Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (345 page)

Nina Alexandrovna was not alone in the drawing-room. Her daughter was with her, and both ladies were busy with some knitting while talking to a visitor, Ivan Petrovitch Ptitsyn. Nina Alexandrovna looked about fifty, with a thin and sunken face and dark rings under her eyes. She looked in delicate health and somewhat melancholy, but her face and expression were rather pleasing. At the first word one could see that she was of an earnest disposition and had genuine dignity. In spite of her melancholy air one felt that she had firmness and even determination. She was very modestly dressed in some dark colour in an elderly style, but her manner, her conversation, all her ways betrayed that she was a woman who had seen better days.

Varvara Ardalionovna was a girl of twenty-three, of middle height, rather thin. Her face, though not very beautiful, possessed the secret of charm without beauty and was extraordinarily attractive. She was very like her mother and was dressed in almost the same way, showing absolutely no desire to be smart. Her grey eyes might have been at times very merry and caressing, if they had not as a rule looked grave and thoughtful; too much so, especially of late. Her face too showed firmness and decision; in fact it suggested an even more vigorous and enterprising determination than her mother’s. Varvara Ardalionovna was rather hot-tempered, and her brother was sometimes positively afraid of her temper. The visitor with them now, Ivan Petrovitch Ptitsyn, was a little afraid of her too. He was a young man, not yet thirty, modestly but elegantly dressed, with a pleasant but rather too solemn manner. His dark brown beard showed that he was not in the government service. He could talk cleverly and well, but was more often silent. He made a pleasant impression on the whole. He was obviously attracted by Varvara Ardalionovna and did not conceal his feelings. She treated him in a friendly way, but put off answering certain questions, and did not like them. But Ptitsyn was far from losing courage. Nina Alexandrovna was cordial to him and had of late begun to confide in him. It was known, moreover, that he was trying to make his fortune by lending money at high interest on more or less good security. He was a great friend of Ganya’s.

Ganya greeted his mother very frigidly, did not greet his sister at all, and after abruptly introducing Myshkin and giving a minute account of him, he at once drew Ptitsyn out of the room. Nina Alexandrovna said a few friendly words to Myshkin and told Kolya, who peeped in at the door, to conduct him to the middle room. Kolya was a boy with a merry and rather pleasant face and a confiding and simple manner.

“Where is your luggage?” he asked Myshkin, as they went into the room.

“I have a bundle. I left it in the passage.”

“I’ll bring it you directly. We have only the cook and Matryona, so I help too. Varya looks after everything and gets cross. Ganya says you’ve come from Switzerland to-day.”

“Yes.”

“Is it nice in Switzerland?”

“Very.”

“Mountains?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll bring you your bundles directly.”

Varvara Ardalionovna came in.

“Matryona will make your bed directly. Have you a trunk?”

“No, a bundle. Your brother has gone to fetch it; it’s in the passage.”

“There’s no bundle there except this little one. Where have you put it?” asked Kolya, coming back into the room.

“I haven’t any but that,” answered Myshkin, taking his bundle.

“A-ah! I was wondering whether they hadn’t been carried off by Ferdyshtchenko.”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” said Varya sternly. Even to Myshkin she spoke shortly and with bare civility.

“Chere Babette, you might treat me more tenderly, I am not Ptitsyn.”

“One can see you still want whipping, Kolya, you are so stupid. \bu can ask Matryona for anything you want. Dinner is at half-past four. You can dine with us or in your own room, as you prefer. Come, Kolya, don’t be in the way.”

“Let us go, you determined character.”

As they went out they came upon Ganya.

“Is father at home?” Ganya asked Kolya, and on receiving an affirmative reply he whispered something in his ear. Kolya nodded and followed his sister out.

“One word, prince. I forgot to mention it with all this . . . business. I’ve a request to make. Be so good, if it won’t be a great bother to you — don’t gossip here of what has just passed between Aglaia and me, nor there of what you’ll find here, because there’s degradation enough here too. Damn it all, though! . . . Restrain yourself for to-day, anyway.”

“I assure you that I gossiped much less than you think,” said Myshkin, with some irritation at Ganya’s reproaches.

Their relations were obviously becoming more and more strained.

“Well, I have had to put up with enough to-day through you. Anyway, I beg you to keep quiet.”

