Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (421 page)

Thus, we know for a fact that during that fortnight Myshkin spent whole days and evenings with Nastasya Filippovna; that she took him with her for walks and to hear the band; that he drove out in her carriage with her every day; that he began to be uneasy about her if an hour passed without his seeing her (so that by every sign he loved her sincerely); that whatever she talked to him about, he listened with a mild and gentle smile for hours together, saying scarcely anything himself. But we know too that in the course of those days he had several, in fact many, times called at the Epanchins’ without concealing the fact from Nastasya Filippovna, though it had driven her almost to despair. We know that, as long as the Epanchins remained at Pavlovsk, they did not receive him, and consistently refused to allow him to see Aglaia Ivanovna; that he would go away without saying a word and next day go to them again as though he had completely forgotten their refusal the day before, and, of course, be refused again. We know too, that an hour after Aqlaia Ivanovna had run awav from Nastasya Filippovna, perhaps even less than an hour after, Myshkin was already at the Epanchins’, confident, of course, of finding Aglaia there, and that his arrival had thrown the household into extreme amazement and alarm, because Aglaia had not yet returned home. And it was only from him the Epanchins had first learned that she had been with him to Nastasya Filippovna’s. It was said that Lizaveta Prokofyevna, her daughters and even Prince S. treated Myshkin on that occasion in a very harsh and hostile way; and that they had there and then in the strongest terms renounced all friendship and acquaintance with him, the more emphatically that Varvara Ardalionovna had suddenly made her appearance and announced to Lizaveta Prokofyevna that Aglaia had been in her house for the last hour in a fearful state of mind, and seemed unwilling to return home. This last piece of news affected Lizaveta Prokofyevna more than anything, and it turned out to be quite true. On coming away from Nastasya Filippovna’s, Aglaia would certainly sooner have died than have faced her family, and so she flew to Nina Alexandrovna’s. Varvara Ardalionovna for her part felt it essential promptly to inform Lizaveta Prokofyevna of everything. And the mother and daughters rushed off at once to Nina Alexandrovna’s, followed by the head of the family, Ivan Fyodorovitch, who had just returned home. Myshkin trudged along after them, in spite of their dismissal of him and their harsh words. But Varvara Ardalionovna took care that there, too, he was not allowed to see Aglaia. The end of it was that, when Aglaia saw her mother and sisters shedding tears over her and not uttering a word of blame, she threw herself into their arms and at once returned home with them. It was said, though the story was not well authenticated, that Gavril Ardalionovitch was particularly unlucky on this occasion, too; that seizing the opportunity while Varvara Ardalionovna was running to Lizaveta Prokofyevna, and he was left alone with Aglaia, he had thought fit to begin talking of his passion; that, listening to him, Aglaia had, in spite of her tears and dejection, suddenly burst out laughing and had all at once put a strange question to him: would he, to prove his love, burn his finger in the candle? Gavril Ardalionovitch was, so the story went, petrified by the question; he was so completely taken aback, and his face betrayed such extreme amazement, that Aglaia had laughed at him as though she were in hysterics, and to get away from him ran upstairs to Nina Alexandrovna where she was found by her parents. This story was repeated to Myshkin next day by Ippolit who, being too ill to get up, sent for the prince on purpose to tell it to him. How Ippolit got hold of the story we don’t know, but when Myshkin heard about the candle and the finger, he laughed so much that Ippolit was surprised. Then he suddenly began to tremble and burst into tears. .. . Altogether, he was during those days in a state of great uneasiness, and extraordinary perturbation, vague but tormenting. Ippolit bluntly declared that he thought he was out of his mind, but it was impossible to affirm this with certainty.

