“What do you suppose she wants to talk about tomorrow?” asked Gania.
“Oh, that’s all the same! The chief thing is that she wants to see you after
six months’ absence. Look here, Gania, this is a serious business. Don’t
swagger again and lose the game—play carefully, but don’t funk, do you
understand? As if she could possibly avoid seeing what I have been
working for all this last six months! And just imagine, I was there this
morning and not a word of this! I was there, you know, on the sly. The old
lady did not know, or she would have kicked me out. I ran some risk for
you, you see. I did so want to find out, at all hazards.”
Here there was a frantic noise upstairs once more; several people seemed
to be rushing downstairs at once.
“Now, Gania,” cried Varia, frightened, “we can’t let him go out! We can’t
afford to have a breath of scandal about the town at this moment. Run after
him and beg his pardon—quick.”
But the father of the family was out in the road already. Colia was
carrying his bag for him; Nina Alexandrovna stood and cried on the
doorstep; she wanted to run after the general, but Ptitsin kept her back.
“You will only excite him more,” he said. “He has nowhere else to go to
—he’ll be back here in half an hour. I’ve talked it all over with Colia; let
him play the fool a bit, it will do him good.”
“What are you up to? Where are you off to? You’ve nowhere to go to,
you know,” cried Gania, out of the window.
“Come back, father; the neighbours will hear!” cried Varia.
The general stopped, turned round, raised his hands and remarked: “My
curse be upon this house!”
“Which observation should always be made in as theatrical a tone as
possible,” muttered Gania, shutting the window with a bang.
The neighbours undoubtedly did hear. Varia rushed out of the room.
No sooner had his sister left him alone, than Gania took the note out of
his pocket, kissed it, and pirouetted around.
III.
As a general rule, old General Ivolgin’s paroxysms ended in smoke. He
had before this experienced fits of sudden fury, but not very often, because
he was really a man of peaceful and kindly disposition. He had tried
hundreds of times to overcome the dissolute habits which he had contracted
of late years. He would suddenly remember that he was “a father,” would be
reconciled with his wife, and shed genuine tears. His feeling for Nina
Alexandrovna amounted almost to adoration; she had pardoned so much in
silence, and loved him still in spite of the state of degradation into which he
had fallen. But the general’s struggles with his own weakness never lasted
very long. He was, in his way, an impetuous man, and a quiet life of
repentance in the bosom of his family soon became insupportable to him. In
the end he rebelled, and flew into rages which he regretted, perhaps, even as
he gave way to them, but which were beyond his control. He picked
quarrels with everyone, began to hold forth eloquently, exacted unlimited
respect, and at last disappeared from the house, and sometimes did not
return for a long time. He had given up interfering in the affairs of his
family for two years now, and knew nothing about them but what he
gathered from hearsay.
But on this occasion there was something more serious than usual.
Everyone seemed to know something, but to be afraid to talk about it.
The general had turned up in the bosom of his family two or three days
before, but not, as usual, with the olive branch of peace in his hand, not in
the garb of penitence—in which he was usually clad on such occasions—
but, on the contrary, in an uncommonly bad temper. He had arrived in a
quarrelsome mood, pitching into everyone he came across, and talking
about all sorts and kinds of subjects in the most unexpected manner, so that
it was impossible to discover what it was that was really putting him out. At
moments he would be apparently quite bright and happy; but as a rule he
would sit moody and thoughtful. He would abruptly commence to hold
forth about the Epanchins, about Lebedeff, or the prince, and equally
abruptly would stop short and refuse to speak another word, answering all
further questions with a stupid smile, unconscious that he was smiling, or
that he had been asked a question. The whole of the previous night he had
spent tossing about and groaning, and poor Nina Alexandrovna had been
busy making cold compresses and warm fomentations and so on, without
being very clear how to apply them. He had fallen asleep after a while, but
not for long, and had awaked in a state of violent hypochondria which had
ended in his quarrel with Hippolyte, and the solemn cursing of Ptitsin’s
establishment generally. It was also observed during those two or three days
that he was in a state of morbid self-esteem, and was specially touchy on all
points of honour. Colia insisted, in discussing the matter with his mother,
that all this was but the outcome of abstinence from drink, or perhaps of
pining after Lebedeff, with whom up to this time the general had been upon
terms of the greatest friendship; but with whom, for some reason or other,
he had quarrelled a few days since, parting from him in great wrath. There
had also been a scene with the prince. Colia had asked an explanation of the
latter, but had been forced to conclude that he was not told the whole truth.
