighter than usual to him. "Can it be so early?" he thought. (He had forgotten to take his watch.) Music reached him from somewhere far away. "In the vauxhall, it must be," he thought again, "of course, they didn't go there today." Realizing that, he saw that he was standing right by their dacha; he simply knew he would have to end up there, finally, and with a sinking heart he went onto the terrace. No one met him, the terrace was deserted. He waited a while and then opened the door to the drawing room. "They never close this door," flashed in him, but the drawing room, too, was deserted; it was almost totally dark. He stood perplexed in the middle of the room. Suddenly the door opened and Alexandra Ivanovna came in carrying a candle. Seeing the prince, she was surprised and stopped in front of him as if

questioningly. It was obvious that she was only passing through the room, from one door to the other, not thinking at all of finding anyone there.

"How did you end up here?" she said at last.

"I . . . came by . . ."

"Maman isn't feeling well, and neither is Aglaya. Adelaida's going to bed, and so am I. We spent the whole evening sitting at home alone. Papa and the prince are in Petersburg."

"I've come . . . I've come to you . . . now . . ."

"Do you know what time it is?"

"N-no . . ."

"Half-past twelve. We always go to bed at one."

"Ah, I thought it was . . . half-past nine."

"Never mind!" she laughed. "But why didn't you come earlier? Maybe we were expecting you."

"I . . . thought. . ." he babbled, going out.

"Good-bye! Tomorrow I'll make everybody laugh."

He went down the road that skirted the park to his dacha. His heart was pounding, his thoughts were confused, and everything around him seemed like a dream. And suddenly, just as earlier, both times when he was awakened by the same vision, so the same vision again appeared before him. The same woman came out of the park and stood before him, as if she had been waiting for him there. He shuddered and stopped; she seized his hand and pressed it hard. "No, this is not a vision!"

And so she finally stood before him face to face, for the first time since their parting; she was saying something to him, but he looked at her silently; his heart overflowed and was wrung with pain. Oh, never afterwards could he forget this meeting with her, and he always remembered it with the same pain. She went down on her knees before him right there in the street, as if beside herself; he stepped back in fear, but she tried to catch his hand in order to kiss it, and, just as earlier in his dream, tears glistened now on her long lashes.

"Get up, get up!" he said in a frightened whisper, trying to raise her. "Get up quickly!"

"Are you happy? Are you?" she kept asking. "Tell me just one word, are you happy now? Today, right now? With her? What did she say?"

She would not get up, she did not listen to him; she asked hurriedly and was in a hurry to speak, as though she were being pursued.

"I'm leaving tomorrow, as you told me to. I won't. . . I'm seeing you for the last time, the last! Now it really is the last time!"

"Calm yourself, get up!" he said in despair.

She peered at him greedily, clutching his hands.

"Farewell!" she said at last, stood up, and quickly walked away from him, almost ran. The prince saw that Rogozhin was suddenly beside her, took her arm, and led her away.

"Wait, Prince," cried Rogozhin, "in five minutes I'll come back for a bit."

In five minutes he indeed came back; the prince was waiting for him in the same place.

"I put her in the carriage," he said. "It's been waiting there on the corner since ten o'clock. She just knew you'd spend the whole evening with the other one. I told her exactly what you wrote me today. She won't write to the other one anymore; she promised; and she'll leave here tomorrow, as you wished. She wanted to see you one last time, even though you refused; we waited here in this place for you to go back—over there, on that bench."

"She brought you along herself?"

"And what of it?" Rogozhin grinned. "I saw what I knew. You read her letters, eh?"

"But can you really have read them?" asked the prince, astounded by the thought.

"What else; she showed me each letter herself. Remember about the razor? Heh, heh!"

"She's insane!" cried the prince, wringing his hands.

"Who knows, maybe she's not," Rogozhin said softly, as if to himself.

The prince did not answer.

"Well, good-bye," said Rogozhin, "I'm leaving tomorrow, too; don't think ill of me! And how come, brother," he added, turning quickly, "how come you didn't say anything in answer to her? Are you happy or not?' "

"No, no, no!" the prince exclaimed with boundless sorrow.

"As if you'd say 'yes!'" Rogozhin laughed spitefully and walked off without looking back.

PART FOUR

I

About a week went by after the two persons of our story met on the green bench. One bright morning, around half-past ten, Varvara Ardalionovna Ptitsyn, having gone out to visit some of her acquaintances, returned home in great and rueful pensiveness. There are people of whom it is difficult to say anything that would present them at once and fully, in their most typical and characteristic aspect; these are those people who are usually called "ordinary" people, the "majority," and who indeed make up the vast majority in any society. Writers in their novels and stories for the most part try to take social types and present them graphically and artistically—types which in their full state are met with extremely rarely in reality and which are nonetheless almost more real than reality itself. Podkolesin¹ in his typical aspect may well be an exaggeration, but he is by no means an impossibility. What a host of intelligent people, having learned about Podkolesin from Gogol, at once began to find that dozens and hundreds of their good acquaintances and friends were terribly like Podkolesin. They knew before Gogol that these friends were like Podkolesin, they simply did not know yet precisely what their name was. In reality it is terribly rare that bridegrooms jump out of windows before their weddings, because, to say nothing else, it is even inconvenient; nonetheless, how many bridegrooms, even worthy and intelligent people, in the depths of their conscience, have been ready before marriage to acknowledge themselves as Podkolesins. Nor does every husband cry at each step: "Tu l'as voulu, Georges Dandin!"*² But, God, how many millions and billions of times have the husbands of the whole world repeated this heartfelt cry after their honeymoon, and, who knows, maybe even the day after the wedding.

