I’m master here!’
‘Listen, Mr. Terentieff,’ said Ptitsin, who had bidden
the prince good-night, and was now holding out his hand
to Hippolyte; ‘I think you remark in that manuscript of
yours, that you bequeath your skeleton to the Academy.
Are you referring to your own skeleton—I mean, your
very bones?’
‘Yes, my bones, I—‘
‘Quite so, I see; because, you know, little mistakes have
occurred now and then. There was a case—‘
Why do you tease him?’ cried the prince, suddenly.
‘You’ve moved him to tears,’ added Ferdishenko. But
Hippolyte was by no means weeping. He was about to
move from his place, when his four guards rushed at him
and seized him once more. There was a laugh at this.
‘He led up to this on purpose. He took the trouble of
writing all that so that people should come and grab him The Idiot
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by the arm,’ observed Rogojin. ‘Good-night, prince.
What a time we’ve sat here, my very bones ache!’
‘If you really intended to shoot yourself, Terentieff,’
said Evgenie Pavlovitch, laughing, ‘if I were you, after all
these compliments, I should just not shoot myself in order
to vex them all.’
‘They are very anxious to see me blow my brains out,’
said Hippolyte, bitterly.
‘Yes, they’ll be awfully annoyed if they don’t see it.’
‘Then you think they won’t see it?’
‘I am not trying to egg you on. On the contrary, I
think it very likely that you may shoot yourself; but the
principal thing is to keep cool,’ said Evgenie with a drawl,
and with great condescension.
‘I only now perceive what a terrible mistake I made in
reading this article to them,’ said Hippolyte, suddenly,
addressing Evgenie, and looking at him with an expression
of trust and confidence, as though he were applying to a
friend for counsel.
‘Yes, it’s a droll situation; I really don’t know what
advice to give you,’ replied Evgenie, laughing. Hippolyte
gazed steadfastly at him, but said nothing. To look at him
one might have supposed that he was unconscious at
intervals. The Idiot
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‘Excuse me,’ said Lebedeff, ‘but did you observe the
young gentleman’s style? ‘I’ll go and blow my brains out
in the park,’ says he,’ so as not to disturb anyone.’ He
thinks he won’t disturb anybody if he goes three yards
away, into the park, and blows his brains out there.’
‘Gentlemen—’ began the prince.
‘No, no, excuse me, most revered prince,’ Lebedeff
interrupted, excitedly. ‘Since you must have observed
yourself that this is no joke, and since at least half your
guests must also have concluded that after all that has been
said this youth MUST blow his brains out for honour’s
sake—I—as master of this house, and before these
witnesses, now call upon you to take steps.’
‘Yes, but what am I to do, Lebedeff? What steps am I
to take? I am ready.’
‘I’ll tell you. In the first place he must immediately
deliver up the pistol which he boasted of, with all its
appurtenances. If he does this I shall consent to his being
allowed to spend the night in this house—considering his
feeble state of health, and of course conditionally upon his
being under proper supervision. But tomorrow he must
go elsewhere. Excuse me, prince! Should he refuse to
deliver up his weapon, then I shall instantly seize one of
his arms and General Ivolgin the other, and we shall hold The Idiot
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him until the police arrive and take the matter into their
own hands. Mr. Ferdishenko will kindly fetch them.’
At this there was a dreadful noise; Lebedeff danced
about in his excitement; Ferdishenko prepared to go for
the police; Gania frantically insisted that it was all
nonsense, ‘for nobody was going to shoot themselves.’
Evgenie Pavlovitch said nothing.
‘Prince,’ whispered Hippolyte, suddenly, his eyes all
ablaze, ‘you don’t suppose that I did not foresee all this
hatred?’ He looked at the prince as though he expected
him to reply, for a moment. ‘Enough!’ he added at length,
and addressing the whole company, he cried: ‘It’s all my
fault, gentlemen! Lebedeff, here’s the key,’ (he took out a
small bunch of keys); ‘this one, the last but one—Colia
will show you—Colia, where’s Colia?’ he cried, looking
straight at Colia and not seeing him. ‘Yes, he’ll show you;
he packed the bag with me this morning. Take him up,
Colia; my bag is upstairs in the prince’s study, under the
table. Here’s the key, and in the little case you’ll find my
pistol and the powder, and all. Colia packed it himself,
Mr. Lebedeff; he’ll show you; but it’s on condition that
tomorrow morning, when I leave for Petersburg, you will
give me back my pistol, do you hear? I do this for the
prince’s sake, not yours.’ The Idiot
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‘Capital, that’s much better!’ cried Lebedeff, and seizing
the key he made off in haste.
