had himself entirely forgotten the fact. But when Adelaida
and Aglaya recalled the episode of the pigeon, his mind
became filled with memories, and it is impossible to
describe how this poor old man, usually half drunk, was
moved by the recollection.
‘I remember—I remember it all!’ he cried. ‘I was
captain then. You were such a lovely little thing—Nina
Alexandrovna!—Gania, listen! I was received then by
General Epanchin.’
‘Yes, and look what you have come to now!’
interrupted Mrs. Epanchin. ‘However, I see you have not
quite drunk your better feelings away. But you’ve broken
your wife’s heart, sir—and instead of looking after your
children, you have spent your time in public-houses and
debtors’ prisons! Go away, my friend, stand in some
corner and weep, and bemoan your fallen dignity, and
perhaps God will forgive you yet! Go, go! I’m serious!
There’s nothing so favourable for repentance as to think of
the past with feelings of remorse!’ The Idiot
444 of 1149
There was no need to repeat that she was serious. The
general, like all drunkards, was extremely emotional and
easily touched by recollections of his better days. He rose
and walked quietly to the door, so meekly that Mrs.
Epanchin was instantly sorry for him.
‘Ardalion Alexandrovitch,’ she cried after him, ‘wait a
moment, we are all sinners! When you feel that your
conscience reproaches you a little less, come over to me
and we’ll have a talk about the past! I dare say I am fifty
times more of a sinner than you are! And now go, go,
good-bye, you had better not stay here!’ she added, in
alarm, as he turned as though to come back.
‘Don’t go after him just now, Colia, or he’ll be vexed,
and the benefit of this moment will be lost!’ said the
prince, as the boy was hurrying out of the room.
‘Quite true! Much better to go in half an hour or so
said Mrs. Epanchin.
‘That’s what comes of telling the truth for once in
one’s life!’ said Lebedeff. ‘It reduced him to tears.’
‘Come, come! the less YOU say about it the better—to
judge from all I have heard about you!’ replied Mrs.
Epanchin.
The prince took the first opportunity of informing the
Epanchin ladies that he had intended to pay them a visit The Idiot
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that day, if they had not themselves come this afternoon,
and Lizabetha Prokofievna replied that she hoped he
would still do so.
By this time some of the visitors had disappeared.
Ptitsin had tactfully retreated to Lebedeff’s wing; and
Gania soon followed him.
The latter had behaved modestly, but with dignity, on
this occasion of his first meeting with the Epanchins since
the rupture. Twice Mrs. Epanchin had deliberately
examined him from head to foot; but he had stood fire
without flinching. He was certainly much changed, as
anyone could see who had not met him for some time;
and this fact seemed to afford Aglaya a good deal of
satisfaction.
‘That was Gavrila Ardalionovitch, who just went out,
wasn’t it?’ she asked suddenly, interrupting somebody
else’s conversation to make the remark.
‘Yes, it was,’ said the prince.
‘I hardly knew him; he is much changed, and for the
better!’
‘I am very glad,’ said the prince.
‘He has been very ill,’ added Varia.
‘How has he changed for the better?’ asked Mrs.
Epanchin. ‘I don’t see any change for the better! What’s The Idiot
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better in him? Where did you get THAT idea from?
WHAT’S better?’
‘There’s nothing better than the ‘poor knight’!’ said
Colia, who was standing near the last speaker’s chair.
‘I quite agree with you there!’ said Prince S., laughing.
‘So do I,’ said Adelaida, solemnly.
‘WHAT poor knight?’ asked Mrs. Epanchin, looking
round at the face of each of the speakers in turn. Seeing,
however, that Aglaya was blushing, she added, angrily:
‘What nonsense you are all talking! What do you mean
by poor knight?’
‘It’s not the first time this urchin, your favourite, has
shown his impudence by twisting other people’s words,’
said Aglaya, haughtily.
Every time that Aglaya showed temper (and this was
very often), there was so much childish pouting, such
‘school-girlishness,’ as it were, in her apparent wrath, that
it was impossible to avoid smiling at her, to her own
unutterable indignation. On these occasions she would
say, ‘How can they, how DARE they laugh at me?’