And so, without going into more serious explanations, we shall say only that in reality the typicality of persons is watered down, as it were, and all these Georges Dandins and Podkolesins really

*You asked for it, Georges Dandin!

exist, scurry and run around in front of us daily, but as if in a somewhat diluted state. Having mentioned, finally, for the sake of the complete truth, that the full Georges Dandin, as Molière created him, may also be met with in reality, though rarely, we shall therewith end our discourse, which is beginning to resemble a critical article in some journal. Nonetheless, a question remains before us all the same: what is a novelist to do with ordinary, completely "usual" people, and how can he present them to the reader so as to make them at least somewhat interesting? To bypass them altogether in a story is quite impossible, because ordinary people are constantly and for the most part the necessary links in the chain of everyday events; in bypassing them we would thus violate plausibility. To fill novels with nothing but types or even simply, for the sake of interest, with strange and nonexistent people, would be implausible—and perhaps uninteresting as well. In our opinion, the writer should try to seek out interesting and instructive nuances even among ordinary people. And when, for instance, the very essence of certain ordinary people consists precisely in their permanent and unchanging ordinariness, or, better still, when, despite all the extreme efforts of these people to get out of the rut of the usual and the routine, they end up all the same by remaining unchangingly and eternally in one and the same routine, then such people even acquire a kind of typicality—as that ordinariness which refuses to remain what it is and wants at all costs to become original and independent, but has not the slightest means of achieving independence.

To this category of "usual" or "ordinary" people belong certain persons of our story, who till now (I admit it) have been little explained to the reader. Such, namely, are Varvara Ardalionovna Ptitsyn, her husband, Mr. Ptitsyn, and Gavrila Ardalionovich, her brother.

Indeed, there is nothing more vexing, for instance, than to be rich, of respectable family, of decent appearance, of rather good education, not stupid, even kind, and at the same time to have no talent, no particularity, no oddity even, not a single idea of one's own, to be decidedly "like everybody else." There is wealth, but not a Rothschild's; an honorable family, but which has never distinguished itself in any way; a decent appearance, but very little expression; a proper education, but without knowing what to apply it to; there is intelligence, but with no ideas of one's own; there is a heart, but with no magnanimity, etc., etc., in all respects. There

are a great many such people in the world and even far more than it seems; they are divided, as all people are, into two main categories: one limited, the other "much cleverer." The first are happier. For the limited "usual" man, for instance, there is nothing easier than to imagine himself an unusual and original man and to revel in it without any hesitation. As soon as some of our young ladies cut their hair, put on blue spectacles, and called themselves nihilists, they became convinced at once that, having put on the spectacles, they immediately began to have their own "convictions." As soon as a man feels in his heart just a drop of some sort of generally human and kindly feeling for something or other, he immediately becomes convinced that no one else feels as he does, that he is in the forefront of general development. As soon as a man takes some thought or other at its word or reads a little page of something without beginning or end, he believes at once that these are "his own thoughts" and were conceived in his own brain. The impudence of naivety, if one may put it so, goes so far in such cases as to be astonishing; all this is incredible, but one meets with it constantly. This impudence of naivety, this stupid man's unquestioningness of himself and his talent, is excellently portrayed by Gogol in the astonishing type of Lieutenant Pirogov.³ Pirogov never even doubts that he is a genius, even higher than any genius; he is so far from doubting it that he never even asks himself about it; anyhow, questions do not exist for him. The great writer was finally forced to give him a whipping, for the satisfaction of his reader's offended moral sense, but, seeing that the great man merely shook himself and, to fortify himself after his ordeal, ate a puff pastry, he spread his arms in amazement and thus left his readers. I have always regretted that Gogol bestowed such low rank on the great Pirogov, because Pirogov is so given to self-satisfaction that there would be nothing easier for him than to imagine himself, while his epaulettes grow thicker and more braided as the years pass and "according to his rank," as being, for instance, a great commander; not even to imagine it, but simply to have no doubt of it: he has been made a general, why not a commander? And how many of them later cause a terrible fiasco on the battlefield? And how many Pirogovs have there been among our writers, scholars, propagandists? I say "have there been," but, of course, there still are . . .

One character figuring in our story, Gavrila Ardalionovich Ivolgin, belonged to the other category; he belonged to the category

of people who are "much cleverer," though he was all infected, from head to foot, with the desire to be original. But this category, as we have already noted above, is much more unhappy than the first. The thing is that a clever "usual" man, even if he imagines himself momentarily (or perhaps throughout his life) to be a man of genius and originality, nevertheless preserves in his heart a little worm of doubt, which drives him so far that the clever man sometimes ends up in complete despair; if he submits, then he is already completely poisoned by vanity turned in upon itself. However, we have in any case chosen an extreme instance: in the great majority of this clever category of people, things generally do not go so tragically; the liver gives out more or less towards the end of his days, and that's all. But still, before reconciling and submitting, these people sometimes spend an extremely long time acting up, from their youth till the age of submission, and all out of a desire to be original. One even comes upon strange cases: some honest man, out of a desire to be original, is even ready to commit a base deed; it can even happen that one of these unhappy persons is not only honest but even kind, the providence of his family, who by his labor supports and provides not only for his own but even for others—and what then? All his life he is unable to be at peace! For him, the thought that he has fulfilled his human obligations so well brings neither peace nor comfort; on the contrary, that is even what irritates him: "This," he says, "is what I've blown my whole life for, this is what has bound me hand and foot, this is what has kept me from discovering gunpowder! If it hadn't been for that, I'd certainly have discovered either gunpowder or America—I don't know what for sure, but I'd certainly have discovered it!" What is most characteristic in these gentlemen is that all their lives they are indeed unable to find out for sure what precisely they need so much to discover and what precisely they have been preparing all their lives to discover: gunpowder or America? But of suffering, of longing for discovery, they truly have enough of a share in them for a Columbus or a Galileo.

