The Idiot Read online

humiliation, the bitterestof all, at this moment--the humiliation of blushing for his own kindredin his own house. A question flashed through his mind as to whether thegame was really worth the candle.

  For that had happened at this moment, which for two months had been hisnightmare; which had filled his soul with dread and shame--the meetingbetween his father and Nastasia Philipovna. He had often tried toimagine such an event, but had found the picture too mortifying andexasperating, and had quietly dropped it. Very likely he anticipatedfar worse things than was at all necessary; it is often so with vainpersons. He had long since determined, therefore, to get his fatherout of the way, anywhere, before his marriage, in order to avoid sucha meeting; but when Nastasia entered the room just now, he had been sooverwhelmed with astonishment, that he had not thought of his father,and had made no arrangements to keep him out of the way. And now it wastoo late--there he was, and got up, too, in a dress coat and white tie,and Nastasia in the very humour to heap ridicule on him and his familycircle; of this last fact, he felt quite persuaded. What else had shecome for? There were his mother and his sister sitting before her, andshe seemed to have forgotten their very existence already; and if shebehaved like that, he thought, she must have some object in view.

  Ferdishenko led the general up to Nastasia Philipovna.

  “Ardalion Alexandrovitch Ivolgin,” said the smiling general, with a lowbow of great dignity, “an old soldier, unfortunate, and the fatherof this family; but happy in the hope of including in that family soexquisite--”

  He did not finish his sentence, for at this moment Ferdishenko pusheda chair up from behind, and the general, not very firm on his legs,at this post-prandial hour, flopped into it backwards. It was always adifficult thing to put this warrior to confusion, and his suddendescent left him as composed as before. He had sat down just opposite toNastasia, whose fingers he now took, and raised to his lips with greatelegance, and much courtesy. The general had once belonged to a veryselect circle of society, but he had been turned out of it two or threeyears since on account of certain weaknesses, in which he now indulgedwith all the less restraint; but his good manners remained with him tothis day, in spite of all.

  Nastasia Philipovna seemed delighted at the appearance of this latestarrival, of whom she had of course heard a good deal by report.

  “I have heard that my son--” began Ardalion Alexandrovitch.

  “Your son, indeed! A nice papa you are! _You_ might have come to see meanyhow, without compromising anyone. Do you hide yourself, or does yourson hide you?”

  “The children of the nineteenth century, and their parents--” began thegeneral, again.

  “Nastasia Philipovna, will you excuse the general for a moment?Someone is inquiring for him,” said Nina Alexandrovna in a loud voice,interrupting the conversation.

  “Excuse him? Oh no, I have wished to see him too long for that. Why,what business can he have? He has retired, hasn’t he? You won’t leaveme, general, will you?”

  “I give you my word that he shall come and see you--but he--he needsrest just now.”

  “General, they say you require rest,” said Nastasia Philipovna, with themelancholy face of a child whose toy is taken away.

  Ardalion Alexandrovitch immediately did his best to make his foolishposition a great deal worse.

  “My dear, my dear!” he said, solemnly and reproachfully, looking at hiswife, with one hand on his heart.

  “Won’t you leave the room, mamma?” asked Varia, aloud.

  “No, Varia, I shall sit it out to the end.”

  Nastasia must have overheard both question and reply, but her vivacitywas not in the least damped. On the contrary, it seemed to increase. Sheimmediately overwhelmed the general once more with questions, and withinfive minutes that gentleman was as happy as a king, and holding forth atthe top of his voice, amid the laughter of almost all who heard him.

  Colia jogged the prince’s arm.

  “Can’t _you_ get him out of the room, somehow? _Do_, please,” and tearsof annoyance stood in the boy’s eyes. “Curse that Gania!” he muttered,between his teeth.

  “Oh yes, I knew General Epanchin well,” General Ivolgin was saying atthis moment; “he and Prince Nicolai Ivanovitch Muishkin--whose son Ihave this day embraced after an absence of twenty years--and I,were three inseparables. Alas one is in the grave, torn to pieces bycalumnies and bullets; another is now before you, still battling withcalumnies and bullets--”

  “Bullets?” cried Nastasia.

  “Yes, here in my chest. I received them at the siege of Kars, and I feelthem in bad weather now. And as to the third of our trio, Epanchin, ofcourse after that little affair with the poodle in the railway carriage,it was all _up_ between us.”

