Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (383 page)

“Well, that’s too much! How can you maintain such a paradox, that is, if you are speaking in earnest. I must protest against such wild statements about the Russian landowner; you are a Russian landowner yourself,” Prince S. objected warmly.

“But I didn’t speak of the Russian landowner in the sense in which you are taking it. It’s the most respectable class, if only because I belong to it; especially now, since it has ceased to be a caste. . .

“Do you mean to say there has been nothing national in literature?” Alexandra interposed.

“I am not an authority on literature, but even Russian literature is in my opinion not Russian at all, unless perhaps Lomonosov, Pushkin, and Gogol are national.”

“That’s not bad, to begin with; and besides, one of those was a peasant and the other two were landowners,” said Adelaida, laughing.

“Quite so, but don’t be triumphant. As, of all Russian writers, these three are the only ones that have so far been able to say something of their own, something not borrowed, they have by this fact become national. Any Russian who says or writes or does anything of his own — something original, not borrowed — inevitably becomes national, even if he can’t speak Russian properly. That I regard as an axiom. But we were not talking of literature at first; we were talking of Socialists, at the beginning. Well, I maintain that we haven’t one single Russian Socialist; there are none and there have never been, for all our Socialists are also landowners or divinity students. All our notorious and professed Socialists, both here and abroad, are nothing more than Liberals from the landed gentry of the serf-owning days. Why are you laughing? Show me their books, show me their theories, their memories; and, though I am no literary critic, I can write you the most convincing criticism, in which I’ll show you as clear as daylight that every page of their books, pamphlets, and memories has been written by Russian landowners of the old school. Their anger, their indignation, their wit, are all typical of that class, as it was even in pre-Famusov — times; their raptures, their tears are perhaps real, genuine tears, but they are landowners’ tears — landowners’ or divinity students’. . . . “Vbu are laughing again, and you are laughing too, prince? “Vbu don’t agree either, then?”

They really were all laughing, and Myshkin smiled too.

“I can’t say off-hand yet whether I agree or not,” Myshkin brought out, suddenly leaving off smiling and starting with the air of a schoolboy caught in a fault, “but I assure you I am listening to you with the greatest pleasure....”

He was almost breathless, as he said this, and cold sweat came out on his forehead. They were the first words he had uttered since he had sat down. He tried to look round at the company and had not the courage; “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch caught his movement and smiled.

“I will tell you a fact, gentlemen,” he went on in the same tone as before, that is, with extraordinary gusto and warmth, though at the same time he seemed almost laughing, possibly at his own words— “a fact, the observation and discovery of which I have the honour of ascribing to myself and to myself alone; nothing has been said or written about it, anyway. This fact expresses the whole essence of Russian Liberalism of the sort of which I am speaking. In the first place, what is Liberalism, speaking generally, but an attack (whether judicious or mistaken is another question) on the established order of things? That’s so, isn’t it? Well, my fact is that Russian Liberalism is not an attack on the existing order of things, but is an attack on the very essence of things, on the things themselves, not merely on the order of things; not on the Russian regime, but on Russia itself. My Liberal goes so far as to deny even Russia itself, that is, he hates and beats his own mother. Every unhappy and disastrous fact in Russia excites his laughter and almost his delight. He hates the national habits, Russian history, everything. If there is any justification for him, it is that he doesn’t know what he is about and takes his hatred of Russia for Liberalism of the most fruitful kind. (Oh, you often meet among us Liberals who are applauded by the rest and who are perhaps the most absurd, the most stupid and dangerous of Conservatives, and they are unaware of it themselves.) This hatred of Russia was quite lately almost regarded by some of our Liberals as sincere love for their country. They boasted that they knew better than other people how that love ought to show itself; but now they have become more candid and are ashamed of the very idea of ‘loving’ one’s country; the very conception of it they have dismissed and banished as trivial and pernicious. This is a fact; I insist on that and . . . and the truth must be told sooner or later fully, simply, and openly. But it’s a fact that has never been heard of and has never existed in any other people since the world began, and so it is an accidental phenomenon and may not be permanent, I admit. There cannot be a Liberal anywhere else who hates his own country.

