even more hopelessly. If this marriage were to be broken
off again, I admit I should be greatly pleased; but at the
same time I have not the slightest intention of trying to
part you. You may be quite easy in your mind, and you
need not suspect me. You know yourself whether I was
ever really your rival or not, even when she ran away and
came to me. The Idiot
376 of 1149
‘There, you are laughing at me—I know why you
laugh. It is perfectly true that we lived apart from one
another all the time, in different towns. I told you before
that I did not love her with love, but with pity! You said
then that you understood me; did you really understand
me or not? What hatred there is in your eyes at this
moment! I came to relieve your mind, because you are
dear to me also. I love you very much, Parfen; and now I
shall go away and never come back again. Goodbye.’
The prince rose.
‘Stay a little,’ said Parfen, not leaving his chair and
resting his head on his right hand. ‘I haven’t seen you for a
long time.’
The prince sat down again. Both were silent for a few
moments.
‘When you are not with me I hate you, Lef
Nicolaievitch. I have loathed you every day of these three
months since I last saw you. By heaven I have!’ said
Rogojin.’ I could have poisoned you at any minute. Now,
you have been with me but a quarter of an hour, and all
my malice seems to have melted away, and you are as dear
to me as ever. Stay here a little longer.’ The Idiot
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‘When I am with you you trust me; but as soon as my
back is turned you suspect me,’ said the prince, smiling,
and trying to hide his emotion.
‘I trust your voice, when I hear you speak. I quite
understand that you and I cannot be put on a level, of
course.’
‘Why did you add that?—There! Now you are cross
again,’ said the prince, wondering.
‘We were not asked, you see. We were made different,
with different tastes and feelings, without being consulted.
You say you love her with pity. I have no pity for her.
She hates me— that’s the plain truth of the matter. I
dream of her every night, and always that she is laughing
at me with another man. And so she does laugh at me. She
thinks no more of marrying me than if she were changing
her shoe. Would you believe it, I haven’t seen her for five
days, and I daren’t go near her. She asks me what I come
for, as if she were not content with having disgraced me—
‘
‘Disgraced you! How?’
‘Just as though you didn’t know! Why, she ran away
from me, and went to you. You admitted it yourself, just
now.’
‘But surely you do not believe that she...’ The Idiot
378 of 1149
‘That she did not disgrace me at Moscow with that
officer. Zemtuznikoff? I know for certain she did, after
having fixed our marriage-day herself!’
‘Impossible!’ cried the prince.
‘I know it for a fact,’ replied Rogojin, with conviction.
‘It is not like her, you say? My friend, that’s absurd.
Perhaps such an act would horrify her, if she were with
you, but it is quite different where I am concerned. She
looks on me as vermin. Her affair with Keller was simply
to make a laughing-stock of me. You don’t know what a
fool she made of me in Moscow; and the money I spent
over her! The money! the money!’
‘And you can marry her now, Parfen! What will come
of it all?’ said the prince, with dread in his voice.
Rogojin gazed back gloomily, and with a terrible
expression in his eyes, but said nothing.
‘I haven’t been to see her for five days,’ he repeated,
after a slight pause. ‘I’m afraid of being turned out. She
says she’s still her own mistress, and may turn me off
altogether, and go abroad. She told me this herself,’ he
said, with a peculiar glance at Muishkin. ‘I think she often
does it merely to frighten me. She is always laughing at
me, for some reason or other; but at other times she’s
angry, and won’t say a word, and that’s what I’m afraid of. The Idiot
379 of 1149
I took her a shawl one day, the like of which she might
never have seen, although she did live in luxury and she
gave it away to her maid, Katia. Sometimes when I can
keep away no longer, I steal past the house on the sly, and
once I watched at the gate till dawn—I thought something
was going on—and she saw me from the window. She
asked me what I should do if I found she had deceived
me. I said, ‘You know well enough.’’
‘What did she know?’ cried the prince.
‘How was I to tell?’ replied Rogojin, with an angry
laugh. ‘I did my best to catch her tripping in Moscow, but
did not succeed. However, I caught hold of her one day,
and said: ‘You are engaged to be married into a
respectable family, and do you know what sort of a
woman you are? THAT’S the sort of woman you are,’ I
said.’
‘You told her that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, go on.’
