The Idiot

hey passed through the same rooms which the prince had traversed on
his arrival. In the largest there were pictures on the walls, portraits
and landscapes of little interest. Over the door, however, there was
one of strange and rather striking shape; it was six or seven feet in
length, and not more than a foot in height. It represented the Saviour
just taken from the cross.

The prince glanced at it, but took no further notice. He moved on
hastily, as though anxious to get out of the house. But Rogojin
suddenly stopped underneath the picture.

“My father picked up all these pictures very cheap at auctions, and so
on,” he said; “they are all rubbish, except the one over the door, and
that is valuable. A man offered five hundred roubles for it last week.”

“Yes—that’s a copy of a Holbein,” said the prince, looking at it again,
“and a good copy, too, so far as I am able to judge. I saw the picture
abroad, and could not forget it—what’s the matter?”

Rogojin had dropped the subject of the picture and walked on. Of course
his strange frame of mind was sufficient to account for his conduct;
but, still, it seemed queer to the prince that he should so abruptly
drop a conversation commenced by himself. Rogojin did not take any
notice of his question.

“Lef Nicolaievitch,” said Rogojin, after a pause, during which the two
walked along a little further, “I have long wished to ask you, do you
believe in God?”

“How strangely you speak, and how odd you look!” said the other,
involuntarily.

“I like looking at that picture,” muttered Rogojin, not noticing,
apparently, that the prince had not answered his question.

“That picture! That picture!” cried Muishkin, struck by a sudden idea.
“Why, a man’s faith might be ruined by looking at that picture!”

“So it is!” said Rogojin, unexpectedly. They had now reached the front
door.

The prince stopped.

“How?” he said. “What do you mean? I was half joking, and you took me
up quite seriously! Why do you ask me whether I believe in God?”

“Oh, no particular reason. I meant to ask you before—many people are
unbelievers nowadays, especially Russians, I have been told. You ought
to know—you’ve lived abroad.”

Rogojin laughed bitterly as he said these words, and opening the door,
held it for the prince to pass out. Muishkin looked surprised, but went
out. The other followed him as far as the landing of the outer stairs,
and shut the door behind him. They both now stood facing one another,
as though oblivious of where they were, or what they had to do next.

“Well, good-bye!” said the prince, holding out his hand.

“Good-bye,” said Rogojin, pressing it hard, but quite mechanically.

The prince made one step forward, and then turned round.

“As to faith,” he said, smiling, and evidently unwilling to leave
Rogojin in this state—“as to faith, I had four curious conversations in
two days, a week or so ago. One morning I met a man in the train, and
made acquaintance with him at once. I had often heard of him as a very
learned man, but an atheist; and I was very glad of the opportunity of
conversing with so eminent and clever a person. He doesn’t believe in
God, and he talked a good deal about it, but all the while it appeared
to me that he was speaking outside the subject. And it has always
struck me, both in speaking to such men and in reading their books,
that they do not seem really to be touching on that at all, though on
the surface they may appear to do so. I told him this, but I dare say I
did not clearly express what I meant, for he could not understand me.

“That same evening I stopped at a small provincial hotel, and it so
happened that a dreadful murder had been committed there the night
before, and everybody was talking about it. Two peasants—elderly men
and old friends—had had tea together there the night before, and were
to occupy the same bedroom. They were not drunk but one of them had
noticed for the first time that his friend possessed a silver watch
which he was wearing on a chain. He was by no means a thief, and was,
as peasants go, a rich man; but this watch so fascinated him that he
could not restrain himself. He took a knife, and when his friend turned
his back, he came up softly behind, raised his eyes to heaven, crossed
himself, and saying earnestly—‘God forgive me, for Christ’s sake!’ he
cut his friend’s throat like a sheep, and took the watch.”

Rogojin roared with laughter. He laughed as though he were in a sort of
fit. It was strange to see him laughing so after the sombre mood he had
been in just before.

“Oh, I like that! That beats anything!” he cried convulsively, panting
for breath. “One is an absolute unbeliever; the other is such a
thorough-going believer that he murders his friend to the tune of a
prayer! Oh, prince, prince, that’s too good for anything! You can’t
have invented it. It’s the best thing I’ve heard!”

“Next morning I went out for a stroll through the town,” continued the
prince, so soon as Rogojin was a little quieter, though his laughter
still burst out at intervals, “and soon observed a drunken-looking
soldier staggering about the pavement. He came up to me and said, ‘Buy
my silver cross, sir! You shall have it for fourpence—it’s real
silver.’ I looked, and there he held a cross, just taken off his own
neck, evidently, a large tin one, made after the Byzantine pattern. I
fished out fourpence, and put his cross on my own neck, and I could see
by his face that he was as pleased as he could be at the thought that
he had succeeded in cheating a foolish gentleman, and away he went to
drink the value of his cross. At that time everything that I saw made a
tremendous impression upon me. I had understood nothing about Russia
before, and had only vague and fantastic memories of it. So I thought,
‘I will wait awhile before I condemn this Judas. Only God knows what
may be hidden in the hearts of drunkards.’