Gavrila Ardalionovich was starting out precisely in that line; but he was only starting out. He still had a long time ahead for acting up. A profound and continual awareness of his talentlessness and at the same time an insuperable desire to be convinced that he was an independent man, painfully wounded his heart, even almost from the age of adolescence. He was a young man with envious and impulsive desires and, it seemed, had even been born with

frayed nerves. He mistook the impulsiveness of his desires for their strength. With his passionate desire to distinguish himself, he was sometimes ready for a most reckless leap; but when it came to the point of making the reckless leap, our hero always proved too clever to venture upon it. This was killing him. He might even have ventured, on occasion, upon an extremely base deed, so long as he achieved at least something of what he dreamed; but, as if on purpose, when it reached the limit, he always proved too honest for an extremely base deed. (On a small base deed, however, he was always ready to agree.) He looked upon the poverty and decline of his own family with loathing and hatred. He even treated his mother haughtily and contemptuously, though he understood very well that his mother's character and reputation had so far constituted the main support of his own career. Having entered Epanchin's service, he immediately said to himself: "If I am to be mean, then I shall be mean to the end, so long as I win out"—and—he was almost never mean to the end. And why did he imagine that he would absolutely have to be mean? He had simply been frightened of Aglaya then, but he had not dropped the affair, but dragged it on just in case, though he never seriously believed that she would stoop to him. Then, during his story with Nastasya Filippovna, he had suddenly imagined to himself that the achievement of everything lay in money. "If it's meanness, it's meanness," he had repeated to himself every day then with self-satisfaction, but also with a certain fear; "if it's meanness, it's also getting to the top," he encouraged himself constantly, "a routine man would turn timid in this case, but we won't turn timid!" Having lost Aglaya and been crushed by circumstances, he had lost heart completely and had actually brought the prince the money thrown to him then by a crazy woman, to whom it had also been brought by a crazy man. Afterwards he regretted this returning of the money a thousand times, though he constantly gloried in it. He had actually wept for three days, while the prince remained in Petersburg, but during those three days he had also come to hate the prince for looking upon him much too compassionately, whereas the fact that he had returned so much money was something "not everyone would bring himself to do." But the noble self-recognition that all his anguish was only a constantly pinched vanity made him suffer terribly. Only a long time afterwards did he see clearly and become convinced of how seriously his affair with such an innocent and strange being as Aglaya might have

turned out. Remorse gnawed at him; he abandoned his work and sank into anguish and dejection. He lived in Ptitsyn's house and at his expense, with his father and mother, and despised Ptitsyn openly, though at the same time he listened to his advice and was almost always sensible enough to ask for it. Gavrila Ardalionovich was angry, for instance, at the fact that Ptitsyn did not aim to become a Rothschild and had not set himself that goal. "If you're a usurer, go through with it, squeeze people dry, coin money out of them, become a character, become the king of the Jews!"⁴ Ptitsyn was modest and quiet; he only smiled, but once he even found it necessary to have a serious talk with Ganya and even did it with a certain dignity. He proved to Ganya that he was not doing anything dishonest and that he should not go calling him a Jew; that if money had so much value, it was not his fault; that he acted truthfully and honestly, and that in reality he was only an agent in "these" affairs, and, finally, that thanks to his accuracy in business he was already known from quite a good standpoint to some most excellent people, and that his business was expanding. "Rothschild I won't be, and why should I," he added, laughing, "but I'll have a house on Liteinaya, maybe even two, and that will be the end of it." "And, who knows, maybe three!" he thought to himself, but never said it aloud and kept his dream hidden. Nature loves and coddles such people: she will certainly reward Ptitsyn not with three but with four houses, and that precisely because he has known since childhood that he would never be a Rothschild. But beyond four houses nature will not go for anything, and with Ptitsyn matters will end there.

Gavrila Ardalionovich's little sister was an entirely different person. She also had strong desires, but more persistent than impulsive. There was a good deal of reasonableness in her, when things reached the final limit, but it did not abandon her before the limit either. True, she was also one of the "usual" people, who dream of originality, but she very quickly managed to realize that she did not have a drop of any particular originality, and she did not grieve over it all that much—who knows, maybe from a peculiar sort of pride. She had made her first practical step with extreme resoluteness by marrying Mr. Ptitsyn; but in marrying him she did not say to herself: "If I'm to be mean, I'll be mean, so long as I reach my goal"—something Gavrila Ardalionovich would not have failed to say on such an occasion (and even almost did say in her presence, when approving of her decision as an older brother).

Quite the contrary even: Varvara Ardalionovna got married after solidly convincing herself that her future husband was a modest, agreeable man, almost educated, who would never commit any great meanness. Varvara Ardalionovna did not look into small meannesses, as too trifling; and where are there not such trifles? No one's looking for ideals! Besides, she knew that by marrying, she was providing a corner for her mother, her father, her brothers. Seeing her brother in misfortune, she wanted to help him, in spite of all previous family misunderstandings. Ptitsyn sometimes urged Ganya—in a friendly way, naturally—to find a job. "You despise generals and generalship," he sometimes said to him jokingly, "but look, all of 'them' will end up as generals in their turn; if you live long enough, you'll see it." "What made them decide that I despise generals and generalship?" Ganya thought to himself sarcastically. To help her brother, Varvara Ardalionovna decided to widen the circle of her activities; she wormed her way in with the Epanchins, childhood memories contributing much to that end: both she and her brother had played with the Epanchin girls in childhood. We shall note here that if, in her visits to the Epanchins, Varvara Ardalionovna had been pursuing some extraordinary dream, she might at once have left the category of people in which she had confined herself; but she was not pursuing a dream; there was even a rather well-founded calculation here on her part: it was founded on the character of this family. Aglaya's character she studied tirelessly. She had set herself the task of turning the two of them, her brother and Aglaya, to each other again. It may be that she actually achieved something; it may be that she fell into error, in counting too much on her brother, for instance, and expecting something from him that he could never and in no way give. In any case, she acted rather skillfully at the Epanchins': for weeks at a time she made no mention of her brother, was always extremely truthful and candid, bore herself simply but with dignity. As for the depths of her conscience, she was not afraid of looking there and did not reproach herself for anything at all. It was this that gave her strength. There was only one thing that she sometimes noticed in herself—that she, too, was perhaps angry, that in her, too, there was a great deal of self-love and even all but pinched vanity; she noticed it especially at certain moments, almost every time she left the Epanchins'.