“You must notice besides, Gavril Ardalionovitch, I was not bound in any way; and why shouldn’t I have spoken of the photograph? You didn’t ask me not to.”

“Foo! what a horrid room!” observed Ganya, looking round him contemptuously. “Dark and looking into the yard. \bu’ve come to us at a bad time from every point of view. But that’s not my business, I don’t let the rooms.”

Ptitsyn peeped in and called Ganya, who hurriedly left Myshkin and went out. There was something more he wanted to say, but he was obviously ill at ease and seemed ashamed to say it. He had found fault with the room to cover his embarrassment.

As soon as Myshkin had washed and made himself a little tidier, the door opened again and another person looked in. This was a gentleman about thirty, tall and broad, with a huge curly red head. His face was red and fleshy, his lips were thick, his nose was broad and flat. He had little ironical eyes lost in fat, that looked as if they were always winking. The whole countenance produced an impression of insolence. He was rather dirtily dressed.

He first opened the door only far enough to poke his head in. The head looked about the room for five seconds, then the door began slowly opening and the whole person came into view in the doorway. “Vfet the visitor did not come in, but, screwing up his eyes, still stared at Myshkin from the doorway. At last he closed the door behind him, came nearer, sat down on a chair, took Myshkin’s hand, and made him sit on the sofa near him.

“Ferdyshtchenko,” he said, looking intently and inquiringly at Myshkin.

“What of it?” answered Myshkin, almost laughing.

“A boarder,” said Ferdyshtchenko, looking at him as before.

“Do you want to make my acquaintance?”

“E-ech,” said the visitor, sighing and ruffling up his hair, and he began staring in the opposite corner. “Have you money?” he asked, turning suddenly to Myshkin.

“A little.”

“How much?”

“Twenty-five roubles.”

“Show me.”

Myshkin took the twenty-five-rouble note out of his waistcoat pocket and handed it to Ferdyshtchenko, who unfolded it, looked at it, turned it over, then held it to the light.

“That’s rather strange,” he said, seeming to reflect. “Why do they turn mud colour? These twenty-five-rouble notes often turn an awful colour, while others fade. Take it.”

Myshkin took back his note. Ferdyshtchenko got up from his chair.

“I’ve come in to warn you, in the first place, not to lend me money, for I shall be sure to ask you to.”

“Very well.”

“Do you mean to pay here?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I don’t. Thanks. I’m the next door on the right. Did you notice it? Try not to come and see me too often; I shall come and see you, you needn’t be afraid. Have you seen the general?”

“No.”

“Nor heard him either?”

“Of course not.”

“Well, you’ll see him and hear him. What’s more, he tries to borrow even of me. Avis au lecteur. Good-bye. Can one exist with such a name as Ferdyshtchenko? Eh?”

“Why not?”

“Good-bye.”

And he went to the door. Myshkin learnt later that this gentleman felt it incumbent upon him to amaze everyone by his originality and liveliness, but never succeeded in doing so. Some people he impressed unfavourably, which was a real mortification to him. “Vfet he did not relinquish his efforts. At the door he succeeded in retrieving his position, so to speak, by stumbling against a gentleman who was coming in. Letting this fresh visitor, who was a stranger to Myshkin, into the room, he winked warningly several times behind his back, and so made a fairly effective exit.

The other gentleman was a tall and corpulent man of fifty-five or more, with a fleshy, bloated, purple-red face, set off by thick grey whiskers and moustache. He had large, rather prominent eyes. His appearance would have been rather impressive, if it had not been for something neglected, slovenly, even unclean about him. He was wearing shabby indoor clothes, an old frock-coat with elbows almost in holes and dirty linen. At close quarters he smelt a little of vodka, but his manner was impressive and rather studied. He betrayed a jealous desire to display his dignity.

The gentleman approached Myshkin deliberately, with an affable smile. He took his hand silently and, holding it for some time in his, looked into Myshkin’s face as though recognising familiarfeatures.

“It’s he! He!” he pronounced softly but solemnly. “His living picture! I heard them utter a dear and familiar name and it brought back a past that is gone forever.... Prince Myshkin?”

“Yes.”

“General Ivolgin, retired from service and unfortunate. \bur name and your father’s, may I

venture to ask?”

“Lyov Nikolayevitch.”

