your judge, and in my opinion it is going too far to give
the name of baseness to it—what do you think? You were
going to employ your tears as a ruse in order to borrow
money, but you also say—in fact, you have sworn to the
fact— that independently of this your confession was
made with an honourable motive. As for the money, you
want it for drink, do you not? After your confession, that
is weakness, of course; but, after all, how can anyone give
up a bad habit at a moment’s notice? It is impossible.
What can we do? It is best, I think, to leave the matter to
your own conscience. How does it seem to you?’ As he The Idiot
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concluded the prince looked curiously at Keller; evidently
this problem of double motives had often been considered
by him before.
‘Well, how anybody can call you an idiot after that, is
more than I can understand!’ cried the boxer.
The prince reddened slightly.
‘Bourdaloue, the archbishop, would not have spared a
man like me,’ Keller continued, ‘but you, you have
judged me with humanity. To show how grateful I am,
and as a punishment, I will not accept a hundred and fifty
roubles. Give me twenty-five—that will be enough; it is
all I really need, for a fortnight at least. I will not ask you
for more for a fortnight. I should like to have given
Agatha a present, but she does not really deserve it. Oh,
my dear prince, God bless you!’
At this moment Lebedeff appeared, having just arrived
from Petersburg. He frowned when he saw the twenty-
five rouble note in Keller’s hand, but the latter, having got
the money, went away at once. Lebedeff began to abuse
him.
‘You are unjust; I found him sincerely repentant,’
observed the prince, after listening for a time. The Idiot
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‘What is the good of repentance like that? It is the same
exactly as mine yesterday, when I said, ‘I am base, I am
base,’—words, and nothing more!’
‘Then they were only words on your part? I thought,
on the contrary...’
‘Well, I don’t mind telling you the truth—you only!
Because you see through a man somehow. Words and
actions, truth and falsehood, are all jumbled up together in
me, and yet I am perfectly sincere. I feel the deepest
repentance, believe it or not, as you choose; but words
and lies come out in the infernal craving to get the better
of other people. It is always there—the notion of cheating
people, and of using my repentant tears to my own
advantage! I assure you this is the truth, prince! I would
not tell any other man for the world! He would laugh and
jeer at me—but you, you judge a man humanely.’
‘Why, Keller said the same thing to me nearly word for
word a few minutes ago!’ cried Muishkin. ‘And you both
seem inclined to boast about it! You astonish me, but I
think he is more sincere than you, for you make a regular
trade of it. Oh, don’t put on that pathetic expression, and
don’t put your hand on your heart! Have you anything to
say to me? You have not come for nothing...’
Lebedeff grinned and wriggled. The Idiot
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‘I have been waiting all day for you, because I want to
ask you a question; and, for once in your life, please tell
me the truth at once. Had you anything to do with that
affair of the carriage yesterday?’
Lebedeff began to grin again, rubbed his hands,
sneezed, but spoke not a word in reply.
‘I see you had something to do with it.’
‘Indirectly, quite indirectly! I am speaking the truth—I
am indeed! I merely told a certain person that I had people
in my house, and that such and such personages might be
found among them.’
‘I am aware that you sent your son to that house—he
told me so himself just now, but what is this intrigue?’ said
the prince, impatiently.
‘It is not my intrigue!’ cried Lebedeff, waving his hand.
‘It was engineered by other people, and is, properly
speaking, rather a fantasy than an intrigue!’
‘But what is it all about? Tell me, for Heaven’s sake!
Cannot you understand how nearly it touches me? Why
are they blackening Evgenie Pavlovitch’s reputation?’
Lebedeff grimaced and wriggled again.
‘Prince!’ said he. ‘Excellency! You won’t let me tell
you the whole truth; I have tried to explain; more than The Idiot
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once I have begun, but you have not allowed me to go
on...’
The prince gave no answer, and sat deep in thought.
Evidently he was struggling to decide.
‘Very well! Tell me the truth,’ he said, dejectedly.
‘Aglaya Ivanovna ...’ began Lebedeff, promptly.
‘Be silent! At once!’ interrupted the prince, red with
indignation, and perhaps with shame, too. ‘It is impossible
and absurd! All that has been invented by you, or fools like
you! Let me never hear you say a word again on that
subject!’
