you had not, luckily, intelligence as well. For you have a
good deal of intelligence.’ (She said this—believe it or not.
The first time I ever heard anything of that sort from her.)
‘You’d soon have thrown up all this rowdyism that you
indulge in now, and you’d have settled down to quiet,
steady money-making, because you have little education;
and here you’d have stayed just like your father before
you. And you’d have loved your money so that you’d The Idiot
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amass not two million, like him, but ten million; and
you’d have died of hunger on your money bags to finish
up with, for you carry everything to extremes.’ There,
that’s exactly word for word as she said it to me. She never
talked to me like that before. She always talks nonsense
and laughs when she’s with me. We went all over this old
house together. ‘I shall change all this,’ I said, ‘or else I’ll
buy a new house for the wedding.’ ‘No, no!’ she said,
‘don’t touch anything; leave it all as it is; I shall live with
your mother when I marry you.’
‘I took her to see my mother, and she was as respectful
and kind as though she were her own daughter. Mother
has been almost demented ever since father died—she’s an
old woman. She sits and bows from her chair to everyone
she sees. If you left her alone and didn’t feed her for three
days, I don’t believe she would notice it. Well, I took her
hand, and I said, ‘Give your blessing to this lady, mother,
she’s going to be my wife.’ So Nastasia kissed mother’s
hand with great feeling. ‘She must have suffered terribly,
hasn’t she?’ she said. She saw this book here lying before
me. ‘What! have you begun to read Russian history?’ she
asked. She told me once in Moscow, you know, that I had
better get Solovieff’s Russian History and read it, because I
knew nothing. ‘That’s good,’ she said, ‘you go on like The Idiot
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that, reading books. I’ll make you a list myself of the
books you ought to read first—shall I?’ She had never
once spoken to me like this before; it was the first time I
felt I could breathe before her like a living creature.’
‘I’m very, very glad to hear of this, Parfen,’ said the
prince, with real feeling. ‘Who knows? Maybe God will
yet bring you near to one another.’
‘Never, never!’ cried Rogojin, excitedly.
‘Look here, Parfen; if you love her so much, surely you
must be anxious to earn her respect? And if you do so
wish, surely you may hope to? I said just now that I
considered it extraordinary that she could still be ready to
marry you. Well, though I cannot yet understand it, I feel
sure she must have some good reason, or she wouldn’t do
it. She is sure of your love; but besides that, she must
attribute SOMETHING else to you—some good
qualities, otherwise the thing would not be. What you
have just said confirms my words. You say yourself that
she found it possible to speak to you quite differently from
her usual manner. You are suspicious, you know, and
jealous, therefore when anything annoying happens to
you, you exaggerate its significance. Of course, of course,
she does not think so ill of you as you say. Why, if she
did, she would simply be walking to death by drowning or The Idiot
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by the knife, with her eyes wide open, when she married
you. It is impossible! As if anybody would go to their
death deliberately!’
Rogojin listened to the prince’s excited words with a
bitter smile. His conviction was, apparently, unalterable.
‘How dreadfully you look at me, Parfen!’ said the
prince, with a feeling of dread.
‘Water or the knife?’ said the latter, at last. ‘Ha, ha—
that’s exactly why she is going to marry me, because she
knows for certain that the knife awaits her. Prince, can it
be that you don’t even yet see what’s at the root of it all?’
‘I don’t understand you.’
‘Perhaps he really doesn’t understand me! They do say
that you are a—you know what! She loves another—
there, you can understand that much! Just as I love her,
exactly so she loves another man. And that other man is—
do you know who? It’s you. There—you didn’t know
that, eh?’
‘I?’
‘You, you! She has loved you ever since that day, her
birthday! Only she thinks she cannot marry you, because it
would be the ruin of you. ‘Everybody knows what sort of
a woman I am,’ she says. She told me all this herself, to my
very face! She’s afraid of disgracing and ruining you, she The Idiot
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says, but it doesn’t matter about me. She can marry me all
right! Notice how much consideration she shows for me!’
‘But why did she run away to me, and then again from
me to—‘
‘From you to me? Ha, ha! that’s nothing! Why, she
always acts as though she were in a delirium now-a-days!
