the simple reason that a Russian liberal is not a Russian
liberal, he is a non-Russian liberal. Show me a real The Idiot
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Russian liberal, and I’ll kiss him before you all, with
pleasure.’
‘If he cared to kiss you, that is,’ said Alexandra, whose
cheeks were red with irritation and excitement.
‘Look at that, now,’ thought the mother to herself, ‘she
does nothing but sleep and eat for a year at a time, and
then suddenly flies out in the most incomprehensible
way!’
The prince observed that Alexandra appeared to be
angry with Evgenie, because he spoke on a serious subject
in a frivolous manner, pretending to be in earnest, but
with an under-current of irony.
‘I was saying just now, before you came in, prince, that
there has been nothing national up to now, about our
liberalism, and nothing the liberals do, or have done, is in
the least degree national. They are drawn from two classes
only, the old landowning class, and clerical families—‘
‘How, nothing that they have done is Russian?’ asked
Prince S.
‘It may be Russian, but it is not national. Our liberals
are not Russian, nor are our conservatives, and you may
be sure that the nation does not recognize anything that
has been done by the landed gentry, or by the seminarists,
or what is to be done either.’ The Idiot
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‘Come, that’s good! How can you maintain such a
paradox? If you are serious, that is. I cannot allow such a
statement about the landed proprietors to pass
unchallenged. Why, you are a landed proprietor yourself!’
cried Prince S. hotly.
‘I suppose you’ll say there is nothing national about our
literature either?’ said Alexandra.
‘Well, I am not a great authority on literary questions,
but I certainly do hold that Russian literature is not
Russian, except perhaps Lomonosoff, Pouschkin and
Gogol.’
‘In the first place, that is a considerable admission, and
in the second place, one of the above was a peasant, and
the other two were both landed proprietors!’
‘Quite so, but don’t be in such a hurry! For since it has
been the part of these three men, and only these three, to
say something absolutely their own, not borrowed, so by
this very fact these three men become really national. If
any Russian shall have done or said anything really and
absolutely original, he is to be called national from that
moment, though he may not be able to talk the Russian
language; still he is a national Russian. I consider that an
axiom. But we were not speaking of literature; we began
by discussing the socialists. Very well then, I insist that The Idiot
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there does not exist one single Russian socialist. There
does not, and there has never existed such a one, because
all socialists are derived from the two classes—the landed
proprietors, and the seminarists. All our eminent socialists
are merely old liberals of the class of landed proprietors,
men who were liberals in the days of serfdom. Why do
you laugh? Give me their books, give me their studies,
their memoirs, and though I am not a literary critic, yet I
will prove as clear as day that every chapter and every
word of their writings has been the work of a former
landed proprietor of the old school. You’ll find that all
their raptures, all their generous transports are proprietary,
all their woes and their tears, proprietary; all proprietary or
seminarist! You are laughing again, and you, prince, are
smiling too. Don’t you agree with me?’
It was true enough that everybody was laughing, the
prince among them.
‘I cannot tell you on the instant whether I agree with
you or not,’ said the latter, suddenly stopping his laughter,
and starting like a schoolboy caught at mischief. ‘But, I
assure you, I am listening to you with extreme
gratification.’
So saying, he almost panted with agitation, and a cold
sweat stood upon his forehead. These were his first words The Idiot
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since he had entered the house; he tried to lift his eyes,
and look around, but dared not; Evgenie Pavlovitch
noticed his confusion, and smiled.
‘I’ll just tell you one fact, ladies and gentlemen,’
continued the latter, with apparent seriousness and even
exaltation of manner, but with a suggestion of ‘chaff’
behind every word, as though he were laughing in his
sleeve at his own nonsense—‘a fact, the discovery of
which, I believe, I may claim to have made by myself
alone. At all events, no other has ever said or written a
word about it; and in this fact is expressed the whole
essence of Russian liberalism of the sort which I am now
considering.
