condition approaching insanity, as recorded before.
Colia did not understand the position. He tried severity
with his father, as they stood in the street after the latter
had cursed the household, hoping to bring him round that
way.
‘Well, where are we to go to now, father?’ he asked.
‘You don’t want to go to the prince’s; you have quarrelled
with Lebedeff; you have no money; I never have any; and
here we are in the middle of the road, in a nice sort of
mess.’
‘Better to be of a mess than in a mess! I remember
making a joke something like that at the mess in eighteen
hundred and forty— forty—I forget. ‘Where is my youth,
where is my golden youth?’ Who was it said that, Colia?’
‘It was Gogol, in Dead Souls, father,’ cried Colia,
glancing at him in some alarm.
‘‘Dead Souls,’ yes, of course, dead. When I die, Colia,
you must engrave on my tomb:
‘‘Here lies a Dead Soul, Shame pursues me.’
‘Who said that, Colia?’
‘I don’t know, father.’ The Idiot
931 of 1149
‘There was no Eropegoff? Eroshka Eropegoff?’ he
cried, suddenly, stopping in the road in a frenzy. ‘No
Eropegoff! And my own son to say it! Eropegoff was in
the place of a brother to me for eleven months. I fought a
duel for him. He was married afterwards, and then killed
on the field of battle. The bullet struck the cross on my
breast and glanced off straight into his temple. ‘I’ll never
forget you,’ he cried, and expired. I served my country
well and honestly, Colia, but shame, shame has pursued
me! You and Nina will come to my grave, Colia; poor
Nina, I always used to call her Nina in the old days, and
how she loved.... Nina, Nina, oh, Nina. What have I ever
done to deserve your forgiveness and long-suffering? Oh,
Colia, your mother has an angelic spirit, an angelic spirit,
Colia!’
‘I know that, father. Look here, dear old father, come
back home! Let’s go back to mother. Look, she ran after
us when we came out. What have you stopped her for,
just as though you didn’t take in what I said? Why are you
crying, father?’
Poor Colia cried himself, and kissed the old man’s
hands
‘You kiss my hands, MINE?’ The Idiot
932 of 1149
‘Yes, yes, yours, yours! What is there to surprise
anyone in that? Come, come, you mustn’t go on like this,
crying in the middle of the road; and you a general too, a
military man! Come, let’s go back.’
‘God bless you, dear boy, for being respectful to a
disgraced man. Yes, to a poor disgraced old fellow, your
father. You shall have such a son yourself; le roi de Rome.
Oh, curses on this house!’
‘Come, come, what does all this mean?’ cried Colia
beside himself at last. ‘What is it? What has happened to
you? Why don’t you wish to come back home? Why have
you gone out of your mind, like this?’
‘I’ll explain it, I’ll explain all to you. Don’t shout! You
shall hear. Le roi de Rome. Oh, I am sad, I am
melancholy!
‘‘Nurse, where is your tomb?’’
‘Who said that, Colia?’
‘I don’t know, I don’t know who said it. Come home
at once; come on! I’ll punch Gania’s head myself, if you
like—only come. Oh, where are you off to again?’ The
general was dragging him away towards the door a house
near. He sat down on the step, still holding Colia by the
hand. The Idiot
933 of 1149
‘Bend down—bend down your ear. I’ll tell you all—
disgrace—bend down, I’ll tell you in your ear.’
‘What are you dreaming of?’ said poor, frightened
Colia, stooping down towards the old man, all the same.
‘Le roi de Rome,’ whispered the general, trembling all
over.
‘What? What DO you mean? What roi de Rome?’
‘I-I,’ the general continued to whisper, clinging more
and more tightly to the boy’s shoulder. ‘I—wish—to tell
you—all—MariaMaria Petrovna—Su—Su—Su.......’
Colia broke loose, seized his father by the shoulders,
and stared into his eyes with frenzied gaze. The old man
had grown livid— his lips were shaking, convulsions were
passing over his features. Suddenly he leant over and began
to sink slowly into Colia’s arms.