This time everyone laughed at her, her sisters, Prince
S., Prince Muishkin (though he himself had flushed for
some reason), and Colia. Aglaya was dreadfully indignant,
and looked twice as pretty in her wrath. The Idiot
447 of 1149
‘He’s always twisting round what one says,’ she cried.
‘I am only repeating your own exclamation!’ said Colia.
‘A month ago you were turning over the pages of your
Don Quixote, and suddenly called out ‘there is nothing
better than the poor knight.’ I don’t know whom you
were referring to, of course, whether to Don Quixote, or
Evgenie Pavlovitch, or someone else, but you certainly
said these words, and afterwards there was a long
conversation … ‘
‘You are inclined to go a little too far, my good boy,
with your guesses,’ said Mrs. Epanchin, with some show
of annoyance.
‘But it’s not I alone,’ cried Colia. ‘They all talked about
it, and they do still. Why, just now Prince S. and Adelaida
Ivanovna declared that they upheld ‘the poor knight’; so
evidently there does exist a ‘poor knight’; and if it were
not for Adelaida Ivanovna, we should have known long
ago who the ‘poor knight’ was.’
‘Why, how am I to blame?’ asked Adelaida, smiling.
‘You wouldn’t draw his portrait for us, that’s why you
are to blame! Aglaya Ivanovna asked you to draw his
portrait, and gave you the whole subject of the picture.
She invented it herself; and you wouldn’t.’ The Idiot
448 of 1149
‘What was I to draw? According to the lines she
quoted:
‘‘From his face he never lifted That eternal mask of
steel.’’
‘What sort of a face was I to draw? I couldn’t draw a
mask.’
‘I don’t know what you are driving at; what mask do
you mean?’ said Mrs. Epanchin, irritably. She began to see
pretty clearly though what it meant, and whom they
referred to by the generally accepted title of ‘poor knight.’
But what specially annoyed her was that the prince was
looking so uncomfortable, and blushing like a ten-year-old
child.
‘Well, have you finished your silly joke?’ she added,
and am I to be told what this ‘poor knight’ means, or is it
a solemn secret which cannot be approached lightly?’
But they all laughed on.
‘It’s simply that there is a Russian poem,’ began Prince
S., evidently anxious to change the conversation, ‘a strange
thing, without beginning or end, and all about a ‘poor
knight.’ A month or so ago, we were all talking and
laughing, and looking up a subject for one of Adelaida’s
pictures—you know it is the principal business of this
family to find subjects for Adelaida’s pictures. Well, we The Idiot
449 of 1149
happened upon this ‘poor knight.’ I don’t remember who
thought of it first—‘
‘Oh! Aglaya Ivanovna did,’ said Colia.
‘Very likely—I don’t recollect,’ continued Prince S.
‘Some of us laughed at the subject; some liked it; but
she declared that, in order to make a picture of the
gentleman, she must first see his face. We then began to
think over all our friends’ faces to see if any of them
would do, and none suited us, and so the matter stood;
that’s all. I don’t know why Nicolai Ardalionovitch has
brought up the joke now. What was appropriate and
funny then, has quite lost all interest by this time.’
‘Probably there’s some new silliness about it,’ said Mrs.
Epanchin, sarcastically.
‘There is no silliness about it at all—only the
profoundest respect,’ said Aglaya, very seriously. She had
quite recovered her temper; in fact, from certain signs, it
was fair to conclude that she was delighted to see this joke
going so far; and a careful observer might have remarked
that her satisfaction dated from the moment when the fact
of the prince’s confusion became apparent to all.
‘‘Profoundest respect!’ What nonsense! First, insane
giggling, and then, all of a sudden, a display of The Idiot
450 of 1149
‘profoundest respect.’ Why respect? Tell me at once, why
have you suddenly developed this ‘profound respect,’ eh?’
‘Because,’ replied Aglaya gravely, ‘in the poem the
knight is described as a man capable of living up to an
ideal all his life. That sort of thing is not to be found every
day among the men of our times. In the poem it is not
stated exactly what the ideal was, but it was evidently
some vision, some revelation of pure Beauty, and the
knight wore round his neck, instead of a scarf, a rosary. A
device—A. N. B.—the meaning of which is not
explained, was inscribed on his shield—‘
‘No, A. N. D.,’ corrected Colia.