And now she was returning from them and, as we have already said, in rueful pensiveness. Something bitterly mocking could also

be glimpsed in this ruefulness. Ptitsyn lived in Pavlovsk in an unattractive but roomy wooden house that stood on a dusty street and which would soon come into his full possession, so that he in turn was already beginning to sell it to someone. Going up to the porch, Varvara Ardalionovna heard an extremely loud noise upstairs and could make out the voices of her brother and father shouting. Going into the drawing room and seeing Ganya, who was running up and down the room, pale with fury and almost tearing his hair out, she winced and, with a weary air, lowered herself onto the sofa without taking off her hat. Knowing very well that if she kept silent for another minute and did not ask her brother why he was running like that, he would unfailingly become angry, Varya hastened, finally, to say, in the guise of a question:

"Same as ever?"

"As ever, hah!" exclaimed Ganya. "As ever! No, the devil knows what's going on here now, and not as ever! The old man's getting rabid . . . mother's howling ... By God, Varya, say what you will, I'll throw him out of the house or ... or leave myself," he added, probably recalling that he really could not throw people out of a house that was not his.

"You must be tolerant," Varya murmured.

"Tolerant of what? Of whom?" Ganya flared up. "Of his abominations? No, say what you will, it's impossible like this! Impossible, impossible, impossible! And such a manner: he's to blame and yet he swaggers even more! 'If it won't fit through the gate, knock the fence down! . . .' Why are you sitting there like that? You don't look yourself!"

"I look as I look," Varya answered with displeasure.

Ganya studied her more intently.

"You've been there?" he asked suddenly.

"Yes."

"Wait, they're shouting again! What a shame, and at such a time!"

"Why such a time? It's no special time."

Ganya looked still more intently at his sister.

"Did you find out anything?" he asked.

"Nothing unexpected, at least. I found out that it's all true. My husband was more right than either of us; he predicted it from the very beginning, and so it's turned out. Where is he?" "Not at home. What's turned out?"

"The prince is formally her fiancé, the matter's settled. The older

girls told me. Aglaya has agreed; they've even stopped hiding it. (It was all so mysterious there till now.) Adelaida's wedding will be postponed again, so as to celebrate both weddings together, on the same day—how poetic! Like verse! Why don't you go and write some verses for the nuptials instead of running up and down the room for nothing? Tonight they'll be having old Belokonsky; she arrived just in time; there will be guests. He'll be introduced to Belokonsky, though he's already met her; it seems they're going to announce it publicly. They're only afraid he'll drop and break something as he comes into the room in front of the guests, or just fall down himself; that would be like him."

Ganya listened very attentively, but, to his sister's surprise, this striking news did not seem to make any striking effect on him.

"Well, that was clear," he said after some thought, "so, it's over!" he added with a strange smile, peeking slyly into his sister's face and still pacing up and down the room, but much more slowly now.

"It's good that you can take it philosophically; I'm truly glad," said Varya.

"It's off our backs; off yours, at least."

"I believe I served you sincerely, without arguing and pestering; I never asked you what sort of happiness you wanted to look for with Aglaya."

"But was I . . . looking for happiness with Aglaya?"

"Well, kindly don't go getting into philosophy! Of course you were. It's over, and enough for us—two fools. I must confess to you, I never could look seriously on this affair; I took it up 'just in case,' counting on her funny character, and above all to humor you; there was a ninety percent chance it would be a flop. Even now I don't know myself what you were after."

"Now you and your husband will start urging me to get a job; give me lectures on persistence and willpower, on not scorning small things, and so on—I know it by heart," Ganya laughed loudly.

"There's something new on his mind!" thought Varya.

"So, what—are they glad there, the parents?" Ganya asked suddenly.

"N-no, it seems not. However, you can judge for yourself; Ivan Fyodorovich is pleased; the mother's afraid; before, too, she loathed seeing him as a suitor; you know why."

"That's not what I mean; the suitor is impossible and

unthinkable, that's clear. I'm asking about now, how are things there now? Has she formally accepted him?"

"She hasn't said 'no' yet—that's all, but then it couldn't be otherwise with her. You know how preposterously shy and modest she's been all along: as a child she used to get into the wardrobe and sit there for two or three hours, only so as not to come out to the guests; she's grown into such a big thing, but it's the same now. You know, for some reason I think there's actually something serious in it, even on her part. They say she keeps laughing her head off at the prince, from morning till night, so as not to let anything show, but she must certainly manage to say something to him on the quiet every day, because he looks as though he's walking on air, beaming . . . They say he's terribly funny. I heard it from them. It also seemed to me that they were laughing in my face—the older ones, I mean."

Ganya finally started to scowl; maybe Varya had deliberately gone deeper into the subject in order to penetrate to his real thoughts. But again a shout came from upstairs.

"I'll throw him out!" Ganya simply roared, as if glad to vent his vexation.

"And then he'll go and disgrace us again everywhere, like yesterday."

"How—like yesterday? What do you mean like yesterday? Did he . . ." Ganya suddenly became terribly alarmed.

"Ah, my God, don't you know?" Varya recollected herself.