If Hippolyte and Nina Alexandrovna had, as Gania suspected, had some
special conversation about the general’s actions, it was strange that the
malicious youth, whom Gania had called a scandal-monger to his face, had
not allowed himself a similar satisfaction with Colia.
The fact is that probably Hippolyte was not quite so black as Gania
painted him; and it was hardly likely that he had informed Nina
Alexandrovna of certain events, of which we know, for the mere pleasure of
giving her pain. We must never forget that human motives are generally far
more complicated than we are apt to suppose, and that we can very rarely
accurately describe the motives of another. It is much better for the writer,
as a rule, to content himself with the bare statement of events; and we shall
take this line with regard to the catastrophe recorded above, and shall state
the remaining events connected with the general’s trouble shortly, because
we feel that we have already given to this secondary character in our story
more attention than we originally intended.
The course of events had marched in the following order. When Lebedeff
returned, in company with the general, after their expedition to town a few
days since, for the purpose of investigation, he brought the prince no
information whatever. If the latter had not himself been occupied with other
thoughts and impressions at the time, he must have observed that Lebedeff
not only was very uncommunicative, but even appeared anxious to avoid
him.
When the prince did give the matter a little attention, he recalled the fact
that during these days he had always found Lebedeff to be in radiantly good
spirits, when they happened to meet; and further, that the general and
Lebedeff were always together. The two friends did not seem ever to be
parted for a moment.
Occasionally the prince heard loud talking and laughing upstairs, and
once he detected the sound of a jolly soldier’s song going on above, and
recognized the unmistakable bass of the general’s voice. But the sudden
outbreak of song did not last; and for an hour afterwards the animated
sound of apparently drunken conversation continued to be heard from
above. At length there was the clearest evidence of a grand mutual
embracing, and someone burst into tears. Shortly after this, however, there
was a violent but short-lived quarrel, with loud talking on both sides.
All these days Colia had been in a state of great mental preoccupation.
Muishkin was usually out all day, and only came home late at night. On his
return he was invariably informed that Colia had been looking for him.
However, when they did meet, Colia never had anything particular to tell
him, excepting that he was highly dissatisfied with the general and his
present condition of mind and behaviour.
“They drag each other about the place,” he said, “and get drunk together
at the pub close by here, and quarrel in the street on the way home, and
embrace one another after it, and don’t seem to part for a moment.”
When the prince pointed out that there was nothing new about that, for
that they had always behaved in this manner together, Colia did not know
what to say; in fact he could not explain what it was that specially worried
him, just now, about his father.
On the morning following the bacchanalian songs and quarrels recorded
above, as the prince stepped out of the house at about eleven o’clock, the
general suddenly appeared before him, much agitated.
“I have long sought the honour and opportunity of meeting you—much-
esteemed Lef Nicolaievitch,” he murmured, pressing the prince’s hand very
hard, almost painfully so; “long—very long.”
The prince begged him to step in and sit down.
“No—I will not sit down,—I am keeping you, I see,—another time!—I
think I may be permitted to congratulate you upon the realization of your
heart’s best wishes, is it not so?”
“What best wishes?”
The prince blushed. He thought, as so many in his position do, that
nobody had seen, heard, noticed, or understood anything.
“Oh—be easy, sir, be easy! I shall not wound your tenderest feelings. I’ve
been through it all myself, and I know well how unpleasant it is when an
outsider sticks his nose in where he is not wanted. I experience this every
morning. I came to speak to you about another matter, though, an important
matter. A very important matter, prince.”
The latter requested him to take a seat once more, and sat down himself.
“Well—just for one second, then. The fact is, I came for advice. Of
course I live now without any very practical objects in life; but, being full
of self-respect, in which quality the ordinary Russian is so deficient as a
rule, and of activity, I am desirous, in a word, prince, of placing myself and
my wife and children in a position of—in fact, I want advice.”
The prince commended his aspirations with warmth.
