understanding of his words: ‘I would give my whole life
for this one instant,’ then doubtless to him it really was
worth a lifetime. For the rest, he thought the dialectical
part of his argument of little worth; he saw only too
clearly that the result of these ecstatic moments was
stupefaction, mental darkness, idiocy. No argument was
possible on that point. His conclusion, his estimate of the
‘moment,’ doubtless contained some error, yet the reality
of the sensation troubled him. What’s more unanswerable
than a fact? And this fact had occurred. The prince had
confessed unreservedly to himself that the feeling of
intense beatitude in that crowded moment made the
moment worth a lifetime. ‘I feel then,’ he said one day to
Rogojin in Moscow, ‘I feel then as if I understood those
amazing words—’There shall be no more time.’’ And he
added with a smile: ‘No doubt the epileptic Mahomet
refers to that same moment when he says that he visited all
the dwellings of Allah, in less time than was needed to
empty his pitcher of water.’ Yes, he had often met
Rogojin in Moscow, and many were the subjects they The Idiot
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discussed. ‘He told me I had been a brother to him,’
thought the prince. ‘He said so today, for the first time.’
He was sitting in the Summer Garden on a seat under a
tree, and his mind dwelt on the matter. It was about seven
o’clock, and the place was empty. The stifling atmosphere
foretold a storm, and the prince felt a certain charm in the
contemplative mood which possessed him. He found
pleasure, too, in gazing at the exterior objects around him.
All the time he was trying to forget some thing, to escape
from some idea that haunted him; but melancholy
thoughts came back, though he would so willingly have
escaped from them. He remembered suddenly how he had
been talking to the waiter, while he dined, about a
recently committed murder which the whole town was
discussing, and as he thought of it something strange came
over him. He was seized all at once by a violent desire,
almost a temptation, against which he strove in vain.
He jumped up and walked off as fast as he could
towards the ‘Petersburg Side.’ [One of the quarters of St.
Petersburg.] He had asked someone, a little while before,
to show him which was the Petersburg Side, on the banks
of the Neva. He had not gone there, however; and he
knew very well that it was of no use to go now, for he
would certainly not find Lebedeff’s relation at home. He The Idiot
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had the address, but she must certainly have gone to
Pavlofsk, or Colia would have let him know. If he were to
go now, it would merely be out of curiosity, but a sudden,
new idea had come into his head.
However, it was something to move on and know
where he was going. A minute later he was still moving
on, but without knowing anything. He could no longer
think out his new idea. He tried to take an interest in all
he saw; in the sky, in the Neva. He spoke to some
children he met. He felt his epileptic condition becoming
more and more developed. The evening was very close;
thunder was heard some way off.
The prince was haunted all that day by the face of
Lebedeff’s nephew whom he had seen for the first time
that morning, just as one is haunted at times by some
persistent musical refrain. By a curious association of ideas,
the young man always appeared as the murderer of whom
Lebedeff had spoken when introducing him to Muishkin.
Yes, he had read something about the murder, and that
quite recently. Since he came to Russia, he had heard
many stories of this kind, and was interested in them. His
conversation with the waiter, an hour ago, chanced to be
on the subject of this murder of the Zemarins, and the
latter had agreed with him about it. He thought of the The Idiot
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waiter again, and decided that he was no fool, but a
steady, intelligent man: though, said he to himself, ‘God
knows what he may really be; in a country with which
one is unfamiliar it is difficult to understand the people
one meets.’ He was beginning to have a passionate faith in
the Russian soul, however, and what discoveries he had
made in the last six months, what unexpected discoveries!
But every soul is a mystery, and depths of mystery lie in
the soul of a Russian. He had been intimate with Rogojin,
for example, and a brotherly friendship had sprung up
between them—yet did he really know him? What chaos
and ugliness fills the world at times! What a self-satisfied
rascal is that nephew of Lebedeff’s! ‘But what am I
thinking,’ continued the prince to himself. ‘Can he really
have committed that crime? Did he kill those six persons?
