Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (404 page)

“He has something new in his mind,” Varya thought to herself.

“How are they taking it? Are they pleased, the father and mother?” Ganya asked suddenly.

“N-no, I think not. However, you can judge for yourself. Ivan Fyodorovitch is pleased. The mother is uneasy; she’s always viewed him with dislike as a suitor, we know that.”

“I don’t mean that. He is an impossible suitor, unthinkable, that’s evident. I was talking about their attitude now. What’s their line now? Has she given her formal consent?”

“She hasn’t so far said no, that’s all; but that’s all one could expect from her. You know how insanely shy and bashful she still is. When she was a child she would creep into a cupboard and sit there for two or three hours, simply to escape seeing visitors. Though she has grown such a maypole, she is just the same now. \bu know, I believe there really is something in it, even on her side. They say she is laughing at the prince from morning till night, so as to hide her feelings; but she must manage to say something on the sly to him every day, for he looks as though he were in heaven, he is beaming. He is fearfully funny, they say. I heard it from them. I fancied too that they laughed at me to my face, the elder girls.”

Ganva at last beqan to frown; perhaps Varva went on enlarging on the subject on purpose to get at his real view. But they heard a shout again upstairs.

“I’ll turn him out!” Ganya fairly roared, as though glad to vent his annoyance.

“And then he will go disgracing us everywhere, as he did yesterday.”

“Yesterday? What do you mean? Why, did he . . .” Ganya seemed dreadfully alarmed all of a sudden.

“Oh dear, didn’t you know?” Varya pulled herself up.

“What! Surely it isn’t true that he has been there?” cried Ganya, flushing crimson with shame and anger. “Good heavens! why you’ve come from there! Have you heard something about it? Has the old man been there? Has he, or not?”

And Ganya rushed to the door. Varya flew to him and clutched him with both hands.

“What are you about? Where are you going?” she said. “If you let him out now, he will do more harm than ever; he will go to everyone.”

“What did he do there? What did he say?”

“Well, they couldn’t tell me themselves, they hadn’t understood it; he only frightened them all. He went to see Ivan Fyodorovitch; he was out. He asked to see Lizaveta Prokofyevna. First he asked her about a post — wanted to get a job; and then he began complaining of us, of me, of my husband, of you especially.... He talked a lot of stuff.”

“You couldn’t find out what?” Ganya was quivering hysterically.

“How could I? He scarcely knew what he was saying himself; and perhaps they did not tell me everything.”

Ganya clutched at his head and ran to the window. Varya sat down at the other window.

“Aglaia is an absurd creature,” she observed suddenly. “She stopped me and said ‘Please give your parents my special respects. I shall certainly have an opportunity of seeing your father one of these days.’ And she said that so seriously; it was awfully queer....”

“Not in derision? Not in derision?”

“That’s just it, it wasn’t. That is what was so queer.”

“Does she know about the old man, or not, what do you think?”

“There’s no doubt in my mind that they don’t know in the family. But you’ve given me an idea: Aglaia perhaps does know. She is the only one who does know perhaps, for her sisters were surprised too when she sent her greeting to father so seriously. And why to him particularly? If she does know, the prince must have told her.”

“It’s not difficult to guess who told her! A thief! It’s the last straw. A thief in our family, ‘the head of the house’!”

“That’s nonsense!” cried Varya, losing patience. “A drunken prank, that’s all. And who made up the story? Lebedyev, the prince . . . they are a nice lot themselves; they are wise people! Don’t believe a word of it.”

“The old man is a thief and a drunkard,” Ganya went on bitterly, “I am a beggar, my sister’s husband is a moneylender — an alluring prospect for Aglaia! A lovely state of things and no mistake!”

“That sister’s husband who is a moneylender is . .

“Keeping me, you mean? Don’t mince matters, please.”

“Why are you so cross?” said Varya, restraining herself. “\bu are a regular schoolboy, you don’t understand anything. “Vbu think all this might injure you in Aglaia’s eyes? “Vbu don’t know her. She’d refuse the most eligible suitor and run off delighted with some student to starve in a garret — that’s her dream! “Vbu’ve never been able to understand how interesting you would have become in her eyes, if you had been able to bear our surroundings with pride and fortitude. The prince has hooked her, in the first place, because he wasn’t fishing for her; and secondly, because he is looked upon by every one as an idiot. The very fact that she is upsetting her family about him is a joy to her. Ah, you don’t understand!”

