The Idiot

he time appointed was twelve o’clock, and the prince, returning home
unexpectedly late, found the general waiting for him. At the first
glance, he saw that the latter was displeased, perhaps because he had
been kept waiting. The prince apologized, and quickly took a seat. He
seemed strangely timid before the general this morning, for some
reason, and felt as though his visitor were some piece of china which
he was afraid of breaking.

On scrutinizing him, the prince soon saw that the general was quite a
different man from what he had been the day before; he looked like one
who had come to some momentous resolve. His calmness, however, was more
apparent than real. He was courteous, but there was a suggestion of
injured innocence in his manner.

“I’ve brought your book back,” he began, indicating a book lying on the
table. “Much obliged to you for lending it to me.”

“Ah, yes. Well, did you read it, general? It’s curious, isn’t it?” said
the prince, delighted to be able to open up conversation upon an
outside subject.

“Curious enough, yes, but crude, and of course dreadful nonsense;
probably the man lies in every other sentence.”

The general spoke with considerable confidence, and dragged his words
out with a conceited drawl.

“Oh, but it’s only the simple tale of an old soldier who saw the French
enter Moscow. Some of his remarks were wonderfully interesting. Remarks
of an eye-witness are always valuable, whoever he be, don’t you think
so?”

“Had I been the publisher I should not have printed it. As to the
evidence of eye-witnesses, in these days people prefer impudent lies to
the stories of men of worth and long service. I know of some notes of
the year 1812, which—I have determined, prince, to leave this house,
Mr. Lebedeff’s house.”

The general looked significantly at his host.

“Of course you have your own lodging at Pavlofsk at—at your daughter’s
house,” began the prince, quite at a loss what to say. He suddenly
recollected that the general had come for advice on a most important
matter, affecting his destiny.

“At my wife’s; in other words, at my own place, my daughter’s house.”

“I beg your pardon, I—”

“I leave Lebedeff’s house, my dear prince, because I have quarrelled
with this person. I broke with him last night, and am very sorry that I
did not do so before. I expect respect, prince, even from those to whom
I give my heart, so to speak. Prince, I have often given away my heart,
and am nearly always deceived. This person was quite unworthy of the
gift.”

“There is much that might be improved in him,” said the prince,
moderately, “but he has some qualities which—though amid them one
cannot but discern a cunning nature—reveal what is often a diverting
intellect.”

The prince’s tone was so natural and respectful that the general could
not possibly suspect him of any insincerity.

“Oh, that he possesses good traits, I was the first to show, when I
very nearly made him a present of my friendship. I am not dependent
upon his hospitality, and upon his house; I have my own family. I do
not attempt to justify my own weakness. I have drunk with this man, and
perhaps I deplore the fact now, but I did not take him up for the sake
of drink alone (excuse the crudeness of the expression, prince); I did
not make friends with him for that alone. I was attracted by his good
qualities; but when the fellow declares that he was a child in 1812,
and had his left leg cut off, and buried in the Vagarkoff cemetery, in
Moscow, such a cock-and-bull story amounts to disrespect, my dear sir,
to—to impudent exaggeration.”

“Oh, he was very likely joking; he said it for fun.”

“I quite understand you. You mean that an innocent lie for the sake of
a good joke is harmless, and does not offend the human heart. Some
people lie, if you like to put it so, out of pure friendship, in order
to amuse their fellows; but when a man makes use of extravagance in
order to show his disrespect and to make clear how the intimacy bores
him, it is time for a man of honour to break off the said intimacy, and
to teach the offender his place.”

The general flushed with indignation as he spoke.

“Oh, but Lebedeff cannot have been in Moscow in 1812. He is much too
young; it is all nonsense.”

“Very well, but even if we admit that he was alive in 1812, can one
believe that a French chasseur pointed a cannon at him for a lark, and
shot his left leg off? He says he picked his own leg up and took it
away and buried it in the cemetery. He swore he had a stone put up over
it with the inscription: ‘Here lies the leg of Collegiate Secretary
Lebedeff,’ and on the other side, ‘Rest, beloved ashes, till the morn
of joy,’ and that he has a service read over it every year (which is
simply sacrilege), and goes to Moscow once a year on purpose. He
invites me to Moscow in order to prove his assertion, and show me his
leg’s tomb, and the very cannon that shot him; he says it’s the
eleventh from the gate of the Kremlin, an old-fashioned falconet taken
from the French afterwards.”

