general. Well, prince, here is Keller, absolutely at your
service—command him!—ready to sacrifice himself—even
to die in case of need.’
‘But-why?’
‘Oh, why?—Of course you’ll be challenged! That was
young Lieutenant Moloftsoff. I know him, or rather of
him; he won’t pass an insult. He will take no notice of
Rogojin and myself, and, therefore, you are the only one
left to account for. You’ll have to pay the piper, prince.
He has been asking about you, and undoubtedly his friend
will call on you tomorrow—perhaps he is at your house The Idiot
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already. If you would do me the honour to have me for a
second, prince, I should be happy. That’s why I have been
looking for you now.’
‘Duel! You’ve come to talk about a duel, too!’ The
prince burst out laughing, to the great astonishment of
Keller. He laughed unrestrainedly, and Keller, who had
been on pins and needles, and in a fever of excitement to
offer himself as ‘second,’ was very near being offended.
‘You caught him by the arms, you know, prince. No
man of proper pride can stand that sort of treatment in
public.’
‘Yes, and he gave me a fearful dig in the chest,’ cried
the prince, still laughing. ‘What are we to fight about? I
shall beg his pardon, that’s all. But if we must fight—we’ll
fight! Let him have a shot at me, by all means; I should
rather like it. Ha, ha, ha! I know how to load a pistol now;
do you know how to load a pistol, Keller? First, you have
to buy the powder, you know; it mustn’t be wet, and it
mustn’t be that coarse stuff that they load cannons with—
it must be pistol powder. Then you pour the powder in,
and get hold of a bit of felt from some door, and then
shove the bullet in. But don’t shove the bullet in before
the powder, because the thing wouldn’t go off—do you
hear, Keller, the thing wouldn’t go off! Ha, ha, ha! Isn’t The Idiot
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that a grand reason, Keller, my friend, eh? Do you know,
my dear fellow, I really must kiss you, and embrace you,
this very moment. Ha, ha! How was it you so suddenly
popped up in front of me as you did? Come to my house
as soon as you can, and we’ll have some champagne. We’ll
all get drunk! Do you know I have a dozen of champagne
in Lebedeff’s cellar? Lebedeff sold them to me the day after
I arrived. I took the lot. We’ll invite everybody! Are you
going to do any sleeping tonight?’
‘As much as usual, prince—why?’
‘Pleasant dreams then—ha, ha!’
The prince crossed the road, and disappeared into the
park, leaving the astonished Keller in a state of ludicrous
wonder. He had never before seen the prince in such a
strange condition of mind, and could not have imagined
the possibility of it.
‘Fever, probably,’ he said to himself, ‘for the man is all
nerves, and this business has been a little too much for
him. He is not AFRAID, that’s clear; that sort never
funks! H’m! champagne! That was an interesting item of
news, at all events!— Twelve bottles! Dear me, that’s a
very respectable little stock indeed! I bet anything Lebedeff
lent somebody money on deposit of this dozen of
champagne. Hum! he’s a nice fellow, is this prince! I like The Idiot
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this sort of man. Well, I needn’t be wasting time here, and
if it’s a case of champagne, why—there’s no time like the
present!’
That the prince was almost in a fever was no more than
the truth. He wandered about the park for a long while,
and at last came to himself in a lonely avenue. He was
vaguely conscious that he had already paced this particular
walk—from that large, dark tree to the bench at the other
end—about a hundred yards altogether—at least thirty
times backwards and forwards.
As to recollecting what he had been thinking of all that
time, he could not. He caught himself, however,
indulging in one thought which made him roar with
laughter, though there was nothing really to laugh at in it;
but he felt that he must laugh, and go on laughing.
It struck him that the idea of the duel might not have
occurred to Keller alone, but that his lesson in the art of
pistol-loading might have been not altogether accidental!
