The Idiot (95 page)

As the prince listened to this, his eyes gleamed with delight and tender emotion. With uncommon fervour he announced, in his turn, that he would never be able to forgive himself for not having taken the opportunity, during the six months of his travels around the inner provinces, of seeking out and visiting his former educators. ‘Every day he intended to go there, but was always distracted by circumstances ... but now he had promised himself ... come what may ... even if only to the province of - ... So you know Natalya Nikitishna? What a beautiful, what a saintly soul! But Marfa Nikitishna, too ... forgive me, but I think you are mistaken about Marfa Nikitishna ! She was strict, but ... I mean, it was impossible for her not to lose patience ... with an idiot such as I was then (hee-hee!) I mean, I was a complete idiot, you would not believe (ha-ha!). ). However ... however, you saw me in those days and ... How is it that I don’t remember you, tell me, please? So you ... oh, my goodness, are you then really a relative of Nikolai Andreyevich Pavlishchev?’

‘I as-sure you,’ smiled Ivan Petrovich, looking the prince over.

‘Oh, but I didn’t say it because I ... doubted it ... and, anyway, how could one doubt it (heh-heh!) ... in the slightest? ... I mean, even in the slightest! (Heh-heh!) No, I just meant that Nikolai Andreyevich Pavlishchev was such an excellent man! The most generous of men, truly, I assure you!’

The prince was not so much out of breath as, so to speak, ‘choking with a noble heart’, as Adelaida put it the following morning, in conversation with her future husband, Prince Shch.

‘Oh, my goodness!’ Ivan Petrovich burst out laughing! ‘Why can’t I be the relative of a gen-er-ous man?’

‘Oh, my goodness!’ exclaimed the prince, embarrassed, hurrying and growing more and more animated. ‘I ... I’ve said something stupid again, but ... it’s bound to be like that, because I ... I ... actually, that again isn’t what I meant! And what is there in me, tell me please, compared with such interests ... compared with such enormous interests! And in comparison with such a most generous man- because I mean, quite honestly, he was the most generous of men, wasn’t he? Wasn’t he?’

The prince was even trembling all over. Why he had suddenly become so anxious, why he had fallen into such an obsequious rapture, for no apparent reason and, it seemed, quite out of proportion to the subject they were discussing - it would have been hard to determine. It was really that he was in that kind of a mood, and at that moment he was even almost experiencing, towards someone and for something, the most fervent and emotional gratitude - perhaps it was even towards Ivan Petrovich, but also, almost, towards all the guests in general. He was positively ‘bursting with happiness’. At last, Ivan Petrovich began to stare at him far more intently; very intently did the ‘dignitary’ also examine him. Belokonskaya shot an angry look at the prince and pursed her lips. Prince N., Yevgeny Pavlovich, Prince Shch., the girls - they all broke off their conversation and listened. Aglaya seemed to be alarmed, while Lizaveta Prokofyevna was simply terrified. They were behaving oddly, mother and daughter: it was they, after all, who had proposed and decided that it would be better for the prince to sit the evening out in silence; but no sooner did they catch sight of him in a corner, in the most complete isolation and perfectly happy with his lot, than they at once became anxious. Indeed, Alexandra had wanted to go over to him and carefully, across the whole room, attach him to their company, that is, to the company of Prince N., beside Belokonskaya. And then, as soon as the prince began to talk, they grew even more anxious.

‘That he was a most excellent man, in that you are correct,’ Ivan Petrovich pronounced imposingly, and not smiling now. ‘Yes, yes ... he was a splendid man! Splendid and worthy,’ he added, after a short silence. ‘Worthy, even, one might say, of every respect,’ he added even more imposingly after a third pause, ‘and ... and it is very agreeable to see on your part ...’

‘Wasn’t it this Pavlishchev that there was some episode about ... a strange one ... with an
abbé
... an
abbé
... I’ve forgotten which
abbé
it was, but everyone was talking about it at the time,’ the ‘dignitary’ said, as if recollecting.

‘It was Abbé Goureau, the Jesuit,’ Ivan Petrovich reminded him, ‘yes, sir, there are most excellent and most worthy men, sir! Because say what you like, he was a man of good family, with a fortune, a chamberlain and if he had ... continued to serve ... And then he suddenly gave up the service, and everything, in order to go over to Catholicism, and became a
Jesuit, and more or less openly, too, with a kind of delight. Truly, he died at the right time ... yes; everyone said it at the time ...’

The prince was beside himself.

‘Pavlishchev ... Pavlishchev went over to Catholicism? That cannot be!’ he exclaimed in horror.

