The Idiot Read online

is partly why I am so talkative this morning. I assureyou, ever since yesterday evening I have had the strongest desire to goon and on talking Russian.”

  “H’m! yes; did you live in Petersburg in former years?”

  This good flunkey, in spite of his conscientious scruples, really couldnot resist continuing such a very genteel and agreeable conversation.

  “In Petersburg? Oh no! hardly at all, and now they say so much ischanged in the place that even those who did know it well are obliged torelearn what they knew. They talk a good deal about the new law courts,and changes there, don’t they?”

  “H’m! yes, that’s true enough. Well now, how is the law over there, dothey administer it more justly than here?”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that! I’ve heard much that is good about ourlegal administration, too. There is no capital punishment here for onething.”

  “Is there over there?”

  “Yes--I saw an execution in France--at Lyons. Schneider took me overwith him to see it.”

  “What, did they hang the fellow?”

  “No, they cut off people’s heads in France.”

  “What did the fellow do?--yell?”

  “Oh no--it’s the work of an instant. They put a man inside a frame anda sort of broad knife falls by machinery--they call the thing aguillotine--it falls with fearful force and weight--the head springsoff so quickly that you can’t wink your eye in between. But all thepreparations are so dreadful. When they announce the sentence, you know,and prepare the criminal and tie his hands, and cart him off to thescaffold--that’s the fearful part of the business. The people all crowdround--even women--though they don’t at all approve of women looking on.”

  “No, it’s not a thing for women.”

  “Of course not--of course not!--bah! The criminal was a fine intelligentfearless man; Le Gros was his name; and I may tell you--believe it ornot, as you like--that when that man stepped upon the scaffold he _cried_,he did indeed,--he was as white as a bit of paper. Isn’t it a dreadfulidea that he should have cried--cried! Whoever heard of a grown mancrying from fear--not a child, but a man who never had cried before--agrown man of forty-five years. Imagine what must have been going on inthat man’s mind at such a moment; what dreadful convulsions his wholespirit must have endured; it is an outrage on the soul that’s what itis. Because it is said ‘thou shalt not kill,’ is he to be killed becausehe murdered some one else? No, it is not right, it’s an impossibletheory. I assure you, I saw the sight a month ago and it’s dancingbefore my eyes to this moment. I dream of it, often.”

  The prince had grown animated as he spoke, and a tinge of coloursuffused his pale face, though his way of talking was as quiet as ever.The servant followed his words with sympathetic interest. Clearly hewas not at all anxious to bring the conversation to an end. Who knows?Perhaps he too was a man of imagination and with some capacity forthought.

  “Well, at all events it is a good thing that there’s no pain when thepoor fellow’s head flies off,” he remarked.

  “Do you know, though,” cried the prince warmly, “you made that remarknow, and everyone says the same thing, and the machine is designed withthe purpose of avoiding pain, this guillotine I mean; but a thought cameinto my head then: what if it be a bad plan after all? You may laugh atmy idea, perhaps--but I could not help its occurring to me all the same.Now with the rack and tortures and so on--you suffer terrible pain ofcourse; but then your torture is bodily pain only (although no doubt youhave plenty of that) until you die. But _here_ I should imagine themost terrible part of the whole punishment is, not the bodily pain atall--but the certain knowledge that in an hour,--then in ten minutes,then in half a minute, then now--this very _instant_--your soul mustquit your body and that you will no longer be a man--and that thisis certain, _certain_! That’s the point--the certainty of it. Just thatinstant when you place your head on the block and hear the iron grateover your head--then--that quarter of a second is the most awful of all.