I seem to be confusing things ... how strange it all is.... My
head goes round... And Lebedeff’s daughter—how
sympathetic and charming her face was as she held the
child in her arms! What an innocent look and child-like
laugh she had! It is curious that I had forgotten her until
now. I expect Lebedeff adores her—and I really believe,
when I think of it, that as sure as two and two make four,
he is fond of that nephew, too!’ The Idiot
414 of 1149
Well, why should he judge them so hastily! Could he
really say what they were, after one short visit? Even
Lebedeff seemed an enigma today. Did he expect to find
him so? He had never seen him like that before. Lebedeff
and the Comtesse du Barry! Good Heavens! If Rogojin
should really kill someone, it would not, at any rate, be
such a senseless, chaotic affair. A knife made to a special
pattern, and six people killed in a kind of delirium. But
Rogojin also had a knife made to a special pattern. Can it
be that Rogojin wishes to murder anyone? The prince
began to tremble violently. ‘It is a crime on my part to
imagine anything so base, with such cynical frankness.’ His
face reddened with shame at the thought; and then there
came across him as in a flash the memory of the incidents
at the Pavlofsk station, and at the other station in the
morning; and the question asked him by Rogojin about
THE EYES and Rogojin’s cross, that he was even now
wearing; and the benediction of Rogojin’s mother; and his
embrace on the darkened staircase—that last supreme
renunciation—and now, to find himself full of this new
‘idea,’ staring into shop-windows, and looking round for
things—how base he was!
Despair overmastered his soul; he would not go on, he
would go back to his hotel; he even turned and went the The Idiot
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other way; but a moment after he changed his mind again
and went on in the old direction.
Why, here he was on the Petersburg Side already, quite
close to the house! Where was his ‘idea’? He was
marching along without it now. Yes, his malady was
coming back, it was clear enough; all this gloom and
heaviness, all these ‘ideas,’ were nothing more nor less
than a fit coming on; perhaps he would have a fit this very
day.
But just now all the gloom and darkness had fled, his
heart felt full of joy and hope, there was no such thing as
doubt. And yes, he hadn’t seen her for so long; he really
must see her. He wished he could meet Rogojin; he
would take his hand, and they would go to her together.
His heart was pure, he was no rival of Parfen’s.
Tomorrow, he would go and tell him that he had seen
her. Why, he had only come for the sole purpose of seeing
her, all the way from Moscow! Perhaps she might be here
still, who knows? She might not have gone away to
Pavlofsk yet.
Yes, all this must be put straight and above-board, there
must be no more passionate renouncements, such as
Rogojin’s. It must all be clear as day. Cannot Rogojin’s
soul bear the light? He said he did not love her with The Idiot
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sympathy and pity; true, he added that ‘your pity is greater
than my love,’ but he was not quite fair on himself there.
Kin! Rogojin reading a book—wasn’t that sympathy
beginning? Did it not show that he comprehended his
relations with her? And his story of waiting day and night
for her forgiveness? That didn’t look quite like passion
alone.
And as to her face, could it inspire nothing but passion?
Could her face inspire passion at all now? Oh, it inspired
suffering, grief, overwhelming grief of the soul! A
poignant, agonizing memory swept over the prince’s
heart.
Yes, agonizing. He remembered how he had suffered
that first day when he thought he observed in her the
symptoms of madness. He had almost fallen into despair.
How could he have lost his hold upon her when she ran
away from him to Rogojin? He ought to have run after
her himself, rather than wait for news as he had done. Can
Rogojin have failed to observe, up to now, that she is
mad? Rogojin attributes her strangeness to other causes, to
passion! What insane jealousy! What was it he had hinted
at in that suggestion of his? The prince suddenly blushed,
and shuddered to his very heart. The Idiot
417 of 1149
But why recall all this? There was insanity on both
sides. For him, the prince, to love this woman with
passion, was unthinkable. It would be cruel and inhuman.