"How ... so it's really true that he was there?" Ganya exclaimed, flushing with shame and fury. "My God, you were just there! Did you find anything out? Was the old man there? Was he or wasn't he?"

And Ganya rushed to the door; Varya dashed to him and seized him with both arms.

"What is it? Where are you going?" she said. "If you let him out now, he'll do something worse, he'll go to everybody! . . ."

"What did he do there? What did he say?"

"They weren't able to tell and didn't understand themselves; he just frightened them all. He came to see Ivan Fyodorovich—he wasn't there; he demanded to see Lizaveta Prokofyevna. First he asked her for a job, to enter the service, then he started complaining about me, my husband, and you especially . . . said all kinds of things."

"You couldn't find out?" Ganya was trembling as if in hysterics.

"Oh, come now! He himself barely understood what he was saying, and maybe they didn't tell me all of it."

Ganya clutched his head and ran to the window; Varya sat down by the other window.

"Aglaya's funny," she suddenly observed, "she stops me and says: 'Convey my particular personal respects to your parents; one of these days I shall probably find an occasion to see your father.' And she says it so seriously. It's terribly odd . . ."

"Not mockingly? Not mockingly?"

"Precisely not; that's the odd thing."

"Does she know about the old man or doesn't she, what do you think?"

"It's not known to them in the house, I have no doubt of that; but you've given me an idea: maybe Aglaya does know. She alone knows, because the sisters were also surprised that she sent her greetings to father so seriously. Why on earth precisely to him? If she knows, then it's the prince who told her!"

"It takes no cleverness to find out who told her! A thief! Just what we needed. A thief in our family, 'the head of the family'!"

"Oh, nonsense!" cried Varya, becoming quite angry. "A drunken incident, nothing more. And who came up with it? Lebedev, the prince . . . fine ones they are; palatial minds. I don't care a whit about it."

"The old man's a thief and a drunkard," Ganya went on biliously, "I'm a pauper, my sister's husband is a usurer—Aglaya had something to covet! Pretty, I must say!"

"That sister's husband, the usurer, is your ..."

"Feeder, is that it? Kindly don't mince words."

"Why are you angry?" Varya recollected herself. "You don't understand anything, just like a schoolboy. Do you think all that could harm you in Aglaya's eyes? You don't know her character; she'd turn her back on the foremost suitor, but she'd be pleased to run to some student in a garret and starve to death—that's her dream! You've never been able to understand how interesting you'd become in her eyes if you could endure our circumstances with firmness and pride. The prince caught her on his hook, first of all, because he never tried to catch her and, second, because in everybody's eyes he's an idiot. This one thing alone, that she'll muddle up the whole family because of him—that's what she likes now. Ah, none of you understands anything!"

"Well, we've yet to see whether we understand or not," Ganya

muttered mysteriously, "only all the same I wouldn't want her to find out about the old man. I thought the prince would keep it to himself and not tell. He kept Lebedev from telling, and he didn't want to tell me everything either, when I badgered him . . ."

"So you can see for yourself that everything's known already even without him. But what is it to you now? What is there to hope for? And if there were any hope left, it would only give you a look of suffering in her eyes."

"Well, in the face of a scandal even she would turn coward, despite all her love of novels. Everything up to a certain limit, and everybody up to a certain limit—you're all the same."

"Aglaya would turn coward?" Varya flared up, looking contemptuously at her brother. "You really have a mean little soul, though! None of you is worth anything. She may be funny and eccentric, but she's a thousand times nobler than any of us."

"Well, never mind, never mind, don't be angry," Ganya again muttered smugly.

"I'm only sorry for mother," Varya went on. "I'm afraid this story with father may get to her, oh, I'm afraid!"

"And it surely has," Ganya observed.

Varya got up to go upstairs to Nina Alexandrovna, but stopped and looked intently at her brother.

"Who could have told her?"

"Ippolit, it must be. I suppose he considered it his prime pleasure to report it to mother, as soon as he moved in with us."

"But how does he know, pray tell? The prince and Lebedev decided not to tell anyone, even Kolya doesn't know."

"Ippolit? He found it out himself. You can't imagine what a cunning creature he is; what a gossip he is; what a nose he's got for smelling out everything bad, everything scandalous. Well, believe it or not, but I'm convinced that he's already got Aglaya in his hands! And if he hasn't, he will. Rogozhin has also entered into relations with him. How does the prince not notice it! And how he wants to do me a bad turn now! He considers me his personal enemy, I saw through him long ago, and why, what is it to him, he'll die anyway—I can't understand it! But I'll fool him; I'll do him a bad turn, and not he me, you'll see."

"Why did you lure him here, then, if you hate him so much? And is it worth it to do him a bad turn?"

"It was you who advised me to lure him here."

"I thought he'd be useful; and do you know that he has now

fallen in love with Aglaya himself and has written to her? They questioned me . . . it's just possible that he's written to Lizaveta Prokofyevna, too."

"He's no danger in that sense!" Ganya said with a spiteful laugh. "However, there's probably something else in it. He may very well be in love, because he's a boy! But... he wouldn't write anonymous letters to the old lady. He's such a spiteful, worthless, self-satisfied mediocrity! . . . I'm convinced, I know for certain, that he represented me to her as an intriguer, and began with that. I confess that like a fool I let things slip to him at first; I thought he'd take up my interests just to be revenged on the prince; he's such a cunning creature! Oh, now I've seen through him completely. And the theft he heard about from his own mother, the captain's widow. If the old man ventured to do that, it was for her sake. Suddenly, out of the blue, he tells me that 'the general' has promised his mother four hundred roubles, and he does it just like that, out of the blue, without any ceremony. Then I understood everything. And he just peeks into my eyes with some kind of relish; he probably also told mother solely for the pleasure of breaking her heart. And why doesn't he die, pray tell? He promised to die in three weeks, but he's even grown fatter here! He doesn't cough any more; yesterday evening he said himself that he hadn't coughed up blood for two days."