Either she says, ‘Come on, I’ll marry you! Let’s have the
wedding quickly!’ and fixes the day, and seems in a hurry
for it, and when it begins to come near she feels
frightened; or else some other idea gets into her head—
goodness knows! you’ve seen her—you know how she
goes on— laughing and crying and raving! There’s
nothing extraordinary about her having run away from
you! She ran away because she found out how dearly she
loved you. She could not bear to be near you. You said
just now that I had found her at Moscow, when she ran
away from you. I didn’t do anything of the sort; she came
to me herself, straight from you. ‘Name the day—I’m
ready!’ she said. ‘Let’s have some champagne, and go and
hear the gipsies sing!’ I tell you she’d have thrown herself
into the water long ago if it were not for me! She doesn’t
do it because I am, perhaps, even more dreadful to her
than the water! She’s marrying me out of spite; if she
marries me, I tell you, it will be for spite!’ The Idiot
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‘But how do you, how can you—’ began the prince,
gazing with dread and horror at Rogojin.
‘Why don’t you finish your sentence? Shall I tell you
what you were thinking to yourself just then? You were
thinking, ‘How can she marry him after this? How can it
possibly be permitted?’ Oh, I know what you were
thinking about!’
‘I didn’t come here for that purpose, Parfen. That was
not in my mind—‘
‘That may be! Perhaps you didn’t COME with the
idea, but the idea is certainly there NOW! Ha, ha! well,
that’s enough! What are you upset about? Didn’t you
really know it all before? You astonish me!’
‘All this is mere jealousy—it is some malady of yours,
Parfen! You exaggerate everything,’ said the prince,
excessively agitated. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Let go of it!’ said Parfen, seizing from the prince’s
hand a knife which the latter had at that moment taken up
from the table, where it lay beside the history. Parfen
replaced it where it had been.
‘I seemed to know it—I felt it, when I was coming
back to Petersburg,’ continued the prince, ‘I did not want
to come, I wished to forget all this, to uproot it from my
memory altogether! Well, good-bye—what is the matter?’ The Idiot
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He had absently taken up the knife a second time, and
again Rogojin snatched it from his hand, and threw it
down on the table. It was a plainlooking knife, with a
bone handle, a blade about eight inches long, and broad in
proportion, it did not clasp.
Seeing that the prince was considerably struck by the
fact that he had twice seized this knife out of his hand,
Rogojin caught it up with some irritation, put it inside the
book, and threw the latter across to another table.
‘Do you cut your pages with it, or what?’ asked
Muishkin, still rather absently, as though unable to throw
off a deep preoccupation into which the conversation had
thrown him.
‘Yes.’
‘It’s a garden knife, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. Can’t one cut pages with a garden knife?’
‘It’s quite new.’
‘Well, what of that? Can’t I buy a new knife if I like?’
shouted Rogojin furiously, his irritation growing with
every word.
The prince shuddered, and gazed fixedly at Parfen.
Suddenly he burst out laughing.
‘Why, what an idea!’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to ask you
any of these questions; I was thinking of something quite The Idiot
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different! But my head is heavy, and I seem so absent-
minded nowadays! Well, good-bye—I can’t remember
what I wanted to say—good-bye!’
‘Not that way,’ said Rogojin.
‘There, I’ve forgotten that too!’
‘This way—come along—I’ll show you.’ The Idiot
394 of 1149
IV
THEY passed through the same rooms which the
prince had traversed on his arrival. In the largest there
were pictures on the walls, portraits and landscapes of little
interest. Over the door, however, there was one of strange
and rather striking shape; it was six or seven feet in length,
and not more than a foot in height. It represented the
Saviour just taken from the cross.
The prince glanced at it, but took no further notice.
He moved on hastily, as though anxious to get out of the
house. But Rogojin suddenly stopped underneath the
picture.
‘My father picked up all these pictures very cheap at
auctions, and so on,’ he said; ‘they are all rubbish, except
the one over the door, and that is valuable. A man offered
five hundred roubles for it last week.’