In presenting all these facts and declining to attempt to explain them, we have no desire to justify our hero in the eyes of the reader. What is more, we are quite prepared to share the indignation he excited even in his friends. Even Vera Lebedyev was indignant with him for a time; even Kolya was indignant; even Keller was indignant, till he was chosen as best man, to say nothing of Lebedyev himself, who even began intriguing against Myshkin, also from an indignation which was quite genuine. But of that we will speak later. Altogether, we are in complete sympathy with some forcible and psychologically deep words of Yevgeny Pavlovitch’s, spoken plainly and unceremoniously by the latter in friendly conversation with Myshkin six or seven days after the incident at Nastasya Filippovna’s. We must observe, by the way, that not only the Epanchins, but every one directly or indirectly connected with them had thought proper to break off all relations with Myshkin. Prince S. for instance turned aside when he met Myshkin and did not respond to his greeting. But “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch was not afraid of compromising himself by visiting the prince, though he had begun visiting the Epanchins every day again, and was received by them with an unmistakable increase of cordiality. He came to see Myshkin the very day after the Epanchins had left Pavlovsk. He knew already of all the rumours that were circulating, and had, perhaps indeed, assisted to circulate them himself. Myshkin was delighted to see him and at once began speaking of the Epanchins. Such a simple and direct openinq completely loosened “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch’s tongue too, so that he went straight to the point without beating about the bush.

Myshkin did not know that the Epanchins had left. He was struck by the news, he turned pale; but a minute later he shook his head, confused and meditative, and acknowledged that “so it was bound to be”; then he asked quickly, “where had they gone?”

Meanwhile “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch watched him carefully, and he marvelled not a little at all this — the rapidity of his questions, their simplicity, his perturbation, restlessness and excitement, and at the same time a sort of strange openness. He told Myshkin about everything, however, courteously and in detail. There was a great deal the latter had not heard, and this was the first person to visit him from the Epanchins’ circle. He confirmed the rumour that Aglaia really had been ill. She had lain for three days and nights in a fever without sleeping. Now she was better and out of all danger, but in a nervous and hysterical state. “It was a good thing,” he said, “that now there was perfect harmony in the house. They tried to make no allusion to the past, not only before Aglaia, but also among themselves. The parents had already made up their minds to a trip abroad in the autumn, immediately after Adelaida’s wedding. Aglaia had received in silence the preliminary hints at this plan. He, “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch, might very possibly be going abroad too. Even Prince S. might possibly go with Adelaida for a couple of months if business permitted. The general himself would remain. They had all moved now to Kolmino, their estate fifteen miles out of Petersburg, where they had a spacious manor-house. Princess Byelokonsky had not yet returned to Moscow, and he believed she was staying on at Pavlovsk on purpose. Lizaveta Prokofyevna had insisted emphatically that they could not stay on in Pavlovsk, after what had happened. He, Yevgeny Pavlovitch, had reported to her every day the rumours that were circulating in the town. It did not seem possible for them to move to the villa at Yelagin.”

“And indeed,” added Yevgeny Pavlovitch, “you’ll admit yourself they could hardly have faced it out. . .. Especially knowing what’s going on here in your house every hour, prince, and your daily calls there in spite of their refusing to see you....”

“Yes, yes, yes, you’re right. I wanted to see Aglaia Ivanovna,” said Myshkin, shaking his head again.

“Ah, dear prince,” cried Yevgeny Pavlovitch, with warm-hearted regret. “How then could you allow . . . all that’s happened? Of course, of course, it was all so unexpected. I understand that you must have been at your wits’ end and you could not have restrained the mad girl; that was not in your power. But you ought to have understood how intense and how much in earnest the girl was ... in herfeeling for you. She did not care to share you with another woman and you . . . you could desert and shatter a treasure like that!”

“Yes, yes, you’re right. I am to blame,” Myshkin began again in terrible distress. “And do you know she alone, Aglaia alone, looked at Nastasya Filippovna like that. ... No one else ever looked at her like that.”

“Yes, that’s just what makes it all so dreadful that there was nothing serious in it,” cried Yevgeny Pavlovitch, completely carried away. “Forgive me, prince, but I . . . I’ve been thinking about it, prince. I have thouqht a lot about it; I know all that happened before, I know all that happened six months ago, all — and there was nothing serious in it! It was only your head, not your heart, that was involved, an illusion, a fantasy, a mirage, and only the scared jealousy of an utterly inexperienced girl would have taken it for anything serious! ...”