“And, meanwhile both his legs are still on his body,” said the prince,
laughing. “I assure you, it is only an innocent joke, and you need not
be angry about it.”

“Excuse me—wait a minute—he says that the leg we see is a wooden one,
made by Tchernosvitoff.”

“They do say one can dance with those!”

“Quite so, quite so; and he swears that his wife never found out that
one of his legs was wooden all the while they were married. When I
showed him the ridiculousness of all this, he said, ‘Well, if you were
one of Napoleon’s pages in 1812, you might let me bury my leg in the
Moscow cemetery.’”

“Why, did you say—” began the prince, and paused in confusion.

The general gazed at his host disdainfully.

“Oh, go on,” he said, “finish your sentence, by all means. Say how odd
it appears to you that a man fallen to such a depth of humiliation as
I, can ever have been the actual eye-witness of great events. Go on,
I don’t mind! Has he found time to tell you scandal about me?”

“No, I’ve heard nothing of this from Lebedeff, if you mean Lebedeff.”

“H’m; I thought differently. You see, we were talking over this period
of history. I was criticizing a current report of something which then
happened, and having been myself an eye-witness of the occurrence—you
are smiling, prince—you are looking at my face as if—”

“Oh no! not at all—I—”

“I am rather young-looking, I know; but I am actually older than I
appear to be. I was ten or eleven in the year 1812. I don’t know my age
exactly, but it has always been a weakness of mine to make it out less
than it really is.”

“I assure you, general, I do not in the least doubt your statement. One
of our living autobiographers states that when he was a small baby in
Moscow in 1812 the French soldiers fed him with bread.”

“Well, there you see!” said the general, condescendingly. “There is
nothing whatever unusual about my tale. Truth very often appears to be
impossible. I was a page—it sounds strange, I dare say. Had I been
fifteen years old I should probably have been terribly frightened when
the French arrived, as my mother was (who had been too slow about
clearing out of Moscow); but as I was only just ten I was not in the
least alarmed, and rushed through the crowd to the very door of the
palace when Napoleon alighted from his horse.”

“Undoubtedly, at ten years old you would not have felt the sense of
fear, as you say,” blurted out the prince, horribly uncomfortable in
the sensation that he was just about to blush.

“Of course; and it all happened so easily and naturally. And yet, were
a novelist to describe the episode, he would put in all kinds of
impossible and incredible details.”

“Oh,” cried the prince, “I have often thought that! Why, I know of a
murder, for the sake of a watch. It’s in all the papers now. But if
some writer had invented it, all the critics would have jumped down his
throat and said the thing was too improbable for anything. And yet you
read it in the paper, and you can’t help thinking that out of these
strange disclosures is to be gained the full knowledge of Russian life
and character. You said that well, general; it is so true,” concluded
the prince, warmly, delighted to have found a refuge from the fiery
blushes which had covered his face.

“Yes, it’s quite true, isn’t it?” cried the general, his eyes sparkling
with gratification. “A small boy, a child, would naturally realize no
danger; he would shove his way through the crowds to see the shine and
glitter of the uniforms, and especially the great man of whom everyone
was speaking, for at that time all the world had been talking of no one
but this man for some years past. The world was full of his name; I—so
to speak—drew it in with my mother’s milk. Napoleon, passing a couple
of paces from me, caught sight of me accidentally. I was very well
dressed, and being all alone, in that crowd, as you will easily
imagine...”

“Oh, of course! Naturally the sight impressed him, and proved to him
that not all the aristocracy had left Moscow; that at least some
nobles and their children had remained behind.”

“Just so! just so! He wanted to win over the aristocracy! When his
eagle eye fell on me, mine probably flashed back in response. ‘Voilà
un garçon bien éveillé! Qui est ton père?’ I immediately replied,
almost panting with excitement, ‘A general, who died on the
battle-fields of his country!’ ‘Le fils d’un boyard et d’un brave,
pardessus le marché. J’aime les boyards. M’aimes-tu, petit?’

