Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (374 page)

Myshkin sat down and succeeded in making Burdovsky and his friends, who had leapt up from their seats, sit down again. For the last ten or twenty minutes he had been talking eagerly and loudly, with impatient haste, carried away and trying to talk above the rest, and he couldn’t of course help bitterly regretting afterwards some assumptions and some phrases that escaped him now. If he hadn’t himself been worked up and roused almost beyond control, he would not have allowed himself so baldly and hurriedly to utter aloud certain conjectures and unnecessarily candid statements. He had no sooner sat down in his place than a burning remorse set his heart aching. Besides the fact that he had “insulted” Burdovsky by so publicly assuming that he had suffered from the same disease for which he himself had been treated in Switzerland, the offer of the ten thousand that had been destined for a school had been made to his thinking coarsely and carelessly, like a charity, and just because it had been spoken of aloud before people. “I ought to have waited and offered it to him to-morrow, alone,” Myshkin thought at once, “now, perhaps, there will be no setting it right! Yes, I am an idiot, a real idiot!” he decided in a paroxysm of shame and extreme distress.

Meanwhile Gavril Ardalionovitch, who had hitherto stood on one side persistently silent, came forward at Myshkin’s invitation, took up his stand beside him and began calmly and clearly giving an account of the case that had been entrusted to him by the prince. All talk was instantly silenced. Every one listened with extreme curiosity, especially Burdovsky’s party.

CHAPTER 9

YOU CERTAINLY will not deny,” Gavril Ardalionovitch began, directly addressing Burdovsky, who was listening to him intently, and obviously in violent agitation, his eyes round with wonder, “you will not attempt, and will not wish seriously to deny, that you were born just two years after your worthy mother was legally married to Mr. Burdovsky, your father. The date of your birth can be too easily proved, so that the distortion of this fact — so insulting to you and your mother — in Mr. Keller’s article must be ascribed simply to the playfulness of Mr. Keller’s own imagination; he, no doubt, supposed he was making your claim stronger by this statement, and so promoting your interest. Mr. Keller says that he read some of the article to you beforehand, but not the whole of it . . . there can be no doubt that he did not read so far as that passage.

“No, I didn’t as a fact,” the boxer interrupted, “but all the facts were given me by a competent person, I

“Excuse me, Mr. Keller,” interposed Gavril Ardalionovitch, “allow me to speak. I assure you, your article will have its turn later, and then you can make your explanation, but now we had better take things in their proper order. Quite by chance, with the help of my sister, Varvara Ardalionovna Ptitsyn, I obtained from her intimate friend, Madame Zubkov, a widow lady who has an estate in the country, a letter written to her by the late Mr. Pavlishtchev from abroad, twenty-four years ago. Making Madame Zubkov’s acquaintance, I applied, at her suggestion, to a distant relation who was in his day a great friend of Mr. Pavlishtchev, the retired Colonel Vyazovkin. I succeeded in getting from him two more letters of Mr. Pavlishtchev’s, also written from abroad. From these three letters, from the facts and dates mentioned in them, it can be positively proved beyond all possibility of doubt or dispute, that he had gone abroad just a year and a half before you were born, Mr. Burdovsky, and that he remained abroad for three years. \bur mother, as you know, has never been out of Russia. For the present I will not read these letters. It’s late now; I simply announce the fact. But if you care to fix a time to see me, to-morrow morning if you like, Mr. Burdovsky, and bring your witnesses — as many as you please — and experts to examine the handwriting, I have no doubt that you cannot but be convinced of the obvious truth of the facts I have laid before you. If this is so, the whole case, of course, falls to the ground and is over.”

Again general commotion and intense excitement followed. Burdovsky himself suddenly got up from his chair.

“If it’s so, I’ve been deceived, deceived, not by Tchebarov, but long, long before. I don’t want any experts, I don’t want to see you, I believe you, I withdraw my claim. ... I won’t agree to the ten thousand ... Good-bye.”

He took up his cap and pushed away his chair to go out.

“If you can, Mr. Burdovsky,” Gavril Ardalionovitch stopped him softly and sweetly, “stay another five minutes. Some other extremely important facts have come to light in this case; for you at any rate they are very interesting. To my thinking, you should not remain in ignorance of them, and perhaps it will be pleasanter for you if the case can be completely cleared up....”