‘Well, “that cannot be”,’ Ivan Petrovich mumbled sedately, ‘is putting it a little strongly, you must admit, my dear Prince ... However, you have such a high opinion of the deceased ... indeed, he was the kindest of men, to which I ascribe, in the main, that wily old fox Goureau’s success. But really, speaking personally, don’t ask me how much fuss and bother I later experienced on account of that matter ... and precisely with that selfsame Goureau! Imagine,’ he suddenly addressed the elderly gentleman, ‘they even wanted to advance claims in connection with the will, and at the time I even had to resort to the most, er, energetic measures ... because they were masters of the craft! Ex-tra-ord-inary! But, thank God, it happened in Moscow, I at once went to see the count, and we ... put some sense into them ...’

‘You can’t imagine how you have upset and shocked me!’ the prince exclaimed again.

‘I am sorry; but it really is all nonsense and would have ended in nonsense, as usual; I’m convinced of it. Last summer,’ he turned again to the elderly gentleman, ‘Countess K. also entered some Catholic convent abroad; our people don’t seem to be able to hold out, once they submit to those ... sly-boots ... especially abroad ...’

‘I think it’s all caused, I think, by our ... weariness,’ the elderly gentleman mumbled authoritatively. ‘Well, and their manner of preaching ... it’s elegant, unique ... and they know how to frighten people. They also frightened me in Vienna, in thirty-two, I assure you; only I didn’t submit, and ran away from them, ha-ha!’

‘I heard, my dear, that you ran away from Vienna to Paris with the society beauty Countess Levitskaya, leaving your post, and it wasn’t the Jesuit you ran away from,’ Belokonskaya suddenly retorted.

‘Well, but I mean, it was from the Jesuit, that’s how it turned out, it was the Jesuit I was running away from!’ the elderly gentleman interjected, bursting into laughter at the pleasant recollection. ‘You seem very religious, and that is so rarely encountered in a young man nowadays,’ he turned affectionately to Prince Lev Nikolayevich, who was listening with his mouth open and was still shocked; the elderly gentleman apparently wanted to find out more about the prince; for several reasons he had been begun to interest him greatly.

‘Pavlishchev was a brilliant intellect and a Christian, a true Christian,’ the prince declared suddenly. ‘How could he have submitted to a faith that is ... unchristian? Catholicism is the same thing as an unchristian faith!’ he added suddenly, his eyes beginning to flash, and he stared ahead of him, somehow taking them all in with his eyes.

‘Well, that is too much,’ muttered the elderly gentleman, giving Ivan Fyodorovich a look of surprise.

‘How is that, Catholicism an unchristian faith?’ Ivan Petrovich turned round on his chair. ‘What sort of faith is it, then?’

‘It’s an unchristian faith, that is number one!’ the prince began to speak again, in extreme excitement and with excessive sharpness. ‘That is number one, and number two is that Roman Catholicism is even worse than atheism itself, that is my opinion! Yes! That’s my opinion! Atheism merely preaches zero, but Catholicism goes further: it preaches a distorted Christ, slandered and desecrated by it, the opposite of Christ! It preaches the Antichrist, I swear to you, I assure you! That is my personal and long-established conviction, and it has been a source of torment to me ... Roman Catholicism believes that without universal state power the Church will not endure upon earth, and cries:
‘Non possumus!’
²
In my view, Roman Catholicism is not even a faith, but is decidedly a continuation of the Western Roman Empire, and in it everything, beginning with faith, is subordinated to that idea. The Pope seized the earth, an earthly throne, and took up the sword; ever since then it has all gone like that, except that to the sword they’ve added lies, slyness, deception, fanaticism, superstition and evil-doing, and played with the people’s most sacred, truthful, simple, fiery emotions, exchanging everything, everything for money, for base, earthly power. And isn’t that the teaching of the Antichrist? How could atheism have failed to originate from them? Atheism originated from them, from Roman Catholicism itself! First of all, atheism took its origin in them: could they believe in themselves? It gained strength from the revulsion that was felt for them; it is the result of their lies and spiritual impotence! Atheism! So far, in our land it’s only the upper classes who do not believe, as Yevgeny Pavlovich put it so splendidly the other day, having lost their roots; but there, in Europe, now, enormous masses of the ordinary people are starting not to believe - it used to be because of darkness and lies, but now it’s because of fanaticism, hatred of the Church and Christianity!’

The prince stopped to draw breath. He had been talking terribly fast. He was pale and gasping. They all exchanged glances; but at last the elderly gentleman openly burst into laughter. Prince N. took out his lorgnette and examined the prince steadily. The little German poet crept out of the corner and moved closer to the table, smiling an ominous smile.

‘You very much ex-ag-ger-ate,’ Ivan Petrovich drawled with a certain degree of boredom, and even as if he had something on his conscience. ‘In the Church over there, there are also representatives who are worthy of all respect and are vir-tu-ous ...’

‘I wasn’t talking about individual representatives of the Church. I was talking about the essence of Roman Catholicism, it is Rome of which I speak. Can a Church completely disappear? I never said that!’

