blackguard? No, no, Varia—that won’t do! It won’t do, I
tell you! And look at the swagger of the man! He’s all to
blame himself, and yet he puts on so much ‘side’ that
you’d think—my word!—’It’s too much trouble to go
through the gate, you must break the fence for me!’ That’s
the sort of air he puts on; but what’s the matter with you,
Varia? What a curious expression you have!’
‘I’m all right,’ said Varia, in a tone that sounded as
though she were all wrong.
Gania looked more intently at her.
‘You’ve been THERE?’ he asked, suddenly.
‘Yes.’
‘Did you find out anything?’
‘Nothing unexpected. I discovered that it’s all true. My
husband was wiser than either of us. Just as he suspected
from the beginning, so it has fallen out. Where is he?’ The Idiot
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‘Out. Well—what has happened?—go on.’
‘The prince is formally engaged to her—that’s settled.
The elder sisters told me about it. Aglaya has agreed. They
don’t attempt to conceal it any longer; you know how
mysterious and secret they have all been up to now.
Adelaida’s wedding is put off again, so that both can be
married on one day. Isn’t that delightfully romantic?
Somebody ought to write a poem on it. Sit down and
write an ode instead of tearing up and down like that. This
evening Princess Bielokonski is to arrive; she comes just in
time—they have a party tonight. He is to be presented to
old Bielokonski, though I believe he knows her already;
probably the engagement will be openly announced. They
are only afraid that he may knock something down, or trip
over something when he comes into the room. It would
be just like him.’
Gania listened attentively, but to his sister’s
astonishment he was by no means so impressed by this
news (which should, she thought, have been so important
to him) as she had expected.
‘Well, it was clear enough all along,’ he said, after a
moment’s reflection. ‘So that’s the end,’ he added, with a
disagreeable smile, continuing to walk up and down the The Idiot
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room, but much slower than before, and glancing slyly
into his sister’s face.
‘It’s a good thing that you take it philosophically, at all
events,’ said Varia. ‘I’m really very glad of it.’
‘Yes, it’s off our hands—off YOURS, I should say.’
‘I think I have served you faithfully. I never even asked
you what happiness you expected to find with Aglaya.’
‘Did I ever expect to find happiness with Aglaya?’
‘Come, come, don’t overdo your philosophy. Of
course you did. Now it’s all over, and a good thing, too;
pair of fools that we have been! I confess I have never
been able to look at it seriously. I busied myself in it for
your sake, thinking that there was no knowing what
might happen with a funny girl like that to deal with.
There were ninety to one chances against it. To this
moment I can’t make out why you wished for it.’
‘H’m! now, I suppose, you and your husband will
never weary of egging me on to work again. You’ll begin
your lectures about perseverance and strength of will, and
all that. I know it all by heart,’ said Gania, laughing.
‘He’s got some new idea in his head,’ thought Varia.
‘Are they pleased over there—the parents?’ asked Gania,
suddenly. The Idiot
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‘N—no, I don’t think they are. You can judge for
yourself. I think the general is pleased enough; her mother
is a little uneasy. She always loathed the idea of the prince
as a HUSBAND; everybody knows that.’
‘Of course, naturally. The bridegroom is an impossible
and ridiculous one. I mean, has SHE given her formal
consent?’
‘She has not said ‘no,’ up to now, and that’s all. It was
sure to be so with her. You know what she is like. You
know how absurdly shy she is. You remember how she
used to hide in a cupboard as a child, so as to avoid seeing
visitors, for hours at a time. She is just the same now; but,
do you know, I think there is something serious in the
matter, even from her side; I feel it, somehow. She laughs
at the prince, they say, from morn to night in order to
hide her real feelings; but you may be sure she finds
occasion to say something or other to him on the sly, for
he himself is in a state of radiant happiness. He walks in
the clouds; they say he is extremely funny just now; I
heard it from themselves. They seemed to be laughing at
me in their sleeves— those elder girls—I don’t know
why.’ The Idiot
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Gania had begun to frown, and probably Varia added
this last sentence in order to probe his thought. However,
at this moment, the noise began again upstairs.
‘I’ll turn him out!’ shouted Gania, glad of the
opportunity of venting his vexation. ‘I shall just turn him
out—we can’t have this.’
