Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (375 page)

“This is a madhouse!” cried Lizaveta Prokofyevna.

“Of course it’s a house of madmen!” Aglaia could not refrain from saying, sharply.

But her words were lost in the general uproar; all were talkinq loudly and discussinq, some disputinq,

others laughing. Ivan Fyodorovitch Epanchin was roused to the utmost pitch of indignation, and with an air of wounded dignity he waited for Lizaveta Prokofyevna. Lebedyev’s nephew put in the last word:

“Yes, prince, one must do you justice, you do know how to make use of your . . . well, illness (to express it politely); you’ve managed to offer your friendship and money in such an ingenious way that now it’s impossible for an honourable man to take it under any circumstances. That’s either a bit too innocent or a bit too clever. .. \bu know best which.”

“Excuse me, gentlemen!” cried Gavril Ardalionovitch, who had meantime opened the envelope, “there are not two hundred and fifty roubles here, there’s only a hundred. I say so, prince, that there maybe no misunderstanding.”

“Let it be, let it be!” cried Myshkin, waving his hands at Gavril Ardalionovitch.

“No, don’t let it be.” Lebedyev’s nephew caught it up at once. “Your ‘let it be’ is an insult to us, prince. We don’t hide ourselves, we declare it openly, yes, there are only a hundred roubles in it, instead of two hundred and fifty, but isn’t it just the same....”

“N-no, it’s not just the same,” Gavril Ardalionovitch managed to interpolate, with an air of naive perplexity.

“Don’t interrupt me; we are not such fools as you think, Mr. Lawyer,” cried Lebedyev’s nephew, with spiteful vexation. “Of course a hundred roubles is not two hundred and fifty, and it’s not just the same, but the principle is what matters. The initiative is the great thing, and that a hundred and fifty roubles are missing is only a detail. What matters is, that Burdovsky does not accept your charity, your excellency, that he throws it in your face, and in that sense it makes no difference whether it’s a hundred or two hundred and fifty. Burdovsky hasn’t accepted the ten thousand, as you’ve seen; he wouldn’t have brought back the hundred roubles if he had been dishonest. That hundred and fifty roubles has gone to Tchebarov for his journey to see the prince. “Vbu may laugh at our awkwardness, at our inexperience in business; you’ve tried your very utmost to make us ridiculous, but don’t dare to say we are dishonest. We’ll all club together, sir, to pay back that hundred and fifty roubles to the prince; we’ll pay it back if it has to be a rouble at a time, and we’ll pay it back with interest. Burdovsky is poor, Burdovsky hasn’t millions, and Tchebarov sent in his account after his journey. We hoped to win the case . .. who would not have done the same thing in his place?”

“Who would not?” exclaimed Prince S.

“I shall go out of my mind here!” cried Madame Epanchin.

“It reminds me,” laughed “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch, who had long been standing there watching, “of the celebrated defence made recently by a lawyer who, bringing forward in justification the poverty of his client as an excuse for his having murdered and robbed six people at once, suddenly finished up with something like this: ‘It was natural,’ said he, ‘that in my client’s poverty the idea of murdering six people should have occurred to him; and to whom indeed would it not have occurred in his position?’ Something of that sort, very amusing.”

“Enough!” Lizaveta Prokofyevna announced suddenly, almost shaking with anger. “It’s time to cut short this nonsense.”

She was in terrible excitement; she flung back her head menacingly, and with flashing eyes and an air of haughty, fierce, and impatient defiance, she scanned the whole party, scarcely able at the moment to distinguish between friends and foes. She had reached that pitch of long-suppressed but at last irrepressible wrath when the craving for immediate conflict, for immediate attack on some one becomes the leading impulse. Those who knew Madame Epanchin felt at once that something unusual had happened to her. Ivan Fyodorovitch told Prince S. next day that “she has these attacks sometimes, but such a pitch as yesterday is unusual, even with her; it happens to her once in three years or so, but not oftener. Not oftener!” he added emphatically.

“Enough, Ivan Fyodorovitch! Let me alone,” cried Lizaveta Prokofyevna, “why are you offering me your arm now? You hadn’t the sense to take me away before! You are the husband, you are the head of the family, you ought to have taken me by the ear and led me out if I were so silly as not to obey you and go. \bu might think of your daughters, anyhow! Now, we can find the way without you! I’ve had shame enough to last me a year. Wait a bit, I must still thank the prince! Thank vou for vour entertainment, prince.