“To this keen question I replied as keenly, ‘The Russian heart can
recognize a great man even in the bitter enemy of his country.’ At
least, I don’t remember the exact words, you know, but the idea was as
I say. Napoleon was struck; he thought a minute and then said to his
suite: ‘I like that boy’s pride; if all Russians think like this child,
then—’ he didn’t finish, but went on and entered the palace. I
instantly mixed with his suite, and followed him. I was already in high
favour. I remember when he came into the first hall, the emperor
stopped before a portrait of the Empress Katherine, and after a
thoughtful glance remarked, ‘That was a great woman,’ and passed on.

“Well, in a couple of days I was known all over the palace and the
Kremlin as ‘le petit boyard.’ I only went home to sleep. They were
nearly out of their minds about me at home. A couple of days after
this, Napoleon’s page, De Bazancour, died; he had not been able to
stand the trials of the campaign. Napoleon remembered me; I was taken
away without explanation; the dead page’s uniform was tried on me, and
when I was taken before the emperor, dressed in it, he nodded his head
to me, and I was told that I was appointed to the vacant post of page.

“Well, I was glad enough, for I had long felt the greatest sympathy for
this man; and then the pretty uniform and all that—only a child, you
know—and so on. It was a dark green dress coat with gold buttons—red
facings, white trousers, and a white silk waistcoat—silk stockings,
shoes with buckles, and top-boots if I were riding out with his majesty
or with the suite.

“Though the position of all of us at that time was not particularly
brilliant, and the poverty was dreadful all round, yet the etiquette at
court was strictly preserved, and the more strictly in proportion to
the growth of the forebodings of disaster.”

“Quite so, quite so, of course!” murmured the poor prince, who didn’t
know where to look. “Your memoirs would be most interesting.”

The general was, of course, repeating what he had told Lebedeff the
night before, and thus brought it out glibly enough, but here he looked
suspiciously at the prince out of the corners of his eyes.

“My memoirs!” he began, with redoubled pride and dignity. “Write my
memoirs? The idea has not tempted me. And yet, if you please, my
memoirs have long been written, but they shall not see the light until
dust returns to dust. Then, I doubt not, they will be translated into
all languages, not of course on account of their actual literary merit,
but because of the great events of which I was the actual witness,
though but a child at the time. As a child, I was able to penetrate
into the secrecy of the great man’s private room. At nights I have
heard the groans and wailings of this ‘giant in distress.’ He could
feel no shame in weeping before such a mere child as I was, though I
understood even then that the reason for his suffering was the silence
of the Emperor Alexander.”

“Yes, of course; he had written letters to the latter with proposals of
peace, had he not?” put in the prince.

“We did not know the details of his proposals, but he wrote letter
after letter, all day and every day. He was dreadfully agitated.
Sometimes at night I would throw myself upon his breast with tears (Oh,
how I loved that man!). ‘Ask forgiveness, Oh, ask forgiveness of the
Emperor Alexander!’ I would cry. I should have said, of course, ‘Make
peace with Alexander,’ but as a child I expressed my idea in the naive
way recorded. ‘Oh, my child,’ he would say (he loved to talk to me and
seemed to forget my tender years), ‘Oh, my child, I am ready to kiss
Alexander’s feet, but I hate and abominate the King of Prussia and the
Austrian Emperor, and—and—but you know nothing of politics, my child.’
He would pull up, remembering whom he was speaking to, but his eyes
would sparkle for a long while after this. Well now, if I were to
describe all this, and I have seen greater events than these, all these
critical gentlemen of the press and political parties—Oh, no thanks!
I’m their very humble servant, but no thanks!”

“Quite so—parties—you are very right,” said the prince. “I was reading
a book about Napoleon and the Waterloo campaign only the other day, by
Charasse, in which the author does not attempt to conceal his joy at
Napoleon’s discomfiture at every page. Well now, I don’t like that; it
smells of ‘party,’ you know. You are quite right. And were you much
occupied with your service under Napoleon?”

