moment. When he did begin to speak, it was accidentally,
in response to a question, and apparently without any
special object. The Idiot
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VII
WHILE he feasted his eyes upon Aglaya, as she talked
merrily with Evgenie and Prince N., suddenly the old
anglomaniac, who was talking to the dignitary in another
corner of the room, apparently telling him a story about
something or other—suddenly this gentleman pronounced
the name of ‘Nicolai Andreevitch Pavlicheff’ aloud. The
prince quickly turned towards him, and listened.
The conversation had been on the subject of land, and
the present disorders, and there must have been something
amusing said, for the old man had begun to laugh at his
companion’s heated expressions.
The latter was describing in eloquent words how, in
consequence of recent legislation, he was obliged to sell a
beautiful estate in the N. province, not because he wanted
ready money—in fact, he was obliged to sell it at half its
value. ‘To avoid another lawsuit about the Pavlicheff
estate, I ran away,’ he said. ‘With a few more inheritances
of that kind I should soon be ruined!’
At this point General Epanchin, noticing how
interested Muishkin had become in the conversation, said
to him, in a low tone: The Idiot
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‘That gentleman—Ivan Petrovitch—is a relation of
your late friend, Mr. Pavlicheff. You wanted to find some
of his relations, did you not?’
The general, who had been talking to his chief up to
this moment, had observed the prince’s solitude and
silence, and was anxious to draw him into the
conversation, and so introduce him again to the notice of
some of the important personages.
‘Lef Nicolaievitch was a ward of Nicolai Andreevitch
Pavlicheff, after the death of his own parents,’ he
remarked, meeting Ivan Petrovitch’s eye.
‘Very happy to meet him, I’m sure,’ remarked the
latter. ‘I remember Lef Nicolaievitch well. When General
Epanchin introduced us just now, I recognized you at
once, prince. You are very little changed, though I saw
you last as a child of some ten or eleven years old. There
was something in your features, I suppose, that—‘
‘You saw me as a child!’ exclaimed the prince, with
surprise.
‘Oh! yes, long ago,’ continued Ivan Petrovitch, ‘while
you were living with my cousin at Zlatoverhoff. You
don’t remember me? No, I dare say you don’t; you had
some malady at the time, I remember. It was so serious
that I was surprised—‘ The Idiot
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‘No; I remember nothing!’ said the prince. A few more
words of explanation followed, words which were spoken
without the smallest excitement by his companion, but
which evoked the greatest agitation in the prince; and it
was discovered that two old ladies to whose care the
prince had been left by Pavlicheff, and who lived at
Zlatoverhoff, were also relations of Ivan Petrovitch.
The latter had no idea and could give no information as
to why Pavlicheff had taken so great an interest in the little
prince, his ward.
‘In point of fact I don’t think I thought much about it,’
said the old fellow. He seemed to have a wonderfully
good memory, however, for he told the prince all about
the two old ladies, Pavlicheff’s cousins, who had taken
care of him, and whom, he declared, he had taken to task
for being too severe with the prince as a small sickly
boy—the elder sister, at least; the younger had been kind,
he recollected. They both now lived in another province,
on a small estate left to them by Pavlicheff. The prince
listened to all this with eyes sparkling with emotion and
delight.
He declared with unusual warmth that he would never
forgive himself for having travelled about in the central The Idiot
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provinces during these last six months without having
hunted up his two old friends.
He declared, further, that he had intended to go every
day, but had always been prevented by circumstances; but
that now he would promise himself the pleasure—
however far it was, he would find them out. And so Ivan
Petrovitch REALLY knew Natalia Nikitishna!what a
saintly nature was hers!—and Martha Nikitishna! Ivan
Petrovitch must excuse him, but really he was not quite
fair on dear old Martha. She was severe, perhaps; but then
what else could she be with such a little idiot as he was
then? (Ha, ha.) He really was an idiot then, Ivan
Petrovitch must know, though he might not believe it.
(Ha, ha.) So he had really seen him there! Good heavens!
And was he really and truly and actually a cousin of
Pavlicheff’s?
‘I assure you of it,’ laughed Ivan Petrovitch, gazing
amusedly at the prince.