  “This is not my own fantastical opinion--many people have thought thesame; but I feel it so deeply that I’ll tell you what I think. I believethat to execute a man for murder is to punish him immeasurably moredreadfully than is equivalent to his crime. A murder by sentence isfar more dreadful than a murder committed by a criminal. The man who isattacked by robbers at night, in a dark wood, or anywhere, undoubtedlyhopes and hopes that he may yet escape until the very moment of hisdeath. There are plenty of instances of a man running away, or imploringfor mercy--at all events hoping on in some degree--even after his throatwas cut. But in the case of an execution, that last hope--having whichit is so immeasurably less dreadful to die,--is taken away from thewretch and _certainty_ substituted in its place! There is his sentence,and with it that terrible certainty that he cannot possibly escapedeath--which, I consider, must be the most dreadful anguish in theworld. You may place a soldier before a cannon’s mouth in battle, andfire upon him--and he will still hope. But read to that same soldier hisdeath-sentence, and he will either go mad or burst into tears. Who daresto say that any man can suffer this without going mad? No, no! it isan abuse, a shame, it is unnecessary--why should such a thing exist?Doubtless there may be men who have been sentenced, who have sufferedthis mental anguish for a while and then have been reprieved; perhapssuch men may have been able to relate their feelings afterwards. OurLord Christ spoke of this anguish and dread. No! no! no! No man shouldbe treated so, no man, no man!”

  The servant, though of course he could not have expressed all thisas the prince did, still clearly entered into it and was greatlyconciliated, as was evident from the increased amiability of hisexpression. “If you are really very anxious for a smoke,” he remarked,“I think it might possibly be managed, if you are very quick about it.You see they might come out and inquire for you, and you wouldn’t be onthe spot. You see that door there? Go in there and you’ll find a littleroom on the right; you can smoke there, only open the window, because Iought not to allow it really, and--.” But there was no time, after all.

  A young fellow entered the ante-room at this moment, with a bundleof papers in his hand. The footman hastened to help him take off hisovercoat. The new arrival glanced at the prince out of the corners ofhis eyes.

  “This gentleman declares, Gavrila Ardalionovitch,” began the man,confidentially and almost familiarly, “that he is Prince Muishkin anda relative of Madame Epanchin’s. He has just arrived from abroad, withnothing but a bundle by way of luggage--.”

  The prince did not hear the rest, because at this point the servantcontinued his communication in a whisper.

  Gavrila Ardalionovitch listened attentively, and gazed at the princewith great curiosity. At last he motioned the man aside and steppedhurriedly towards the prince.

  “Are you Prince Muishkin?” he asked, with the greatest courtesy andamiability.

  He was a remarkably handsome young fellow of some twenty-eight summers,fair and of middle height; he wore a small beard, and his face was mostintelligent. Yet his smile, in spite of its sweetness, was a littlethin, if I may so call it, and showed his teeth too evenly; hisgaze though decidedly good-humoured and ingenuous, was a trifle tooinquisitive and intent to be altogether agreeable.

  “Probably when he is alone he looks quite different, and hardly smilesat all!” thought the prince.

  He explained about himself in a few words, very much the same as he hadtold the footman and Rogojin beforehand.

  Gavrila Ardalionovitch meanwhile seemed to be trying to recallsomething.

  “Was it not you, then, who sent a letter a year or less ago--fromSwitzerland, I think it was--to Elizabetha Prokofievna (Mrs. Epanchin)?”

  “It was.”

  “Oh, then, of course they will remember who you are. You wish to seethe general? I’ll tell him at once--he will be free in a minute; butyou--you had better wait in the ante-chamber,--hadn’t you? Why is hehere?” he added, severely, to the man.

  “I tell you, sir, he wished it himself!”

  At this mome
nt the study door opened, and a military man, with aportfolio under his arm, came out talking loudly, and after biddinggood-bye to someone inside, took his departure.

  “You there, Gania?” cried a voice from the study, “come in here, willyou?”

  Gavrila Ardalionovitch nodded to the prince and entered the roomhastily.

  A couple of minutes later the door opened again and the affable voice ofGania cried:

  “Come in please, prince!”

  III.

  General Ivan Fedorovitch Epanchin was standing in the middle of theroom, and gazed with great curiosity at the prince as he entered. Heeven advanced a couple of steps to meet him.

  The prince came forward and introduced himself.

  “Quite so,” replied the general, “and what can I do for you?”

  “Oh, I have no special business; my principal object was to make youracquaintance. I should not like to disturb you. I do not know your timesand arrangements here, you see, but I have only just arrived. I camestraight from the station. I am come direct from Switzerland.”

  The general very nearly smiled, but thought