‘Pooh! nonsense!’ he said to himself, struck by another
thought, of a sudden. ‘Why, she was immensely surprised
to find me there on the verandah, and laughed and talked
about TEA! And yet she had this little note in her hand,
therefore she must have known that I was sitting there. So
why was she surprised? Ha, ha, ha!’ The Idiot
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He pulled the note out and kissed it; then paused and
reflected. ‘How strange it all is! how strange!’ he muttered,
melancholy enough now. In moments of great joy, he
invariably felt a sensation of melancholy come over him—
he could not tell why.
He looked intently around him, and wondered why he
had come here; he was very tired, so he approached the
bench and sat down on it. Around him was profound
silence; the music in the Vauxhall was over. The park
seemed quite empty, though it was not, in reality, later
than half-past eleven. It was a quiet, warm, clear night—a
real Petersburg night of early June; but in the dense
avenue, where he was sitting, it was almost pitch dark.
If anyone had come up at this moment and told him
that he was in love, passionately in love, he would have
rejected the idea with astonishment, and, perhaps, with
irritation. And if anyone had added that Aglaya’s note was
a love-letter, and that it contained an appointment to a
lover’s rendezvous, he would have blushed with shame for
the speaker, and, probably, have challenged him to a duel.
All this would have been perfectly sincere on his part.
He had never for a moment entertained the idea of the
possibility of this girl loving him, or even of such a thing
as himself falling in love with her. The possibility of being The Idiot
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loved himself, ‘a man like me,’ as he put it, he ranked
among ridiculous suppositions. It appeared to him that it
was simply a joke on Aglaya’s part, if there really were
anything in it at all; but that seemed to him quite natural.
His preoccupation was caused by something different.
As to the few words which the general had let slip
about Aglaya laughing at everybody, and at himself most
of all—he entirely believed them. He did not feel the
slightest sensation of offence; on the contrary, he was quite
certain that it was as it should be.
His whole thoughts were now as to next morning
early; he would see her; he would sit by her on that little
green bench, and listen to how pistols were loaded, and
look at her. He wanted nothing more.
The question as to what she might have to say of
special interest to himself occurred to him once or twice.
He did not doubt, for a moment, that she really had some
such subject of conversation in store, but so very little
interested in the matter was he that it did not strike him to
wonder what it could be. The crunch of gravel on the
path suddenly caused him to raise his head.
A man, whose face it was difficult to see in the gloom,
approached the bench, and sat down beside him. The The Idiot
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prince peered into his face, and recognized the livid
features of Rogojin.
‘I knew you’d be wandering about somewhere here. I
didn’t have to look for you very long,’ muttered the latter
between his teeth.
It was the first time they had met since the encounter
on the staircase at the hotel.
Painfully surprised as he was at this sudden apparition of
Rogojin, the prince, for some little while, was unable to
collect his thoughts. Rogojin, evidently, saw and
understood the impression he had made; and though he
seemed more or less confused at first, yet he began talking
with what looked like assumed ease and freedom.
However, the prince soon changed his mind on this score,
and thought that there was not only no affectation of
indifference, but that Rogojin was not even particularly
agitated. If there were a little apparent awkwardness, it was
only in his words and gestures. The man could not change
his heart.
‘How did you—find me here?’ asked the prince for the
sake of saying something.
‘Keller told me (I found him at your place) that you
were in the park. ‘Of course he is!’ I thought.’
‘Why so?’ asked the prince uneasily. The Idiot
664 of 1149
Rogojin smiled, but did not explain.
‘I received your letter, Lef Nicolaievitch—what’s the
good of all that?—It’s no use, you know. I’ve come to
you from HER,—she bade me tell you that she must see
you, she has something to say to you. She told me to find
you today.’
‘I’ll come tomorrow. Now I’m going home—are you
coming to my house?’
‘Why should I? I’ve given you the message.—
Goodbye!’
‘Won’t you come?’ asked the prince in a gentle voice.
‘What an extraordinary man you are! I wonder at you!’
Rogojin laughed sarcastically.
