up with in the last two months, and was seeking feverishly The Idiot
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for some means of enabling himself to lead a more
presentable kind of existence. At home, he now adopted
an attitude of absolute cynicism, but he could not keep
this up before Nastasia Philipovna, although he had sworn
to make her pay after marriage for all he suffered now. He
was experiencing a last humiliation, the bitterest of all, at
this moment—the humiliation of blushing for his own
kindred in his own house. A question flashed through his
mind as to whether the game was really worth the candle.
For that had happened at this moment, which for two
months had been his nightmare; which had filled his soul
with dread and shame—the meeting between his father
and Nastasia Philipovna. He had often tried to imagine
such an event, but had found the picture too mortifying
and exasperating, and had quietly dropped it. Very likely
he anticipated far worse things than was at all necessary; it
is often so with vain persons. He had long since
determined, therefore, to get his father out of the way,
anywhere, before his marriage, in order to avoid such a
meeting; but when Nastasia entered the room just now,
he had been so overwhelmed with astonishment, that he
had not thought of his father, and had made no
arrangements to keep him out of the way. And now it was
too late—there he was, and got up, too, in a dress coat and The Idiot
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white tie, and Nastasia in the very humour to heap
ridicule on him and his family circle; of this last fact, he
felt quite persuaded. What else had she come for? There
were his mother and his sister sitting before her, and she
seemed to have forgotten their very existence already; and
if she behaved like that, he thought, she must have some
object in view.
Ferdishenko led the general up to Nastasia Philipovna.
‘Ardalion Alexandrovitch Ivolgin,’ said the smiling
general, with a low bow of great dignity, ‘an old soldier,
unfortunate, and the father of this family; but happy in the
hope of including in that family so exquisite—‘
He did not finish his sentence, for at this moment
Ferdishenko pushed a chair up from behind, and the
general, not very firm on his legs, at this post-prandial
hour, flopped into it backwards. It was always a difficult
thing to put this warrior to confusion, and his sudden
descent left him as composed as before. He had sat down
just opposite to Nastasia, whose fingers he now took, and
raised to his lips with great elegance, and much courtesy.
The general had once belonged to a very select circle of
society, but he had been turned out of it two or three
years since on account of certain weaknesses, in which he The Idiot
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now indulged with all the less restraint; but his good
manners remained with him to this day, in spite of all.
Nastasia Philipovna seemed delighted at the appearance
of this latest arrival, of whom she had of course heard a
good deal by report.
‘I have heard that my son—’ began Ardalion
Alexandrovitch.
‘Your son, indeed! A nice papa you are! YOU might
have come to see me anyhow, without compromising
anyone. Do you hide yourself, or does your son hide
you?’
‘The children of the nineteenth century, and their
parents—’ began the general, again.
‘Nastasia Philipovna, will you excuse the general for a
moment? Someone is inquiring for him,’ said Nina
Alexandrovna in a loud voice, interrupting the
conversation.
‘Excuse him? Oh no, I have wished to see him too
long for that. Why, what business can he have? He has
retired, hasn’t he? You won’t leave me, general, will you?’
‘I give you my word that he shall come and see you—
but he—he needs rest just now.’ The Idiot
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‘General, they say you require rest,’ said Nastasia
Philipovna, with the melancholy face of a child whose toy
is taken away.
Ardalion Alexandrovitch immediately did his best to
make his foolish position a great deal worse.
‘My dear, my dear!’ he said, solemnly and
reproachfully, looking at his wife, with one hand on his
heart.
‘Won’t you leave the room, mamma?’ asked Varia,
aloud.
‘No, Varia, I shall sit it out to the end.’
Nastasia must have overheard both question and reply,
but her vivacity was not in the least damped. On the
contrary, it seemed to increase. She immediately
overwhelmed the general once more with questions, and
within five minutes that gentleman was as happy as a king,
and holding forth at the top of his voice, amid the laughter
of almost all who heard him.
Colia jogged the prince’s arm.
‘Can’t YOU get him out of the room, somehow? DO,
please,’ and tears of annoyance stood in the boy’s eyes.
‘Curse that Gania!’ he muttered, between his teeth.