Late in the evening Colia came in with a whole budget
of Petersburg and Pavlofsk news. He did not dwell much
on the Petersburg part of it, which consisted chiefly of
intelligence about his friend Hippolyte, but passed quickly
to the Pavlofsk tidings. He had gone straight to the
Epanchins’ from the station.
‘There’s the deuce and all going on there!’ he said.
‘First of all about the row last night, and I think there must
be something new as well, though I didn’t like to ask. Not
a word about YOU, prince, the whole time!’ The most
interesting fact was that Aglaya had been quarrelling with
her people about Gania. Colia did not know any details,
except that it had been a terrible quarrel! Also Evgenie The Idiot
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Pavlovitch had called, and met with an excellent reception
all round. And another curious thing: Mrs. Epanchin was
so angry that she called Varia to her—Varia was talking to
the girls—and turned her out of the house ‘once for all
‘she said. ‘I heard it from Varia herself—Mrs. Epanchin
was quite polite, but firm; and when Varia said good-bye
to the girls, she told them nothing about it, and they
didn’t know they were saying goodbye for the last time.
I’m sorry for Varia, and for Gania too; he isn’t half a bad
fellow, in spite of his faults, and I shall never forgive
myself for not liking him before! I don’t know whether I
ought to continue to go to the Epanchins’ now,’
concluded Colia—’ I like to be quite independent of
others, and of other people’s quarrels if I can; but I must
think over it.’
‘I don’t think you need break your heart over Gania,’
said the prince; ‘for if what you say is true, he must be
considered dangerous in the Epanchin household, and if
so, certain hopes of his must have been encouraged.’
‘What? What hopes?’ cried Colia; ‘you surely don’t
mean Aglaya?— oh, no!—‘
‘You’re a dreadful sceptic, prince,’ he continued, after a
moment’s silence. ‘I have observed of late that you have
grown sceptical about everything. You don’t seem to The Idiot
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believe in people as you did, and are always attributing
motives and so on—am I using the word ‘sceptic’ in its
proper sense?’
‘I believe so; but I’m not sure.’
‘Well, I’ll change it, right or wrong; I’ll say that you are
not sceptical, but JEALOUS. There! you are deadly
jealous of Gania, over a certain proud damsel! Come!’
Colia jumped up, with these words, and burst out
laughing. He laughed as he had perhaps never laughed
before, and still more when he saw the prince flushing up
to his temples. He was delighted that the prince should be
jealous about Aglaya. However, he stopped immediately
on seeing that the other was really hurt, and the
conversation continued, very earnestly, for an hour or
more.
Next day the prince had to go to town, on business.
Returning in the afternoon, he happened upon General
Epanchin at the station. The latter seized his hand,
glancing around nervously, as if he were afraid of being
caught in wrong-doing, and dragged him into a first-class
compartment. He was burning to speak about something
of importance.
‘In the first place, my dear prince, don’t be angry with
me. I would have come to see you yesterday, but I didn’t The Idiot
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know how Lizabetha Prokofievna would take it. My dear
fellow, my house is simply a hell just now, a sort of sphinx
has taken up its abode there. We live in an atmosphere of
riddles; I can’t make head or tail of anything. As for you, I
feel sure you are the least to blame of any of us, though
you certainly have been the cause of a good deal of
trouble. You see, it’s all very pleasant to be a
philanthropist; but it can be carried too far. Of course I
admire kind-heartedness, and I esteem my wife, but—‘
The general wandered on in this disconnected way for
a long time; it was clear that he was much disturbed by
some circumstance which he could make nothing of.
‘It is plain to me, that YOU are not in it at all,’ he
continued, at last, a little less vaguely, ‘but perhaps you
had better not come to our house for a little while. I ask
you in the friendliest manner, mind; just till the wind
changes again. As for Evgenie Pavlovitch,’ he continued
with some excitement, ‘the whole thing is a calumny, a
dirty calumny. It is simply a plot, an intrigue, to upset our
plans and to stir up a quarrel. You see, prince, I’ll tell you
privately, Evgenie and ourselves have not said a word yet,
we have no formal understanding, we are in no way
bound on either side, but the word may be said very soon,
don’t you see, VERY soon, and all this is most injurious, The Idiot
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and is meant to be so. Why? I’m sure I can’t tell you.
