coming to himself. General, Totski, all of you, did you
hear me? The money is all Gania’s. I give it to him, fully
conscious of my action, as recompense for— well, for
anything he thinks best. Tell him so. Let it lie here beside
him. Off we go, Rogojin! Goodbye, prince. I have seen a
man for the first time in my life. Goodbye, Afanasy
Ivanovitch— and thanks!’ The Idiot
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The Rogojin gang followed their leader and Nastasia
Philipovna to the entrance-hall, laughing and shouting and
whistling.
In the hall the servants were waiting, and handed her
her fur cloak. Martha, the cook, ran in from the kitchen.
Nastasia kissed them all round.
‘Are you really throwing us all over, little mother?
Where, where are you going to? And on your birthday,
too!’ cried the four girls, crying over her and kissing her
hands.
‘I am going out into the world, Katia; perhaps I shall be
a laundress. I don’t know. No more of Afanasy
Ivanovitch, anyhow. Give him my respects. Don’t think
badly of me, girls.’
The prince hurried down to the front gate where the
party were settling into the troikas, all the bells tinkling a
merry accompaniment the while. The general caught him
up on the stairs:
‘Prince, prince!’ he cried, seizing hold of his arm,
‘recollect yourself! Drop her, prince! You see what sort of
a woman she is. I am speaking to you like a father.’
The prince glanced at him, but said nothing. He shook
himself free, and rushed on downstairs. The Idiot
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The general was just in time to see the prince take the
first sledge he could get, and, giving the order to
Ekaterinhof, start off in pursuit of the troikas. Then the
general’s fine grey horse dragged that worthy home, with
some new thoughts, and some new hopes and calculations
developing in his brain, and with the pearls in his pocket,
for he had not forgotten to bring them along with him,
being a man of business. Amid his new thoughts and ideas
there came, once or twice, the image of Nastasia
Philipovna. The general sighed.
‘I’m sorry, really sorry,’ he muttered. ‘She’s a ruined
woman. Mad! mad! However, the prince is not for
Nastasia Philipovna now,—perhaps it’s as well.’
Two more of Nastasia’s guests, who walked a short
distance together, indulged in high moral sentiments of a
similar nature.
‘Do you know, Totski, this is all very like what they
say goes on among the Japanese?’ said Ptitsin. ‘The
offended party there, they say, marches off to his insulter
and says to him, ‘You insulted me, so I have come to rip
myself open before your eyes;’ and with these words he
does actually rip his stomach open before his enemy, and
considers, doubtless, that he is having all possible and The Idiot
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necessary satisfaction and revenge. There are strange
characters in the world, sir!’
‘H’m! and you think there was something of this sort
here, do you? Dear me—a very remarkable comparison,
you know! But you must have observed, my dear Ptitsin,
that I did all I possibly could. I could do no more than I
did. And you must admit that there are some rare qualities
in this woman. I felt I could not speak in that Bedlam, or I
should have been tempted to cry out, when she
reproached me, that she herself was my best justification.
Such a woman could make anyone forget all reason—
everything! Even that moujik, Rogojin, you saw, brought
her a hundred thousand roubles! Of course, all that
happened tonight was ephemeral, fantastic, unseemly—yet
it lacked neither colour nor originality. My God! What
might not have been made of such a character combined
with such beauty! Yet in spite of all efforts —in spite of all
education, even—all those gifts are wasted! She is an uncut
diamond.... I have often said so.’
And Afanasy Ivanovitch heaved a deep sigh. The Idiot
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Part II The Idiot
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I
Two days after the strange conclusion to Nastasia
Philipovna’s birthday party, with the record of which we
concluded the first part of this story, Prince Muishkin
hurriedly left St. Petersburg for Moscow, in order to see
after some business connected with the receipt of his
unexpected fortune.
It was said that there were other reasons for his hurried
departure; but as to this, and as to his movements in
Moscow, and as to his prolonged absence from St.
Petersburg, we are able to give very little information.
The prince was away for six months, and even those
who were most interested in his destiny were able to pick
up very little news about him all that while. True, certain
rumours did reach his friends, but these were both strange
and rare, and each one contradicted the last.
Of course the Epanchin family was much interested in
his movements, though he had not had time to bid them
farewell before his departure. The general, however, had
had an opportunity of seeing him once or twice since the
eventful evening, and had spoken very seriously with him;
but though he had seen the prince, as I say, he told his
family nothing about the circumstance. In fact, for a The Idiot
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month or so after his departure it was considered not the
thing to mention the prince’s name in the Epanchin
household. Only Mrs. Epanchin, at the commencement of
this period, had announced that she had been ‘cruelly
mistaken in the prince!’ and a day or two after, she had
added, evidently alluding to him, but not mentioning his
name, that it was an unalterable characteristic of hers to be
mistaken in people. Then once more, ten days later, after
some passage of arms with one of her daughters, she had
remarked sententiously. ‘We have had enough of mistakes.
I shall be more careful in future!’ However, it was
impossible to avoid remarking that there was some sense
of oppression in the household—something unspoken, but
felt; something strained. All the members of the family
wore frowning looks. The general was unusually busy; his
family hardly ever saw him.
As to the girls, nothing was said openly, at all events;
and probably very little in private. They were proud
damsels, and were not always perfectly confidential even
among themselves. But they understood each other
thoroughly at the first word on all occasions; very often at
the first glance, so that there was no need of much talking
as a rule. The Idiot
325 of 1149
One fact, at least, would have been perfectly plain to an
outsider, had any such person been on the spot; and that
was, that the prince had made a very considerable
impression upon the family, in spite of the fact that he had
but once been inside the house, and then only for a short
time. Of course, if analyzed, this impression might have
proved to be nothing more than a feeling of curiosity; but
be it what it might, there it undoubtedly was.