“Well, I went homewards, and near the hotel I came across a poor woman,
carrying a child—a baby of some six weeks old. The mother was quite a
girl herself. The baby was smiling up at her, for the first time in its
life, just at that moment; and while I watched the woman she suddenly
crossed herself, oh, so devoutly! ‘What is it, my good woman?’ I asked
her. (I was never but asking questions then!) ‘Exactly as is a mother’s
joy when her baby smiles for the first time into her eyes, so is God’s
joy when one of His children turns and prays to Him for the first time,
with all his heart!’ This is what that poor woman said to me, almost
word for word; and such a deep, refined, truly religious thought it
was—a thought in which the whole essence of Christianity was expressed
in one flash—that is, the recognition of God as our Father, and of
God’s joy in men as His own children, which is the chief idea of
Christ. She was a simple country-woman—a mother, it’s true—and perhaps,
who knows, she may have been the wife of the drunken soldier!

“Listen, Parfen; you put a question to me just now. This is my reply.
The essence of religious feeling has nothing to do with reason, or
atheism, or crime, or acts of any kind—it has nothing to do with these
things—and never had. There is something besides all this, something
which the arguments of the atheists can never touch. But the principal
thing, and the conclusion of my argument, is that this is most clearly
seen in the heart of a Russian. This is a conviction which I have
gained while I have been in this Russia of ours. Yes, Parfen! there is
work to be done; there is work to be done in this Russian world!
Remember what talks we used to have in Moscow! And I never wished to
come here at all; and I never thought to meet you like this, Parfen!
Well, well—good-bye—good-bye! God be with you!”

He turned and went downstairs.

“Lef Nicolaievitch!” cried Parfen, before he had reached the next
landing. “Have you got that cross you bought from the soldier with
you?”

“Yes, I have,” and the prince stopped again.

“Show it me, will you?”

A new fancy! The prince reflected, and then mounted the stairs once
more. He pulled out the cross without taking it off his neck.

“Give it to me,” said Parfen.

“Why? do you—”

The prince would rather have kept this particular cross.

“I’ll wear it; and you shall have mine. I’ll take it off at once.”

“You wish to exchange crosses? Very well, Parfen, if that’s the case,
I’m glad enough—that makes us brothers, you know.”

The prince took off his tin cross, Parfen his gold one, and the
exchange was made.

Parfen was silent. With sad surprise the prince observed that the look
of distrust, the bitter, ironical smile, had still not altogether left
his newly-adopted brother’s face. At moments, at all events, it showed
itself but too plainly,

At last Rogojin took the prince’s hand, and stood so for some moments,
as though he could not make up his mind. Then he drew him along,
murmuring almost inaudibly,

“Come!”

They stopped on the landing, and rang the bell at a door opposite to
Parfen’s own lodging.

An old woman opened to them and bowed low to Parfen, who asked her some
questions hurriedly, but did not wait to hear her answer. He led the
prince on through several dark, cold-looking rooms, spotlessly clean,
with white covers over all the furniture.

Without the ceremony of knocking, Parfen entered a small apartment,
furnished like a drawing-room, but with a polished mahogany partition
dividing one half of it from what was probably a bedroom. In one corner
of this room sat an old woman in an arm-chair, close to the stove. She
did not look very old, and her face was a pleasant, round one; but she
was white-haired and, as one could detect at the first glance, quite in
her second childhood. She wore a black woollen dress, with a black
handkerchief round her neck and shoulders, and a white cap with black
ribbons. Her feet were raised on a footstool. Beside her sat another
old woman, also dressed in mourning, and silently knitting a stocking;
this was evidently a companion. They both looked as though they never
broke the silence. The first old woman, so soon as she saw Rogojin and
the prince, smiled and bowed courteously several times, in token of her
gratification at their visit.

“Mother,” said Rogojin, kissing her hand, “here is my great friend,
Prince Muishkin; we have exchanged crosses; he was like a real brother
to me at Moscow at one time, and did a great deal for me. Bless him,
mother, as you would bless your own son. Wait a moment, let me arrange
your hands for you.”

But the old lady, before Parfen had time to touch her, raised her right
hand, and, with three fingers held up, devoutly made the sign of the
cross three times over the prince. She then nodded her head kindly at
him once more.

“There, come along, Lef Nicolaievitch; that’s all I brought you here
for,” said Rogojin.

When they reached the stairs again he added:

“She understood nothing of what I said to her, and did not know what I
wanted her to do, and yet she blessed you; that shows she wished to do
so herself. Well, goodbye; it’s time you went, and I must go too.”

He opened his own door.

“Well, let me at least embrace you and say goodbye, you strange
fellow!” cried the prince, looking with gentle reproach at Rogojin, and
advancing towards him. But the latter had hardly raised his arms when
he dropped them again. He could not make up his mind to it; he turned
away from the prince in order to avoid looking at him. He could not
embrace him.

“Don’t be afraid,” he muttered, indistinctly, “though I have taken your
cross, I shall not murder you for your watch.” So saying, he laughed
suddenly, and strangely. Then in a moment his face became transfigured;
he grew deadly white, his lips trembled, his eyes burned like fire. He
stretched out his arms and held the prince tightly to him, and said in
a strangled voice:

“Well, take her! It’s Fate! She’s yours. I surrender her.... Remember
Rogojin!” And pushing the prince from him, without looking back at him,
he hurriedly entered his own flat, and banged the door.