appeared, he was quite ready to believe himself infinitely
less to be respected than any of them.
Four persons entered, led by General Ivolgin, in a state
of great excitement, and talking eloquently.
‘He is for me, undoubtedly!’ thought the prince, with a
smile. Colia also had joined the party, and was talking
with animation to Hippolyte, who listened with a jeering
smile on his lips.
The prince begged the visitors to sit down. They were
all so young that it made the proceedings seem even more
extraordinary. Ivan Fedorovitch, who really understood
nothing of what was going on, felt indignant at the sight
of these youths, and would have interfered in some way
had it not been for the extreme interest shown by his wife
in the affair. He therefore remained, partly through
curiosity, partly through good-nature, hoping that his
presence might be of some use. But the bow with which The Idiot
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General Ivolgin greeted him irritated him anew; he
frowned, and decided to be absolutely silent.
As to the rest, one was a man of thirty, the retired
officer, now a boxer, who had been with Rogojin, and in
his happier days had given fifteen roubles at a time to
beggars. Evidently he had joined the others as a comrade
to give them moral, and if necessary material, support. The
man who had been spoken of as ‘Pavlicheff’s son,’
although he gave the name of Antip Burdovsky, was about
twenty-two years of age, fair, thin and rather tall. He was
remarkable for the poverty, not to say uncleanliness, of his
personal appearance: the sleeves of his overcoat were
greasy; his dirty waistcoat, buttoned up to his neck,
showed not a trace of linen; a filthy black silk scarf, twisted
till it resembled a cord, was round his neck, and his hands
were unwashed. He looked round with an air of insolent
effrontery. His face, covered with pimples, was neither
thoughtful nor even contemptuous; it wore an expression
of complacent satisfaction in demanding his rights and in
being an aggrieved party. His voice trembled, and he
spoke so fast, and with such stammerings, that he might
have been taken for a foreigner, though the purest Russian
blood ran in his veins. Lebedeff’s nephew, whom the
reader has seen already, accompanied him, and also the The Idiot
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youth named Hippolyte Terentieff. The latter was only
seventeen or eighteen. He had an intelligent face, though
it was usually irritated and fretful in expression. His
skeleton-like figure, his ghastly complexion, the brightness
of his eyes, and the red spots of colour on his cheeks,
betrayed the victim of consumption to the most casual
glance. He coughed persistently, and panted for breath; it
looked as though he had but a few weeks more to live. He
was nearly dead with fatigue, and fell, rather than sat, into
a chair. The rest bowed as they came in; and being more
or less abashed, put on an air of extreme self-assurance. In
short, their attitude was not that which one would have
expected in men who professed to despise all trivialities, all
foolish mundane conventions, and indeed everything,
except their own personal interests.
‘Antip Burdovsky,’ stuttered the son of Pavlicheff.
‘Vladimir Doktorenko,’ said Lebedeff’s nephew briskly,
and with a certain pride, as if he boasted of his name.
‘Keller,’ murmured the retired officer.
‘Hippolyte Terentieff,’ cried the last-named, in a shrill
voice.
They sat now in a row facing the prince, and frowned,
and played with their caps. All appeared ready to speak,
and yet all were silent; the defiant expression on their faces The Idiot
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seemed to say, ‘No, sir, you don’t take us in!’ It could be
felt that the first word spoken by anyone present would
bring a torrent of speech from the whole deputation. The Idiot
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VIII
‘I DID not expect you, gentlemen,’ began the prince. I
have been ill until to-day. A month ago,’ he continued,
addressing himself to Antip Burdovsky, ‘I put your
business into Gavrila Ardalionovitch Ivolgin’s hands, as I
told you then. I do not in the least object to having a
personal interview ... but you will agree with me that this
is hardly the time ... I propose that we go into another
room, if you will not keep me long... As you see, I have
friends here, and believe me ...’
‘Friends as many as you please, but allow me,’
interrupted the harsh voice of Lebedeff’s nephew—’ allow
me to tell you that you might have treated us rather more
politely, and not have kept us waiting at least two hours ...