How can we explain it among us? Why, by the same fact as before, that the Russian Liberal hitherto has not been Russian; nothing else explains it, to my thinking.”

“I take all that you have said as a joke, Yevgeny Pavlovitch,” Prince S. replied earnestly.

“I haven’t seen every Liberal, so I can’t undertake to judge,” said Alexandra, “but I’ve listened to your ideas with indignation; you’ve taken an individual case and generalised from it, and so you’ve been unjust.”

“An individual case? Ah! The word has been uttered,”

“Vfevgeny Pavlovitch caught her up. “Prince, what do you think? Have I taken an individual case or not?”

“I ought to say, too, that I have been very little with Liberals and seen very little of them,” said Myshkin, “but I fancy that you may be partly right and that the sort of Russian Liberalism of which you are speaking really is disposed to hate Russia itself, not only its institutions. Of course, this is only partly true . .. of course, this cannot be true of all.”

He broke off in confusion. In spite of his excitement, he was greatly interested in the conversation. One of Myshkin’s striking characteristics was the extraordinary naivete of the attention, with which he always listened to anything that interested him, and of the answers he gave when any one asked him questions. His face, and even his attitude, somehow reflected that naivete, that good faith, unsuspicious of mockery or humour. But though Yevgeny Pavlovitch had for a long time past always behaved to him with a certain shade of mockery, now, on hearing his answer, he looked very gravely at him, as though he had not expected such ananswerfrom him.

“So . . . how strange it is of you, though!” he said. “Did you really answer me in earnest, prince?”

“Why, didn’t you ask me in earnest?” replied Myshkin in surprise.

Everyone laughed.

“Trust him,” said Adelaida. “\fevgeny Pavlovitch always makes fun of every one! If you only knew what stories he tells sometimes with perfect seriousness!”

“I think this is a tedious conversation and there was no need to have begun it,” Alexandra observed abruptly. “We meant to qo for a walk.”

“And let us go! It’s an exquisite evening,” cried “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch. “But to show you that this time I was speaking quite seriously, and still more to show the prince so (you have interested me extremely, prince, and I assure you I am not quite such a silly fellow as I must seem to you — though I really am a silly fellow!), and if you’ll allow me, ladies and gentleman, I will ask the prince one last question to satisfy my own curiosity, and then we will leave off. This question occurred to me very appropriately two hours ago. “Vbu see, prince, I sometimes think of serious things too. I answered it, but let us see what the prince will say. He spoke just now about an ‘individual case.’ This phrase of ours is a very significant one; one often hears it. Every one has been talking and writing of late about that dreadful murder of six persons by that. . . young man and of the strange speech made by the counsel for the defence, in which it was said that, considering the poverty of the criminal, it must have been natural for him to think of murdering these six people. Those are not precisely the words used, but the sense, I think, is that or very much like it. It’s my private opinion that the lawyer who gave expression to this strange idea was under the conviction that he was expressing the most liberal, the most humane and progressive sentiment that could be uttered in our day. Well, what do you make of it? Is this corruption of ideas and convictions, is the possibility of such a distorted and extraordinary view an ‘individual case’ or a typical example?”

Everyone laughed again.

“Individual, of course, individual,” laughed Alexandra and Adelaida.

“And let me warn you again, Yevgeny Pavlovitch,” said Prince S. “that your joke is growing very stale.”

“What do you think, prince?”

“Vfevgeny Pavlovitch went on, not listening, but catching Myshkin’s earnest and interested eyes fixed on him. “Does it seem to you to be an individual case or typical? I’ll own it was on your account I thought of the question.”

“No, not individual,” Myshkin said gently but firmly.

“Upon my word, Lyov Nikolayevitch,” cried Prince S. with some vexation, “don’t you see that he is trying to catch you? He is certainly in fun and he means to make game of you.”

“I thought Yevgeny Pavlovitch was in earnest,”

said Myshkin, blushing and dropping his eyes.

