The Idiot

“ere you all are,” began the prince, “settling yourselves down to
listen to me with so much curiosity, that if I do not satisfy you you
will probably be angry with me. No, no! I’m only joking!” he added,
hastily, with a smile.

“Well, then—they were all children there, and I was always among
children and only with children. They were the children of the village
in which I lived, and they went to the school there—all of them. I did
not teach them, oh no; there was a master for that, one Jules Thibaut.
I may have taught them some things, but I was among them just as an
outsider, and I passed all four years of my life there among them. I
wished for nothing better; I used to tell them everything and hid
nothing from them. Their fathers and relations were very angry with me,
because the children could do nothing without me at last, and used to
throng after me at all times. The schoolmaster was my greatest enemy in
the end! I had many enemies, and all because of the children. Even
Schneider reproached me. What were they afraid of? One can tell a child
everything, anything. I have often been struck by the fact that parents
know their children so little. They should not conceal so much from
them. How well even little children understand that their parents
conceal things from them, because they consider them too young to
understand! Children are capable of giving advice in the most important
matters. How can one deceive these dear little birds, when they look at
one so sweetly and confidingly? I call them birds because there is
nothing in the world better than birds!

“However, most of the people were angry with me about one and the same
thing; but Thibaut simply was jealous of me. At first he had wagged his
head and wondered how it was that the children understood what I told
them so well, and could not learn from him; and he laughed like
anything when I replied that neither he nor I could teach them very
much, but that they might teach us a good deal.

“How he could hate me and tell scandalous stories about me, living
among children as he did, is what I cannot understand. Children soothe
and heal the wounded heart. I remember there was one poor fellow at our
professor’s who was being treated for madness, and you have no idea
what those children did for him, eventually. I don’t think he was mad,
but only terribly unhappy. But I’ll tell you all about him another day.
Now I must get on with this story.

“The children did not love me at first; I was such a sickly, awkward
kind of a fellow then—and I know I am ugly. Besides, I was a foreigner.
The children used to laugh at me, at first; and they even went so far
as to throw stones at me, when they saw me kiss Marie. I only kissed
her once in my life—no, no, don’t laugh!” The prince hastened to
suppress the smiles of his audience at this point. “It was not a matter
of love at all! If only you knew what a miserable creature she was,
you would have pitied her, just as I did. She belonged to our village.
Her mother was an old, old woman, and they used to sell string and
thread, and soap and tobacco, out of the window of their little house,
and lived on the pittance they gained by this trade. The old woman was
ill and very old, and could hardly move. Marie was her daughter, a girl
of twenty, weak and thin and consumptive; but still she did heavy work
at the houses around, day by day. Well, one fine day a commercial
traveller betrayed her and carried her off; and a week later he
deserted her. She came home dirty, draggled, and shoeless; she had
walked for a whole week without shoes; she had slept in the fields, and
caught a terrible cold; her feet were swollen and sore, and her hands
torn and scratched all over. She never had been pretty even before; but
her eyes were quiet, innocent, kind eyes.

“She was very quiet always—and I remember once, when she had suddenly
begun singing at her work, everyone said, ‘Marie tried to sing today!’
and she got so chaffed that she was silent for ever after. She had been
treated kindly in the place before; but when she came back now—ill and
shunned and miserable—not one of them all had the slightest sympathy
for her. Cruel people! Oh, what hazy understandings they have on such
matters! Her mother was the first to show the way. She received her
wrathfully, unkindly, and with contempt. ‘You have disgraced me,’ she
said. She was the first to cast her into ignominy; but when they all
heard that Marie had returned to the village, they ran out to see her
and crowded into the little cottage—old men, children, women,
girls—such a hurrying, stamping, greedy crowd. Marie was lying on the
floor at the old woman’s feet, hungry, torn, draggled, crying,
miserable.

“When everyone crowded into the room she hid her face in her
dishevelled hair and lay cowering on the floor. Everyone looked at her
as though she were a piece of dirt off the road. The old men scolded
and condemned, and the young ones laughed at her. The women condemned
her too, and looked at her contemptuously, just as though she were some
loathsome insect.

“Her mother allowed all this to go on, and nodded her head and
encouraged them. The old woman was very ill at that time, and knew she
was dying (she really did die a couple of months later), and though she
felt the end approaching she never thought of forgiving her daughter,
to the very day of her death. She would not even speak to her. She made
her sleep on straw in a shed, and hardly gave her food enough to
support life.