‘In the first place, what is liberalism, speaking generally,
but an attack (whether mistaken or reasonable, is quite
another question) upon the existing order of things? Is this
so? Yes. Very well. Then my ‘fact’ consists in this, that
RUSSIAN liberalism is not an attack upon the existing
order of things, but an attack upon the very essence of
things themselves—indeed, on the things themselves; not
an attack on the Russian order of things, but on Russia
itself. My Russian liberal goes so far as to reject Russia;
that is, he hates and strikes his own mother. Every
misfortune and mishap of the mother-country fills him The Idiot
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with mirth, and even with ecstasy. He hates the national
customs, Russian history, and everything. If he has a
justification, it is that he does not know what he is doing,
and believes that his hatred of Russia is the grandest and
most profitable kind of liberalism. (You will often find a
liberal who is applauded and esteemed by his fellows, but
who is in reality the dreariest, blindest, dullest of
conservatives, and is not aware of the fact.) This hatred for
Russia has been mistaken by some of our ‘Russian liberals’
for sincere love of their country, and they boast that they
see better than their neighbours what real love of one’s
country should consist in. But of late they have grown,
more candid and are ashamed of the expression ‘love of
country,’ and have annihilated the very spirit of the words
as something injurious and petty and undignified. This is
the truth, and I hold by it; but at the same time it is a
phenomenon which has not been repeated at any other
time or place; and therefore, though I hold to it as a fact,
yet I recognize that it is an accidental phenomenon, and
may likely enough pass away. There can be no such thing
anywhere else as a liberal who really hates his country; and
how is this fact to be explained among US? By my original
statement that a Russian liberal is NOT a RUSSIAN
liberal—that’s the only explanation that I can see.’ The Idiot
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‘I take all that you have said as a joke,’ said Prince S.
seriously.
‘I have not seen all kinds of liberals, and cannot,
therefore, set myself up as a judge,’ said Alexandra, ‘but I
have heard all you have said with indignation. You have
taken some accidental case and twisted it into a universal
law, which is unjust.’
‘Accidental case!’ said Evgenie Pavlovitch. ‘Do you
consider it an accidental case, prince?’
‘I must also admit,’ said the prince, ‘that I have not seen
much, or been very far into the question; but I cannot
help thinking that you are more or less right, and that
Russian liberalism— that phase of it which you are
considering, at least—really is sometimes inclined to hate
Russia itself, and not only its existing order of things in
general. Of course this is only PARTIALLY the truth;
you cannot lay down the law for all...’
The prince blushed and broke off, without finishing
what he meant to say.
In spite of his shyness and agitation, he could not help
being greatly interested in the conversation. A special
characteristic of his was the naive candour with which he
always listened to arguments which interested him, and
with which he answered any questions put to him on the The Idiot
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subject at issue. In the very expression of his face this
naivete was unmistakably evident, this disbelief in the
insincerity of others, and unsuspecting disregard of irony
or humour in their words.
But though Evgenie Pavlovitch had put his questions to
the prince with no other purpose but to enjoy the joke of
his simple-minded seriousness, yet now, at his answer, he
was surprised into some seriousness himself, and looked
gravely at Muishkin as though he had not expected that
sort of answer at all.
‘Why, how strange!’ he ejaculated. ‘You didn’t answer
me seriously, surely, did you?’
‘Did not you ask me the question seriously’ inquired
the prince, in amazement.
Everybody laughed.
‘Oh, trust HIM for that!’ said Adelaida. ‘Evgenie
Pavlovitch turns everything and everybody he can lay hold
of to ridicule. You should hear the things he says
sometimes, apparently in perfect seriousness.’
