The Idiot (22 page)

‘What?’ the prince exclaimed, beside himself with astonishment.

‘That’s not true, it’s a mistake!’ Nina Alexandrovna said, turning to him suddenly, looking at him almost with anguish.
‘Mon mari se trompe.’
⁴

‘But my dear,
se trompe,
that’s easy to say, but try to solve an incident like that yourself! Everyone was at a loss. I would be the first to say
qu’on se trompe.
But unfortunately, I was a witness and sat on the commission myself. All the witnesses testified that this was definitely the same Private Kolpakov who some six months earlier had been buried with the usual parade and tattoo of drums. Truly a rare incident, almost an impossible one, I agree, but...’

‘Papa, your dinner is on the table,’ Varvara Ardalionovna announced, entering the room.

‘Ah, that’s splendid, magnificent! I’m so hungry... But as for that case, it is even, one may say, a psychological one...’

‘The soup will get cold again,’ Varya said with impatience. ‘I’m coming, I’m coming,’ muttered the general as he went out of the room. ‘And in spite of all the inquiries,’ could still be heard from the corridor.

‘You will have to excuse Ardalion Alexandrovich many things if you stay with us,’ Nina Alexandrovna said to the prince. ‘However, he won’t be much trouble to you; he even eats his dinner alone. I think you’ll agree that everyone has their shortcomings and their... peculiar features, some, perhaps, even more than those at whom we are accustomed to point our fingers. There is one thing I particularly want to ask you: if my husband should ever address you on the subject of payment for your lodging, please tell him that you have given it to me. That’s to say, anything you gave Ardalion Alexandrovich would be deducted from your bill, but I ask you solely for the sake of accuracy... What’s that, Varya?’

Varya had returned to the room and silently handed her mother the portrait of Nastasya Filippovna. Nina Alexandrovna started, and at first with a kind of alarm, and then with a sense of overwhelming bitterness, examined it for a while. At last she looked questioningly at Varya.

‘It’s a present she gave him today,’ said Varya, ‘and this evening it’s all to be decided between them.’

‘This evening!’ Nina Alexandrovna echoed in a low voice, as if in despair. ‘What can one say? At any rate, there’s no more doubt, and there’s no hope left, either; the portrait says it all ... Did he show it to you himself?’ she added in surprise.

‘You know, we’ve hardly exchanged a word all month. Ptitsyn told me about it, and the portrait was just lying on the floor in there; I picked it up.’

‘Prince,’ Nina Alexandrovna suddenly addressed him, ‘I wanted to ask you (that’s really why I asked you to come here) how long you have known my son. I think he said you have only just arrived from somewhere?’

The prince explained briefly about himself, omitting the greater part. Nina Alexandrovna and Varya listened to it all.

‘I’m not trying to find out something about Gavrila Ardalionovich by asking you questions,’ observed Nina Alexandrovna, ‘you mustn’t get the wrong idea. If there’s something he can’t admit to me himself, I don’t intend to try to make inquiries behind his back. I’m doing it really because earlier Ganya, when you were there, and later, when you had gone, in reply to my question about you, replied: “He knows everything, there’s no need to stand on ceremony!” What does that mean? That’s to say, I would like to know how far...’

Suddenly Ganya and Ptitsyn came in; Nina Alexandrovna at once fell silent. The prince remained in the chair beside her, but Varya withdrew to the side: the portrait of Nastasya Filippovna lay in a most conspicuous place, on Nina Alexandrovna’s work table, right in front of her. Ganya, catching sight of it, frowned, picked it up from the table in vexation and threw it on to his writing desk, which stood at the other end of the room.

‘Today, Ganya?’ Nina Alexandrovna suddenly asked.

‘What do you mean, today?’ Ganya said, starting, and suddenly hurled himself on the prince. ‘Ah, I might have known you were here! ... Really, what’s wrong with you, some kind of illness, or what? You can’t restrain yourself, can you? Well let me tell you this, your excellency...’

‘I’m the one who’s to blame here, Ganya, no one else,’ Ptitsyn broke in.

Ganya looked at him questioningly.

‘I mean, it’s better like this, Ganya, all the more so as, from one point of view, the matter is settled,’ muttered Ptitsyn and, going off to the side, sat down by the table, took some sort of pencil-scribbled sheet of paper out of his pocket and began to study it intently. Ganya stood in gloom, uneasily awaiting a family row. He had no thought of apologizing to the prince.