Colia stopped a moment as though he wished to say
something; but Lebedeff dragged him away.
Hippolyte looked around at the laughing guests. The
prince observed that his teeth were chattering as though in
a violent attack of ague.
‘What brutes they all are!’ he whispered to the prince.
Whenever he addressed him he lowered his voice.
‘Let them alone, you’re too weak now—‘
Yes, directly; I’ll go away directly. I’ll—‘
Suddenly he embraced Muishkin.
‘Perhaps you think I am mad, eh?’ he asked him,
laughing very strangely.
‘No, but you—‘
‘Directly, directly! Stand still a moment, I wish to look
in your eyes; don’t speak—stand so—let me look at you! I
am bidding farewell to mankind.’
He stood so for ten seconds, gazing at the prince,
motionless, deadly pale, his temples wet with perspiration;
he held the prince’s hand in a strange grip, as though afraid
to let him go.
‘Hippolyte, Hippolyte, what is the matter with you?’
cried Muishkin. The Idiot
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‘Directly! There, that’s enough. I’ll lie down directly. I
must drink to the sun’s health. I wish to—I insist upon it!
Let go!’
He seized a glass from the table, broke away from the
prince, and in a moment had reached the terrace steps.
The prince made after him, but it so happened that at
this moment Evgenie Pavlovitch stretched out his hand to
say good-night. The next instant there was a general
outcry, and then followed a few moments of indescribable
excitement.
Reaching the steps, Hippolyte had paused, holding the
glass in his left hand while he put his right hand into his
coat pocket.
Keller insisted afterwards that he had held his right
hand in his pocket all the while, when he was speaking to
the prince, and that he had held the latter’s shoulder with
his left hand only. This circumstance, Keller affirmed, had
led him to feel some suspicion from the first. However this
may be, Keller ran after Hippolyte, but he was too late.
He caught sight of something flashing in Hippolyte’s
right hand, and saw that it was a pistol. He rushed at him,
but at that very instant Hippolyte raised the pistol to his
temple and pulled the trigger. There followed a sharp
metallic click, but no report. The Idiot
774 of 1149
When Keller seized the would-be suicide, the latter fell
forward into his arms, probably actually believing that he
was shot. Keller had hold of the pistol now. Hippolyte was
immediately placed in a chair, while the whole company
thronged around excitedly, talking and asking each other
questions. Every one of them had heard the snap of the
trigger, and yet they saw a live and apparently unharmed
man before them.
Hippolyte himself sat quite unconscious of what was
going on, and gazed around with a senseless expression.
Lebedeff and Colia came rushing up at this moment.
‘What is it?’ someone asked, breathlessly—‘A misfire?’
‘Perhaps it wasn’t loaded,’ said several voices.
‘It’s loaded all right,’ said Keller, examining the pistol,
‘but—‘
‘What! did it miss fire?’
‘There was no cap in it,’ Keller announced.
It would be difficult to describe the pitiable scene that
now followed. The first sensation of alarm soon gave place
to amusement; some burst out laughing loud and heartily,
and seemed to find a malicious satisfaction in the joke.
Poor Hippolyte sobbed hysterically; he wrung his hands;
he approached everyone in turn—even Ferdishenko—and
took them by both hands, and swore solemnly that he had The Idiot
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forgotten—absolutely forgotten— ‘accidentally, and not
on purpose,’—to put a cap in—that he ‘had ten of them,
at least, in his pocket.’ He pulled them out and showed
them to everyone; he protested that he had not liked to
put one in beforehand for fear of an accidental explosion
in his pocket. That he had thought he would have lots of
time to put it in afterwards—when required—and, that, in
the heat of the moment, he had forgotten all about it. He
threw himself upon the prince, then on Evgenie
Pavlovitch. He entreated Keller to give him back the
pistol, and he’d soon show them all that ‘his honour—his
honour,’—but he was ‘dishonoured, now, for ever!’
He fell senseless at last—and was carried into the
prince’s study.