"Throw him out."

"I don't hate him, I despise him," Ganya said proudly. "Well, yes, yes, I do hate him, I do!" he suddenly cried with extraordinary fury. "And I'll say it right to his face, even when he's about to die, on his pillow! If you'd only read his 'Confession'—God, what naivety of impudence! It's Lieutenant Pirogov, it's Nozdryov⁵ in a tragedy, and above all—a little brat! Oh, with what relish I'd have given him a whipping then, precisely to astonish him. He's taking revenge on everybody now, because it didn't come off then . . . But what's that? More noise there? No, what is it, finally? I won't put up with it, finally! Ptitsyn!" he shouted to Ptitsyn, who was coming into the room. "What is this, what are things here coming to, finally? It's . . . it's . . ."

But the noise was quickly approaching, the door was suddenly flung open, and old man Ivolgin, in wrath, purple, shaken, beside himself, also fell upon Ptitsyn. The old man was followed by Nina Alexandrovna, Kolya, and, last of all, Ippolit.

II

It was already five days since Ippolit had moved to the Ptitsyns' house. It had happened somehow naturally, without any special words or any falling-out between him and the prince; not only had they not quarreled, but it seemed they had even parted friends. Gavrila Ardalionovich, so hostile to Ippolit on that earlier evening, had come to see him himself, though only three days after the event, probably guided by some sudden thought. For some reason Rogozhin also began to visit the sick boy. At first it seemed to the prince that it would even be better for the "poor boy" if he moved out of his house. But at the time of moving, Ippolit kept saying that he was moving to Ptitsyn's, "who had been so kind as to give him a corner," and, as if on purpose, never once said that he was moving to Ganya's, though it was Ganya who had insisted that he be taken into the house. Ganya noticed it then and touchily laid it up in his heart.

He was right when he said to his sister that the sick boy had improved. Indeed, Ippolit felt slightly better than before, which could be noticed from the first glance at him. He came into the room unhurriedly, after everyone else, with a mocking and unkindly smile. Nina Alexandrovna came in very frightened. (She had changed greatly during these six months, had grown thinner; having married off her daughter and moved to live with her, she had almost ceased to interfere externally in her children's affairs.) Kolya was preoccupied and as if perplexed; there was much that he did not understand in "the general's madness," as he put it, not knowing, of course, the main reasons for this new turmoil in the house. But it was clear to him that his father was quarreling so much, everywhere and always, and had suddenly changed so much, that it was as if he were quite a different man than before. It also worried him that in the last three days the old man had even stopped drinking entirely. He knew that he had broken and even quarreled with Lebedev and the prince. Kolya had just come home with a bottle of vodka, which he had purchased with his own money.

"Really, mother," he had assured Nina Alexandrovna while still upstairs, "really, it's better to let him have a drink. He hasn't touched a drop in three days now; from anguish, it means. Really, it's better! I used to bring it to him in debtors' prison . . ."

The general flung the door wide open and stood on the sill as if trembling with indignation.

"My dear sir!" he cried out to Ptitsyn in a thundering voice, "if you have indeed decided to sacrifice a venerable old man, your father, that is, your wife's father at least, honored by his sovereign, to a milksop and an atheist, I shall never set foot in your house again from this very hour. Choose, sir, choose immediately: either me, or this . . . screw! Yes, screw! I said it by accident, but he is a screw! Because he bores into my soul like a screw, and without any respect . . . like a screw!"

"Or a corkscrew?" Ippolit put in.

"No, not a corkscrew, because I'm a general to you, not a bottle. I have medals, medals of honor . . . and you've got a fig. Either him or me! Decide, sir, this minute, this very minute!" he again cried in frenzy to Ptitsyn. Here Kolya moved a chair for him, and he sank onto it almost in exhaustion.

"Really, it would be better for you ... to go to sleep," the dumbfounded Ptitsyn murmured.

"And what's more, he threatens!" Ganya said in a low voice to his sister.

"To sleep!" cried the general. "I am not drunk, my dear sir, and you offend me. I see," he went on, standing up again, "I see that everything is against me here, everything and everyone. Enough! I am leaving . . . But know, my dear sir, know . . ."

They did not let him finish and sat him down again; they began begging him to calm himself. Ganya, in fury, went to the far corner. Nina Alexandrovna trembled and wept.

"But what have I done to him? What is he complaining about?" cried Ippolit, baring his teeth.

"So you did nothing?" Nina Alexandrovna suddenly observed. "You especially should be ashamed and ... to torment an old man so inhumanly . . . and that in your position."

"First of all, what is this position of mine, madam! I respect you very much, precisely you, personally, but . . ."

"He's a screw!" the general shouted. "He bores into my soul and heart! He wants me to believe in atheism! Know, milksop, that you weren't even born yet when I was already showered with honors; and you are merely an envious worm, torn in two, coughing . . . and dying of spite and unbelief . . . And why did Gavrila bring you here? Everybody's against me, from strangers to my own son!

"Enough, you're starting a tragedy!" cried Ganya. "It would be better if you didn't go disgracing us all over town!"

"How have I disgraced you, milksop! You? I can only bring you honor, and not dishonor!"

He jumped up and they could no longer restrain him; but Gavrila Ardalionovich, too, had obviously broken loose.

"Look who's talking about honor!" he cried spitefully.

"What did you say?" the general thundered, turning pale and taking a step towards him.

"I need only open my mouth in order to . . ." Ganya screamed suddenly and did not finish. The two stood facing each other, shaken beyond measure, especially Ganya.

"Ganya, how can you!" cried Nina Alexandrovna, rushing to stop her son.