“My dear prince,” Prince S. went on, “remember what we were talking about once, three months ago; you said that one could point to so many remarkable and talented lawyers in our new-established law courts, and how many highly remarkable verdicts had been given by the juries! How pleased you were about it, and how pleased I was at the time seeing your pleasure! We said that we had a right to be proud. . . . And this inept defence, this strange argument, is, of course, a casual exception, the one among thousands.”

Myshkin thought a moment, but with an air of perfect conviction, though speaking softly and even, it seemed, timidly, he answered:

“I only meant to say that a perversion of ideas and conceptions — as “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch expressed it — is very often to be met with, is, unhappily, far more the general rule than an exceptional case. And so much so that if this perversion were not such a general phenomenon, perhaps there would not be such impossible crimes as these....”

“Impossible crimes! But I assure you that just such crimes, and perhaps still more awful ones, have existed in the past and at all times, and not only among us but everywhere, and, in my opinion, will occur again and again for a very long time. The difference is that there was much less publicity in Russia in the old days, while now people have begun to talk and even to write of such cases, so that it seems as though these criminals were a recent phenomenon. That’s how your mistake arises — an extremely naive mistake, prince, I assure you,” said Prince S. with a mocking smile.

“I know that there were very many crimes and just as awful ones in the past. I have been lately in the prisons and succeeded in making acquaintance with some criminals and convicts. There are even more terrible criminals than that one, men who have committed a dozen murders and feel no remorse whatever. But I tell you what I noticed: that the most hardened and unrepentant murderer knows all the same that he is a ‘criminal,’ that is, he considers in his conscience that he has acted wrongly, even though he is unrepentant. And everyone of them was like that; while those of whom Yevgeny Pavlovitch was speaking refuse even to consider themselves as criminals and think that thev are in the riqht and ..

. that they have even acted well — it almost comes to that. That’s, to my thinking, where the terrible difference lies. And observe, they are all young, that is, they are all of the age in which one may most easily and helplessly fall under the influence of perverted ideas.”

Prince S. had ceased laughing and listened to Myshkin with a puzzled air. Alexandra, who had been on the point of saying something, held her peace, as though some special thought made her pause. “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch looked at Myshkin in genuine surprise, with no tinge of mockery.

“But why are you so surprised at him, my good sir?” said Lizaveta Prokofyevna, breaking in unexpectedly. “Why did you think he was not so clever as you and could not reason as well as you can?”

“No, I didn’t mean that,” said “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch. “Only, how is it, prince — excuse the question — if you see this so clearly, how is it that you (excuse me again) did not notice the same perversion of ideas and moral convictions in that strange case ... the other day, you know ... of Burdovsky’s, wasn’t it? It’s exactly the same. I fancied at the time that you didn’t see it at all?”

“But let me tell you, my dear man,” said Lizaveta Prokofyevna, getting hot, “we all noticed it. We sit here feeling superior to him. But he got a letter from one of them to-day, from the worst of the lot, the pimply one — do you remember, Alexandra? He begs his pardon in the letter — in a fashion of his own, of course — and says he has broken with the companion who egged him on at the time — do you remember, Alexandra? — and that he puts more faith now in the prince. But we haven’t had such a letter, though we know how to turn up our noses at him.”

“And Ippolit has just moved to our villa, too,” cried Kolya.

“What? Is he there already?” said Myshkin, taken aback.

“He arrived just after you had gone out with Lizaveta Prokofyevna. I brought him.”

“Well, I’ll bet anything,” Lizaveta Prokofyevna fired up suddenly, quite forgetting that she had just been praising Myshkin, “I’ll bet that he went last night to see him in his garret and begged his pardon on his knees, so that that spiteful spitfire might deign to move to his villa. Did you go yesterday? You’ve confessed it yourself. Is it true? Did you go on your knees?”

“He didn’t do anything of the kind,” cried Kolya, “quite the contrary. Ippolit seized the prince’s hand yesterday and kissed it twice. I saw it myself. That’s how the interview ended, except that the prince told him simply that he would be more comfortable at the villa, and he instantly agreed to come as soon as he felt better.”

“There’s no need, Kolya . . ,” murmured Myshkin, getting up and taking his hat. “Why are you talking about this? I...”