Lebedeff, now quite sobered down, sent for a doctor;
and he and his daughter, with Burdovsky and General
Ivolgin, remained by the sick man’s couch.
When he was carried away unconscious, Keller stood in
the middle of the room, and made the following
declaration to the company in general, in a loud tone of
voice, with emphasis upon each word.
‘Gentlemen, if any one of you casts any doubt again,
before me, upon Hippolyte’s good faith, or hints that the
cap was forgotten intentionally, or suggests that this The Idiot
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unhappy boy was acting a part before us, I beg to
announce that the person so speaking shall account to me
for his words.’
No one replied.
The company departed very quickly, in a mass. Ptitsin,
Gania, and Rogojin went away together.
The prince was much astonished that Evgenie
Pavlovitch changed his mind, and took his departure
without the conversation he had requested.
‘Why, you wished to have a talk with me when the
others left?’ he said.
‘Quite so,’ said Evgenie, sitting down suddenly beside
him, ‘but I have changed my mind for the time being. I
confess, I am too disturbed, and so, I think, are you; and
the matter as to which I wished to consult you is too
serious to tackle with one’s mind even a little disturbed;
too serious both for myself and for you. You see, prince,
for once in my life I wish to perform an absolutely honest
action, that is, an action with no ulterior motive; and I
think I am hardly in a condition to talk of it just at this
moment, and—and—well, we’ll discuss it another time.
Perhaps the matter may gain in clearness if we wait for
two or three days—just the two or three days which I
must spend in Petersburg.’ The Idiot
777 of 1149
Here he rose again from his chair, so that it seemed
strange that he should have thought it worth while to sit
down at all.
The prince thought, too, that he looked vexed and
annoyed, and not nearly so friendly towards himself as he
had been earlier in the night.
‘I suppose you will go to the sufferer’s bedside now?’
he added.
‘Yes, I am afraid...’ began the prince.
‘Oh, you needn’t fear! He’ll live another six weeks all
right. Very likely he will recover altogether; but I strongly
advise you to pack him off tomorrow.’
‘I think I may have offended him by saying nothing just
now. I am afraid he may suspect that I doubted his good
faith,—about shooting himself, you know. What do you
think, Evgenie Pavlovitch?’
‘Not a bit of it! You are much too good to him; you
shouldn’t care a hang about what he thinks. I have heard
of such things before, but never came across, till tonight, a
man who would actually shoot himself in order to gain a
vulgar notoriety, or blow out his brains for spite, if he
finds that people don’t care to pat him on the back for his
sanguinary intentions. But what astonishes me more than The Idiot
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anything is the fellow’s candid confession of weakness.
You’d better get rid of him tomorrow, in any case.
‘Do you think he will make another attempt?’
‘Oh no, not he, not now! But you have to be very
careful with this sort of gentleman. Crime is too often the
last resource of these petty nonentities. This young fellow
is quite capable of cutting the throats of ten people, simply
for a lark, as he told us in his ‘explanation.’ I assure you
those confounded words of his will not let me sleep.’
‘I think you disturb yourself too much.’
‘What an extraordinary person you are, prince! Do you
mean to say that you doubt the fact that he is capable of
murdering ten men?’
‘I daren’t say, one way or the other; all this is very
strange— but—‘
‘Well, as you like, just as you like,’ said Evgenie
Pavlovitch, irritably. ‘Only you are such a plucky fellow,
take care you don’t get included among the ten victims!’
‘Oh, he is much more likely not to kill anyone at all,’
said the prince, gazing thoughtfully at Evgenie. The latter
laughed disagreeably.
‘Well, au revoir! Did you observe that he ‘willed’ a
copy of his confession to Aglaya Ivanovna?’
‘Yes, I did; I am thinking of it.’ The Idiot
779 of 1149
‘In connection with ‘the ten,’ eh?’ laughed Evgenie, as
he left the room.
An hour later, towards four o’clock, the prince went
into the park. He had endeavoured to fall asleep, but
could not, owing to the painful beating of his heart.
He had left things quiet and peaceful; the invalid was
fast asleep, and the doctor, who had been called in, had
stated that there was no special danger. Lebedeff, Colia,
and Burdovsky were lying down in the sick-room, ready
to take it in turns to watch. There was nothing to fear,
therefore, at home.