‘Oh yes, I knew General Epanchin well,’ General
Ivolgin was saying at this moment; ‘he and Prince Nicolai The Idiot
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Ivanovitch Muishkin—whose son I have this day
embraced after an absence of twenty years—and I, were
three inseparables. Alas one is in the grave, torn to pieces
by calumnies and bullets; another is now before you, still
battling with calumnies and bullets—‘
‘Bullets?’ cried Nastasia.
‘Yes, here in my chest. I received them at the siege of
Kars, and I feel them in bad weather now. And as to the
third of our trio, Epanchin, of course after that little affair
with the poodle in the railway carriage, it was all UP
between us.’
‘Poodle? What was that? And in a railway carriage?
Dear me,’ said Nastasia, thoughtfully, as though trying to
recall something to mind.
‘Oh, just a silly, little occurrence, really not worth
telling, about Princess Bielokonski’s governess, Miss
Smith, and—oh, it is really not worth telling!’
‘No, no, we must have it!’ cried Nastasia merrily.
‘Yes, of course,’ said Ferdishenko. ‘C’est du nouveau.’
‘Ardalion,’ said Nina Alexandrovitch, entreatingly.
‘Papa, you are wanted!’ cried Colia.
‘Well, it is a silly little story, in a few words,’ began the
delighted general. ‘A couple of years ago, soon after the
new railway was opened, I had to go somewhere or other The Idiot
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on business. Well, I took a first-class ticket, sat down, and
began to smoke, or rather CONTINUED to smoke, for I
had lighted up before. I was alone in the carriage.
Smoking is not allowed, but is not prohibited either; it is
half allowed—so to speak, winked at. I had the window
open.’
‘Suddenly, just before the whistle, in came two ladies
with a little poodle, and sat down opposite to me; not
bad-looking women; one was in light blue, the other in
black silk. The poodle, a beauty with a silver collar, lay on
light blue’s knee. They looked haughtily about, and talked
English together. I took no notice, just went on smoking.
I observed that the ladies were getting angry—over my
cigar, doubtless. One looked at me through her tortoise-
shell eyeglass.
‘I took no notice, because they never said a word. If
they didn’t like the cigar, why couldn’t they say so? Not a
word, not a hint! Suddenly, and without the very slightest
suspicion of warning, ‘light blue’ seizes my cigar from
between my fingers, and, wheugh! out of the window
with it! Well, on flew the train, and I sat bewildered, and
the young woman, tall and fair, and rather red in the face,
too red, glared at me with flashing eyes. The Idiot
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‘I didn’t say a word, but with extreme courtesy, I may
say with most refined courtesy, I reached my finger and
thumb over towards the poodle, took it up delicately by
the nape of the neck, and chucked it out of the window,
after the cigar. The train went flying on, and the poodle’s
yells were lost in the distance.’
‘Oh, you naughty man!’ cried Nastasia, laughing and
clapping her hands like a child.
‘Bravo!’ said Ferdishenko. Ptitsin laughed too, though
he had been very sorry to see the general appear. Even
Colia laughed and said, ‘Bravo!’
‘And I was right, truly right,’ cried the general, with
warmth and solemnity, ‘for if cigars are forbidden in
railway carriages, poodles are much more so.’
‘Well, and what did the lady do?’ asked Nastasia,
impatiently.
’ She—ah, that’s where all the mischief of it lies!’
replied Ivolgin, frowning. ‘Without a word, as it were, of
warning, she slapped me on the cheek! An extraordinary
woman!’
‘And you?’
The general dropped his eyes, and elevated his brows;
shrugged his shoulders, tightened his lips, spread his hands,
and remained silent. At last he blurted out: The Idiot
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‘I lost my head!’
‘Did you hit her?’
‘No, oh no!—there was a great flare-up, but I didn’t hit
her! I had to struggle a little, purely to defend myself; but
the very devil was in the business. It turned out that ‘light
blue’ was an Englishwoman, governess or something, at
Princess Bielokonski’s, and the other woman was one of
the old-maid princesses Bielokonski. Well, everybody
knows what great friends the princess and Mrs. Epanchin
are, so there was a pretty kettle of fish. All the
Bielokonskis went into mourning for the poodle. Six
princesses in tears, and the Englishwoman shrieking!
