child. Peter Zakkaritch recalled my interview with him,
and said, ‘YOU FORETOLD HIS DEATH.’’
The prince rose from his seat, and Lebedeff, surprised
to see his guest preparing to go so soon, remarked: ‘You
are not interested?’ in a respectful tone.
‘I am not very well, and my head aches. Doubtless the
effect of the journey,’ replied the prince, frowning.
‘You should go into the country,’ said Lebedeff
timidly.
The prince seemed to be considering the suggestion.
‘You see, I am going into the country myself in three
days, with my children and belongings. The little one is The Idiot
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delicate; she needs change of air; and during our absence
this house will be done up. I am going to Pavlofsk.’
‘You are going to Pavlofsk too?’ asked the prince
sharply. ‘Everybody seems to be going there. Have you a
house in that neighbourhood?’
‘I don’t know of many people going to Pavlofsk, and as
for the house, Ivan Ptitsin has let me one of his villas
rather cheaply. It is a pleasant place, lying on a hill
surrounded by trees, and one can live there for a mere
song. There is good music to be heard, so no wonder it is
popular. I shall stay in the lodge. As to the villa itself. . ‘
‘Have you let it?’
‘N-no—not exactly.’
‘Let it to me,’ said the prince.
Now this was precisely what Lebedeff had made up his
mind to do in the last three minutes. Not that he bad any
difficulty in finding a tenant; in fact the house was
occupied at present by a chance visitor, who had told
Lebedeff that he would perhaps take it for the summer
months. The clerk knew very well that this ‘PERHAPS’
meant ‘CERTAINLY,’ but as he thought he could make
more out of a tenant like the prince, he felt justified in
speaking vaguely about the present inhabitant’s intentions.
‘This is quite a coincidence,’ thought he, and when the The Idiot
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subject of price was mentioned, he made a gesture with
his hand, as if to waive away a question of so little
importance.
‘Oh well, as you like!’ said Muishkin. ‘I will think it
over. You shall lose nothing!’
They were walking slowly across the garden.
‘But if you ... I could …’ stammered Lebedeff, ‘if...if
you please, prince, tell you something on the subject
which would interest you, I am sure.’ He spoke in
wheedling tones, and wriggled as he walked along.
Muishkin stopped short.
‘Daria Alexeyevna also has a villa at Pavlofsk.’
‘Well?’
‘A certain person is very friendly with her, and intends
to visit her pretty often.’
Well?’
‘Aglaya Ivanovna...’
‘Oh stop, Lebedeff!’ interposed Muishkin, feeling as if
he had been touched on an open wound. ‘That ... that has
nothing to do with me. I should like to know when you
are going to start. The sooner the better as far as I am
concerned, for I am at an hotel.’
They had left the garden now, and were crossing the
yard on their way to the gate. The Idiot
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‘Well, leave your hotel at once and come here; then we
can all go together to Pavlofsk the day after tomorrow.’
‘I will think about it,’ said the prince dreamily, and
went off.
The clerk stood looking after his guest, struck by his
sudden absent-mindedness. He had not even remembered
to say goodbye, and Lebedeff was the more surprised at
the omission, as he knew by experience how courteous
the prince usually was. The Idiot
367 of 1149
III
It was now close on twelve o’clock.
The prince knew that if he called at the Epanchins’
now he would only find the general, and that the latter
might probably carry him straight off to Pavlofsk with
him; whereas there was one visit he was most anxious to
make without delay.
So at the risk of missing General Epanchin altogether,
and thus postponing his visit to Pavlofsk for a day, at least,
the prince decided to go and look for the house he desired
to find.
The visit he was about to pay was, in some respects, a
risky one. He was in two minds about it, but knowing
that the house was in the Gorohovaya, not far from the
Sadovaya, he determined to go in that direction, and to try
to make up his mind on the way.
Arrived at the point where the Gorohovaya crosses the
Sadovaya, he was surprised to find how excessively
agitated he was. He had no idea that his heart could beat
so painfully.