‘Why do you hate me so?’ asked the prince, sadly. ‘You
know yourself that all you suspected is quite unfounded. I
felt you were still angry with me, though. Do you know
why? Because you tried to kill me—that’s why you can’t
shake off your wrath against me. I tell you that I only
remember the Parfen Rogojin with whom I exchanged
crosses, and vowed brotherhood. I wrote you this in
yesterday’s letter, in order that you might forget all that
madness on your part, and that you might not feel called
to talk about it when we met. Why do you avoid me?
Why do you hold your hand back from me? I tell you The Idiot
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again, I consider all that has passed a delirium, an insane
dream. I can understand all you did, and all you felt that
day, as if it were myself. What you were then imagining
was not the case, and could never be the case. Why, then,
should there be anger between us?’
‘You don’t know what anger is!’ laughed Rogojin, in
reply to the prince’s heated words.
He had moved a pace or two away, and was hiding his
hands behind him.
‘No, it is impossible for me to come to your house
again,’ he added slowly.
‘Why? Do you hate me so much as all that?’
‘I don’t love you, Lef Nicolaievitch, and, therefore,
what would be the use of my coming to see you? You are
just like a child— you want a plaything, and it must be
taken out and given you—and then you don’t know how
to work it. You are simply repeating all you said in your
letter, and what’s the use? Of course I believe every word
you say, and I know perfectly well that you neither did or
ever can deceive me in any way, and yet, I don’t love you.
You write that you’ve forgotten everything, and only
remember your brother Parfen, with whom you
exchanged crosses, and that you don’t remember anything
about the Rogojin who aimed a knife at your throat. The Idiot
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What do you know about my feelings, eh?’ (Rogojin
laughed disagreeably.) ‘Here you are holding out your
brotherly forgiveness to me for a thing that I have perhaps
never repented of in the slightest degree. I did not think of
it again all that evening; all my thoughts were centred on
something else—‘
‘Not think of it again? Of course you didn’t!’ cried the
prince. ‘And I dare swear that you came straight away
down here to Pavlofsk to listen to the music and dog her
about in the crowd, and stare at her, just as you did today.
There’s nothing surprising in that! If you hadn’t been in
that condition of mind that you could think of nothing
but one subject, you would, probably, never have raised
your knife against me. I had a presentiment of what you
would do, that day, ever since I saw you first in the
morning. Do you know yourself what you looked like? I
knew you would try to murder me even at the very
moment when we exchanged crosses. What did you take
me to your mother for? Did you think to stay your hand
by doing so? Perhaps you did not put your thoughts into
words, but you and I were thinking the same thing, or
feeling the same thing looming over us, at the same
moment. What should you think of me now if you had
not raised your knife to me—the knife which God averted The Idiot
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from my throat? I would have been guilty of suspecting
you all the same—and you would have intended the
murder all the same; therefore we should have been
mutually guilty in any case. Come, don’t frown; you
needn’t laugh at me, either. You say you haven’t
‘repented.’ Repented! You probably couldn’t, if you were
to try; you dislike me too much for that. Why, if I were
an angel of light, and as innocent before you as a babe,
you would still loathe me if you believed that SHE loved
me, instead of loving yourself. That’s jealousy—that is the
real jealousy.
‘But do you know what I have been thinking out
during this last week, Parfen? I’ll tell you. What if she
loves you now better than anyone? And what if she
torments you BECAUSE she loves you, and in proportion
to her love for you, so she torments you the more? She
won’t tell you this, of course; you must have eyes to see.
Why do you suppose she consents to marry you? She must
have a reason, and that reason she will tell you some day.
Some women desire the kind of love you give her, and
she is probably one of these. Your love and your wild
nature impress her. Do you know that a woman is capable
of driving a man crazy almost, with her cruelties and
mockeries, and feels not one single pang of regret, because The Idiot
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she looks at him and says to herself, ‘There! I’ll torment
this man nearly into his grave, and then, oh! how I’ll
compensate him for it all with my love!’’
Rogojin listened to the end, and then burst out
laughing:
‘Why, prince, I declare you must have had a taste of
this sort of thing yourself—haven’t you? I have heard tell
of something of the kind, you know; is it true?’