“Marie was very gentle to her mother, and nursed her, and did
everything for her; but the old woman accepted all her services without
a word and never showed her the slightest kindness. Marie bore all
this; and I could see when I got to know her that she thought it quite
right and fitting, considering herself the lowest and meanest of
creatures.

“When the old woman took to her bed finally, the other old women in the
village sat with her by turns, as the custom is there; and then Marie
was quite driven out of the house. They gave her no food at all, and
she could not get any work in the village; none would employ her. The
men seemed to consider her no longer a woman, they said such dreadful
things to her. Sometimes on Sundays, if they were drunk enough, they
used to throw her a penny or two, into the mud, and Marie would
silently pick up the money. She had began to spit blood at that time.

“At last her rags became so tattered and torn that she was ashamed of
appearing in the village any longer. The children used to pelt her with
mud; so she begged to be taken on as assistant cowherd, but the cowherd
would not have her. Then she took to helping him without leave; and he
saw how valuable her assistance was to him, and did not drive her away
again; on the contrary, he occasionally gave her the remnants of his
dinner, bread and cheese. He considered that he was being very kind.
When the mother died, the village parson was not ashamed to hold Marie
up to public derision and shame. Marie was standing at the coffin’s
head, in all her rags, crying.

“A crowd of people had collected to see how she would cry. The parson,
a young fellow ambitious of becoming a great preacher, began his sermon
and pointed to Marie. ‘There,’ he said, ‘there is the cause of the
death of this venerable woman’—(which was a lie, because she had been
ill for at least two years)—‘there she stands before you, and dares not
lift her eyes from the ground, because she knows that the finger of God
is upon her. Look at her tatters and rags—the badge of those who lose
their virtue. Who is she? her daughter!’ and so on to the end.

“And just fancy, this infamy pleased them, all of them, nearly. Only
the children had altered—for then they were all on my side and had
learned to love Marie.

“This is how it was: I had wished to do something for Marie; I longed
to give her some money, but I never had a farthing while I was there.
But I had a little diamond pin, and this I sold to a travelling pedlar;
he gave me eight francs for it—it was worth at least forty.

“I long sought to meet Marie alone; and at last I did meet her, on the
hillside beyond the village. I gave her the eight francs and asked her
to take care of the money because I could get no more; and then I
kissed her and said that she was not to suppose I kissed her with any
evil motives or because I was in love with her, for that I did so
solely out of pity for her, and because from the first I had not
accounted her as guilty so much as unfortunate. I longed to console and
encourage her somehow, and to assure her that she was not the low, base
thing which she and others strove to make out; but I don’t think she
understood me. She stood before me, dreadfully ashamed of herself, and
with downcast eyes; and when I had finished she kissed my hand. I would
have kissed hers, but she drew it away. Just at this moment the whole
troop of children saw us. (I found out afterwards that they had long
kept a watch upon me.) They all began whistling and clapping their
hands, and laughing at us. Marie ran away at once; and when I tried to
talk to them, they threw stones at me. All the village heard of it the
same day, and Marie’s position became worse than ever. The children
would not let her pass now in the streets, but annoyed her and threw
dirt at her more than before. They used to run after her—she racing
away with her poor feeble lungs panting and gasping, and they pelting
her and shouting abuse at her.

“Once I had to interfere by force; and after that I took to speaking to
them every day and whenever I could. Occasionally they stopped and
listened; but they teased Marie all the same.

“I told them how unhappy Marie was, and after a while they stopped
their abuse of her, and let her go by silently. Little by little we got
into the way of conversing together, the children and I. I concealed
nothing from them, I told them all. They listened very attentively and
soon began to be sorry for Marie. At last some of them took to saying
‘Good-morning’ to her, kindly, when they met her. It is the custom
there to salute anyone you meet with ‘Good-morning’ whether acquainted
or not. I can imagine how astonished Marie was at these first greetings
from the children.

“Once two little girls got hold of some food and took it to her, and
came back and told me. They said she had burst into tears, and that
they loved her very much now. Very soon after that they all became fond
of Marie, and at the same time they began to develop the greatest
affection for myself. They often came to me and begged me to tell them
stories. I think I must have told stories well, for they did so love to
hear them. At last I took to reading up interesting things on purpose
to pass them on to the little ones, and this went on for all the rest
of my time there, three years. Later, when everyone—even Schneider—was
angry with me for hiding nothing from the children, I pointed out how
foolish it was, for they always knew things, only they learnt them in a
way that soiled their minds but not so from me. One has only to
remember one’s own childhood to admit the truth of this. But nobody was
convinced... It was two weeks before her mother died that I had kissed
Marie; and when the clergyman preached that sermon the children were
all on my side.