‘No doubt ... and I ... is that acting like a prince? And
you ... you may be a general! But I ... I am not your valet!
And I ... I...’ stammered Antip Burdovsky.
He was extremely excited; his lips trembled, and the
resentment of an embittered soul was in his voice. But he
spoke so indistinctly that hardly a dozen words could be
gathered.
‘It was a princely action!’ sneered Hippolyte. The Idiot
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‘If anyone had treated me so,’ grumbled the boxer.
‘I mean to say that if I had been in Burdovsky’s
place...I...’
‘Gentlemen, I did not know you were there; I have
only just been informed, I assure you,’ repeated Muishkin.
‘We are not afraid of your friends, prince,’ remarked
Lebedeff’s nephew, ‘for we are within our rights.’
The shrill tones of Hippolyte interrupted him. ‘What
right have you ... by what right do you demand us to
submit this matter, about Burdovsky ... to the judgment of
your friends? We know only too well what the judgment
of your friends will be! ...’
This beginning gave promise of a stormy discussion.
The prince was much discouraged, but at last he managed
to make himself heard amid the vociferations of his excited
visitors.
‘If you,’ he said, addressing Burdovsky—‘if you prefer
not to speak here, I offer again to go into another room
with you ... and as to your waiting to see me, I repeat that
I only this instant heard ...’
‘Well, you have no right, you have no right, no right at
all!... Your friends indeed!’... gabbled Burdovsky, defiantly
examining the faces round him, and becoming more and
more excited. ‘You have no right!...’ As he ended thus The Idiot
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abruptly, he leant forward, staring at the prince with his
short-sighted, bloodshot eyes. The latter was so astonished,
that he did not reply, but looked steadily at him in return.
‘Lef Nicolaievitch!’ interposed Madame Epanchin,
suddenly, ‘read this at once, this very moment! It is about
this business.’
She held out a weekly comic paper, pointing to an
article on one of its pages. Just as the visitors were coming
in, Lebedeff, wishing to ingratiate himself with the great
lady, had pulled this paper from his pocket, and presented
it to her, indicating a few columns marked in pencil.
Lizabetha Prokofievna had had time to read some of it,
and was greatly upset.
‘Would it not be better to peruse it alone ...’ later asked
the prince, nervously.
‘No, no, read it—read it at once directly, and aloud,
aloud!’ cried she, calling Colia to her and giving him the
journal.—’ Read it aloud, so that everyone may hear it!’
An impetuous woman, Lizabetha Prokofievna
sometimes weighed her anchors and put out to sea quite
regardless of the possible storms she might encounter. Ivan
Fedorovitch felt a sudden pang of alarm, but the others
were merely curious, and somewhat surprised. Colia The Idiot
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unfolded the paper, and began to read, in his clear, high-
pitched voice, the following article:
‘Proletarians and scions of nobility! An episode of the
brigandage of today and every day! Progress! Reform!
Justice!’
‘Strange things are going on in our so-called Holy
Russia in this age of reform and great enterprises; this age
of patriotism in which hundreds of millions are yearly sent
abroad; in which industry is encouraged, and the hands of
Labour paralyzed, etc.; there is no end to this, gentlemen,
so let us come to the point. A strange thing has happened
to a scion of our defunct aristocracy. (DE PROFUNDIS!)
The grandfathers of these scions ruined themselves at the
gaming-tables; their fathers were forced to serve as officers
or subalterns; some have died just as they were about to be
tried for innocent thoughtlessness in the handling of public
funds. Their children are sometimes congenital idiots, like
the hero of our story; sometimes they are found in the
dock at the Assizes, where they are generally acquitted by
the jury for edifying motives; sometimes they distinguish
themselves by one of those burning scandals that amaze
the public and add another blot to the stained record of
our age. Six months ago—that is, last winter—this
particular scion returned to Russia, wearing gaiters like a The Idiot
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foreigner, and shivering with cold in an old scantily-lined
cloak. He had come from Switzerland, where he had just
undergone a successful course of treatment for idiocy
(SIC!). Certainly Fortune favoured him, for, apart from
the interesting malady of which he was cured in
Switzerland (can there be a cure for idiocy?) his story
proves the truth of the Russian proverb that ‘happiness is
the right of certain classes!’ Judge for yourselves. Our
subject was an infant in arms when he lost his father, an
officer who died just as he was about to be court-
martialled for gambling away the funds of his company,
and perhaps also for flogging a subordinate to excess
(remember the good old days, gentlemen). The orphan
was brought up by the charity of a very rich Russian
landowner. In the good old days, this man, whom we will
call P—, owned four thousand souls as serfs (souls as
serfs!—can you understand such an expression, gentlemen?