“Well, we shall see whether I understand or not,” Ganya muttered enigmatically. “Still, I shouldn’t like her to know about the old man. I thought Myshkin would have been able to hold his tongue. He made Lebedyev keep quiet; he didn’t want to speak out to me when I insisted on knowing.”

“So you see that, apart from him, it has leaked out. And what does it matter to you now? What are you hoping for? And even if you had any hope left, it would only make her look on you as a martyr.”

“Well, even she would be a coward about a scandal, in spite of all her romantic notions. It’s all up to a certain point, and every one draws the line somewhere. You are all alike.”

“Aglaia would be a coward?” Varya fired up, looking contemptuously at her brother. “\bu’ve got a mean little soul! You are all a worthless lot. She may be absurd and eccentric, but she is a thousand times more generous than any of us.”

“Well, never mind, never mind, don’t be cross,” Ganya murmured again complacently.

“I am sorry for mother, that’s all,” Varya went on. “I am so afraid this scandal about father may reach her ears. Ach! I am afraid it will!”

“No doubt it has reached her,” observed Ganya.

Varya had risen to go upstairs to Nina Alexandrovna, but, stopping short, she looked attentively at her brother.

“Who could have told her?”

“Ippolit, most likely. It would have been the greatest satisfaction to him to report the matter to mother, as soon as he moved here, I expect.”

“But how does he know? Tell me that, pray. The prince and Lebedyev made up their minds to tell nobody; Kolya knows nothing.”

“Ippolit? He found it out for himself. You can’t imagine what a sly beast he is; what a gossip he is; how quick he is at sniffing out anything bad, any sort of scandal. \bu may not believe it, but I am sure he has succeeded in getting a hold on Aglaia; and if he hasn’t, he will. Rogozhin has got to know him too. How is it the prince does not notice it? And how eager he is to score off me now! He looks upon me as his personal enemy, I’ve seen that a long time — why and with what object, since he is dying, I can’t make out. But I’ll get the better of him. \bu will see that I’ll score off him, not he off me!”

“What made you, then, entice him here, if you hate him so? And is he worth scoring off?”

“You advised me to entice him here.”

“I thought he would be of use. But do you know that he has fallen in love with Aglaia himself now, and has been writing to her? They asked me about him.. . . He may even have written to Lizaveta Prokofyevna.”

“He is not dangerous in that way,” said Ganya, with a spiteful laugh, “but most likely you are mistaken. It’s very possible he is in love, for he is a boy. But ... he wouldn’t write anonymous letters to the old lady. He is such a spiteful, insignificant, self-satisfied mediocity! ... I am convinced, I know, that he represented me to her as a scheming adventurer; that’s what he began with. I must own that, like a fool, I talked to him freely at first. I thought that, simply to revenge himself on the prince, he’d work in my interests. He is such a sly beast! Ah, I have seen through him now completely! And he heard about that theft from his mother, the captain’s widow. If the old man did bring himself to it, it was for that woman’s sake. He suddenly told me, apropos of nothing, that the general had promised his mother four hundred roubles; and he told me that without the least ceremony, absolutely apropos of nothing. Then I understood it all. And he peered right in my face with a sort of glee. He’s told mother too, most likely, for the mere pleasure of breaking her heart. And why on earth doesn’t he die, pray? He promised to die in three weeks, and here he is getting fatter! He is coughing less; he said himself last night that he hadn’t brought up blood for two days.”

“Turn him out.”

“I don’t hate him, I despise him!” Ganya pronounced proudly. “Well, yes, I do hate him then, I do,” he shouted suddenly with extraordinary fury, “and I’ll tell him so to his face, even if he lies dying on his bed! If you’d read his confession — good Lord, th e naivete of its insolence! He is a regular Lieutenant Pirogov, a Nozdryov — turned tragic, and, above all, he is a puppy! Oh, how I should have enjoyed thrashing him, simply to surprise him! Now he wants to pay every one out because he failed to . . . But what’s that? A noise again? What can it be, really? I won’t put up with it, Ptitsyn!” he cried to his brother-in-law who came into the room. “What’s the meaning of this? What are we coming to? This is . .. this is ...”