‘In my opinion the conversation has been a painful one
throughout, and we ought never to have begun it,’ said
Alexandra. ‘We were all going for a walk—‘
‘Come along then,’ said Evgenie; ‘it’s a glorious
evening. But, to prove that this time I was speaking The Idiot
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absolutely seriously, and especially to prove this to the
prince (for you, prince, have interested me exceedingly,
and I swear to you that I am not quite such an ass as I like
to appear sometimes, although I am rather an ass, I admit),
and—well, ladies and gentlemen, will you allow me to put
just one more question to the prince, out of pure
curiosity? It shall be the last. This question came into my
mind a couple of hours since (you see, prince, I do think
seriously at times), and I made my own decision upon it;
now I wish to hear what the prince will say to it.’
‘We have just used the expression ‘accidental case.’
This is a significant phrase; we often hear it. Well, not
long since everyone was talking and reading about that
terrible murder of six people on the part of a—young
fellow, and of the extraordinary speech of the counsel for
the defence, who observed that in the poverty-stricken
condition of the criminal it must have come
NATURALLY into his head to kill these six people. I do
not quote his words, but that is the sense of them, or
something very like it. Now, in my opinion, the barrister
who put forward this extraordinary plea was probably
absolutely convinced that he was stating the most liberal,
the most humane, the most enlightened view of the case
that could possibly be brought forward in these days. The Idiot
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Now, was this distortion, this capacity for a perverted way
of viewing things, a special or accidental case, or is such a
general rule?’
Everyone laughed at this.
‘A special case—accidental, of course!’ cried Alexandra
and Adelaida.
‘Let me remind you once more, Evgenie,’ said Prince
S., ‘that your joke is getting a little threadbare.’
‘What do you think about it, prince?’ asked Evgenie,
taking no notice of the last remark, and observing
Muishkin’s serious eyes fixed upon his face. ‘What do you
think—was it a special or a usual case—the rule, or an
exception? I confess I put the question especially for you.’
‘No, I don’t think it was a special case,’ said the prince,
quietly, but firmly.
‘My dear fellow!’ cried Prince S., with some
annoyance, ‘don’t you see that he is chaffing you? He is
simply laughing at you, and wants to make game of you.’
‘I thought Evgenie Pavlovitch was talking seriously,’
said the prince, blushing and dropping his eyes.
‘My dear prince,’ continued Prince S. ‘remember what
you and I were saying two or three months ago. We
spoke of the fact that in our newly opened Law Courts
one could already lay one’s finger upon so many talented The Idiot
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and remarkable young barristers. How pleased you were
with the state of things as we found it, and how glad I was
to observe your delight! We both said it was a matter to be
proud of; but this clumsy defence that Evgenie mentions,
this strange argument CAN, of course, only be an
accidental case —one in a thousand!’
The prince reflected a little, but very soon he replied,
with absolute conviction in his tone, though he still spoke
somewhat shyly and timidly:
‘I only wished to say that this ‘distortion,’ as Evgenie
Pavlovitch expressed it, is met with very often, and is far
more the general rule than the exception, unfortunately
for Russia. So much so, that if this distortion were not the
general rule, perhaps these dreadful crimes would be less
frequent.’
‘Dreadful crimes? But I can assure you that crimes just
as dreadful, and probably more horrible, have occurred
before our times, and at all times, and not only here in
Russia, but everywhere else as well. And in my opinion it
is not at all likely that such murders will cease to occur for
a very long time to come. The only difference is that in
former times there was less publicity, while now everyone
talks and writes freely about such things—which fact gives
the impression that such crimes have only now sprung The Idiot
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into existence. That is where your mistake lies—an
extremely natural mistake, I assure you, my dear fellow!’
said Prince S.
‘I know that there were just as many, and just as
terrible, crimes before our times. Not long since I visited a
convict prison and made acquaintance with some of the
criminals. There were some even more dreadful criminals
than this one we have been speaking of—men who have
murdered a dozen of their fellow- creatures, and feel no
remorse whatever. But what I especially noticed was this,
that the very most hopeless and remorseless murderer—
however hardened a criminal he may be—still KNOWS
THAT HE IS A CRIMINAL; that is, he is conscious that
he has acted wickedly, though he may feel no remorse
