The Idiot (10 page)

Although he could not have put all this into words as the prince had done, the valet understood, if not all of it, then the main point, and this was even visible in his features, which showed that he was moved.

‘If you really need to smoke,’ he said quietly, ‘you may, but you’ll have to be quick about it. Because they may suddenly ask for you, and you wouldn’t be there. Look, through there, under the stairs there’s a door. Go through the door, and on your right there’s a little room; you can smoke in there, but be sure to open the ventilation window, because it’s not
allowed ...’

But the prince did not have time to go and smoke. A young man with papers in his hands suddenly came into the vestibule. The valet began to help him off with his fur coat. The young man gave the prince a sidelong look.

‘Gavrila Ardalionych,’ the valet began confidentially and almost with familiarity, ‘this gentleman says he is Prince Myshkin and a relation of the mistress, he’s arrived by train from abroad with nothing but a bundle in his hand, but...’

The prince did not catch any more, for the valet had begun to whisper. Gavrila Ardalionovich listened attentively, and kept looking at the prince with great curiosity. At length he stopped listening and eagerly approached him.

‘You’re Prince Myshkin?’ he asked, with extreme good nature and politeness. He was a very handsome young man, also about twenty-eight, slender and fair-haired, with a small Napoleonic beard,
⁸
and a clever and very attractive face. Only his smile, for all its good nature, was slightly too refined; his teeth were somehow too pearly and evenly spaced; his gaze, in spite of all its cheerfulness and apparent sincerity, was a little too fixed and probing.

‘I expect that when he’s alone he doesn’t look anything like that, and perhaps never laughs at all,’ the prince found himself sensing.

The prince explained all that he could in a hurry, in almost the same words he had used to the valet, and before that to Rogozhin. Meanwhile, Gavrila Ardalionovich seemed to remember something.

‘Wasn’t it you,’ he asked, ‘who about a year ago, or even more recently, sent a letter from Switzerland to Yelizaveta Prokofyevna?’

‘Yes, it was.’

‘Then you’re known here and will surely be remembered. You want to see his excellency? I’ll announce you in a moment ... He’ll be free presently. Only you should ... you ought to be waiting in the reception room ... Why is the gentleman here?’ he asked sternly, turning to the valet.

‘I told him, but he didn’t wan
t to ...’

At this point the door to the study suddenly opened, and some kind of military gentleman holding a briefcase emerged, talking loudly and taking his leave.

‘Is that you, Ganya?’ a voice shouted from the study. ‘Come in!’

Gavrila Ardalionovich nodded to the prince, and quickly entered the study.

About two minutes later the door opened again, and Gavrila Ardalionovich’s resonant and affable voice was heard:

‘Prince, do come in!’

The general, Ivan Fyodorovich Yepanchin, stood in the middle of his study and looked at the prince with extreme curiosity as he entered, even taking two paces towards him. The prince went up to him and introduced himself.

‘Well, sir,’ the general replied, ‘how can I be of service?’

‘I have no pressing business; my aim was simply to make your acquaintance. I should not like to inconvenience you, as I know neither the order of your day nor your arrangements ... But I’m just off the train myself ... I’ve come from Switzerland.’

The general was on the verge of smiling, but reflected and checked himself; then he reflected again, narrowed his eyes, surveyed his guest once more from head to toe, then quickly showed him to a chair, sat down himself, somewhat at an angle from him, and turned to him in impatient expectation. Ganya stood in a corner of the study, by the writing desk, sorting some papers.

‘On the whole I don’t have much time for making acquaintances,’ said the general, ‘but since you, of course, have some purpos
e of your own, then ...’

‘I had a feeling,’ the prince interrupted, ‘that you would be bound to see some special purpose in my visit. But to be quite honest, apart from the pleasure of making your acquaintance, I have no private purpose.’

‘It’s also, of course, a great pleasure for me, too, but life is not all enjoyment, after all - sometimes business must be attended to ... What is more, I still cannot perceive between us any common ... pretext, as it were.’