Yes. Rogojin is not fair to himself; he has a large heart; he
has aptitude for sympathy. When he learns the truth, and
finds what a pitiable being is this injured, broken, half-
insane creature, he will forgive her all the torment she has
caused him. He will become her slave, her brother, her
friend. Compassion will teach even Rogojin, it will show
him how to reason. Compassion is the chief law of human
existence. Oh, how guilty he felt towards Rogojin! And,
for a few warm, hasty words spoken in Moscow, Parfen
had called him ‘brother,’ while he—but no, this was
delirium! It would all come right! That gloomy Parfen had
implied that his faith was waning; he must suffer
dreadfully. He said he liked to look at that picture; it was
not that he liked it, but he felt the need of looking at it.
Rogojin was not merely a passionate soul; he was a
fighter. He was fighting for the restoration of his dying
faith. He must have something to hold on to and believe,
and someone to believe in. What a strange picture that of
Holbein’s is! Why, this is the street, and here’s the house,
No. 16. The Idiot
418 of 1149
The prince rang the bell, and asked for Nastasia
Philipovna. The lady of the house came out, and stated
that Nastasia had gone to stay with Daria Alexeyevna at
Pavlofsk, and might be there some days.
Madame Filisoff was a little woman of forty, with a
cunning face, and crafty, piercing eyes. When, with an air
of mystery, she asked her visitor’s name, he refused at first
to answer, but in a moment he changed his mind, and left
strict instructions that it should be given to Nastasia
Philipovna. The urgency of his request seemed to impress
Madame Filisoff, and she put on a knowing expression, as
if to say, ‘You need not be afraid, I quite understand.’ The
prince’s name evidently was a great surprise to her. He
stood and looked absently at her for a moment, then
turned, and took the road back to his hotel. But he went
away not as he came. A great change had suddenly come
over him. He went blindly forward; his knees shook under
him; he was tormented by ‘ideas"; his lips were blue, and
trembled with a feeble, meaningless smile. His demon was
upon him once more.
What had happened to him? Why was his brow
clammy with drops of moisture, his knees shaking beneath
him, and his soul oppressed with a cold gloom? Was it
because he had just seen these dreadful eyes again? Why, The Idiot
419 of 1149
he had left the Summer Garden on purpose to see them;
that had been his ‘idea.’ He had wished to assure himself
that he would see them once more at that house. Then
why was he so overwhelmed now, having seen them as he
expected? just as though he had not expected to see them!
Yes, they were the very same eyes; and no doubt about it.
The same that he had seen in the crowd that morning at
the station, the same that he had surprised in Rogojin’s
rooms some hours later, when the latter had replied to his
inquiry with a sneering laugh, ‘Well, whose eyes were
they?’ Then for the third time they had appeared just as he
was getting into the train on his way to see Aglaya. He
had had a strong impulse to rush up to Rogojin, and
repeat his words of the morning ‘Whose eyes are they?’
Instead he had fled from the station, and knew nothing
more, until he found himself gazing into the window of a
cutler’s shop, and wondering if a knife with a staghorn
handle would cost more than sixty copecks. And as the
prince sat dreaming in the Summer Garden under a lime-
tree, a wicked demon had come and whispered in his car:
‘Rogojin has been spying upon you and watching you all
the morning in a frenzy of desperation. When he finds
you have not gone to Pavlofsk—a terrible discovery for
him—he will surely go at once to that house in Petersburg The Idiot
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Side, and watch for you there, although only this morning
you gave your word of honour not to see HER, and
swore that you had not come to Petersburg for that
purpose.’ And thereupon the prince had hastened off to
that house, and what was there in the fact that he had met
Rogojin there? He had only seen a wretched, suffering
creature, whose state of mind was gloomy and miserable,
but most comprehensible. In the morning Rogojin had
seemed to be trying to keep out of the way; but at the
station this afternoon he had stood out, he had concealed
himself, indeed, less than the prince himself; at the house,
now, he had stood fifty yards off on the other side of the
road, with folded hands, watching, plainly in view and
apparently desirous of being seen. He had stood there like
an accuser, like a judge, not like a—a what?