‘Yes—that’s a copy of a Holbein,’ said the prince,
looking at it again, ‘and a good copy, too, so far as I am
able to judge. I saw the picture abroad, and could not
forget it—what’s the matter?’
Rogojin had dropped the subject of the picture and
walked on. Of course his strange frame of mind was The Idiot
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sufficient to account for his conduct; but, still, it seemed
queer to the prince that he should so abruptly drop a
conversation commenced by himself. Rogojin did not
take any notice of his question.
‘Lef Nicolaievitch,’ said Rogojin, after a pause, during
which the two walked along a little further, ‘I have long
wished to ask you, do you believe in God?’
‘How strangely you speak, and how odd you look!’ said
the other, involuntarily.
‘I like looking at that picture,’ muttered Rogojin, not
noticing, apparently, that the prince had not answered his
question.
‘That picture! That picture!’ cried Muishkin, struck by
a sudden idea. ‘Why, a man’s faith might be ruined by
looking at that picture!’
‘So it is!’ said Rogojin, unexpectedly. They had now
reached the front door.
The prince stopped.
‘How?’ he said. ‘What do you mean? I was half joking,
and you took me up quite seriously! Why do you ask me
whether I believe in God
‘Oh, no particular reason. I meant to ask you before—
many people are unbelievers nowadays, especially The Idiot
396 of 1149
Russians, I have been told. You ought to know—you’ve
lived abroad.’
Rogojin laughed bitterly as he said these words, and
opening the door, held it for the prince to pass out.
Muishkin looked surprised, but went out. The other
followed him as far as the landing of the outer stairs, and
shut the door behind him. They both now stood facing
one another, as though oblivious of where they were, or
what they had to do next.
‘Well, good-bye!’ said the prince, holding out his hand.
‘Good-bye,’ said Rogojin, pressing it hard, but quite
mechanically.
The prince made one step forward, and then turned
round.
‘As to faith,’ he said, smiling, and evidently unwilling
to leave Rogojin in this state—‘as to faith, I had four
curious conversations in two days, a week or so ago. One
morning I met a man in the train, and made acquaintance
with him at once. I had often heard of him as a very
learned man, but an atheist; and I was very glad of the
opportunity of conversing with so eminent and clever a
person. He doesn’t believe in God, and he talked a good
deal about it, but all the while it appeared to me that he
was speaking OUTSIDE THE SUBJECT. And it has The Idiot
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always struck me, both in speaking to such men and in
reading their books, that they do not seem really to be
touching on that at all, though on the surface they may
appear to do so. I told him this, but I dare say I did not
clearly express what I meant, for he could not understand
me.
‘That same evening I stopped at a small provincial
hotel, and it so happened that a dreadful murder had been
committed there the night before, and everybody was
talking about it. Two peasants— elderly men and old
friends—had had tea together there the night before, and
were to occupy the same bedroom. They were not drunk
but one of them had noticed for the first time that his
friend possessed a silver watch which he was wearing on a
chain. He was by no means a thief, and was, as peasants
go, a rich man; but this watch so fascinated him that he
could not restrain himself. He took a knife, and when his
friend turned his back, he came up softly behind, raised his
eyes to heaven, crossed himself, and saying earnestly—
’God forgive me, for Christ’s sake!’ he cut his friend’s
throat like a sheep, and took the watch.’
Rogojin roared with laughter. He laughed as though he
were in a sort of fit. It was strange to see him laughing so
after the sombre mood he had been in just before. The Idiot
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‘Oh, I like that! That beats anything!’ he cried
convulsively, panting for breath. ‘One is an absolute
unbeliever; the other is such a thorough—going believer
that he murders his friend to the tune of a prayer! Oh,
prince, prince, that’s too good for anything! You can’t
have invented it. It’s the best thing I’ve heard!’
‘Next morning I went out for a stroll through the
town,’ continued the prince, so soon as Rogojin was a
little quieter, though his laughter still burst out at intervals,
‘and soon observed a drunken-looking soldier staggering
about the pavement. He came up to me and said, ‘Buy my
silver cross, sir! You shall have it for fourpence—it’s real