‘Yes, and then he’ll go about the place and disgrace us
as he did yesterday.’
‘How ‘as he did yesterday’? What do you mean? What
did he do yesterday?’ asked Gania, in alarm.
‘Why, goodness me, don’t you know?’ Varia stopped
short.
‘What? You don’t mean to say that he went there
yesterday!’ cried Gania, flushing red with shame and anger.
‘Good heavens, Varia! Speak! You have just been there.
WAS he there or not, QUICK?’ And Gania rushed for the
door. Varia followed and caught him by both hands.
‘What are you doing? Where are you going to? You
can’t let him go now; if you do he’ll go and do something
worse.’
‘What did he do there? What did he say?’ ‘They
couldn’t tell me themselves; they couldn’t make head or
tail of it; but he frightened them all. He came to see the
general, who was not at home; so he asked for Lizabetha The Idiot
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Prokofievna. First of all, he begged her for some place, or
situation, for work of some kind, and then he began to
complain about US, about me and my husband, and you,
especially YOU; he said a lot of things.’
‘Oh! couldn’t you find out?’ muttered Gania, trembling
hysterically.
‘No—nothing more than that. Why, they couldn’t
understand him themselves; and very likely didn’t tell me
all.’
Gania seized his head with both hands and tottered to
the window; Varia sat down at the other window.
‘Funny girl, Aglaya,’ she observed, after a pause. ‘When
she left me she said, ‘Give my special and personal respects
to your parents; I shall certainly find an opportunity to see
your father one day,’ and so serious over it. She’s a strange
creature.’
‘Wasn’t she joking? She was speaking sarcastically!’
‘Not a bit of it; that’s just the strange part of it.’
‘Does she know about father, do you think—or not?’
‘That they do NOT know about it in the house is
quite certain, the rest of them, I mean; but you have given
me an idea. Aglaya perhaps knows. She alone, though, if
anyone; for the sisters were as astonished as I was to hear The Idiot
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her speak so seriously. If she knows, the prince must have
told her.’
‘Oh! it’s not a great matter to guess who told her. A
thief! A thief in our family, and the head of the family,
too!’
‘Oh! nonsense!’ cried Varia, angrily. ‘That was nothing
but a drunkard’s tale. Nonsense! Why, who invented the
whole thing— Lebedeff and the prince—a pretty pair!
Both were probably drunk.’
‘Father is a drunkard and a thief; I am a beggar, and the
husband of my sister is a usurer,’ continued Gania, bitterly.
‘There was a pretty list of advantages with which to
enchant the heart of Aglaya.’
‘That same husband of your sister, the usurer—‘
‘Feeds me? Go on. Don’t stand on ceremony, pray.’
‘Don’t lose your temper. You are just like a schoolboy.
You think that all this sort of thing would harm you in
Aglaya’s eyes, do you? You little know her character. She
is capable of refusing the most brilliant party, and running
away and starving in a garret with some wretched student;
that’s the sort of girl she is. You never could or did
understand how interesting you would have seen in her
eyes if you had come firmly and proudly through our
misfortunes. The prince has simply caught her with hook The Idiot
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and line; firstly, because he never thought of fishing for
her, and secondly, because he is an idiot in the eyes of
most people. It’s quite enough for her that by accepting
him she puts her family out and annoys them all round—
that’s what she likes. You don’t understand these things.’
‘We shall see whether I understand or no!’ said Gania,
enigmatically. ‘But I shouldn’t like her to know all about
father, all the same. I thought the prince would manage to
hold his tongue about this, at least. He prevented Lebedeff
spreading the news—he wouldn’t even tell me all when I
asked him—‘
‘Then you must see that he is not responsible. What
does it matter to you now, in any case? What are you
hoping for still? If you HAVE a hope left, it is that your
suffering air may soften her heart towards you.’
‘Oh, she would funk a scandal like anyone else. You
are all tarred with one brush!’
‘What! AGLAYA would have funked? You are a
chicken-hearted fellow, Gania!’ said Varia, looking at her
brother with contempt. ‘Not one of us is worth much.
Aglaya may be a wild sort of a girl, but she is far nobler
than any of us, a thousand times nobler!’