I’ve been staying on to listen to the young people. ... It’s disgraceful, disgraceful! It’s chaos, infamy! It’s worse than a dream. Are there many like them? . . . Be quiet, Aglaia! Be quiet, Alexandra, it’s not your business! Don’t fuss round me. “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch, you bother me! ... So you are asking their forgiveness, my dear?” she went on, addressing Myshkin again. ‘“It’s my fault,’ says he, ‘for daring to offer you a fortune.’ . . . And what are you pleased to be laughing at, you braggart?” she pounced suddenly on Lebedyev’s nephew. ‘“We refuse the fortune,’ says he, ‘we demand, we don’t ask!’ As though he didn’t know that this idiot will trail off tomorrow to them to offer his friendship and his money to them again. You will, won’t you? \bu will? Will you or not?”

“I shall,” said Myshkin, in a soft and humble voice.

“You hear! So that’s what you are reckoning on,” she turned again to Doktorenko. “The money is as good as in your pocket, that’s why you boast and try to impress us. . . . No, my good man, you can find other fools, I see through you. ... I see all your game!”

“Lizaveta Prokofyevna!” cried Myshkin.

“Come away, Lizaveta Prokofyevna, it’s time we went, and let us take the prince with us,” Prince S. said, smiling as calmly as he could.

The girls stood on one side, almost scared, General Epanchin was genuinely alarmed, everyone present was amazed. Some of those standing furthest away whispered together and smiled on the sly; Lebedyev’s face wore an expression of perfect rapture.

“There’s chaos and infamy to be found everywhere, madam,” said Lebedyev’s nephew, though he was a good deal disconcerted.

“But not so bad! Not so bad as yours, my man,” Lizaveta Prokofyevna retorted with almost hysterical vindictiveness. “Let me alone!” she cried to those who tried to persuade her. “Well, since you yourself, “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch, have just told us that even a lawyer in court declared that nothing is more natural if one is poor than to butcher six people, it simply means the end of all things; I never heard of such a thing. It’s all clear now! And this stuttering fellow, wouldn’t he murder anyone?” (She pointed to Burdovsky, who was gazing at her in extreme bewilderment.) “I am ready to bet that he will murder some one! Maybe he won’t take your money, your ten thousand, maybe he won’t take it for conscience’ sake, but he’ll come at night and murder you and take the money out of your cash box, he’ll take it for conscience’ sake! That’s not dishonest to him. It’s just an outburst of ‘noble indignation,’ it’s a ‘protest,’ or goodness knows what. . . . Tfoo! everything is topsy-turvy, everything is upside down. A girl grows up at home, and suddenly in the middle of the street she jumps into a cab: ‘Mother, I was married the other day to some Karlitch or Ivanitch, good-bye.’-And is it the right thing to behave like that, do you think? Is it natural, is it deserving of respect? The woman question? This silly boy” — she pointed to Kolya— “even he was arguing the other day that that’s what ‘the woman question’ means. Even though the mother was a fool, you must behave like a human being to her! Why did you come in to-night with your heads in the air? ‘Make way, we are coming! Give us every right and don’t you dare breathe a word before us. Pay us every sort of respect, such as no one’s heard of, and we shall treat you worse than the lowest lackey!’ They strive for justice, they stand on their rights, and yet they’ve slandered him like infidels in their article. We demand, we don’t ask, and you will get no gratitude from us, because you are acting for the satisfaction of your own conscience! Queer sort of reasoning! Why, if he’ll get no gratitude from you, the prince may tell you in answer that he feels no gratitude to Pavlishtchev, because Pavlishtchev too did good for the satisfaction of his own conscience, and you know it’s just his gratitude to Pavlishtchev you’ve been reckoning on! He has not borrowed money from you, he doesn’t owe you anything, so what are you reckoning on, if not his gratitude? So how can you repudiate it? Lunatics! They regard society as savage and inhuman, because it cries shame on the seduced girl; but if you think society inhuman, you must think that the girl suffers from the censure of society, and if she does, how is it you expose her to society in the newspapers and expect her not to suffer? Lunatics! Vain creatures! They don’t believe in God, they don’t believe in Christ! Why, you are so eaten up with pride and vanity that you’ll end by eating up one another, that’s what I prophesy. Isn’t that topsy-turvydom, isn’t that chaos, isn’t it infamy? And after that, this disgraceful creature must needs go and beg their pardon too! Are there many more like you? What are you laughing at? At my disgracing myself with you? Why, I’ve disgraced myself already, there’s no help for it now! Don’t you go grinning, you sweep!” she pounced upon Ippolit. “He is almost at his last gasp, yet he is corrupting others! You’ve corrupted this silly boy” — she pointed to Kolya again— “he does nothing but rave about you, you teach him atheism, you don’t believe in God, and you are not too old for a whipping yourself, sir! Fie upon you! ... So you’ll go to them to-morrow, Prince Lyov Nikolayevitch?” she asked the prince again, almost breathless.