‘I say A. N. B., and so it shall be!’ cried Aglaya,
irritably. ‘Anyway, the ‘poor knight’ did not care what his
lady was, or what she did. He had chosen his ideal, and he
was bound to serve her, and break lances for her, and
acknowledge her as the ideal of pure Beauty, whatever she
might say or do afterwards. If she had taken to stealing, he
would have championed her just the same. I think the
poet desired to embody in this one picture the whole spirit
of medieval chivalry and the platonic love of a pure and
high-souled knight. Of course it’s all an ideal, and in the
‘poor knight’ that spirit reached the utmost limit of
asceticism. He is a Don Quixote, only serious and not The Idiot
451 of 1149
comical. I used not to understand him, and laughed at
him, but now I love the ‘poor knight,’ and respect his
actions.’
So ended Aglaya; and, to look at her, it was difficult,
indeed, to judge whether she was joking or in earnest.
‘Pooh! he was a fool, and his actions were the actions
of a fool,’ said Mrs. Epanchin; ‘and as for you, young
woman, you ought to know better. At all events, you are
not to talk like that again. What poem is it? Recite it! I
want to hear this poem! I have hated poetry all my life.
Prince, you must excuse this nonsense. We neither of us
like this sort of thing! Be patient!’
They certainly were put out, both of them.
The prince tried to say something, but he was too
confused, and could not get his words out. Aglaya, who
had taken such liberties in her little speech, was the only
person present, perhaps, who was not in the least
embarrassed. She seemed, in fact, quite pleased.
She now rose solemnly from her seat, walked to the
centre of the terrace, and stood in front of the prince’s
chair. All looked on with some surprise, and Prince S. and
her sisters with feelings of decided alarm, to see what new
frolic she was up to; it had gone quite far enough already,
they thought. But Aglaya evidently thoroughly enjoyed The Idiot
452 of 1149
the affectation and ceremony with which she was
introducing her recitation of the poem.
Mrs. Epanchin was just wondering whether she would
not forbid the performance after all, when, at the very
moment that Aglaya commenced her declamation, two
new guests, both talking loudly, entered from the street.
The new arrivals were General Epanchin and a young
man.
Their entrance caused some slight commotion. The Idiot
453 of 1149
VII
THE young fellow accompanying the general was
about twenty-eight, tall, and well built, with a handsome
and clever face, and bright black eyes, full of fun and
intelligence.
Aglaya did not so much as glance at the new arrivals,
but went on with her recitation, gazing at the prince the
while in an affected manner, and at him alone. It was clear
to him that she was doing all this with some special object.
But the new guests at least somewhat eased his strained
and uncomfortable position. Seeing them approaching, he
rose from his chair, and nodding amicably to the general,
signed to him not to interrupt the recitation. He then got
behind his chair, and stood there with his left hand resting
on the back of it. Thanks to this change of position, he
was able to listen to the ballad with far less embarrassment
than before. Mrs. Epanchin had also twice motioned to
the new arrivals to be quiet, and stay where they were.
The prince was much interested in the young man who
had just entered. He easily concluded that this was
Evgenie Pavlovitch Radomski, of whom he had already
heard mention several times. He was puzzled, however, by The Idiot
454 of 1149
the young man’s plain clothes, for he had always heard of
Evgenie Pavlovitch as a military man. An ironical smile
played on Evgenie’s lips all the while the recitation was
proceeding, which showed that he, too, was probably in
the secret of the ‘poor knight’ joke. But it had become
quite a different matter with Aglaya. All the affectation of
manner which she had displayed at the beginning
disappeared as the ballad proceeded. She spoke the lines in
so serious and exalted a manner, and with so much taste,
that she even seemed to justify the exaggerated solemnity
with which she had stepped forward. It was impossible to
discern in her now anything but a deep feeling for the
spirit of the poem which she had undertaken to interpret.
Her eyes were aglow with inspiration, and a slight
tremor of rapture passed over her lovely features once or
twice. She continued to recite:
‘Once there came a vision glorious, Mystic, dreadful,
wondrous fair; Burned itself into his spirit, And abode for
ever there!
‘Never more—from that sweet moment— Gazed he
on womankind; He was dumb to love and wooing And to
all their graces blind. The Idiot
455 of 1149
‘Full of love for that sweet vision, Brave and pure he
took the field; With his blood he stained the letters N. P.