“Quite so—quite so! But this is all mere nonsense. I came here to speak
of something quite different, something very important, prince. And I have
determined to come to you as to a man in whose sincerity and nobility of
feeling I can trust like—like—are you surprised at my words, prince?”
The prince was watching his guest, if not with much surprise, at all
events with great attention and curiosity.
The old man was very pale; every now and then his lips trembled, and his
hands seemed unable to rest quietly, but continually moved from place to
place. He had twice already jumped up from his chair and sat down again
without being in the least aware of it. He would take up a book from the
table and open it—talking all the while,—look at the heading of a chapter,
shut it and put it back again, seizing another immediately, but holding it
unopened in his hand, and waving it in the air as he spoke.
“But enough!” he cried, suddenly. “I see I have been boring you with my
—”
“Not in the least—not in the least, I assure you. On the contrary, I am
listening most attentively, and am anxious to guess—”
“Prince, I wish to place myself in a respectable position—I wish to
esteem myself—and to—”
“My dear sir, a man of such noble aspirations is worthy of all esteem by
virtue of those aspirations alone.”
The prince brought out his “copy-book sentence” in the firm belief that it
would produce a good effect. He felt instinctively that some such well-
sounding humbug, brought out at the proper moment, would soothe the old
man’s feelings, and would be specially acceptable to such a man in such a
position. At all hazards, his guest must be despatched with heart relieved
and spirit comforted; that was the problem before the prince at this moment.
The phrase flattered the general, touched him, and pleased him mightily.
He immediately changed his tone, and started off on a long and solemn
explanation. But listen as he would, the prince could make neither head nor
tail of it.
The general spoke hotly and quickly for ten minutes; he spoke as though
his words could not keep pace with his crowding thoughts. Tears stood in
his eyes, and yet his speech was nothing but a collection of disconnected
sentences, without beginning and without end—a string of unexpected
words and unexpected sentiments—colliding with one another, and jumping
over one another, as they burst from his lips.
“Enough!” he concluded at last, “you understand me, and that is the great
thing. A heart like yours cannot help understanding the sufferings of
another. Prince, you are the ideal of generosity; what are other men beside
yourself? But you are young—accept my blessing! My principal object is to
beg you to fix an hour for a most important conversation—that is my great
hope, prince. My heart needs but a little friendship and sympathy, and yet I
cannot always find means to satisfy it.”
“But why not now? I am ready to listen, and—”
“No, no—prince, not now! Now is a dream! And it is too, too important!
It is to be the hour of Fate to me—my own hour. Our interview is not to be
broken in upon by every chance comer, every impertinent guest—and there
are plenty of such stupid, impertinent fellows”—(he bent over and
whispered mysteriously, with a funny, frightened look on his face)—“who
are unworthy to tie your shoe, prince. I don’t say mine, mind—you will
understand me, prince. Only you understand me, prince—no one else. He
doesn’t understand me, he is absolutely—absolutely unable to sympathize.
The first qualification for understanding another is Heart.”
The prince was rather alarmed at all this, and was obliged to end by
appointing the same hour of the following day for the interview desired.
The general left him much comforted and far less agitated than when he had
arrived.
At seven in the evening, the prince sent to request Lebedeff to pay him a
visit. Lebedeff came at once, and “esteemed it an honour,” as he observed,
the instant he entered the room. He acted as though there had never been the
slightest suspicion of the fact that he had systematically avoided the prince
for the last three days.
He sat down on the edge of his chair, smiling and making faces, and
rubbing his hands, and looking as though he were in delighted expectation
of hearing some important communication, which had been long guessed by
all.
The prince was instantly covered with confusion; for it appeared to be
plain that everyone expected something of him—that everyone looked at
him as though anxious to congratulate him, and greeted him with hints, and
smiles, and knowing looks.
Keller, for instance, had run into the house three times of late, “just for a
moment,” and each time with the air of desiring to offer his congratulations.
Colia, too, in spite of his melancholy, had once or twice begun sentences in
much the same strain of suggestion or insinuation.
The prince, however, immediately began, with some show of annoyance,
to question Lebedeff categorically, as to the general’s present condition, and
his opinion thereon. He described the morning’s interview in a few words.