At this point, without mincing matters, Yevgeny Pavlovitch gave full vent to his indignation. Clearly and reasonably, and, we repeat, with great psychological insight, he drew a vivid picture of Myshkin’s past relations with Nastasya Filippovna. He had at all times a gift for language, and at this moment he rose to positive eloquence. “From the very first,” he declared, “it began with falsity. What begins in a lie must end in a lie; that’s a law of nature. I don’t agree, and, in fact, I’m indignant when somebody calls you — well — an idiot. \bu’re too clever to be called that. But you’re so strange that you’re not like other people — you must admit that yourself. I’ve made up my mind that what’s at the bottom of all that’s happened is your innate inexperience (mark that word, ‘innate,’ prince), and your extraordinary simple-heartedness, and then the phenomenal lack of all feeling for proportion in you (which you have several times recognised yourself), and finally the huge mass of intellectual convictions, which you, with your extraordinary honesty, have hitherto taken for real, innate, intuitive convictions! \bu must admit yourself, prince, that from the very beginning, in your relations with Nastasya Filippovna, there was an element of conventional democratic feeling (I use the expression for brevity), the fascination, so to say, of the ‘woman question’ (to express it still more briefly). I know all the details of the strange, scandalous scene that took place at Nastasya Filippovna’s, when Rogozhin brought his money. If you like, I will analyse you to yourself on my fingers, I will show you to yourself as in a looking-glass, I know so exactly how it all was, and why it all turned out as it did. As a youth in Switzerland you yearned for your native country, and longed for Russia as for an unknown land of promise. You had read a great many books about Russia, excellent books perhaps, but pernicious for you. \bu arrived in the first glow of eagerness to be of service, so to say; you rushed, you flew headlong to be of service. And on the very dav of vour arrival, a sad and heartrending story of an injured woman is told you, you a virginal knight — and about a woman! The very same day you saw that woman, you were bewitched by her beauty, her fantastic, demoniacal beauty (I admit she’s a beauty, of course). Add to that your nerves, your epilepsy, add to that our Petersburg thaw which shatters the nerves, add all that day, in an unknown and to you almost fantastic town, a day of scenes and meetings, a day of unexpected acquaintances, a day of the most surprising reality, of meeting the three Epanchin beauties, and Aglaia among them; then your fatigue and the turmoil in your head, and then the drawing-room of Nastasya Filippovna, and the tone of that drawing-room, and .. . what could you expect of yourself at such a moment, what do you think?”

“Yes, yes; yes, yes,” Myshkin shook his head, beginning to flush crimson. “Yes, that’s almost exactly how it was. And do you know I’d scarcely slept at all in the train the night before, and all the night before that, and was fearfully exhausted.”

“Yes, of course, that’s just what I am driving at,”

“Vfevgeny Pavlovitch went on warmly, “the fact’s clear that you, intoxicated with enthusiasm, so to speak, clutched at the opportunity of publicly proclaiming the generous idea, that you, a prince by birth and a man of pure life, did not regard a woman as dishonoured who had been put to shame, not through her own fault, but through the fault of a disgusting aristocratic profligate. Good heavens, of course one can understand it. But that’s not the point, dear prince, the point is whether there was reality, whether there was genuineness in your emotions, whether there was natural feeling or only intellectual enthusiasm. What do you think; in the temple the woman was forgiven — just such a woman, but she wasn’t told that she’d done well, that she was deserving of all respect and honour, was she? Didn’t common sense tell you within three months the true state of the case? But, even granting that she’s innocent now — I won’t insist on that for I don’t want to — but could all her adventures justify such intolerable, diabolical pride, such insolent, such rapacious egoism? Forgive me, prince, I let myself be carried away, but.

“Yes, all that may be so. Maybe you are right. . . .” Myshkin muttered again, “she certainly is very much irritated, and you’re right, no doubt, but...”

“Deserving of compassion? That’s what you mean to say, my kind-hearted friend? But how could you, out of compassion, for the sake of her pleasure, put to shame another, a pure and lofty girl, humiliate her in those haughty, those hated eyes? What will compassion lead you to next? It’s an exaggeration that passes belief! How can you, loving a girl, humiliate her like this before her rival, jilt her for the sake of another woman, in the very presence of that other, after you had yourself made her an honourable offer. . . and you did make her an offer, didn’t you? “Vbu said so before her parents and her sisters! Do you call yourself an honourable man after that, allow me to ask you, prince? And . . . and didn’t you deceive that adorable girl when you told her that you loved her?”