"What nonsense all around!" Varya snapped indignantly. "Enough, mother," she seized her.

"I spare you only for mother's sake," Ganya said tragically.

"Speak!" the general bellowed, totally beside himself. "Speak for fear of a father's curse . . . speak!"

"As if I'm afraid of your curse! Whose fault is it if you've been like a crazy man for the past eight days? Eight days, you see, I know it by the dates . . . Watch out, don't drive me to the limit: I'll tell everything . .. Why did you drag yourself to the Epanchins' yesterday? Calling yourself an old man, gray-haired, the father of a family! A fine one!"

"Shut up, Ganka!" cried Kolya. "Shut up, you fool!"

"But I, how have I insulted him?" Ippolit insisted, in what seemed like the same mocking tone. "Why does he call me a screw? Did you hear? He pesters me himself; just now he came and started talking about some Captain Eropegov. I have no wish for your company, General; I avoided you before, you know that. I have nothing to do with Captain Eropegov, don't you agree? I did not move here for the sake of Captain Eropegov. I merely voiced my opinion that this Captain Eropegov may never have existed at all. And he started kicking up dust."

"He undoubtedly never existed!" snapped Ganya.

But the general stood as if stunned and only looked around senselessly. His son's phrase struck him by its extreme frankness. For the first moment he was even at a loss for words. And at last, only when Ippolit burst out laughing at Ganya's reply and shouted: "Well, do you hear, your own son also says there was

no Captain Eropegov," did the old man babble, completely confounded:

"Kapiton Eropegov, not Captain . . . Kapiton ... a retired lieutenant-colonel, Eropegov . . . Kapiton."

"There was no Kapiton either!" Ganya was now thoroughly angry.

"Wh . . . why wasn't there?" mumbled the general, and color rose to his face.

"Well, enough!" Ptitsyn and Varya tried to pacify him.

"Shut up, Ganka!" Kolya cried again.

But the intercession seemed to have brought the general to his senses.

"How wasn't there? Why didn't he exist?" he menacingly turned on his son.

"There just wasn't. There wasn't, that's all, and there simply cannot be! So there. Leave me alone, I tell you."

"And this is my son . . . my own son, whom I . . . oh, God! Eropegov, Eroshka Eropegov never lived!"

"Well, so, now it's Eroshka, now it's Kapitoshka!" Ippolit put in.

"Kapitoshka, sir, Kapitoshka, not Eroshka! Kapiton, Captain Alexeevich, that is, Kapiton ... a lieutenant-colonel . . . retired . . . married to Marya . . . Marya Petrovna Su ... Su ... a friend and comrade . . . Sutugov, even as a junker.⁶ For him I shed ... I shielded him . . . killed. No Kapitoshka Eropegov! Never existed!"

The general was shouting in excitement, but in such a way that one might have thought the point went one way and the shouting another. True, at another time he would have borne something much more offensive than the news about the total non-existence of Kapiton Eropegov, would have shouted a little, started a scandal, lost his temper, but all the same in the end he would have withdrawn to his room upstairs and gone to bed. But now, owing to the extraordinary strangeness of the human heart, it so happened that precisely such an offense as the doubt of Eropegov made the cup run over. The old man turned purple, raised his arms, and shouted:

"Enough! My curse . . . away from this house! Nikolai, bring my bag, I'm going . . . away!"

He went out, hurrying and in extreme wrath. Nina Alexandrovna, Kolya, and Ptitsyn rushed after him.

"Well, what have you done now!" Varya said to her brother. "He may drag himself there again. Ah, what shame, what shame!"

"So don't go stealing!" Ganya cried, all but choking with spite; suddenly his glance met with Ippolit; Ganya almost began to shake. "And you, my dear sir," he cried, "ought to remember that you are not, after all, in your own house and ... are enjoying hospitality, instead of vexing an old man who has obviously lost his mind ..."

Ippolit also seemed to wince, but he immediately checked himself.

"I don't quite agree with you that your father has lost his mind," he replied calmly. "It seems to me, on the contrary, that his mind has been working much better lately, by God; don't you believe so? He has become so cautious, suspicious, keeps asking questions, weighs every word . . . He started talking with me about that Kapitoshka with some aim; imagine, he wanted to suggest to me . . ."

"Eh, the devil I care what he wanted to suggest to you! I ask you, sir, not to be clever and try to dodge with me!" Ganya shrieked. "If you also know the real reason why the old man is in such a state (and you've been spying so much in these five days here that you surely do know it), then you ought never to have vexed . . . the unfortunate man and tormented my mother by exaggerating the affair, because the whole affair is nonsense, just a drunken incident, nothing more, not even proved in any way, and I don't care a whit about it . . . But you have to go taunting and spying, because you're . . . you're . . ."

"A screw," Ippolit grinned.

"Because you're trash, you tormented people for half an hour, thinking you'd frighten them that you were going to shoot yourself with your unloaded pistol, with which you bungled it so shamefully, you failed suicide, you . . . walking bile. I showed you hospitality, you've grown fatter, stopped coughing, and you repay me . . ."

"Just a couple of words, if you please, sir; I am staying with Varvara Ardalionovna, not with you; you have not offered me any hospitality, and I even think that you yourself are enjoying the hospitality of Mr. Ptitsyn. Four days ago I asked my mother to find lodgings for me in Pavlovsk and to move here herself, because I actually do feel better here, though I haven't grown fatter and I still cough. Yesterday evening my mother informed me that the apartment is ready, and I hasten to inform you for my part that, after thanking your dear mother and sister, I will move to my own place today, as I already decided to do last evening. Excuse me, I interrupted you; it seems you had much more to say."

"Oh, in that case . . ." Ganya began to tremble.