The general was in ecstasies, for the prince’s remarks, made, as they
evidently were, in all seriousness and simplicity, quite dissipated the
last relics of his suspicion.

“I know Charasse’s book! Oh! I was so angry with his work! I wrote to
him and said—I forget what, at this moment. You ask whether I was very
busy under the Emperor? Oh no! I was called ‘page,’ but hardly took my
duty seriously. Besides, Napoleon very soon lost hope of conciliating
the Russians, and he would have forgotten all about me had he not loved
me—for personal reasons—I don’t mind saying so now. My heart was
greatly drawn to him, too. My duties were light. I merely had to be at
the palace occasionally to escort the Emperor out riding, and that was
about all. I rode very fairly well. He used to have a ride before
dinner, and his suite on those occasions were generally Davoust,
myself, and Roustan.”

“Constant?” said the prince, suddenly, and quite involuntarily.

“No; Constant was away then, taking a letter to the Empress Josephine.
Instead of him there were always a couple of orderlies—and that was
all, excepting, of course, the generals and marshals whom Napoleon
always took with him for the inspection of various localities, and for
the sake of consultation generally. I remember there was
one—Davoust—nearly always with him—a big man with spectacles. They used
to argue and quarrel sometimes. Once they were in the Emperor’s study
together—just those two and myself—I was unobserved—and they argued,
and the Emperor seemed to be agreeing to something under protest.
Suddenly his eye fell on me and an idea seemed to flash across him.

“‘Child,’ he said, abruptly. ‘If I were to recognize the Russian
orthodox religion and emancipate the serfs, do you think Russia would
come over to me?’”

“‘Never!’ I cried, indignantly.”

“The Emperor was much struck.”

“‘In the flashing eyes of this patriotic child I read and accept the
fiat of the Russian people. Enough, Davoust, it is mere phantasy on our
part. Come, let’s hear your other project.’”

“Yes, but that was a great idea,” said the prince, clearly interested.
“You ascribe it to Davoust, do you?”

“Well, at all events, they were consulting together at the time. Of
course it was the idea of an eagle, and must have originated with
Napoleon; but the other project was good too—it was the ‘Conseil du
lion!’ as Napoleon called it. This project consisted in a proposal to
occupy the Kremlin with the whole army; to arm and fortify it
scientifically, to kill as many horses as could be got, and salt their
flesh, and spend the winter there; and in spring to fight their way
out. Napoleon liked the idea—it attracted him. We rode round the
Kremlin walls every day, and Napoleon used to give orders where they
were to be patched, where built up, where pulled down and so on. All
was decided at last. They were alone together—those two and myself.

“Napoleon was walking up and down with folded arms. I could not take my
eyes off his face—my heart beat loudly and painfully.

“‘I’m off,’ said Davoust. ‘Where to?’ asked Napoleon.

“‘To salt horse-flesh,’ said Davoust. Napoleon shuddered—his fate was
being decided.

“‘Child,’ he addressed me suddenly, ‘what do you think of our plan?’ Of
course he only applied to me as a sort of toss-up, you know. I turned
to Davoust and addressed my reply to him. I said, as though inspired:

“‘Escape, general! Go home!—’

“The project was abandoned; Davoust shrugged his shoulders and went
out, whispering to himself—‘Bah, il devient superstitieux!’ Next
morning the order to retreat was given.”

“All this is most interesting,” said the prince, very softly, “if it
really was so—that is, I mean—” he hastened to correct himself.

“Oh, my dear prince,” cried the general, who was now so intoxicated
with his own narrative that he probably could not have pulled up at the
most patent indiscretion. “You say, ‘if it really was so!’ There was
more—much more, I assure you! These are merely a few little political
acts. I tell you I was the eye-witness of the nightly sorrow and
groanings of the great man, and of that no one can speak but myself.
Towards the end he wept no more, though he continued to emit an
occasional groan; but his face grew more overcast day by day, as though
Eternity were wrapping its gloomy mantle about him. Occasionally we
passed whole hours of silence together at night, Roustan snoring in the
next room—that fellow slept like a pig. ‘But he’s loyal to me and my
dynasty,’ said Napoleon of him.