She’s an extraordinary woman, you see, an eccentric
woman; I tell you I am so frightened of that woman that I
can’t sleep. What a carriage that was, and where did it
come from, eh? I declare, I was base enough to suspect
Evgenie at first; but it seems certain that that cannot be the
case, and if so, why is she interfering here? That’s the
riddle, what does she want? Is it to keep Evgenie to
herself? But, my dear fellow, I swear to you, I swear he
doesn’t even KNOW her, and as for those bills, why, the
whole thing is an invention! And the familiarity of the
woman! It’s quite clear we must treat the impudent
creature’s attempt with disdain, and redouble our courtesy
towards Evgenie. I told my wife so.
‘Now I’ll tell you my secret conviction. I’m certain that
she’s doing this to revenge herself on me, on account of
the past, though I assure you that all the time I was
blameless. I blush at the very idea. And now she turns up
again like this, when I thought she had finally disappeared!
Where’s Rogojin all this time? I thought she was Mrs.
Rogojin, long ago.’
The old man was in a state of great mental
perturbation. The whole of the journey, which occupied
nearly an hour, he continued in this strain, putting The Idiot
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questions and answering them himself, shrugging his
shoulders, pressing the prince’s hand, and assuring the
latter that, at all events, he had no suspicion whatever of
HIM. This last assurance was satisfactory, at all events. The
general finished by informing him that Evgenie’s uncle
was head of one of the civil service departments, and rich,
very rich, and a gourmand. ‘And, well, Heaven preserve
him, of course—but Evgenie gets his money, don’t you
see? But, for all this, I’m uncomfortable, I don’t know
why. There’s something in the air, I feel there’s something
nasty in the air, like a bat, and I’m by no means
comfortable.’
And it was not until the third day that the formal
reconciliation between the prince and the Epanchins took
place, as said before. The Idiot
575 of 1149
XII
IT was seven in the evening, and the prince was just
preparing to go out for a walk in the park, when suddenly
Mrs. Epanchin appeared on the terrace.
‘In the first place, don’t dare to suppose,’ she began,
‘that I am going to apologize. Nonsense! You were
entirely to blame.’
The prince remained silent.
‘Were you to blame, or not?’
‘No, certainly not, no more than yourself, though at
first I thought I was.’
‘Oh, very well, let’s sit down, at all events, for I don’t
intend to stand up all day. And remember, if you say, one
word about ‘mischievous urchins,’ I shall go away and
break with you altogether. Now then, did you, or did you
not, send a letter to Aglaya, a couple of months or so ago,
about Easter-tide?’
‘Yes!’
‘What for? What was your object? Show me the letter.’
Mrs. Epanchin’s eyes flashed; she was almost trembling
with impatience. The Idiot
576 of 1149
‘I have not got the letter,’ said the prince, timidly,
extremely surprised at the turn the conversation had taken.
‘If anyone has it, if it still exists, Aglaya Ivanovna must
have it.’
‘No finessing, please. What did you write about?’
‘I am not finessing, and I am not in the least afraid of
telling you; but I don’t see the slightest reason why I
should not have written.’
‘Be quiet, you can talk afterwards! What was the letter
about? Why are you blushing?’
The prince was silent. At last he spoke.
‘I don’t understand your thoughts, Lizabetha
Prokofievna; but I can see that the fact of my having
written is for some reason repugnant to you. You must
admit that I have a perfect right to refuse to answer your
questions; but, in order to show you that I am neither
ashamed of the letter, nor sorry that I wrote it, and that I
am not in the least inclined to blush about it ‘(here the
prince’s blushes redoubled), ‘I will repeat the substance of
my letter, for I think I know it almost by heart.’
So saying, the prince repeated the letter almost word
for word, as he had written it.
‘My goodness, what utter twaddle, and what may all
this nonsense have signified, pray? If it had any meaning at The Idiot
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all!’ said Mrs. Epanchin, cuttingly, after having listened