"But in that case, allow me to sit down," Ippolit added, sitting down most calmly on the chair that the general had been sitting on. "I am ill after all; well, now I'm ready to listen to you, the more so as this is our last conversation and perhaps even our last meeting."

Ganya suddenly felt ashamed.

"Believe me, I shall not lower myself to squaring accounts with you," he said, "and if you . . ."

"You needn't be so supercilious," Ippolit interrupted. "For my part, on the first day I moved here I promised myself not to deny myself the pleasure of speaking my mind to you as we said goodbye, and that in the most frank way. I intend to do so precisely now—after you, naturally."

"And I ask you to leave this room."

"Better speak, you'll regret not saying everything."

"Stop it, Ippolit! All this is terribly shameful. Be so good as to stop!" said Varya.

"Only for a lady," Ippolit laughed, standing up. "If you please, Varvara Ardalionovna, I'm prepared to make it shorter for you, but only shorter, because some explanation between your brother and me has become quite necessary, and not for anything will I go away and leave any perplexity behind."

"You're quite simply a gossip," Ganya cried out, "that's why you won't leave without gossiping."

"There, you see," Ippolit observed coolly, "you've already lost control of yourself. You really will regret not saying everything. Once more I yield the floor to you. I shall wait."

Gavrila Ardalionovich was silent and looked at him contemptuously.

"You don't want to? You intend to stand firm—as you will. For my part, I shall be as brief as possible. Two or three times today I have listened to a reproach about hospitality; that is unfair. In inviting me to stay with you, you wanted to catch me in your nets; you calculated that I wanted to be revenged on the prince. Moreover, you heard that Aglaya Ivanovna had shown concern for me and was reading my 'Confession.' Calculating, for some reason, that I would surrender myself entirely to your interests, you may have hoped to find some support in me. I shall not go into detail! Nor do I demand any acknowledgment or recognition on your part; suffice it that I leave you with your own conscience and that we now understand each other perfectly."

"But you make God knows what out of a most ordinary matter!" cried Varya.

"I told you: 'a gossip and a little brat,' " said Ganya.

"If you please, Varvara Ardalionovna, I shall continue. Of course, I can neither love nor respect the prince, but he is decidedly a kind man, though ... a ridiculous one. But I have absolutely no reason to hate him; I remained impassive when your brother incited me against the prince; I precisely counted on having a good laugh at the denouement. I knew your brother would let things slip and miss the mark in the highest degree. And so it happened . . . I'm ready to spare him now, but solely out of respect for you, Varvara Ardalionovna. But, having explained to you that it is not so easy to catch me on a hook, I will also explain to you why I wanted so much to make a fool of your brother. Know that I did it out of hatred, I confess it frankly. In dying (because I shall die all the same, even though I've grown fatter, as you assure me), in dying, I have felt that I would go to paradise incomparably more peacefully if I managed to make a fool out of at least one of that numberless sort of people who have hounded me all my life, whom I have hated all my life, and of whom your much-esteemed brother serves as such a vivid representation. I hate you, Gavrila Ardalionovich, solely because—this may seem astonishing to you—solely because you are the type and embodiment, the personification and apex of the most impudent, the most self-satisfied, the most vulgar and vile ordinariness! You are a puffed-up ordinariness, an unquestioning and Olympianly calm ordinariness; you are the routine of routines! Not the least idea of your own will ever be embodied in your mind or in your heart. But you are infinitely envious; you are firmly convinced that you are the greatest of geniuses, but all the same, doubt visits you occasionally in your darkest moments, and you become angry and envious. Oh, there are still dark spots on your horizon; they will go away when you become definitively stupid, which is not far off; but all the same a long and diverse path lies ahead of you, I do not say a cheerful one, and I'm glad of that. First of all, I predict to you that you will not attain a certain person ..."

"No, this is unbearable!" Varya cried out. "Will you ever finish, you disgusting little stinker?"

Ganya was pale, trembling, and silent. Ippolit stopped, looked at him intently and with relish, shifted his gaze to Varya, grinned, bowed, and left without adding a single word.

Gavrila Ardalionovich could justly complain of his fate and ill luck. For some time Varya did not dare to address him, did not even glance at him, as he paced by her with big strides; finally, he went to the window and stood with his back to her. Varya was thinking about the proverb: every stick has two ends. There was noise again upstairs.

"Are you leaving?" Ganya suddenly turned, hearing her get up from her seat. "Wait. Look at this."

He went over to her and flung down on the chair before her a small piece of paper folded like a little note

"Lord!" Varya cried and clasped her hands.

There were exactly seven lines in the note:

Gavrila Ardalionovich! Being convinced that you are kindly disposed towards me, I venture to ask your advice in a matter that is of importance for me. I would like to meet you tomorrow, at exactly seven o'clock in the morning, by the green bench. It is not far from our dacha. Varvara Ardalionovna, who must accompany you without fail, knows the place very well. A.E.

"Try figuring her out after that!" Varvara Ardalionovna spread her arms.

Much as Ganya would have liked to swagger at that moment, he simply could not help showing his triumph, especially after such humiliating predictions from Ippolit. A self-satisfied smile shone openly on his face, and Varya herself became all radiant with joy.

"And that on the very day when they're announcing the engagement! Try figuring her out after that!"

"What do you think she's going to talk about tomorrow?" asked Ganya.

"That makes no difference, the main thing is that she wishes to see you for the first time after six months. Listen to me, Ganya: whatever there is to it, however it turns out, know that this is important! It's all too important! Don't swagger again, don't miss the mark again, but watch out you don't turn coward either! Could she have failed to grasp why I dragged myself there for half a year? And imagine: she didn't say a word to me today, didn't show a thing. I sneaked in to see them, the old woman didn't know I was sitting with them, otherwise she might have chased me out. I risked that for you, to find out at all costs ..."