‘Of course I wrote an apology, and called, but they
would not receive either me or my apology, and the
Epanchins cut me, too!’
‘But wait,’ said Nastasia. ‘How is it that, five or six days
since, I read exactly the same story in the paper, as
happening between a Frenchman and an English girl? The
cigar was snatched away exactly as you describe, and the
poodle was chucked out of the window after it. The
slapping came off, too, as in your case; and the girl’s dress
was light blue!’
The general blushed dreadfully; Colia blushed too; and
Ptitsin turned hastily away. Ferdishenko was the only one The Idiot
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who laughed as gaily as before. As to Gania, I need not say
that he was miserable; he stood dumb and wretched and
took no notice of anybody.
‘I assure you,’ said the general, ‘that exactly the same
thing happened to myself!’
‘I remembered there was some quarrel between father
and Miss Smith, the Bielokonski’s governess,’ said Colia.
‘How very curious, point for point the same anecdote,
and happening at different ends of Europe! Even the light
blue dress the same,’ continued the pitiless Nastasia. ‘I
must really send you the paper.’
‘You must observe,’ insisted the general, ‘that my
experience was two years earlier.’
‘Ah! that’s it, no doubt!’
Nastasia Philipovna laughed hysterically.
‘Father, will you hear a word from me outside!’ said
Gania, his voice shaking with agitation, as he seized his
father by the shoulder. His eyes shone with a blaze of
hatred.
At this moment there was a terrific bang at the front
door, almost enough to break it down. Some most
unusual visitor must have arrived. Colia ran to open. The Idiot
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X
THE entrance-hall suddenly became full of noise and
people. To judge from the sounds which penetrated to the
drawing-room, a number of people had already come in,
and the stampede continued. Several voices were talking
and shouting at once; others were talking and shouting on
the stairs outside; it was evidently a most extraordinary
visit that was about to take place.
Everyone exchanged startled glances. Gania rushed out
towards the dining-room, but a number of men had
already made their way in, and met him.
‘Ah! here he is, the Judas!’ cried a voice which the
prince recognized at once. ‘How d’ye do, Gania, you old
blackguard?’
‘Yes, that’s the man!’ said another voice.
There was no room for doubt in the prince’s mind: one
of the voices was Rogojin’s, and the other Lebedeff’s.
Gania stood at the door like a block and looked on in
silence, putting no obstacle in the way of their entrance,
and ten or a dozen men marched in behind Parfen
Rogojin. They were a decidedly mixed-looking
collection, and some of them came in in their furs and The Idiot
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caps. None of them were quite drunk, but all appeared to
De considerably excited.
They seemed to need each other’s support, morally,
before they dared come in; not one of them would have
entered alone but with the rest each one was brave
enough. Even Rogojin entered rather cautiously at the
head of his troop; but he was evidently preoccupied. He
appeared to be gloomy and morose, and had clearly come
with some end in view. All the rest were merely chorus,
brought in to support the chief character. Besides Lebedeff
there was the dandy Zalesheff, who came in without his
coat and hat, two or three others followed his example;
the rest were more uncouth. They included a couple of
young merchants, a man in a great-coat, a medical student,
a little Pole, a small fat man who laughed continuously,
and an enormously tall stout one who apparently put great
faith in the strength of his fists. A couple of ‘ladies’ of
some sort put their heads in at the front door, but did not
dare come any farther. Colia promptly banged the door in
their faces and locked it.
‘Hallo, Gania, you blackguard! You didn’t expect
Rogojin, eh?’ said the latter, entering the drawing-room,
and stopping before Gania. The Idiot
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But at this moment he saw, seated before him, Nastasia
Philipovna. He had not dreamed of meeting her here,
evidently, for her appearance produced a marvellous effect
upon him. He grew pale, and his lips became actually
blue.
‘I suppose it is true, then!’ he muttered to himself, and
his face took on an expression of despair. ‘So that’s the end
of it! Now you, sir, will you answer me or not?’ he went
on suddenly, gazing at Gania with ineffable malice. ‘Now
then, you—‘
He panted, and could hardly speak for agitation. He