“Yes, yes! Son of my friend, the companion of my childhood, I may say, Nikolay Petrovitch?”

“My father’s name was Nikolay Lvovitch.”

“Lvovitch,” the general corrected himself, but without haste and with complete assurance, as though he had not in the least forgotten it, but had uttered the wrong name by accident. He sat down, and taking Myshkin’s hand he too made him sit down beside him. “I used to carry you in my arms.”

“Is it possible?” said Myshkin. “My father died twenty years ago.”

“Yes, it’s twenty years — twenty years and three months. We were at school together; I went straight into the army.”

“My father was in the army too: sub-lieutenant in the Vassilkovsky regiment.”

“In the Byelomirsky. He was transferred to the Byelomirsky just before his death. I was at his bedside and blessed him for eternity. Your mother. .

The general paused, as though arrested by painful memory.

“Yes, she died six months later from a chill,” said Myshkin.

“It was not a chill — not a chill. You may trust an old man’s words. I was there; I buried her too. It was grief at the loss of her husband; not a chill. Yes, I remember the princess too. Ah, youth! It was for her sake that the prince and I, friends from childhood, were on the point of becoming each other’s murderers.”

Myshkin began to listen with a certain scepticism.

“I was passionately in love with your mother when she was betrothed — betrothed to my friend. The prince observed it and it was a blow to him. He came to me early in the morning, before seven o’clock, and waked me up. I dressed in amazement. There was silence on both sides; I understood it all. He pulled two pistols out of his pocket. Across a handkerchief, without witnesses. What need of witnesses when within five minutes we should have sent each other into eternity? We loaded, stretched the handkerchief, aimed the pistols at each other’s hearts and gazed in each other’s faces. Suddenly tears gushed from the eyes of both; our hands trembled. Of both — of both at once. Then naturally followed embraces and a conflict in mutual generosity. The prince cried, ‘She is yours.’ I cried, ‘No, yours.’ In fact... in fact. . . you’ve come to live with us?”

“Yes, for a little time perhaps,” said Myshkin, seeming to hesitate.

“Mother asks you to come to her, prince,” cried Kolya, looking in at the door.

Myshkin got up to go, but the general put his right hand on his shoulder and affectionately made him sit down again.

“As a true friend of your father’s I want to warn you,” said the general. “You can see for yourself I have suffered, through a tragic catastrophe, but without trial. Without trial! Nina Alexandrovna is a rare woman. Varvara Ardalionovna, my daughter, is a rare daughter. We are driven by circumstances to take boarders — an incredible downfall! I, who was on the eve of becoming a governor-general! . . . But you we shall always be glad to receive. And meanwhile there is a tragedy in my house!”

Myshkin looked at him inquiringly and with great curiosity.

“A marriage is being arranged, and a strange marriage. A marriage between a woman of doubtful character and a young man who might be a kammeijunker. That woman is to be brought into the house where are my daughter and my wife! But as long as I breathe, she shall not enter it! I will lie down on the threshold and she must walk over me. Ganya I scarcely speak to now; I avoid meeting him, indeed. I warn you beforehand; since you’ll be living with us, you’ll see it anyway. But you are the son of my friend and I have the right to hope ...”

“Prince, will you be so good as to come into the drawing-room?” Nina Alexandrovna herself appeared in the doorway and called him.

“Only fancy, my dear,” cried the general, “it appears that I used to dandle the prince in my arms!”

Nina Alexandrovna glanced reproachfully at the general and searchingly at Myshkin, but did not say a word. Myshkin followed her, but as soon as they had entered the drawing-room and sat down, and Nina Alexandrovna had begun in an undertone and very rapidly telling Myshkin something, the general himself made his appearance. Nina Alexandrovna ceased speaking instantly and, with evident annoyance, bent over her knitting. The general perhaps observed this annoyance, but was still in excellent spirits.

“The son of my friend,” he cried, addressing Nina Alexandrovna. “And so unexpectedly! I’d long given up all idea. . . . My dear, surely you must remember Nikolay Lvovitch? He was still at . . . Tver when you were there.”

“I don’t remember Nikolay Lvovitch. Is that your father?” she asked Myshkin.

“Yes. I don’t think it was at Tver he died, though, but at Elisavetgrad,” Myshkin observed timidly to the general. “I was told so by Pavlishtchev.”