‘Oh! I didn’t say it because I DOUBT the fact, you
know. (Ha, ha.) How could I doubt such a thing? (Ha, ha,
ha.) I made the remark because—because Nicolai
Andreevitch Pavlicheff was such a splendid man, don’t
you see! Such a high-souled man, he really was, I assure
you.’ The Idiot
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The prince did not exactly pant for breath, but he
‘seemed almost to CHOKE out of pure simplicity and
goodness of heart,’ as Adelaida expressed it, on talking the
party over with her fiance, the Prince S., next morning.
‘But, my goodness me,’ laughed Ivan Petrovitch, ‘why
can’t I be cousin to even a splendid man?’
‘Oh, dear!’ cried the prince, confused, trying to hurry
his words out, and growing more and more eager every
moment: ‘I’ve gone and said another stupid thing. I don’t
know what to say. I—I didn’t mean that, you know—I—
I—he really was such a splendid man, wasn’t he?’
The prince trembled all over. Why was he so agitated?
Why had he flown into such transports of delight without
any apparent reason? He had far outshot the measure of
joy and emotion consistent with the occasion. Why this
was it would be difficult to say.
He seemed to feel warmly and deeply grateful to
someone for something or other—perhaps to Ivan
Petrovitch; but likely enough to all the guests,
individually, and collectively. He was much too happy.
Ivan Petrovitch began to stare at him with some
surprise; the dignitary, too, looked at him with
considerable attention; Princess Bielokonski glared at him
angrily, and compressed her lips. Prince N., Evgenie, The Idiot
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Prince S., and the girls, all broke off their own
conversations and listened. Aglaya seemed a little startled;
as for Lizabetha Prokofievna, her heart sank within her.
This was odd of Lizabetha Prokofievna and her
daughters. They had themselves decided that it would be
better if the prince did not talk all the evening. Yet seeing
him sitting silent and alone, but perfectly happy, they had
been on the point of exerting themselves to draw him into
one of the groups of talkers around the room. Now that
he was in the midst of a talk they became more than ever
anxious and perturbed.
‘That he was a splendid man is perfectly true; you are
quite right,’ repeated Ivan Petrovitch, but seriously this
time. ‘He was a fine and a worthy fellow—worthy, one
may say, of the highest respect,’ he added, more and more
seriously at each pause; ‘ and it is agreeable to see, on your
part, such—‘
‘Wasn’t it this same Pavlicheff about whom there was a
strange story in connection with some abbot? I don’t
remember who the abbot was, but I remember at one
time everybody was talking about it,’ remarked the old
dignitary.
‘Yes—Abbot Gurot, a Jesuit,’ said Ivan Petrovitch.
‘Yes, that’s the sort of thing our best men are apt to do. A The Idiot
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man of rank, too, and rich—a man who, if he had
continued to serve, might have done anything; and then
to throw up the service and everything else in order to go
over to Roman Catholicism and turn Jesuit— openly,
too—almost triumphantly. By Jove! it was positively a
mercy that he died when he did—it was indeed—
everyone said so at the time.’
The prince was beside himself.
‘Pavlicheff?—Pavlicheff turned Roman Catholic?
Impossible!’ he cried, in horror.
‘H’m! impossible is rather a strong word,’ said Ivan
Petrovitch. ‘You must allow, my dear prince... However,
of course you value the memory of the deceased so very
highly; and he certainly was the kindest of men; to which
fact, by the way, I ascribe, more than to anything else, the
success of the abbot in influencing his religious
convictions. But you may ask me, if you please, how
much trouble and worry I, personally, had over that
business, and especially with this same Gurot! Would you
believe it,’ he continued, addressing the dignitary, ‘they
actually tried to put in a claim under the deceased’s will,
and I had to resort to the very strongest measures in order
to bring them to their senses? I assure you they knew their
cue, did these gentlemen— wonderful! Thank goodness The Idiot
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all this was in Moscow, and I got the Court, you know, to
help me, and we soon brought them to their senses.
‘You wouldn’t believe how you have pained and
astonished me,’ cried the prince.