  “Poodle? What was that? And in a railway carriage? Dear me,” saidNastasia, thoughtfully, as though trying to recall something to mind.

  “Oh, just a silly, little occurrence, really not worth telling, aboutPrincess Bielokonski’s governess, Miss Smith, and--oh, it is really notworth telling!”

  “No, no, we must have it!” cried Nastasia merrily.

  “Yes, of course,” said Ferdishenko. “C’est du nouveau.”

  “Ardalion,” said Nina Alexandrovitch, entreatingly.

  “Papa, you are wanted!” cried Colia.

  “Well, it is a silly little story, in a few words,” began the delightedgeneral. “A couple of years ago, soon after the new railway was opened,I had to go somewhere or other on business. Well, I took a first-classticket, sat down, and began to smoke, or rather _continued_ to smoke, forI had lighted up before. I was alone in the carriage. Smoking is notallowed, but is not prohibited either; it is half allowed--so to speak,winked at. I had the window open.”

  “Suddenly, just before the whistle, in came two ladies with a littlepoodle, and sat down opposite to me; not bad-looking women; one was inlight blue, the other in black silk. The poodle, a beauty with a silvercollar, lay on light blue’s knee. They looked haughtily about, andtalked English together. I took no notice, just went on smoking. Iobserved that the ladies were getting angry--over my cigar, doubtless.One looked at me through her tortoise-shell eyeglass.

  “I took no notice, because they never said a word. If they didn’t likethe cigar, why couldn’t they say so? Not a word, not a hint! Suddenly,and without the very slightest suspicion of warning, ‘light blue’ seizesmy cigar from between my fingers, and, wheugh! out of the window withit! Well, on flew the train, and I sat bewildered, and the young woman,tall and fair, and rather red in the face, too red, glared at me withflashing eyes.

  “I didn’t say a word, but with extreme courtesy, I may say with mostrefined courtesy, I reached my finger and thumb over towards the poodle,took it up delicately by the nape of the neck, and chucked it out ofthe window, after the cigar. The train went flying on, and the poodle’syells were lost in the distance.”

  “Oh, you naughty man!” cried Nastasia, laughing and clapping her handslike a child.

  “Bravo!” said Ferdishenko. Ptitsin laughed too, though he had been verysorry to see the general appear. Even Colia laughed and said, “Bravo!”

  “And I was right, truly right,” cried the general, with warmth andsolemnity, “for if cigars are forbidden in railway carriages, poodlesare much more so.”

  “Well, and what did the lady do?” asked Nastasia, impatiently.

  “She--ah, that’s where all the mischief of it lies!” replied Ivolgin,frowning. “Without a word, as it were, of warning, she slapped me on thecheek! An extraordinary woman!”

  “And you?”

  The general dropped his eyes, and elevated his brows; shrugged hisshoulders, tightened his lips, spread his hands, and remained silent. Atlast he blurted out:

  “I lost my head!”

  “Did you hit her?”

  “No, oh no!--there was a great flare-up, but I didn’t hit her! I had tostruggle a little, purely to defend myself; but the very devil wasin the business. It turned out that ‘light blue’ was an Englishwoman,g
overness or something, at Princess Bielokonski’s, and the other womanwas one of the old-maid princesses Bielokonski. Well, everybody knowswhat great friends the princess and Mrs. Epanchin are, so there was apretty kettle of fish. All the Bielokonskis went into mourning for thepoodle. Six princesses in tears, and the Englishwoman shrieking!

  “Of course I wrote an apology, and called, but they would not receiveeither me or my apology, and the Epanchins cut me, too!”

  “But wait,” said Nastasia. “How is it that, five or six days since,I read exactly the same story in the paper, as happening between aFrenchman and an English girl? The cigar was snatched away exactly asyou describe, and the poodle was chucked out of the window after it. Theslapping came off, too, as in your case; and the girl’s dress was lightblue!”

  The general blushed dreadfully; Colia blushed too; and Ptitsin turnedhastily away. Ferdishenko was the only one who laughed as gaily asbefore. As to Gania, I need not say that he was miserable; he stood dumband wretched and took no notice of anybody.

  “I assure you,” said the general, “that exactly the same thing happenedto myself!”

  “I