‘She said, ‘I wouldn’t even have you for a footman
now, much less for a husband.’ ‘I shan’t leave the house,’ I
said, ‘so it doesn’t matter.’ ‘Then I shall call somebody and
have you kicked out,’ she cried. So then I rushed at her,
and beat her till she was bruised all over.’ The Idiot
380 of 1149
‘Impossible!’ cried the prince, aghast.
‘I tell you it’s true,’ said Rogojin quietly, but with eyes
ablaze with passion.
‘Then for a day and a half I neither slept, nor ate, nor
drank, and would not leave her. I knelt at her feet: ‘I shall
die here,’ I said, ‘if you don’t forgive me; and if you have
me turned out, I shall drown myself; because, what should
I be without you now?’ She was like a madwoman all that
day; now she would cry; now she would threaten me with
a knife; now she would abuse me. She called in Zaleshoff
and Keller, and showed me to them, shamed me in their
presence. ‘Let’s all go to the theatre,’ she says, ‘and leave
him here if he won’t go—it’s not my business. They’ll
give you some tea, Parfen Semeonovitch, while I am
away, for you must be hungry.’ She came back from the
theatre alone. ‘Those cowards wouldn’t come,’ she said.
‘They are afraid of you, and tried to frighten me, too. ‘He
won’t go away as he came,’ they said, ‘he’ll cut your
throat—see if he doesn’t.’ Now, I shall go to my
bedroom, and I shall not even lock my door, just to show
you how much I am afraid of you. You must be shown
that once for all. Did you have tea?’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘and I
don’t intend to.’ ‘Ha, ha! you are playing off your pride The Idiot
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against your stomach! That sort of heroism doesn’t sit well
on you,’ she said.
‘With that she did as she had said she would; she went
to bed, and did not lock her door. In the morning she
came out. ‘Are you quite mad?’ she said, sharply. ‘Why,
you’ll die of hunger like this.’ ‘Forgive me,’ I said. ‘No, I
won’t, and I won’t marry you. I’ve said it. Surely you
haven’t sat in this chair all night without sleeping?’ ‘I
didn’t sleep,’ I said. ‘H’m! how sensible of you. And are
you going to have no breakfast or dinner today?’ ‘I told
you I wouldn’t. Forgive me!’ ‘You’ve no idea how
unbecoming this sort of thing is to you,’ she said, ‘it’s like
putting a saddle on a cow’s back. Do you think you are
frightening me? My word, what a dreadful thing that you
should sit here and eat no food! How terribly frightened I
am!’ She wasn’t angry long, and didn’t seem to remember
my offence at all. I was surprised, for she is a vindictive,
resentful woman—but then I thought that perhaps she
despised me too much to feel any resentment against me.
And that’s the truth.
‘She came up to me and said, ‘Do you know who the
Pope of Rome is?’ ‘I’ve heard of him,’ I said. ‘I suppose
you’ve read the Universal History, Parfen Semeonovitch,
haven’t you?’ she asked. ‘I’ve learned nothing at all,’ I said. The Idiot
382 of 1149
‘Then I’ll lend it to you to read. You must know there
was a Roman Pope once, and he was very angry with a
certain Emperor; so the Emperor came and neither ate nor
drank, but knelt before the Pope’s palace till he should be
forgiven. And what sort of vows do you think that
Emperor was making during all those days on his knees?
Stop, I’ll read it to you!’ Then she read me a lot of verses,
where it said that the Emperor spent all the time vowing
vengeance against the Pope. ‘You don’t mean to say you
don’t approve of the poem, Parfen Semeonovitch,’ she
says. ‘All you have read out is perfectly true,’ say I. ‘Aha!’
says she, ‘you admit it’s true, do you? And you are making
vows to yourself that if I marry you, you will remind me
of all this, and take it out of me.’ ‘I don’t know,’ I say,
‘perhaps I was thinking like that, and perhaps I was not.