‘Agreed, but that is all well known and even - superfluous, and ... belongs to theology ...’

‘Oh no, oh no! Not just to theology, I assure you, it doesn’t! It concerns us far more closely than you suppose. That is the whole of our error, that we cannot yet see that this matter is not just a purely theological one! I mean, socialism is also a result of Catholicism and the essence of Catholicism! It also, like its brother atheism, originated in despair, opposed to Catholicism in a moral sense, in order to replace the lost moral power of religion, in order to assuage the thirst of a spiritually thirsting humanity and to save it not by Christ, but by coercion! It is also freedom by coercion, it’s unification by the sword and by blood! “Do not dare to believe in God, do not dare to have property, do not dare to have individuality,
fraternité ou la
mort
, two million heads!”
³
By their works ye shall know them
⁴
- it is written! And do not suppose that all this has been so innocent and innocuous for us; oh, we need to rebuff it, and soon, soon! Our Christ must shine out as a rebuff to the West, the Christ we have preserved and whom they have not known! Not slavishly swallowing the Jesuits’ hook, but carrying our Russian civilization to them, we must now stand before them, and let no one among us say that their preaching is elegant, as someone said just now ...’

‘But permit me, permit me,’ Ivan Petrovich began to grow dreadfully perturbed, looking round him, and even starting to lose his nerve. ‘All your ideas are, of course, praiseworthy and full of patriotism, but it is all in the highest degree exaggerated, and ... we had even better drop the subject ...’

‘No, it isn’t exaggerated, it’s rather understated; understated indeed, because I’m not able to express myself properly, but ...’

‘But per-mit me!’

The prince fell silent. He sat straight up in his chair and, motionless, looked at Ivan Petrovich with a fiery stare.

‘I think the incident with your benefactor has shaken you too much,’ the elderly gentleman observed, kindly and not losing his calm. ‘You are ignited ... perhaps because of your seclusion. If you lived with people more, and you would, I hope, be gladly accepted in society as a remarkable young man, then you would, of course, calm your animation and see that all this is far more simple ... and moreover such rare instances ... occur, in my view, partly because of our satiety and partly because of ... boredom.’

‘Precisely, precisely so!’ exclaimed the prince. ‘A most magnificent idea! Precisely “because of boredom, because of our boredom”, not because of satiety, on the contrary, because of thirst ... not satiety, you are wrong there! Not only thirst, but even inflammation, a feverish thirst! And ... and do not suppose that this is on such a small scale that it may merely be laughed at; excuse me, but one must be able to have prescience! No sooner do our people reach a shore, no sooner do they come to believe that it is a shore, than they rejoice in it so much that they at once go to the last extreme; why is that? I mean, here you are being astonished at Pavlishchev, you ascribe it all to his insanity or kindness, but that is wrong! And it is not us alone, but the whole of Europe that is astonished by our passi
onate Russian temperament: in our country, if a man goes over to Catholicism, he unfailingly becomes a Jesuit, and one of the most clandestine sort, at that; if he becomes an atheist, he will at once begin to demand the eradication of belief in God by coercion, that is, by the sword! Why is that, why such instant frenzy? Do you really not know? It’s because he has found the fatherland he failed to espy here, and is filled with joy; he has found a shore, a soil, and has rushed to kiss it! You see, it is not from vanity alone, not from mere sordid vain emotions that Russian atheists and Russian Jesuits proceed, but from a spiritual pain, a spiritual thirst, a yearning for something more exalted, for a firm shore, a motherland in which they have ceased to believe, because they have never known it! It is so easy for a Russian to become an atheist, easier than for anyone else in the whole world! And our people do not simply become atheists, they unfailingly
believe
in atheism, as in a new creed, never noticing that they have come to believe in a zero. That is what our thirst is like! “He who has no soil beneath him has no God either.” That expression is not my own. It’s the expression of a merchant, an Old Believer, whom I met when I was travelling. He, it’s true, didn’t express it like that, he said: “He who has renounced his native land has renounced his God as well.” I mean, just think, highly educated people in our country have even taken up flagellantism
⁵
... Though, as a matter of fact, in that case is flagellantism any worse than nihilism, Jesuitism or atheism? It is even, perhaps, a bit deeper than them! But that is the length to which their yearning has gone! ... Reveal the shore of the New World to Columbus’s thirsting and inflamed fellow-travellers, reveal the Russian World to a Russian, let him find that gold, that treasure hidden from him in the earth! Show him in the future the renewal of all mankind and its resurrection, perhaps by Russian thought alone, by the Russian God and Christ, and you will see what a mighty and truthful, wise and meek giant will grow before an amazed world, amazed and frightened, because they expect from us only the sword, the sword and coercion, because they cannot imagine us, judging by their own standards, without barbarism. And that is how it has been hitherto, and that is how it will increasingly continue! And ...’