“When I told them what a shame it was of the parson to talk as he had
done, and explained my reason, they were so angry that some of them
went and broke his windows with stones. Of course I stopped them, for
that was not right, but all the village heard of it, and how I caught
it for spoiling the children! Everyone discovered now that the little
ones had taken to being fond of Marie, and their parents were terribly
alarmed; but Marie was so happy. The children were forbidden to meet
her; but they used to run out of the village to the herd and take her
food and things; and sometimes just ran off there and kissed her, and
said, ‘Je vous aime, Marie!’ and then trotted back again. They
imagined that I was in love with Marie, and this was the only point on
which I did not undeceive them, for they got such enjoyment out of it.
And what delicacy and tenderness they showed!

“In the evening I used to walk to the waterfall. There was a spot there
which was quite closed in and hidden from view by large trees; and to
this spot the children used to come to me. They could not bear that
their dear Leon should love a poor girl without shoes to her feet and
dressed all in rags and tatters. So, would you believe it, they
actually clubbed together, somehow, and bought her shoes and stockings,
and some linen, and even a dress! I can’t understand how they managed
it, but they did it, all together. When I asked them about it they only
laughed and shouted, and the little girls clapped their hands and
kissed me. I sometimes went to see Marie secretly, too. She had become
very ill, and could hardly walk. She still went with the herd, but
could not help the herdsman any longer. She used to sit on a stone
near, and wait there almost motionless all day, till the herd went
home. Her consumption was so advanced, and she was so weak, that she
used to sit with closed eyes, breathing heavily. Her face was as thin
as a skeleton’s, and sweat used to stand on her white brow in large
drops. I always found her sitting just like that. I used to come up
quietly to look at her; but Marie would hear me, open her eyes, and
tremble violently as she kissed my hands. I did not take my hand away
because it made her happy to have it, and so she would sit and cry
quietly. Sometimes she tried to speak; but it was very difficult to
understand her. She was almost like a madwoman, with excitement and
ecstasy, whenever I came. Occasionally the children came with me; when
they did so, they would stand some way off and keep guard over us, so
as to tell me if anybody came near. This was a great pleasure to them.

“When we left her, Marie used to relapse at once into her old
condition, and sit with closed eyes and motionless limbs. One day she
could not go out at all, and remained at home all alone in the empty
hut; but the children very soon became aware of the fact, and nearly
all of them visited her that day as she lay alone and helpless in her
miserable bed.

“For two days the children looked after her, and then, when the village
people got to know that Marie was really dying, some of the old women
came and took it in turns to sit by her and look after her a bit. I
think they began to be a little sorry for her in the village at last;
at all events they did not interfere with the children any more, on her
account.

“Marie lay in a state of uncomfortable delirium the whole while; she
coughed dreadfully. The old women would not let the children stay in
the room; but they all collected outside the window each morning, if
only for a moment, and shouted ‘Bon jour, notre bonne Marie!’ and
Marie no sooner caught sight of, or heard them, and she became quite
animated at once, and, in spite of the old women, would try to sit up
and nod her head and smile at them, and thank them. The little ones
used to bring her nice things and sweets to eat, but she could hardly
touch anything. Thanks to them, I assure you, the girl died almost
perfectly happy. She almost forgot her misery, and seemed to accept
their love as a sort of symbol of pardon for her offence, though she
never ceased to consider herself a dreadful sinner. They used to
flutter at her window just like little birds, calling out: ‘Nous
t’aimons, Marie!’

“She died very soon; I had thought she would live much longer. The day
before her death I went to see her for the last time, just before
sunset. I think she recognized me, for she pressed my hand.

“Next morning they came and told me that Marie was dead. The children
could not be restrained now; they went and covered her coffin with
flowers, and put a wreath of lovely blossoms on her head. The pastor
did not throw any more shameful words at the poor dead woman; but there
were very few people at the funeral. However, when it came to carrying
the coffin, all the children rushed up, to carry it themselves. Of
course they could not do it alone, but they insisted on helping, and
walked alongside and behind, crying.

“They have planted roses all round her grave, and every year they look
after the flowers and make Marie’s resting-place as beautiful as they
can. I was in ill odour after all this with the parents of the
children, and especially with the parson and schoolmaster. Schneider
was obliged to promise that I should not meet them and talk to them;
but we conversed from a distance by signs, and they used to write me
sweet little notes. Afterwards I came closer than ever to those little
souls, but even then it was very dear to me, to have them so fond of
me.