I’m not thinking of anything just now.’ ‘What are your
thoughts, then?’ ‘I’m thinking that when you rise from
your chair and go past me, I watch you, and follow you
with my eyes; if your dress does but rustle, my heart sinks;
if you leave the room, I remember every little word and
action, and what your voice sounded like, and what you
said. I thought of nothing all last night, but sat here
listening to your sleeping breath, and heard you move a
little, twice.’ ‘And as for your attack upon me,’ she says, ‘I The Idiot
383 of 1149
suppose you never once thought of THAT?’ ‘Perhaps I
did think of it, and perhaps not,’ I say. And what if I don’t
either forgive you or marry, you’ ‘I tell you I shall go and
drown myself.’ ‘H’m!’ she said, and then relapsed into
silence. Then she got angry, and went out. ‘I suppose
you’d murder me before you drowned yourself, though!’
she cried as she left the room.
‘An hour later, she came to me again, looking
melancholy. ‘I will marry you, Parfen Semeonovitch,’ she
says, not because I’m frightened of you, but because it’s all
the same to me how I ruin myself. And how can I do it
better? Sit down; they’ll bring you some dinner directly.
And if I do marry you, I’ll be a faithful wife to you—you
need not doubt that.’ Then she thought a bit, and said, ‘At
all events, you are not a flunkey; at first, I thought you
were no better than a flunkey.’ And she arranged the
wedding and fixed the day straight away on the spot.
‘Then, in another week, she had run away again, and
came here to Lebedeff’s; and when I found her here, she
said to me, ‘I’m not going to renounce you altogether, but
I wish to put off the wedding a bit longer yet—just as long
as I like—for I am still my own mistress; so you may wait,
if you like.’ That’s how the matter stands between us now.
What do you think of all this, Lef Nicolaievitch?’ The Idiot
384 of 1149
‘‘What do you think of it yourself?’ replied the prince,
looking sadly at Rogojin.
‘As if I can think anything about it! I—’ He was about
to say more, but stopped in despair.
The prince rose again, as if he would leave.
‘At all events, I shall not interfere with you!’ he
murmured, as though making answer to some secret
thought of his own.
‘I’ll tell you what!’ cried Rogojin, and his eyes flashed
fire. ‘I can’t understand your yielding her to me like this; I
don’t understand it. Have you given up loving her
altogether? At first you suffered badly—I know it—I saw
it. Besides, why did you come post-haste after us? Out of
pity, eh? He, he, he!’ His mouth curved in a mocking
smile.
‘Do you think I am deceiving you?’ asked the prince.
‘No! I trust you—but I can’t understand. It seems to
me that your pity is greater than my love.’ A hungry
longing to speak his mind out seemed to flash in the man’s
eyes, combined with an intense anger.
‘Your love is mingled with hatred, and therefore, when
your love passes, there will be the greater misery,’ said the
prince. ‘I tell you this, Parfen—‘
‘What! that I’ll cut her throat, you mean?’ The Idiot
385 of 1149
The prince shuddered.
‘You’ll hate her afterwards for all your present love,
and for all the torment you are suffering on her account
now. What seems to me the most extraordinary thing is,
that she can again consent to marry you, after all that has
passed between you. When I heard the news yesterday, I
could hardly bring myself to believe it. Why, she has run
twice from you, from the very altar rails, as it were. She
must have some presentiment of evil. What can she want
with you now? Your money? Nonsense! Besides, I should
think you must have made a fairly large hole in your
fortune already. Surely it is not because she is so very
anxious to find a husband? She could find many a one
besides yourself. Anyone would be better than you,
because you will murder her, and I feel sure she must
know that but too well by now. Is it because you love her
so passionately? Indeed, that may be it. I have heard that
there are women who want just that kind of love ... but
still ...’ The prince paused, reflectively.
‘What are you grinning at my father’s portrait again
for?’ asked Rogojin, suddenly. He was carefully observing
every change in the expression of the prince’s face.
‘I smiled because the idea came into my head that if it
were not for this unhappy passion of yours you might The Idiot
386 of 1149
have, and would have, become just such a man as your
father, and that very quickly, too. You’d have settled
down in this house of yours with some silent and obedient
wife. You would have spoken rarely, trusted no one,
heeded no one, and thought of nothing but making
money.’
‘Laugh away! She said exactly the same, almost word
for word, when she saw my father’s portrait. It’s
remarkable how entirely you and she are at one now-a-
days.’
‘What, has she been here?’ asked the prince with
curiosity.
‘Yes! She looked long at the portrait and asked all about
my father. ‘You’d be just such another,’ she said at last,
and laughed. ‘You have such strong passions, Parfen,’ she
said, ‘that they’d have taken you to Siberia in no time if