One house in the Gorohovaya began to attract his
attention long before he reached it, and the prince The Idiot
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remembered afterwards that he had said to himself: ‘That
is the house, I’m sure of it.’ He came up to it quite curious
to discover whether he had guessed right, and felt that he
would be disagreeably impressed to find that he had
actually done so. The house was a large gloomy- looking
structure, without the slightest claim to architectural
beauty, in colour a dirty green. There are a few of these
old houses, built towards the end of the last century, still
standing in that part of St. Petersburg, and showing little
change from their original form and colour. They are
solidly built, and are remarkable for the thickness of their
walls, and for the fewness of their windows, many of
which are covered by gratings. On the ground-floor there
is usually a money-changer’s shop, and the owner lives
over it. Without as well as within, the houses seem
inhospitable and mysterious—an impression which is
difficult to explain, unless it has something to do with the
actual architectural style. These houses are almost
exclusively inhabited by the merchant class.
Arrived at the gate, the prince looked up at the legend
over it, which ran:
‘House of Rogojin, hereditary and honourable citizen.’
He hesitated no longer; but opened the glazed door at
the bottom of the outer stairs and made his way up to the The Idiot
369 of 1149
second storey. The place was dark and gloomy-looking;
the walls of the stone staircase were painted a dull red.
Rogojin and his mother and brother occupied the whole
of the second floor. The servant who opened the door to
Muishkin led him, without taking his name, through
several rooms and up and down many steps until they
arrived at a door, where he knocked.
Parfen Rogojin opened the door himself.
On seeing the prince he became deadly white, and
apparently fixed to the ground, so that he was more like a
marble statue than a human being. The prince had
expected some surprise, but Rogojin evidently considered
his visit an impossible and miraculous event. He stared
with an expression almost of terror, and his lips twisted
into a bewildered smile.
‘Parfen! perhaps my visit is ill-timed. I-I can go away
again if you like,’ said Muishkin at last, rather embarrassed.
‘No, no; it’s all right, come in,’ said Parfen, recollecting
himself.
They were evidently on quite familiar terms. In
Moscow they had had many occasions of meeting; indeed,
some few of those meetings were but too vividly
impressed upon their memories. They had not met now,
however, for three months. The Idiot
370 of 1149
The deathlike pallor, and a sort of slight convulsion
about the lips, had not left Rogojin’s face. Though he
welcomed his guest, he was still obviously much disturbed.
As he invited the prince to sit down near the table, the
latter happened to turn towards him, and was startled by
the strange expression on his face. A painful recollection
flashed into his mind. He stood for a time, looking straight
at Rogojin, whose eyes seemed to blaze like fire. At last
Rogojin smiled, though he still looked agitated and
shaken.
‘What are you staring at me like that for?’ he muttered.
‘Sit down.’
The prince took a chair.
‘Parfen,’ he said, ‘tell me honestly, did you know that I
was coming to Petersburg or no?’
‘Oh, I supposed you were coming,’ the other replied,
smiling sarcastically, and I was right in my supposition,
you see; but how was I to know that you would come
TODAY?’
A certain strangeness and impatience in his manner
impressed the prince very forcibly.
‘And if you had known that I was coming today, why
be so irritated about it?’ he asked, in quiet surprise.
‘Why did you ask me?’ The Idiot
371 of 1149
‘Because when I jumped out of the train this morning,
two eyes glared at me just as yours did a moment since.’
‘Ha! and whose eyes may they have been?’ said
Rogojin, suspiciously. It seemed to the prince that he was
trembling.
‘I don’t know; I thought it was a hallucination. I often
have hallucinations nowadays. I feel just as I did five years
ago when my fits were about to come on.’
‘Well, perhaps it was a hallucination, I don’t know,’
said Parfen.
He tried to give the prince an affectionate smile, and it
seemed to the latter as though in this smile of his
something had broken, and that he could not mend it, try
as he would.
‘Shall you go abroad again then?’ he asked, and
suddenly added, ‘Do you remember how we came up in
the train from Pskoff together? You and your cloak and
leggings, eh?’
And Rogojin burst out laughing, this time with
unconcealed malice, as though he were glad that he had
been able to find an opportunity for giving vent to it.