“Sometimes it was very painful to me, and once he caught me with tears
in my eyes. He looked at me kindly. ‘You are sorry for me,’ he said,
‘you, my child, and perhaps one other child—my son, the King of
Rome—may grieve for me. All the rest hate me; and my brothers are the
first to betray me in misfortune.’ I sobbed and threw myself into his
arms. He could not resist me—he burst into tears, and our tears mingled
as we folded each other in a close embrace.

“‘Write, oh, write a letter to the Empress Josephine!’ I cried,
sobbing. Napoleon started, reflected, and said, ‘You remind me of a
third heart which loves me. Thank you, my friend;’ and then and there
he sat down and wrote that letter to Josephine, with which Constant was
sent off next day.”

“You did a good action,” said the prince, “for in the midst of his
angry feelings you insinuated a kind thought into his heart.”

“Just so, prince, just so. How well you bring out that fact! Because
your own heart is good!” cried the ecstatic old gentleman, and,
strangely enough, real tears glistened in his eyes. “Yes, prince, it
was a wonderful spectacle. And, do you know, I all but went off to
Paris, and should assuredly have shared his solitary exile with him;
but, alas, our destinies were otherwise ordered! We parted, he to his
island, where I am sure he thought of the weeping child who had
embraced him so affectionately at parting in Moscow; and I was sent off
to the cadet corps, where I found nothing but roughness and harsh
discipline. Alas, my happy days were done!”

“‘I do not wish to deprive your mother of you, and, therefore, I will
not ask you to go with me,’ he said, the morning of his departure, ‘but
I should like to do something for you.’ He was mounting his horse as he
spoke. ‘Write something in my sister’s album for me,’ I said rather
timidly, for he was in a state of great dejection at the moment. He
turned, called for a pen, took the album. ‘How old is your sister?’ he
asked, holding the pen in his hand. ‘Three years old,’ I said. ‘Ah,
petite fille alors!’ and he wrote in the album:

“‘Ne mentez jamais! NAPOLÉON (votre ami sincère).’

“Such advice, and at such a moment, you must allow, prince, was—”

“Yes, quite so; very remarkable.”

“This page of the album, framed in gold, hung on the wall of my
sister’s drawing-room all her life, in the most conspicuous place, till
the day of her death; where it is now, I really don’t know. Heavens!
it’s two o’clock! How I have kept you, prince! It is really most
unpardonable of me.”

The general rose.

“Oh, not in the least,” said the prince. “On the contrary, I have been
so much interested, I’m really very much obliged to you.”

“Prince,” said the general, pressing his hand, and looking at him with
flashing eyes, and an expression as though he were under the influence
of a sudden thought which had come upon him with stunning force.
“Prince, you are so kind, so simple-minded, that sometimes I really
feel sorry for you! I gaze at you with a feeling of real affection. Oh,
Heaven bless you! May your life blossom and fructify in love. Mine is
over. Forgive me, forgive me!”

He left the room quickly, covering his face with his hands.

The prince could not doubt the sincerity of his agitation. He
understood, too, that the old man had left the room intoxicated with
his own success. The general belonged to that class of liars, who, in
spite of their transports of lying, invariably suspect that they are
not believed. On this occasion, when he recovered from his exaltation,
he would probably suspect Muishkin of pitying him, and feel insulted.

“Have I been acting rightly in allowing him to develop such vast
resources of imagination?” the prince asked himself. But his answer was
a fit of violent laughter which lasted ten whole minutes. He tried to
reproach himself for the laughing fit, but eventually concluded that he
needn’t do so, since in spite of it he was truly sorry for the old man.
The same evening he received a strange letter, short but decided. The
general informed him that they must part for ever; that he was
grateful, but that even from him he could not accept “signs of sympathy
which were humiliating to the dignity of a man already miserable
enough.”

When the prince heard that the old man had gone to Nina Alexandrovna,
though, he felt almost easy on his account.