I cannot; it must be looked up in a dictionary before one
can understand it; these things of a bygone day are already
unintelligible to us). He appears to have been one of those
Russian parasites who lead an idle existence abroad,
spending the summer at some spa, and the winter in Paris,
to the greater profit of the organizers of public balls. It
may safely be said that the manager of the Chateau des The Idiot
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Fleurs (lucky man!) pocketed at least a third of the money
paid by Russian peasants to their lords in the days of
serfdom. However this may be, the gay P— brought up
the orphan like a prince, provided him with tutors and
governesses (pretty, of course!) whom he chose himself in
Paris. But the little aristocrat, the last of his noble race, was
an idiot. The governesses, recruited at the Chateau des
Fleurs, laboured in vain; at twenty years of age their pupil
could not speak in any language, not even Russian. But
ignorance of the latter was still excusable. At last P— was
seized with a strange notion; he imagined that in
Switzerland they could change an idiot into a mail of
sense. After all, the idea was quite logical; a parasite and
landowner naturally supposed that intelligence was a
marketable commodity like everything else, and that in
Switzerland especially it could be bought for money. The
case was entrusted to a celebrated Swiss professor, and cost
thousands of roubles; the treatment lasted five years.
Needless to say, the idiot did not become intelligent, but it
is alleged that he grew into something more or less
resembling a man. At this stage P— died suddenly, and, as
usual, he had made no will and left his affairs in disorder.
A crowd of eager claimants arose, who cared nothing
about any last scion of a noble race undergoing treatment The Idiot
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in Switzerland, at the expense of the deceased, as a
congenital idiot. Idiot though he was, the noble scion
tried to cheat his professor, and they say he succeeded in
getting him to continue the treatment gratis for two years,
by concealing the death of his benefactor. But the
professor himself was a charlatan. Getting anxious at last
when no money was forthcoming, and alarmed above all
by his patient’s appetite, he presented him with a pair of
old gaiters and a shabby cloak and packed him off to
Russia, third class. It would seem that Fortune had turned
her back upon our hero. Not at all; Fortune, who lets
whole populations die of hunger, showered all her gifts at
once upon the little aristocrat, like Kryloff’s Cloud which
passes over an arid plain and empties itself into the sea. He
had scarcely arrived in St. Petersburg, when a relation of
his mother’s (who was of bourgeois origin, of course),
died at Moscow. He was a merchant, an Old Believer, and
he had no children. He left a fortune of several millions in
good current coin, and everything came to our noble
scion, our gaitered baron, formerly treated for idiocy in a
Swiss lunatic asylum. Instantly the scene changed, crowds
of friends gathered round our baron, who meanwhile had
lost his head over a celebrated demi-mondaine; he even
discovered some relations; moreover a number of young The Idiot
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girls of high birth burned to be united to him in lawful
matrimony. Could anyone possibly imagine a better
match? Aristocrat, millionaire, and idiot, he has every
advantage! One might hunt in vain for his equal, even
with the lantern of Diogenes; his like is not to be had even
by getting it made to order!’
‘Oh, I don’t know what this means’ cried Ivan
Fedorovitch, transported with indignation.
‘Leave off, Colia,’ begged the prince. Exclamations
arose on all sides.
‘Let him go on reading at all costs!’ ordered Lizabetha
Prokofievna, evidently preserving her composure by a
desperate effort. ‘Prince, if the reading is stopped, you and
I will quarrel.’
Colia had no choice but to obey. With crimson cheeks
he read on unsteadily:
‘But while our young millionaire dwelt as it were in