Burdovsky sat down without speaking, with his head bowed, seemingly lost in thought. Lebedyev’s nephew, who had got up to follow him, sat down too; though he had not lost his self-possession and his boldness, he seemed greatly perplexed. Ippolit was scowling, dejected, and apparently very much astonished. But at that moment he was coughing so violently that he stained his handkerchief with blood. The boxer was almost in dismay.

“Ech, Antip!” he cried, bitterly. “I told you at the time . . . the day before yesterday, that perhaps you really weren’t Pavlishtchev’s son!”

There was a sound of smothered laughter, two or three laughed louder than the rest.

“The fact you stated just now, Mr. Keller,” Gavril Ardalionovitch caught him up, “is very valuable. Nevertheless, I have a right to assert, on the most precise evidence, that thouqh Mr. Burdovskv of course knew very well the date of his birth, he was in complete ignorance of the circumstance of Mr. Pavlishtchev’s residence abroad, where he spent the greater part of his life, only returning to Russia at brief intervals. Besides, the fact of his going away at that time was not so remarkable as to be remembered twenty years after, even by those who knew Pavlishtchev well, to say nothing of Mr. Burdovsky, who was not born at the time. It has turned out, of course, not impossible to establish the fact; but I must own that the facts I’ve collected came to me quite by chance, and might well not have come into my hands. So that this evidence was really almost impossible for Mr. Burdovsky, or even Tchebarov, to obtain, even if they had thought of obtaining it. But they may well not have thought of it.

“Allow me, Mr. Ivolgin,” Ippolit suddenly interrupted, irritably, “what’s all this bobbery for, if I may ask. The case has been cleared up, we agree to accept the most important fact, why drag out a tedious and offensive rigmarole about it? “Vbu want, perhaps, to brag of your cleverness in investigation,

to display before us and the prince what a fine detective you are? Or are you undertaking to excuse and justify Mr. Burdovsky by proving that he got mixed up in this business through ignorance? But that’s impudence, sir! Burdovsky has no need of your apologies and your justification, let me tell you! It’s painful for him, it’s trying for him; anyway, he is in an awkward position, you ought to see that and understand it.”

“Enough, Mr. Terentyev, enough,” Gavril Ardalionovitch succeeded in interrupting, “be calm, don’t excite yourself, I am afraid you are not at all well? I feel for you. If you like, I’ve finished, or rather I am obliged to state briefly only those facts which I am convinced it would be a good thing to know in full detail,” he added, noticing a general movement suggestive of impatience. “I only want to state, with proofs, for the information of all that are interested, that Mr. Pavlishtchev bestowed so much kindness and care on your mother, Mr. Burdovsky, only because she was the sister of a serf-girl with whom Mr. Pavlishtchev was in love in his early youth, and so much so that he would certainly have married her if she had not died suddenly. I have proofs that this perfectly true and certain fact is very little known, or perhaps quite forgotten. Further, I could inform you how your mother was taken by Pavlishtchev at ten years old, and brought up by him as though she had been a relation, that she had a considerable dowry set apart for her, and that the trouble he took about her gave rise to extremely disquieting rumours among Pavlishtchev’s numerous relations. It was even thought that he was going to marry his ward, but it ended by her marrying in her twentieth year, by her own choice (and that I can prove in a most certain way) a surveying clerk called Burdovsky. I have collected some well-authenticated facts to prove that your father, Mr. Burdovsky, who was anything but a business man, gave up his post on receiving your mother’s dowry of fifteen thousand roubles, entered upon commercial speculations, was deceived, lost his capital, took to drink to drown his grief, and fell ill in consequence and finally died prematurely, eight years after marrying your mother. Then, according to your mother’s own testimony, she was left utterly destitute, and would have come to grief entirely, if it had not been for the constant and generous assistance of Mr. Pavlishtchev, who allowed her six hundred roubles a year. There is ample evidence, too, that he was extremely fond of you as a child. From this evidence, and from what your mother tells me, it seems that he was fond of you chiefly because you looked like a wretched, miserable child, and had the appearance of a cripple and could not speak plainly, and as I have learnt on well-authenticated evidence, Pavlishtchev had all his life a specially tender feeling for everything afflicted and unfairly treated by nature, particularly children — a fact of great importance in our case, to my thinking. Finally, I can boast of having found out a fact of prime importance, that is, that this extreme fondness of Pavlishtchev for you (by his efforts you were admitted to the gymnasium and taught under special supervision), little by little led the relations of Pavlishtchev and the members of his household to imagine that you were his son, and that your father was deceived by his wife. But it’s noteworthy that this idea only grew into a general conviction in the latter years of Pavlishtchev’s life when all his relations were alarmed about his will, and when the original facts were forgotten and it was impossible to investiqate them. No doubt that idea came to your ears too, Mr. Burdovsky, and took complete possession of you. \bur mother, whose acquaintance I’ve had the honour of making, knew of these rumours, but to this day she does not know (I concealed it from her too) that you, her son, were dominated by this idea. I found your much respected mother, Mr. Burdovsky, in Pskov, ill and extremely poor, as she has been ever since the death of Pavlishtchev. She told me with tears of gratitude that she was only supported by you and your help. She expects a great deal of you in the future, and believes earnestly in your future success ...”