‘Very sorry; but in point of fact, you know, it was all
nonsense and would have ended in smoke, as usual—I’m
sure of that. Last year,’—he turned to the old man
again,—‘Countess K. joined some Roman Convent
abroad. Our people never seem to be able to offer any
resistance so soon as they get into the hands of these—
intriguers—especially abroad.’
‘That is all thanks to our lassitude, I think,’ replied the
old man, with authority. ‘And then their way of
preaching; they have a skilful manner of doing it! And
they know how to startle one, too. I got quite a fright
myself in ‘32, in Vienna, I assure you; but I didn’t cave in
to them, I ran away instead, ha, ha!’
‘Come, come, I’ve always heard that you ran away
with the beautiful Countess Levitsky that time—throwing
up everything in order to do it—and not from the Jesuits
at all,’ said Princess Bielokonski, suddenly.
‘Well, yes—but we call it from the Jesuits, you know;
it comes to the same thing,’ laughed the old fellow,
delighted with the pleasant recollection. The Idiot
1006 of 1149
‘You seem to be very religious,’ he continued, kindly,
addressing the prince,’ which is a thing one meets so
seldom nowadays among young people.’
The prince was listening open-mouthed, and still in a
condition of excited agitation. The old man was evidently
interested in him, and anxious to study him more closely.
‘Pavlicheff was a man of bright intellect and a good
Christian, a sincere Christian,’ said the prince, suddenly.
‘How could he possibly embrace a faith which is
unchristian? Roman Catholicism is, so to speak, simply the
same thing as unchristianity,’ he added with flashing eyes,
which seemed to take in everybody in the room.
‘Come, that’s a little TOO strong, isn’t it?’ murmured
the old man, glancing at General Epanchin in surprise.
‘How do you make out that the Roman Catholic
religion is UNCHRISTIAN? What is it, then?’ asked Ivan
Petrovitch, turning to the prince.
‘It is not a Christian religion, in the first place,’ said the
latter, in extreme agitation, quite out of proportion to the
necessity of the moment. ‘And in the second place,
Roman Catholicism is, in my opinion, worse than
Atheism itself. Yes— that is my opinion. Atheism only
preaches a negation, but Romanism goes further; it
preaches a disfigured, distorted Christ—it preaches Anti-The Idiot
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Christ—I assure you, I swear it! This is my own personal
conviction, and it has long distressed me. The Roman
Catholic believes that the Church on earth cannot stand
without universal temporal Power. He cries ‘non
possumus!’ In my opinion the Roman Catholic religion is
not a faith at all, but simply a continuation of the Roman
Empire, and everything is subordinated to this idea—
beginning with faith. The Pope has seized territories and
an earthly throne, and has held them with the sword. And
so the thing has gone on, only that to the sword they have
added lying, intrigue, deceit, fanaticism, superstition,
swindling;—they have played fast and loose with the most
sacred and sincere feelings of men;—they have exchanged
everything—everything for money, for base earthly
POWER! And is this not the teaching of Anti-Christ?
How could the upshot of all this be other than Atheism?
Atheism is the child of Roman Catholicism—it proceeded
from these Romans themselves, though perhaps they
would not believe it. It grew and fattened on hatred of its
parents; it is the progeny of their lies and spiritual
feebleness. Atheism! In our country it is only among the
upper classes that you find unbelievers; men who have lost
the root or spirit of their faith; but abroad whole masses of
the people are beginning to profess unbelief—at first The Idiot
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because of the darkness and lies by which they were
surrounded; but now out of fanaticism, out of loathing for
the Church and Christianity!’
The prince paused to get breath. He had spoken with
extraordinary rapidity, and was very pale.
All present interchanged glances, but at last the old
dignitary burst out laughing frankly. Prince N. took out
his eye-glass to have a good look at the speaker. The
German poet came out of his corner and crept nearer to
the table, with a spiteful smile.
‘You exaggerate the matter very much,’ said Ivan
Petrovitch, with rather a bored air. ‘There are, in the
foreign Churches, many representatives of their faith who
are worthy of respect and esteem.’
‘Oh, but I did not speak of individual representatives. I
was merely talking about Roman Catholicism, and its
essence—of Rome itself. A Church can never entirely
disappear; I never hinted at that!’
‘Agreed that all this may be true; but we need not
discuss a subject which belongs to the domain of