‘Well—come! there’s nothing to get cross about,’ said
Gania. The Idiot
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‘All I’m afraid of is—mother. I’m afraid this scandal
about father may come to her ears; perhaps it has already. I
am dreadfully afraid.’
‘It undoubtedly has already!’ observed Gania.
Varia had risen from her place and had started to go
upstairs to her mother; but at this observation of Gania’s
she turned and gazed at him attentively.
‘Who could have told her?’
‘Hippolyte, probably. He would think it the most
delightful amusement in the world to tell her of it the
instant he moved over here; I haven’t a doubt of it.’
‘But how could he know anything of it? Tell me that.
Lebedeff and the prince determined to tell no one—even
Colia knows nothing.’
‘What, Hippolyte? He found it out himself, of course.
Why, you have no idea what a cunning little animal he is;
dirty little gossip! He has the most extraordinary nose for
smelling out other people’s secrets, or anything
approaching to scandal. Believe it or not, but I’m pretty
sure he has got round Aglaya. If he hasn’t, he soon will.
Rogojin is intimate with him, too. How the prince
doesn’t notice it, I can’t understand. The little wretch
considers me his enemy now and does his best to catch me
tripping. What on earth does it matter to him, when he’s The Idiot
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dying? However, you’ll see; I shall catch HIM tripping
yet, and not he me.’
‘Why did you get him over here, if you hate him so?
And is it really worth your while to try to score off him?’
‘Why, it was yourself who advised me to bring him
over!’
‘I thought he might be useful. You know he is in love
with Aglaya himself, now, and has written to her; he has
even written to Lizabetha Prokofievna!’
‘Oh! he’s not dangerous there!’ cried Gania, laughing
angrily. ‘However, I believe there is something of that sort
in the air; he is very likely to be in love, for he is a mere
boy. But he won’t write anonymous letters to the old
lady; that would be too audacious a thing for him to
attempt; but I dare swear the very first thing he did was to
show me up to Aglaya as a base deceiver and intriguer. I
confess I was fool enough to attempt something through
him at first. I thought he would throw himself into my
service out of revengeful feelings towards the prince, the
sly little beast! But I know him better now. As for the
theft, he may have heard of it from the widow in
Petersburg, for if the old man committed himself to such
an act, he can have done it for no other object but to give
the money to her. Hippolyte said to me, without any The Idiot
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prelude, that the general had promised the widow four
hundred roubles. Of course I understood, and the little
wretch looked at me with a nasty sort of satisfaction. I
know him; you may depend upon it he went and told
mother too, for the pleasure of wounding her. And why
doesn’t he die, I should like to know? He undertook to
die within three weeks, and here he is getting fatter. His
cough is better, too. It was only yesterday that he said that
was the second day he hadn’t coughed blood.’
‘Well, turn him out!’
‘I don’t HATE, I despise him,’ said Gania, grandly.
‘Well, I do hate him, if you like!’ he added, with a sudden
access of rage, ‘and I’ll tell him so to his face, even when
he’s dying! If you had but read his confession—good Lord!
what refinement of impudence! Oh, but I’d have liked to
whip him then and there, like a schoolboy, just to see how
surprised he would have been! Now he hates everybody
because he—Oh, I say, what on earth are they doing
there! Listen to that noise! I really can’t stand this any
longer. Ptitsin!’ he cried, as the latter entered the room,
‘what in the name of goodness are we coming to? Listen
to that—‘
But the noise came rapidly nearer, the door burst open,
and old General Ivolgin, raging, furious, purple-faced, and The Idiot
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trembling with anger, rushed in. He was followed by Nina
Alexandrovna, Colia, and behind the rest, Hippolyte. The Idiot
873 of 1149
II
HIPPOLYTE had now been five days at the Ptitsins’.
His flitting from the prince’s to these new quarters had
been brought about quite naturally and without many
words. He did not quarrel with the prince—in fact, they
seemed to part as friends. Gania, who had been hostile
enough on that eventful evening, had himself come to see
him a couple of days later, probably in obedience to some
sudden impulse. For some reason or other, Rogojin too
had begun to visit the sick boy. The prince thought it