We have seen, however, that the general paid a visit to Lizabetha
Prokofievna and caused trouble there, the final upshot being that he
frightened Mrs. Epanchin, and angered her by bitter hints as to his son
Gania.

He had been turned out in disgrace, eventually, and this was the cause
of his bad night and quarrelsome day, which ended in his sudden
departure into the street in a condition approaching insanity, as
recorded before.

Colia did not understand the position. He tried severity with his
father, as they stood in the street after the latter had cursed the
household, hoping to bring him round that way.

“Well, where are we to go to now, father?” he asked. “You don’t want to
go to the prince’s; you have quarrelled with Lebedeff; you have no
money; I never have any; and here we are in the middle of the road, in
a nice sort of mess.”

“Better to be of a mess than in a mess! I remember making a joke
something like that at the mess in eighteen hundred and forty—forty—I
forget. ‘Where is my youth, where is my golden youth?’ Who was it said
that, Colia?”

“It was Gogol, in Dead Souls, father,” cried Colia, glancing at him in
some alarm.

“‘Dead Souls,’ yes, of course, dead. When I die, Colia, you must
engrave on my tomb:

“‘Here lies a Dead Soul,
Shame pursues me.’

“Who said that, Colia?”

“I don’t know, father.”

“There was no Eropegoff? Eroshka Eropegoff?” he cried, suddenly,
stopping in the road in a frenzy. “No Eropegoff! And my own son to say
it! Eropegoff was in the place of a brother to me for eleven months. I
fought a duel for him. He was married afterwards, and then killed on
the field of battle. The bullet struck the cross on my breast and
glanced off straight into his temple. ‘I’ll never forget you,’ he
cried, and expired. I served my country well and honestly, Colia, but
shame, shame has pursued me! You and Nina will come to my grave, Colia;
poor Nina, I always used to call her Nina in the old days, and how she
loved.... Nina, Nina, oh, Nina. What have I ever done to deserve your
forgiveness and long-suffering? Oh, Colia, your mother has an angelic
spirit, an angelic spirit, Colia!”

“I know that, father. Look here, dear old father, come back home! Let’s
go back to mother. Look, she ran after us when we came out. What have
you stopped her for, just as though you didn’t take in what I said? Why
are you crying, father?”

Poor Colia cried himself, and kissed the old man’s hands

“You kiss my hands, mine?”

“Yes, yes, yours, yours! What is there to surprise anyone in that?
Come, come, you mustn’t go on like this, crying in the middle of the
road; and you a general too, a military man! Come, let’s go back.”

“God bless you, dear boy, for being respectful to a disgraced man. Yes,
to a poor disgraced old fellow, your father. You shall have such a son
yourself; le roi de Rome. Oh, curses on this house!”

“Come, come, what does all this mean?” cried Colia beside himself at
last. “What is it? What has happened to you? Why don’t you wish to come
back home? Why have you gone out of your mind, like this?”

“I’ll explain it, I’ll explain all to you. Don’t shout! You shall hear.
Le roi de Rome. Oh, I am sad, I am melancholy!

“‘Nurse, where is your tomb?’

“Who said that, Colia?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know who said it. Come home at once; come on!
I’ll punch Gania’s head myself, if you like—only come. Oh, where are
you off to again?” The general was dragging him away towards the door
of a house nearby. He sat down on the step, still holding Colia by the
hand.

“Bend down—bend down your ear. I’ll tell you all—disgrace—bend down,
I’ll tell you in your ear.”

“What are you dreaming of?” said poor, frightened Colia, stooping down
towards the old man, all the same.

“Le roi de Rome,” whispered the general, trembling all over.

“What? What do you mean? What roi de Rome?”

“I—I,” the general continued to whisper, clinging more and more tightly
to the boy’s shoulder. “I—wish—to tell you—all—Maria—Maria
Petrovna—Su—Su—Su.......”

Colia broke loose, seized his father by the shoulders, and stared into
his eyes with frenzied gaze. The old man had grown livid—his lips were
shaking, convulsions were passing over his features. Suddenly he leant
over and began to sink slowly into Colia’s arms.

“He’s got a stroke!” cried Colia, loudly, realizing what was the matter
at last.