“Everyone has his worries, prince, especially in these strange and
troublous times of ours,” Lebedeff replied, drily, and with the air of a man
disappointed of his reasonable expectations.
“Dear me, what a philosopher you are!” laughed the prince.
“Philosophy is necessary, sir—very necessary—in our day. It is too much
neglected. As for me, much esteemed prince, I am sensible of having
experienced the honour of your confidence in a certain matter up to a
certain point, but never beyond that point. I do not for a moment complain
—”
“Lebedeff, you seem to be angry for some reason!” said the prince.
“Not the least bit in the world, esteemed and revered prince! Not the least
bit in the world!” cried Lebedeff, solemnly, with his hand upon his heart.
“On the contrary, I am too painfully aware that neither by my position in the
world, nor by my gifts of intellect and heart, nor by my riches, nor by any
former conduct of mine, have I in any way deserved your confidence,
which is far above my highest aspirations and hopes. Oh no, prince; I may
serve you, but only as your humble slave! I am not angry, oh no! Not angry;
pained perhaps, but nothing more.
“My dear Lebedeff, I—”
“Oh, nothing more, nothing more! I was saying to myself but now… ‘I
am quite unworthy of friendly relations with him,’ say I; ‘but perhaps as
landlord of this house I may, at some future date, in his good time, receive
information as to certain imminent and much to be desired changes—’”
So saying Lebedeff fixed the prince with his sharp little eyes, still in hope
that he would get his curiosity satisfied.
The prince looked back at him in amazement.
“I don’t understand what you are driving at!” he cried, almost angrily,
“and, and—what an intriguer you are, Lebedeff!” he added, bursting into a
fit of genuine laughter.
Lebedeff followed suit at once, and it was clear from his radiant face that
he considered his prospects of satisfaction immensely improved.
“And do you know,” the prince continued, “I am amazed at your naive
ways, Lebedeff! Don’t be angry with me—not only yours, everybody else’s
also! You are waiting to hear something from me at this very moment with
such simplicity that I declare I feel quite ashamed of myself for having
nothing whatever to tell you. I swear to you solemnly, that there is nothing
to tell. There! Can you take that in?” The prince laughed again.
Lebedeff assumed an air of dignity. It was true enough that he was
sometimes naive to a degree in his curiosity; but he was also an excessively
cunning gentleman, and the prince was almost converting him into an
enemy by his repeated rebuffs. The prince did not snub Lebedeff’s curiosity,
however, because he felt any contempt for him; but simply because the
subject was too delicate to talk about. Only a few days before he had looked
upon his own dreams almost as crimes. But Lebedeff considered the refusal
as caused by personal dislike to himself, and was hurt accordingly. Indeed,
there was at this moment a piece of news, most interesting to the prince,
which Lebedeff knew and even had wished to tell him, but which he now
kept obstinately to himself.
“And what can I do for you, esteemed prince? Since I am told you sent
for me just now,” he said, after a few moments’ silence.
“Oh, it was about the general,” began the prince, waking abruptly from
the fit of musing which he too had indulged in “and—and about the theft
you told me of.”
“That is—er—about—what theft?”
“Oh come! just as if you didn’t understand, Lukian Timofeyovitch! What
are you up to? I can’t make you out! The money, the money, sir! The four
hundred roubles that you lost that day. You came and told me about it one
morning, and then went off to Petersburg. There, now do you understand?”
“Oh—h—h! You mean the four hundred roubles!” said Lebedeff,
dragging the words out, just as though it had only just dawned upon him
what the prince was talking about. “Thanks very much, prince, for your
kind interest—you do me too much honour. I found the money, long ago!”
“You found it? Thank God for that!”
“Your exclamation proves the generous sympathy of your nature, prince;
for four hundred roubles—to a struggling family man like myself—is no
small matter!”
“I didn’t mean that; at least, of course, I’m glad for your sake, too,”
added the prince, correcting himself, “but—how did you find it?”
“Very simply indeed! I found it under the chair upon which my coat had
hung; so that it is clear the purse simply fell out of the pocket and on to the
floor!”
“Under the chair? Impossible! Why, you told me yourself that you had
searched every corner of the room? How could you not have looked in the
most likely place of all?”