‘He’s got a stroke!’ cried Colia, loudly, realizing what
was the matter at last. The Idiot
934 of 1149
V
IN point of fact, Varia had rather exaggerated the
certainty of her news as to the prince’s betrothal to Aglaya.
Very likely, with the perspicacity of her sex, she gave out
as an accomplished fact what she felt was pretty sure to
become a fact in a few days. Perhaps she could not resist
the satisfaction of pouring one last drop of bitterness into
her brother Gania’s cup, in spite of her love for him. At all
events, she had been unable to obtain any definite news
from the Epanchin girls—the most she could get out of
them being hints and surmises, and so on. Perhaps Aglaya’s
sisters had merely been pumping Varia for news while
pretending to impart information; or perhaps, again, they
had been unable to resist the feminine gratification of
teasing a friend—for, after all this time, they could scarcely
have helped divining the aim of her frequent visits.
On the other hand, the prince, although he had told
Lebedeff,—as we know, that nothing had happened, and
that he had nothing to impart,—the prince may have been
in error. Something strange seemed to have happened,
without anything definite having actually happened. Varia
had guessed that with her true feminine instinct. The Idiot
935 of 1149
How or why it came about that everyone at the
Epanchins’ became imbued with one conviction—that
something very important had happened to Aglaya, and
that her fate was in process of settlement—it would be
very difficult to explain. But no sooner had this idea taken
root, than all at once declared that they had seen and
observed it long ago; that they had remarked it at the time
of the ‘poor knight’ joke, and even before, though they
had been unwilling to believe in such nonsense.
So said the sisters. Of course, Lizabetha Prokofievna
had foreseen it long before the rest; her ‘heart had been
sore’ for a long while, she declared, and it was now so sore
that she appeared to be quite overwhelmed, and the very
thought of the prince became distasteful to her.
There was a question to be decided—most important,
but most difficult; so much so, that Mrs. Epanchin did not
even see how to put it into words. Would the prince do
or not? Was all this good or bad? If good (which might be
the case, of course), WHY good? If bad (which was hardly
doubtful), WHEREIN, especially, bad? Even the general,
the paterfamilias, though astonished at first, suddenly
declared that, ‘upon his honour, he really believed he had
fancied something of the kind, after all. At first, it seemed
a new idea, and then, somehow, it looked as familiar as The Idiot
936 of 1149
possible.’ His wife frowned him down there. This was in
the morning; but in the evening, alone with his wife, he
had given tongue again.
‘Well, really, you know’—(silence)—‘of course, you
know all this is very strange, if true, which I cannot deny;
but’— (silence).—’ But, on the other hand, if one looks
things in the face, you know—upon my honour, the
prince is a rare good fellow— and—and—and—well, his
name, you know—your family name—all this looks well,
and perpetuates the name and title and all that— which at
this moment is not standing so high as it might—from one
point of view—don’t you know? The world, the world is
the world, of course—and people will talk—and—and—
the prince has property, you know—if it is not very
large—and then he—he—’ (Continued silence, and
collapse of the general.)
Hearing these words from her husband, Lizabetha
Prokofievna was driven beside herself.
According to her opinion, the whole thing had been
one huge, fantastical, absurd, unpardonable mistake. ‘First
of all, this prince is an idiot, and, secondly, he is a fool—
knows nothing of the world, and has no place in it.
Whom can he be shown to? Where can you take him to? The Idiot
937 of 1149
What will old Bielokonski say? We never thought of such
a husband as THAT for our Aglaya!’
Of course, the last argument was the chief one. The
maternal heart trembled with indignation to think of such
an absurdity, although in that heart there rose another
voice, which said: ‘And WHY is not the prince such a
husband as you would have desired for Aglaya?’ It was this
voice which annoyed Lizabetha Prokofievna more than
anything else.
For some reason or other, the sisters liked the idea of
the prince. They did not even consider it very strange; in a
word, they might be expected at any moment to range
themselves strongly on his side. But both of them decided
to say nothing either way. It had always been noticed in
the family that the stronger Mrs. Epanchin’s opposition
was to any project, the nearer she was, in reality, to giving
in.