“This is really insupportable!” Lebedyev’s nephew exclaimed loudly and impatiently. “What’s the object of this romance?”

“It’s disgusting, it’s unseemly!” said Ippolit with an abrupt movement.

But Burdovsky noticed nothing and did not stir.

“What’s the object of it? What’s it for?” said Gavril Arda li o novi tch wi th sly wo nde r, ma I i ci ously p re pa ri ng for his conclusion. “Why, in the first place, Mr. Burdovsky is perhaps now fully convinced that Mr. Pavlishtchev loved him from generosity and not as his son. This fact alone it was essential that Mr. Burdovsky should know, since he upheld Mr. Keller and approved of him when his article was read just now. I say this because I look upon you as an honourable man, Mr. Burdovsky. In the second place, it appears that there was not the least intention of robbery or swindling in the case, even in Tchebarov; that’s an important point for me too, because the prince, speaking warmly just now, mentioned that I shared his opinion of the dishonest and swindling element in the case. On the contrary, there was absolute faith in it on all sides, and though Tchebarov may really be a great rogue, in this case he appears as nothing worse than a sharp and scheming attorney. He hoped to make a good deal out of it, as a lawyer, and his calculation was not only acute and masterly, it was absolutely safe; it was based on the readiness with which the prince gives away his money and his gratitude and respect for Pavlishtchev, and what is more, on the prince’s well-known chivalrous views as to the obligations of honour and conscience. As for Mr. Burdovsky, personally, one may even say that, thanks to certain ideas of his, he was so worked upon by Tchebarov and his other friends that he took up the case hardly from self interest, but almost as a service to truth, progress, and humanity. Now after what I have told you, it has become clear to all that Mr. Burdovsky is an innocent man, in spite of all appearances, and the prince, more readily and zealously than before, will offer him his friendly assistance, and that substantial help to which he referred just now when he spoke of schools and of Pavlishtchev.”

“Stay, Gavril Ardalionovitch, stay!” cried Myshkin, in genuine dismay, but it was too late.

“I have said, I have told you three times already,” cried Burdovsky irritably, “that I don’t want the money, I won’t take it. . . why ... I don’t want to ... I am going!”

And he was almost running out of the verandah. But Lebedyev’s nephew seized him by the arm and whispered something to him. Burdovsky quickly turned back, and pulling a big unsealed envelope out of his pocket, threw it on a table near Myshkin.

“Here is the money! How dared you! How dared you! The money!”

“The two hundred and fifty roubles which you dared to send him as a charity by Tchebarov!”

Doktorenko explained.

“The article said fifty!” cried Kolya.

“It’s my fault,” said Myshkin, going up to Burdovsky. “I’ve done you a wrong, Burdovsky, but I didn’t send it you as a charity, believe me. I am to blame now ... I was to blame before.” (Myshkin was much distressed, he looked weak and exhausted, and his words were disconnected.) “I talked of swindling, but I didn’t mean you, I was mistaken. I said that you . . . were afflicted as I am. But you are not like me, you . . . give lessons, you support your mother. I said that you cast shame on your mother’s name, but you love her, she says so herself ... I didn’t know, Gavril Ardalionovitch had not told me everything. I am to blame. I ventured to offer you ten thousand, but I am to blame, I ought to have done it differently, and now ... it can’t be done because you despise me ...”