“Of course I looked there,—of course I did! Very much so! I looked and
scrambled about, and felt for it, and wouldn’t believe it was not there, and
looked again and again. It is always so in such cases. One longs and expects
to find a lost article; one sees it is not there, and the place is as bare as one’s
palm; and yet one returns and looks again and again, fifteen or twenty
times, likely enough!”
“Oh, quite so, of course. But how was it in your case?—I don’t quite
understand,” said the bewildered prince. “You say it wasn’t there at first,
and that you searched the place thoroughly, and yet it turned up on that very
spot!”
“Yes, sir—on that very spot.” The prince gazed strangely at Lebedeff.
“And the general?” he asked, abruptly.
“The—the general? How do you mean, the general?” said Lebedeff,
dubiously, as though he had not taken in the drift of the prince’s remark.
“Oh, good heavens! I mean, what did the general say when the purse
turned up under the chair? You and he had searched for it together there,
hadn’t you?”
“Quite so—together! But the second time I thought better to say nothing
about finding it. I found it alone.”
“But—why in the world—and the money? Was it all there?”
“I opened the purse and counted it myself; right to a single rouble.”
“I think you might have come and told me,” said the prince, thoughtfully.
“Oh—I didn’t like to disturb you, prince, in the midst of your private and
doubtless most interesting personal reflections. Besides, I wanted to appear,
myself, to have found nothing. I took the purse, and opened it, and counted
the money, and shut it and put it down again under the chair.”
“What in the world for?”
“Oh, just out of curiosity,” said Lebedeff, rubbing his hands and
sniggering.
“What, it’s still there then, is it? Ever since the day before yesterday?”
“Oh no! You see, I was half in hopes the general might find it. Because if
I found it, why should not he too observe an object lying before his very
eyes? I moved the chair several times so as to expose the purse to view, but
the general never saw it. He is very absent just now, evidently. He talks and
laughs and tells stories, and suddenly flies into a rage with me, goodness
knows why.”
“Well, but—have you taken the purse away now?”
“No, it disappeared from under the chair in the night.”
“Where is it now, then?”
“Here,” laughed Lebedeff, at last, rising to his full height and looking
pleasantly at the prince, “here, in the lining of my coat. Look, you can feel
it for yourself, if you like!”
Sure enough there was something sticking out of the front of the coat—
something large. It certainly felt as though it might well be the purse fallen
through a hole in the pocket into the lining.
“I took it out and had a look at it; it’s all right. I’ve let it slip back into the
lining now, as you see, and so I have been walking about ever since
yesterday morning; it knocks against my legs when I walk along.”
“H’m! and you take no notice of it?”
“Quite so, I take no notice of it. Ha, ha! and think of this, prince, my
pockets are always strong and whole, and yet, here in one night, is a huge
hole. I know the phenomenon is unworthy of your notice; but such is the
case. I examined the hole, and I declare it actually looks as though it had
been made with a pen-knife, a most improbable contingency.”
“And—and—the general?”
“Ah, very angry all day, sir; all yesterday and all today. He shows
decided bacchanalian predilections at one time, and at another is tearful and
sensitive, but at any moment he is liable to paroxysms of such rage that I
assure you, prince, I am quite alarmed. I am not a military man, you know.
Yesterday we were sitting together in the tavern, and the lining of my coat
was—quite accidentally, of course—sticking out right in front. The general
squinted at it, and flew into a rage. He never looks me quite in the face now,
unless he is very drunk or maudlin; but yesterday he looked at me in such a
way that a shiver went all down my back. I intend to find the purse
tomorrow; but till then I am going to have another night of it with him.”
“What’s the good of tormenting him like this?” cried the prince.
“I don’t torment him, prince, I don’t indeed!” cried Lebedeff, hotly. “I
love him, my dear sir, I esteem him; and believe it or not, I love him all the
better for this business, yes—and value him more.”
Lebedeff said this so seriously that the prince quite lost his temper with
him.
“Nonsense! love him and torment him so! Why, by the very fact that he
put the purse prominently before you, first under the chair and then in your
lining, he shows that he does not wish to deceive you, but is anxious to beg
your forgiveness in this artless way. Do you hear? He is asking your pardon.
He confides in the delicacy of your feelings, and in your friendship for him.
And you can allow yourself to humiliate so thoroughly honest a man!”