Alexandra, however, found it difficult to keep absolute
silence on the subject. Long since holding, as she did, the
post of ‘confidential adviser to mamma,’ she was now
perpetually called in council, and asked her opinion, and
especially her assistance, in order to recollect ‘how on
earth all this happened?’ Why did no one see it? Why did
no one say anything about it? What did all that wretched The Idiot
938 of 1149
‘poor knight’ joke mean? Why was she, Lizabetha
Prokofievna, driven to think, and foresee, and worry for
everybody, while they all sucked their thumbs, and
counted the crows in the garden, and did nothing? At first,
Alexandra had been very careful, and had merely replied
that perhaps her father’s remark was not so far out: that, in
the eyes of the world, probably the choice of the prince as
a husband for one of the Epanchin girls would be
considered a very wise one. Warming up, however, she
added that the prince was by no means a fool, and never
had been; and that as to ‘place in the world,’ no one knew
what the position of a respectable person in Russia would
imply in a few years—whether it would depend on
successes in the government service, on the old system, or
what.
To all this her mother replied that Alexandra was a
freethinker, and that all this was due to that ‘cursed
woman’s rights question.’
Half an hour after this conversation, she went off to
town, and thence to the Kammenny Ostrof, ["Stone
Island,’ a suburb and park of St. Petersburg] to see Princess
Bielokonski, who had just arrived from Moscow on a
short visit. The princess was Aglaya’s godmother. The Idiot
939 of 1149
‘Old Bielokonski"listened to all the fevered and
despairing lamentations of Lizabetha Prokofievna without
the least emotion; the tears of this sorrowful mother did
not evoke answering sighs— in fact, she laughed at her.
She was a dreadful old despot, this princess; she could not
allow equality in anything, not even in friendship of the
oldest standing, and she insisted on treating Mrs. Epanchin
as her protegee, as she had been thirty-five years ago. She
could never put up with the independence and energy of
Lizabetha’s character. She observed that, as usual, the
whole family had gone much too far ahead, and had
converted a fly into an elephant; that, so far as she had
heard their story, she was persuaded that nothing of any
seriousness had occurred; that it would surely be better to
wait until something DID happen; that the prince, in her
opinion, was a very decent young fellow, though perhaps
a little eccentric, through illness, and not quite as weighty
in the world as one could wish. The worst feature was, she
said, Nastasia Philipovna.
Lizabetha Prokofievna well understood that the old
lady was angry at the failure of Evgenie Pavlovitch—her
own recommendation. She returned home to Pavlofsk in a
worse humour than when she left, and of course
everybody in the house suffered. She pitched into The Idiot
940 of 1149
everyone, because, she declared, they had ‘gone mad.’
Why were things always mismanaged in her house? Why
had everybody been in such a frantic hurry in this matter?
So far as she could see, nothing whatever had happened.
Surely they had better wait and see what was to happen,
instead of making mountains out of molehills.
And so the conclusion of the matter was that it would
be far better to take it quietly, and wait coolly to see what
would turn up. But, alas! peace did not reign for more
than ten minutes. The first blow dealt to its power was in
certain news communicated to Lizabetha Prokofievna as to
events which bad happened during her trip to see the
princess. (This trip had taken place the day after that on
which the prince had turned up at the Epanchins at nearly
one o’clock at night, thinking it was nine.)
The sisters replied candidly and fully enough to their
mother’s impatient questions on her return. They said, in
the first place, that nothing particular had happened since
her departure; that the prince had been, and that Aglaya
had kept him waiting a long while before she appeared—
half an hour, at least; that she had then come in, and
immediately asked the prince to have a game of chess; that
the prince did not know the game, and Aglaya had beaten
him easily; that she had been in a wonderfully merry The Idiot
941 of 1149
mood, and had laughed at the prince, and chaffed him so
unmercifully that one was quite sorry to see his wretched
expression.
She had then asked him to play cards—the game called
‘little fools.’ At this game the tables were turned
completely, for the prince had shown himself a master at
it. Aglaya had cheated and changed cards, and stolen
others, in the most bare-faced way, but, in spite of
everything the prince had beaten her hopelessly five times
running, and she had been left ‘little fool’ each time.
Aglaya then lost her temper, and began to say such