But the noise was quickly coming nearer, the door was suddenly flung open, and old Ivolgin, wrathful, crimson in the face, and beside himself with agitation, attacked Ptitsyn too. The old man was followed by Nina Alexandrovna, Kolya and the last of all Ippolit.

CHAPTER 2

It WAS five days since Ippolit had moved to Ptitsyn’s house. This had happened naturally, without any break between him and Myshkin. Far from quarrelling, they appeared to part as friends. Gavril Ardalionovitch, who had been so antagonistic to Ippolit on that evening, came of himself, three days afterwards, however, to see him, probably moved to do so by some sudden idea. Rogozhin too, for some reason, took to visiting the invalid. It seemed to Myshkin at first that it would be better for the “poor boy” himself if he were to move out of his (Myshkin’s) house. But at the time of his removal Ippolit observed that he was going to stay with Ptitsyn, “who was so kind as to give him a corner,” and, as though purposely, he never once put it that he was going to stay with Ganya, though it was Ganya who had insisted on his being received into the house. Ganya noticed it at the time, and it rankled in his heart.

He was right when he told his sister that the invalid was better. Ippolit was somewhat better than before, and the improvement was evident at the first glance. He came into the room after every one else, with a sarcastic and malignant smile on his face. Nina Alexandrovna came in, very much frightened. She was thinner and had greatly changed during the last six months; since she had moved to her daughter’s house on the latter’s marriage, she had almost given up outwardly taking any part in her children’s affairs. Kolya was worried and seemed puzzled; there was a great deal he did not understand in the “general’s madness,” as he expressed it, being, of course, unaware of the reasons of this last upset in the house. But it was clear to him that his father was quarreling everywhere and all day long, and had suddenly so changed that he was not like the same man. It made him uneasy, too, to see that the old man had, for the last three days, entirely given up drinking. He knew that his father had fallen out and even quarrelled with Lebedyev and Myshkin. Kolya had just returned home with a pint bottle of vodka, paid for out of his own pocket.

“Really, mother,” he had assured Nina Alexandrovna upstairs, “really it’s better to let him drink. It’s three days since he touched a drop, he must be feeling wretched. It’s really better; I used to take it him to the prison.”

The general flung the door wide open, and stood in the doorway, seeming to quiver with indignation.

“Sir!” he shouted in a voice of thunderto Ptitsyn. “If you have really decided to sacrifice to a milksop and an atheist a venerable old man, your father, that is, at least, the father of your wife, who has served his sovereign, I will never set my foot within your doors from this hour. Choose, sir, choose at once; it’s either me or that . . . screw! “Vfes, a screw! I said it without thinking, but he is a screw, for he probes into my soul with a screw, and with no sort of respect.. . . What a screw!”

“Don’t you mean a cork-screw?” Ippolit put in.

“No, not a cork-screw! For I stand before you, a general, not a bottle. I have decorations, the rewards of distinction . . . and you have less than nothing. It’s either he or I. Make up your mind, sir, at once, at once!” he shouted frantically again to Ptitsyn.

At that moment Kolya set a chair for him and he sank on to it exhausted.

“You really had better . . . have a nap,” muttered Ptitsyn, overwhelmed.

“Fancy him threatening!” Ganya said to his sister in an undertone.

“Have a nap!” shouted the general. “I am not drunk, sir, and you insult me. I see,” he went on, getting up, “that everything is against me here, everything and everybody. Enough! I am going. . . . But you may be sure, sir, you may be sure ...”

He was not allowed to finish. They made him sit down again; and began begging him to be calm. Ganya, in a fury, retired into a corner. Nina Alexandrovna was trembling and weeping.

“But what have I done to him? What’s he complaining of?” cried Ippolit, grinning.

“As though you had done nothing!” Nina Alexandrovna observed suddenly. “It’s particularly shameful of you . . . and inhuman to torment an old man ... and in your place, too.”

“To begin with, what is my place, madam? I respect vou verv much, vou personally, but...”

“He’s a screw!” bawled the general. “He probes into my soul and heart. He wants me to believe in atheism. Let me tell you, young whippersnapper, that before you were born I was loaded with honours. And you’re only an envious man, torn in two with coughing and dying of spite and infidelity. And why has Gavril brought you here? They’re all against me, even to my own son.”