“Schneider said that I did the children great harm by my pernicious
‘system’; what nonsense that was! And what did he mean by my system? He
said afterwards that he believed I was a child myself—just before I
came away. ‘You have the form and face of an adult’ he said, ‘but as
regards soul, and character, and perhaps even intelligence, you are a
child in the completest sense of the word, and always will be, if you
live to be sixty.’ I laughed very much, for of course that is nonsense.
But it is a fact that I do not care to be among grown-up people and
much prefer the society of children. However kind people may be to me,
I never feel quite at home with them, and am always glad to get back to
my little companions. Now my companions have always been children, not
because I was a child myself once, but because young things attract me.
On one of the first days of my stay in Switzerland, I was strolling
about alone and miserable, when I came upon the children rushing
noisily out of school, with their slates and bags, and books, their
games, their laughter and shouts—and my soul went out to them. I
stopped and laughed happily as I watched their little feet moving so
quickly. Girls and boys, laughing and crying; for as they went home
many of them found time to fight and make peace, to weep and play. I
forgot my troubles in looking at them. And then, all those three years,
I tried to understand why men should be for ever tormenting themselves.
I lived the life of a child there, and thought I should never leave the
little village; indeed, I was far from thinking that I should ever
return to Russia. But at last I recognized the fact that Schneider
could not keep me any longer. And then something so important happened,
that Schneider himself urged me to depart. I am going to see now if can
get good advice about it. Perhaps my lot in life will be changed; but
that is not the principal thing. The principal thing is the entire
change that has already come over me. I left many things behind me—too
many. They have gone. On the journey I said to myself, ‘I am going into
the world of men. I don’t know much, perhaps, but a new life has begun
for me.’ I made up my mind to be honest, and steadfast in accomplishing
my task. Perhaps I shall meet with troubles and many disappointments,
but I have made up my mind to be polite and sincere to everyone; more
cannot be asked of me. People may consider me a child if they like. I
am often called an idiot, and at one time I certainly was so ill that I
was nearly as bad as an idiot; but I am not an idiot now. How can I
possibly be so when I know myself that I am considered one?

“When I received a letter from those dear little souls, while passing
through Berlin, I only then realized how much I loved them. It was
very, very painful, getting that first little letter. How melancholy
they had been when they saw me off! For a month before, they had been
talking of my departure and sorrowing over it; and at the waterfall, of
an evening, when we parted for the night, they would hug me so tight
and kiss me so warmly, far more so than before. And every now and then
they would turn up one by one when I was alone, just to give me a kiss
and a hug, to show their love for me. The whole flock went with me to
the station, which was about a mile from the village, and every now and
then one of them would stop to throw his arms round me, and all the
little girls had tears in their voices, though they tried hard not to
cry. As the train steamed out of the station, I saw them all standing
on the platform waving to me and crying ‘Hurrah!’ till they were lost
in the distance.

“I assure you, when I came in here just now and saw your kind faces (I
can read faces well) my heart felt light for the first time since that
moment of parting. I think I must be one of those who are born to be in
luck, for one does not often meet with people whom one feels he can
love from the first sight of their faces; and yet, no sooner do I step
out of the railway carriage than I happen upon you!

“I know it is more or less a shamefaced thing to speak of one’s
feelings before others; and yet here am I talking like this to you, and
am not a bit ashamed or shy. I am an unsociable sort of fellow and
shall very likely not come to see you again for some time; but don’t
think the worse of me for that. It is not that I do not value your
society; and you must never suppose that I have taken offence at
anything.

“You asked me about your faces, and what I could read in them; I will
tell you with the greatest pleasure. You, Adelaida Ivanovna, have a
very happy face; it is the most sympathetic of the three. Not to speak
of your natural beauty, one can look at your face and say to one’s
self, ‘She has the face of a kind sister.’ You are simple and merry,
but you can see into another’s heart very quickly. That’s what I read
in your face.

“You too, Alexandra Ivanovna, have a very lovely face; but I think you
may have some secret sorrow. Your heart is undoubtedly a kind, good
one, but you are not merry. There is a certain suspicion of ‘shadow’ in
your face, like in that of Holbein’s Madonna in Dresden. So much for
your face. Have I guessed right?

“As for your face, Lizabetha Prokofievna, I not only think, but am
perfectly sure, that you are an absolute child—in all, in all, mind,
both good and bad—and in spite of your years. Don’t be angry with me
for saying so; you know what my feelings for children are. And do not
suppose that I am so candid out of pure simplicity of soul. Oh dear no,
it is by no means the case! Perhaps I have my own very profound object
in view.”