Little by little, the rumours spread about town became
lost in a maze of uncertainty. It was said that some foolish
young prince, name unknown, had suddenly come into
possession of a gigantic fortune, and had married a French
ballet dancer. This was contradicted, and the rumour
circulated that it was a young merchant who had come
into the enormous fortune and married the great ballet
dancer, and that at the wedding the drunken young fool
had burned seventy thousand roubles at a candle out of
pure bravado.
However, all these rumours soon died down, to which
circumstance certain facts largely contributed. For
instance, the whole of the Rogojin troop had departed,
with him at their head, for Moscow. This was exactly a
week after a dreadful orgy at the Ekaterinhof gardens,
where Nastasia Philipovna had been present. It became The Idiot
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known that after this orgy Nastasia Philipovna had entirely
disappeared, and that she had since been traced to
Moscow; so that the exodus of the Rogojin band was
found consistent with this report.
There were rumours current as to Gania, too; but
circumstances soon contradicted these. He had fallen
seriously ill, and his illness precluded his appearance in
society, and even at business, for over a month. As soon as
he had recovered, however, he threw up his situation in
the public company under General Epanchin’s direction,
for some unknown reason, and the post was given to
another. He never went near the Epanchins’ house at all,
and was exceedingly irritable and depressed.
Varvara Ardalionovna married Ptitsin this winter, and it
was said that the fact of Gania’s retirement from business
was the ultimate cause of the marriage, since Gania was
now not only unable to support his family, but even
required help himself.
We may mention that Gania was no longer mentioned
in the Epanchin household any more than the prince was;
but that a certain circumstance in connection with the
fatal evening at Nastasia’s house became known to the
general, and, in fact, to all the family the very next day.
This fact was that Gania had come home that night, but The Idiot
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had refused to go to bed. He had awaited the prince’s
return from Ekaterinhof with feverish impatience.
On the latter’s arrival, at six in the morning, Gania had
gone to him in his room, bringing with him the singed
packet of money, which he had insisted that the prince
should return to Nastasia Philipovna without delay. It was
said that when Gania entered the prince’s room, he came
with anything but friendly feelings, and in a condition of
despair and misery; but that after a short conversation, he
had stayed on for a couple of hours with him, sobbing
continuously and bitterly the whole time. They had parted
upon terms of cordial friendship.
The Epanchins heard about this, as well as about the
episode at Nastasia Philipovna’s. It was strange, perhaps,
that the facts should become so quickly, and fairly
accurately, known. As far as Gania was concerned, it
might have been supposed that the news had come
through Varvara Ardalionovna, who had suddenly become
a frequent visitor of the Epanchin girls, greatly to their
mother’s surprise. But though Varvara had seen fit, for
some reason, to make friends with them, it was not likely
that she would have talked to them about her brother. She
had plenty of pride, in spite of the fact that in thus acting
she was seeking intimacy with people who had practically The Idiot
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shown her brother the door. She and the Epanchin girls
had been acquainted in childhood, although of late they
had met but rarely. Even now Varvara hardly ever
appeared in the drawing-room, but would slip in by a
back way. Lizabetha Prokofievna, who disliked Varvara,
although she had a great respect for her mother, was much
annoyed by this sudden intimacy, and put it down to the
general ‘contrariness’ of her daughters, who were ‘always
on the lookout for some new way of opposing her.’
Nevertheless, Varvara continued her visits.
A month after Muishkin’s departure, Mrs. Epanchin
received a letter from her old friend Princess Bielokonski
(who had lately left for Moscow), which letter put her
into the greatest good humour. She did not divulge its
contents either to her daughters or the general, but her
conduct towards the former became affectionate in the
extreme. She even made some sort of confession to them,
but they were unable to understand what it was about. She
actually relaxed towards the general a little—he had been
long disgraced—and though she managed to quarrel with
them all the next day, yet she soon came round, and from
her general behaviour it was to be concluded that she had
bad good news of some sort, which she would like, but
could not make up her mind, to disclose. The Idiot
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However, a week later she received another letter from
the same source, and at last resolved to speak.
She solemnly announced that she had heard from old
Princess Bielokonski, who had given her most comforting
news about ‘that queer young prince.’ Her friend had
hunted him up, and found that all was going well with
him. He had since called in person upon her, making an
extremely favourable impression, for the princess had
received him each day since, and had introduced him into
several good houses.
The girls could see that their mother concealed a great
deal from them, and left out large pieces of the letter in
reading it to them.
However, the ice was broken, and it suddenly became
possible to mention the prince’s name again. And again it
became evident how very strong was the impression the
young man had made in the household by his one visit
there. Mrs. Epanchin was surprised at the effect which the
news from Moscow had upon the girls, and they were no
less surprised that after solemnly remarking that her most
striking characteristic was ‘being mistaken in people’ she
should have troubled to obtain for the prince the favour
and protection of so powerful an old lady as the Princess
Bielokonski. As soon as the ice was thus broken, the The Idiot
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general lost no time in showing that he, too, took the
greatest interest in the subject. He admitted that he was
interested, but said that it was merely in the business side
of the question. It appeared that, in the interests of the
prince, he had made arrangements in Moscow for a careful
watch to be kept upon the prince’s business affairs, and
especially upon Salaskin. All that had been said as to the
prince being an undoubted heir to a fortune turned out to
be perfectly true; but the fortune proved to be much
smaller than was at first reported. The estate was
considerably encumbered with debts; creditors turned up
on all sides, and the prince, in spite of all advice and
entreaty, insisted upon managing all matters of claim