“Yes.”

“Then I don’t want to know you!” she turned quickly to go out, but at once turned back again. “And you’ll go to this atheist too?” she pointed to Ippolit. “How dare you laugh at me!” she cried in an unnatural scream, and darted at Ippolit, unable to endure his sarcastic grin.

“Lizaveta Prokofyevna! Lizaveta Prokofyevna! Lizaveta Prokofyevna!” was heard on all sides at once.

“Maman, this is shameful,” Aglaia cried aloud.

“Don’t worry yourself, Aglaia Ivanovna,” Ippolit answered calmly. Lizaveta Prokofyevna had dashed up to him and had seized him by the arm, and for some inexplicable reason was still holding it tight. She stood before him, her wrathful eyes fastened upon his. “Don’t worry yourself, your maman will see that she cannot attack a dying man. ... I am ready to explain why I laughed ... I shall be very glad of permission to do so.”

Here he coughed terribly and could not leave off for a full minute.

“He is dying, yet he must hold forth!” cried Lizaveta Prokofyevna, letting go his arm, and looking almost with horror at the blood he wiped from his lips. “\bu are not fit for talking! “Vbu simply ought to go and lie down.”

“So I shall,” Ippolit answered in a low husky voice, almost a whisper. “As soon as I get home to-day, I’ll go to bed. ... In another fortnight I shall die, as I

know. B-n himself told me so a week ago.... So that if you allow me, I should like to say two words to you at parting.”

“Are you crazy? Nonsense! \bu want nursing, it’s not the time to talk! Go along, go to bed!” Lizaveta Prokofyevna cried in horror.

“If I go to bed, I shan’t get up again till I die,” said Ippolit, smiling. “I was thinking of going to bed and not getting up again yesterday, but I decided to put it off till the day after to-morrow, since I still could stand on my legs ... so as to come here with them to-day. ... Only I am awfully tired ...”

“Sit down, sit down, why are you standing! Here’s a chair.” Lizaveta Prokofyevna flew up to him and set a chairfor him herself.

“Thank you,” Ippolit went on softly, “and you sit down opposite and we can talk ... we must have a talk, Lizaveta Prokofyevna, I insist on it now,” he smiled at her again. “Think, this is the last time I shall be out in the air and with people, and in a fortnight I shall certainly be underground. So that this will be like a farewell to men and to nature. Though I am not very sentimental, yet would you believe it, I am awfully glad that all this has happened at Pavlovsk; one can see the trees in leaf anyway.”

“You can’t talk now,” said Lizaveta Prokofyevna,

growing more and more alarmed. “You are in a perfect fever. You were screeching and squeaking before, and now you can scarcely breathe, you are gasping!”

“I shall be better in a minute. Why do you want to refuse my last wish? Do you know, I have been dreaming of making your acquaintance for a long time, Lizaveta Prokofyevna? I have heard a great deal about you . . . from Kolya; he is almost the only one who hasn’t given me up. . . . \bu are an original woman, an eccentric woman, I’ve seen that for myself now ... do you know, that I was rather fond of you even.”

“Good heavens, and I was positively on the point of striking him!”

“Aglaia Ivanovna held you back; I am not mistaken, am I? This is your daughter, Aglaia Ivanovna? She is so beautiful that I guessed who she was at first sight, though I’d never seen her. Let me at least look at a beautiful woman for the last time in my life.” Ippolit smiled a sort of awkward, wry smile. “Here, the prince is here, and your husband, and the whole party. Why do you refuse my last wish?”

“A chair!” cried Lizaveta Prokofyevna, but she seized one herself and sat down opposite Ippolit. “Kolya,” she commanded, “you must go with him, take him, and to-morrow I’ll certainly go myself....”

“If you allow me, I would ask the prince for a cup of tea. ... I am very tired. Do you know, Lizaveta Prokofyevna, I believe you meant to take the prince back to tea with you; stay here instead, let us spend the time together, and I am sure the prince will give us all tea. Excuse my arranging it all. . . . But I know you, you are good-natured, the prince is good-natured too ... we are all ridiculously good-natured people.”

Myshkin made haste to give orders. Lebedyev flew head-long out of the room, Vera ran after him.

“That’s true.” Madame Epanchin decided abruptly, “talk, only quietly, don’t get excited. You’ve softened my heart. . . . Prince! You don’t deserve that I should drink tea with you, but so be it, I’ll stay, though I am not going to apologise to any one! Not to any one! It’s nonsense! Still, if I’ve abused you, prince, forgive me — as you like, though. But I am not keeping anyone,” she turned with an expression of extraordinary wrath to her husband and daughters, as thouqh thev had treated her disqracefullv. “I can find my way home alone.”