‘Have you quite taken up your quarters here?’ asked
the prince
‘Yes, I’m at home. Where else should I go to?’ The Idiot
372 of 1149
‘We haven’t met for some time. Meanwhile I have
heard things about you which I should not have believed
to be possible.’
‘What of that? People will say anything,’ said Rogojin
drily.
‘At all events, you’ve disbanded your troop—and you
are living in your own house instead of being fast and
loose about the place; that’s all very good. Is this house all
yours, or joint property?’
‘It is my mother’s. You get to her apartments by that
passage.’
‘Where’s your brother?’
‘In the other wing.’
‘Is he married?’
‘Widower. Why do you want to know all this?’
The prince looked at him, but said nothing. He had
suddenly relapsed into musing, and had probably not heard
the question at all. Rogojin did not insist upon an answer,
and there was silence for a few moments.
‘I guessed which was your house from a hundred yards
off,’ said the prince at last.
‘Why so?’
‘I don’t quite know. Your house has the aspect of
yourself and all your family; it bears the stamp of the The Idiot
373 of 1149
Rogojin life; but ask me why I think so, and I can tell you
nothing. It is nonsense, of course. I am nervous about this
kind of thing troubling me so much. I had never before
imagined what sort of a house you would live in, and yet
no sooner did I set eyes on this one than I said to myself
that it must be yours.’
‘Really!’ said Rogojin vaguely, not taking in what the
prince meant by his rather obscure remarks.
The room they were now sitting in was a large one,
lofty but dark, well furnished, principally with writing-
tables and desks covered with papers and books. A wide
sofa covered with red morocco evidently served Rogojin
for a bed. On the table beside which the prince had been
invited to seat himself lay some books; one containing a
marker where the reader had left off, was a volume of
Solovieff’s History. Some oil-paintings in worn gilded
frames hung on the walls, but it was impossible to make
out what subjects they represented, so blackened were
they by smoke and age. One, a life-sized portrait, attracted
the prince’s attention. It showed a man of about fifty,
wearing a long riding- coat of German cut. He had two
medals on his breast; his beard was white, short and thin;
his face yellow and wrinkled, with a sly, suspicious
expression in the eyes. The Idiot
374 of 1149
‘That is your father, is it not?’ asked the prince.
‘Yes, it is,’ replied Rogojin with an unpleasant smile, as
if he had expected his guest to ask the question, and then
to make some disagreeable remark.
‘Was he one of the Old Believers?’
‘No, he went to church, but to tell the truth he really
preferred the old religion. This was his study and is now
mine. Why did you ask if he were an Old Believer?’
‘Are you going to be married here?’
‘Ye-yes!’ replied Rogojin, starting at the unexpected
question.
‘Soon?’
‘You know yourself it does not depend on me.’
‘Parfen, I am not your enemy, and I do not intend to
oppose your intentions in any way. I repeat this to you
now just as I said it to you once before on a very similar
occasion. When you were arranging for your projected
marriage in Moscow, I did not interfere with you—you
know I did not. That first time she fled to me from you,
from the very altar almost, and begged me to ‘save her
from you.’ Afterwards she ran away from me again, and
you found her and arranged your marriage with her once
more; and now, I hear, she has run away from you and
come to Petersburg. Is it true? Lebedeff wrote me to this The Idiot
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effect, and that’s why I came here. That you had once
more arranged matters with Nastasia Philipovna I only
learned last night in the train from a friend of yours,
Zaleshoff—if you wish to know.
‘I confess I came here with an object. I wished to
persuade Nastasia to go abroad for her health; she requires
it. Both mind and body need a change badly. I did not
intend to take her abroad myself. I was going to arrange
for her to go without me. Now I tell you honestly, Parfen,
if it is true that all is made up between you, I will not so
much as set eyes upon her, and I will never even come to
see you again.
‘You know quite well that I am telling the truth,
because I have always been frank with you. I have never
concealed my own opinion from you. I have always told
you that I consider a marriage between you and her would
be ruin to her. You would also be ruined, and perhaps