‘If everything is settled, then Ivan Petrovich is right, of course,’ said Nina Alexandrovna. ‘Don’t frown, please, and don’t get irritated. Gany
a, I shall not ask you anything you do not want to tell me yourself, and I assure you that I’m completely resigned, so do me a favour and don’t be worried.’

She said this without interrupting her work and, it seemed, calmly. Ganya was surprised, but cautiously refrained from saying anything and looked at his mother, waiting for her to express herself more clearly. Domestic rows had already cost him too dear. Nina Alexandrovna noticed this caution and, with a bitter smile, added:

‘You still have doubts and don’t believe me; don’t worry, there will be neither tears nor entreaties, like before, on my part at least. All I desire is that you should be happy, and you know that; I’ve resigned myself to fate, but my heart will always be with you, whether we stay together or whether we go our separate ways. Of course, I answer only for myself; you can’t demand the same of your sister...’

‘Ah, her again!’ exclaimed Ganya, looking at his sister with mocking hatred. ‘Dear Mother! I swear again to you what I have already given you my word on: no one shall ever treat you with disrespect while I am here, while I am alive. No matter who it may be, I shall insist on the most complete respect for you, no matter who crosses our threshold...’

Ganya was so relieved that he looked at his mother in a way that was almost conciliatory, almost tender.

‘I have never been afraid on my own account, Ganya, you know that; it’s not about myself that I have experienced such anxiety and torment all this time. They say that everything is to be settled between you today! What is to be settled?’

‘This evening, at her house, she promised to announce whether she consents or not,’ replied Ganya.

‘We’ve been avoiding that subject for nearly three weeks now, and that was for the best. Now that everything is settled, I will only permit myself to ask one thing: how could she give you her consent and even give you her portrait, when you don’t love her? Do you really think that with a woman like her, so ... so...’

‘Er, experienced, you mean?’

‘That’s not how I was going to put it. Do you really think you could deceive her to that extent?’

There was suddenly an extraordinary irritation in this question. Ganya stood still, thought for a moment and, not concealing his derision, said quietly:

‘You’ve got carried away, Mother dear, couldn’t hold out again, that’s the way these scenes have always begun and flared up between us. You said there would be no questions or reproaches, but they’ve already started! We’d better stop; really, let’s stop; at least we tried... I’ll never leave you, not for any reason; another man would have run away from a sister like that - look at her staring at me now! Let’s end it here! I was beginning to feel so pleased... And how do you know that I’m deceiving Nastasya
Filippovna? And as for Varya - she can do as she likes and - that’s enough. Yes, now we’ve really had enough!’

Ganya was becoming more and more excited with each word, pacing aimlessly about the room. Conversations like this at once became a painful experience for all the members of the family.

‘I said that if she comes in here I’ll leave, and I will also keep my word,’ said Varya.

‘It’s stubbornness!’ exclaimed Ganya. ‘It’s stubbornness that makes you refuse to get married! What are you snorting at me for? I don’t give a damn, Varvara Ardalionovna; you may carry out your intention at once, if you like. I’m really sick of you now. You’re finally deciding to leave us, Prince!’ he shouted to the prince, seeing him get from his chair.

In Ganya’s voice could be heard that degree of irritation in which a man is almost glad of that irritation, abandons himself to it without any restraint and almost with growing enjoyment, whatever it may lead to. The prince had started to turn round in the doorway in order make some reply but, seeing by the unhealthy expression on his assailant’s face that now all was needed was the drop that would make the cup run over, he turned back and went out in silence. A few minutes later he heard by the noise from the drawing room that in his absence the conversation was even louder and more outspoken.

He walked through the reception room into the hallway, in order to reach the corridor, and from it his room. As he passed close by the door that gave on to the staircase, he heard and observed that on the other side of it someone was furiously trying to ring the bell; but there must have been something wrong with the bell: it merely shook a little, but there was no sound. The prince slid the bolt, opened the door and-stepped back in amazement, even shuddered all over: before him stood Nastasya Filippovna. He instantly recognized her from the portrait. Her eyes flashed with a burst of annoyance when she saw him; she quickly walked into the hallway, pushing him out of the way with her shoulder, and said angrily, as she threw off her fur coat:

‘If you’re too lazy to mend the bell, you might at least be sitting in the hallway when people knock. Look, now you’ve dropped my coat, fool!’