‘No pretext, indisputably, and little in common, of course. For, if I am Prince Myshkin and your spouse is of our family, that is of course not a pretext. I understand that very well. Yet, none the less, all of my reason for coming to see you lies in the fact that I haven’t been in Russia for more than four years; and when I left, I wasn’t really in my right mind! Back then I knew nothing, and now I know even less. I’m in need of good people; I even have a certain item of business to attend to and don’t know where to start. Back in Berlin I thought: “They’re almost relatives, I’ll start with them; perhaps we shall be of use to one another, they to me and I to them - if they’re good people.” And I’d heard that you are good people.’

‘I’m very grateful to you, sir,’ the general said in surprise. ‘May one ask where you are staying?’

‘I’m not staying anywhere yet.’

‘You mean, straight off the train, and to me? And ... with luggage?’

‘My luggage is only one small bundle of linen, and that’s all; I usually carry it in my hand. I shall manage to rent a room this evening.’

‘So you still intend to rent a room?’

‘Oh yes, of course.’

‘To judge from what you said, I almost thought you had come straight to me.’

‘That might have been possible, but not unless you’d invited me. I admit that I wouldn’t have stayed even if you’d invited me, not for any special reason, but ... because that’s what I’m like.’

‘Well, in that case it’s just as well I didn’t invite you and do not invite you now. Allow me also, Prince, to clear the matter up once and for all: as we have just agreed that there can be no more talk of family kinship between us - though it would, of course, have been most flattering for me - it follows that...’

‘It follows that I should get up and go away?’ the prince said, half rising, and even with a cheerful laugh, in spite of all the evident difficulty of his circumstances. ‘And to be quite honest, General, though I know practically nothing of either the local customs or of how people live here, things have worked out between us exactly as I thought they would. Who knows, perhaps it’s best that way ... And I received no reply to the letter I wrote then, either ... Well, goodbye, and forgive me for troubling you.’

So affectionate was the prince’s gaze at that moment, his smile so devoid of even the slightest nuance of concealed hostility, that the general suddenly paused and saw his guest, as it were, in a different light; the entire change in his expression took place in a single instant.

‘Listen, Prince,’ he said in an almost entirely different voice, ‘the fact remains that I don’t know you, and it may be that Yelizaveta Prokofyevna would like to take a look at someone who shares her family’s name ... Wait awhile, if you like, and if you have time.’

‘Oh, I’ve plenty of that; my time is completely my own (and the prince at once placed his soft, round hat on the table). I will admit that I was counting on the possibility that Yelizaveta Prokofyevna might perhaps remember I wrote to her. Just now, while I was waiting for you out there, your servant thought I’d come to beg money from you; I noticed it, and I expect you’ve given strict instructions in that regard; but truly, I haven’t come for that, I really have come only in order to make people’s acquaintance. Only I have a slight feeling that I’ve disturbed you, and that troubles me.’

‘I tell you what, Prince,’ the general said with a jovial smile, ‘if you are indeed the man you seem to be, I think it will be nice to make your acquaintance; only you see, I’m a busy man, and very soon I must sit down and look through some papers and sign them, and then I must go and see his excellency the count, and then to my office at the department, and so as a result I’m glad to see people ... good people, that is ... but ... As a matter of fact, I’m so convinced that you’re someone of very good breeding that ... How old are you, Prince?’

‘Twenty-six.’

‘Oh! And I thought much less.’

‘Yes, they say I have a young-looking face. But I shall soon learn not to be a nuisance to you, as I really don’t like to be a nuisance
... And also, I think, we are very different ... in many ways, and cannot perhaps have many points in common, but you know, I don’t place much faith in that last idea, for it very often merely seems that there are no points in common, while in reality there are lots ... it’s because people are lazy that they sort themselves into categories, and therefore can’t find anything ... But perhaps I’ve begun to bore you? You seem ...’

‘I’ll be quite brief, sir: do you have private means of any kind? Or do you intend to take up some kind of occupation? Forgive me for ...’

‘Oh good heavens, I greatly appreciate your question and understand it perfectly. At present I have no private means, and no occupation, also at present, but I need one, sir. The money I’ve had so far has been someone else’s, Schneider, my professor, who treated me and taught me in Switzerland, gave me it for the journey, and it was only just enough, so that now, you see, I’ve only a few copecks left. It’s true that I do have some business, and I’m in need of advice, but...’

‘Tell me, what do you intend to live on at present, and what are your plans?’ the general interrupted.

‘I should like to do some kind of work.’

‘Oh, and you’re a philosopher, too; however ... have you any talents, abilities, of a sort by which one may earn one’s daily bread? Forgive me again ...’

‘Oh, don’t apologize. No, sir, I’m afraid I have neither talents nor special abilities; the contrary, even, for I’m an invalid and did not receive a proper education. As for bread, I think that ...’

Again the general interrupted, and again he began to ask questions. Once more the prince told him what has already been told. It transpired that the general had heard of the late Pavlishchev, and had even known him personally. Why Pavlishchev had taken an interest in his education the prince himself could not explain - but perhaps it was simply because of his old friendship with the prince’s late father. The prince’s parents had died when he was still a young child; he had spent all his life in villages of one kind or another and had grown up there, as his health required country air. Pavlishchev had entrusted him to some elderly female landowners, kinsfolk of his; first a governess had been hired for him, then a tutor; he declared, however, that although he remembered it all, there was not much he could satisfactorily explain, as there were many things he had not been aware of. The frequent attacks of his illness had made of him almost a complete idiot (the prince actually used the word ‘idiot’). He said, at last, that in Berlin one day Pavlishchev had met Professor Schneider, who specialized in precisely this form of illness and had a clinic in the Swiss canton of Valais, where he gave treatment that combined a cold-water method with gymnastics, for the cure of idiotism and insanity, while at the same time providing education and seeing to his patients’ spiritual development; that Pavlishchev had sent him to Schneider in Switzerland some five years earlier and had died two years ago, suddenly, without having made any arrangements: that Schneid
er had supported him and continued his treatment for about another two years; that he had not cured him, but had helped him greatly; and that finally, at the prince’s own request and because of a certain circumstance that had arisen, he had now sent him back to Russia.

The general was very astonished.

‘And you have no one in Russia, absolutely no one?’ he asked.

‘At present I have no one, but I have hopes ... what’s more, I’ve had a letter ...’

‘At least,’ the general interrupted, not hearing the part about the letter, ‘you have obtained some kind of education, and your illness would not prevent you occupying some, shall we say, undemanding post, in some office?’

‘Oh, it certainly wouldn’t prevent me from doing that. And as regards a post, I should even be rather eager, for I should like to see what I am capable of. For I studied constantly all those four years, though not quite properly, but according to a special system. And I also managed to read a very large number of Russian books.’

‘Russian books? So you can read and write - write without mistakes?’

‘Oh, very much so.’

‘Splendid, sir; and your handwriting?’

‘My handwriting is first-rate. You see, I have a sort of talent for it; I’m a real calligrapher. With your permission I’ll write something for you now, as a sample,’ the prince said with eagerness.

‘I’d be much obliged. In fact, it’s even required ... And I like this enthusiasm of yours, Prince, truly you are most kind.’

‘You have such wonderful writing things, so many pencils, so many pens, what wonderful thick paper ... And what a wonderful study you have! That landscape there, I know it, it’s a Swiss view. I’m sure the artist painted it from nature, and I’m sure I have seen that place: it’s in the ca
nton of Uri ...’

‘That may very well be so, though it was bought here. Ganya, give the prince some paper; here are some pens and paper, we’ll put them on this table, if you like. What’s this?’ the general asked turning to Ganya, who had meanwhile taken from his briefcase a large photographic portrait and handed it to him. ‘Bah! Nastasya Filippovna! Did she send you this, she, herself?’ he asked Ganya with animation and intense curiosity.

‘Just now, when I went to see her with my congratulations, she gave it to me. I’ve been asking her for one for ages. I’m not sure it wasn’t a hint on her part, for having come to her empty-handed, without a present, on such a day,’ Ganya added, smiling unpleasantly.