The coat was indeed lying on the floor; Nastasya Filippovna, not waiting for the prince to help her off with it, had thrown it into his hands without looking, from behind, but the prince had missed it.

‘They ought to get rid of you. In you go, announce me.’

The prince was about to say something, but was so embarrassed that he could get nothing out, and holding the coat which he had picked up from the floor, entered the drawing room.

‘Look, now he’s going in with the coat! Why are you carrying the coat? Ha-ha-ha! Are you insane, or what?’

The prince came back, and looked at her like a dummy; when she began to laugh, he also smiled, but still could not find his to
ngue. At the initial moment when he opened the door to her he had been pale, but now the colour suddenly flooded his face.

‘But what kind of idiot is this?’ Nastasya Filippovna exclaimed in indignation, stamping her foot at him. ‘Well, where are you going? Who are you going to announce?’

‘Nastasya Filippovna,’ muttered the prince.

‘How do you know who I am?’ she asked him quickly. ‘I’ve never seen you before! In you go, announce me ... What’s all that shouting?’

‘They’re quarrelling,’ the prince replied, and went into the drawing room.

He entered it at a rather decisive moment: Nina Alexandrovna was by now on the point of entirely forgetting that she had ‘resigned herself to it all’; she was, however, defending Varya. Ptitsyn was also standing beside Varya, having abandoned his pencil-scribbled sheet of paper. Varya herself was not afraid, and was indeed a girl not easily frightened, but with every word her brother’s crassness was becoming more and more blatant and intolerable. In such cases she usually stopped talking and merely stared at her brother mockingly and in silence, fixing her eyes on him. This manoeuvre, as she well knew, was capable of driving him beyond the limit. At this very moment the prince stepped into the room and proclaimed:

‘Nastasya Filippovna!’

A universal silence ensued; they all looked at the prince as though they did not understand, and did not want to understand. Ganya went stiff with fright.

Nastasya Filippovna’s arrival, especially at the present moment, was a most strange and troubling surprise for them all. There was the very fact that Nastasya Filippovna was visiting for the first time: hitherto she had held herself so aloof that in conversations with Ganya she had not even expressed a desire to be introduced to his relatives, and most recently had not even mentioned them at all, as though they did not exist. Though Ganya was in some respects pleased to be rid of a subject of conversation that was so troubling to him, in his heart he had set this aloofness against her. At any rate, he expected mocking and caustic remarks about his family from her rather than a visit to him; he knew for certain that she was privy to all that was taking place in his house in connection with his preparations for marriage and how these were viewed by his relatives. Her visit,
now,
after the gift of the portrait and on her birthday, the day on which she had promised to decide his fate, almost signified that decision itself ...

The bewilderment with which they all looked at the prince did not continue for long: Nastasya Filippovna appeared in the doorway of the drawing room, and again, as she entered, pushed the prince slightly aside.

‘At last I’ve managed to get in ... why do you tie up the doorbell?’ she said cheerfully, giving her hand to Ganya, who had rushed towards her as fast as his legs would carry him. ‘Why the long face? Introduce
me, please ...’

Ganya, completely embarrassed, introduced her first to Varya, and the two women exchanged odd looks before extending their hands to each other. Nastasya Filippovna, however, laughed and put on a mask of cheerfulness; but Varya did not want to put on a mask, and her gaze was fixed and gloomy; not even the shadow of a smile demanded by simple politeness was visible in her face. Ganya was horrified; there was no point in pleading with her, and not time to do so, and he cast such a threatening look at Varya that by it alone she understood what this moment meant for her brother. It seemed that then she decided to yield to him, and smiled faintly to Nastasya Filippovna. (They were all still, as a family, very fond of one another.) The situation was rescued to some extent by Nina Alexandrovna, whom Ganya, utterly flustered by now, introduced after his sister, and even led up to Nastasya Filippovna first. But no sooner did Nina Alexandrovna begin to speak of her ‘great pleasure’, than Nastasya Filippovna, without waiting to hear her through, quickly turned to Ganya and, sitting down (without so much as an invitation to do so) on the little sofa, in the corner by the window, exclaimed: