"And your philosophy is exactly the same as Evlampia Nikolavna's," Aglaya picked up again. "She's an official's wife, a widow, she calls on us, a sort of sponger. Her whole purpose in life is cheapness; only to live as cheaply as possible; the only thing she talks about is kopecks—and, mind you, she has money, she's a sly fox. Your immense life in prison is exactly the same, and maybe also your four-year happiness in the village, for which you sold your city of Naples, and not without profit, it seems, though it was only a matter of kopecks."
"Concerning life in prison there may be disagreement," said the prince. "I heard one story from a man who spent twelve years in prison; he was one of the patients being treated by my professor. He had fits, he was sometimes restless, wept, and once even tried to kill himself. His life in prison had been very sad, I assure you, but certainly worth more than a kopeck. And the only acquaintances he
had were a spider and a little tree that had grown up under his window . . . But I'd better tell you about another encounter I had last year with a certain man. Here there was one very strange circumstance—strange because, in fact, such chances very rarely occur. This man had once been led to a scaffold, along with others, and a sentence of death by firing squad was read out to him, for a political crime. After about twenty minutes a pardon was read out to him, and he was given a lesser degree of punishment; nevertheless, for the space between the two sentences, for twenty minutes, or a quarter of an hour at the least, he lived under the certain conviction that in a few minutes he would suddenly die. I wanted terribly much to listen when he sometimes recalled his impressions of it, and several times I began questioning him further. He remembered everything with extraordinary clarity and used to say he would never forget anything from those minutes. About twenty paces from the scaffold, around which people and soldiers were standing, three posts had been dug into the ground, since there were several criminals. The first three were led to the posts, tied to them, dressed in death robes (long white smocks), and had long white caps pulled down over their eyes so that they would not see the guns; then a squad of several soldiers lined up facing each post. My acquaintance was eighth in line, which meant he would go to the posts in the third round. A priest went up to each of them with a cross. Consequently, he had about five minutes left to live, not more. He said those five minutes seemed like an endless time to him, an enormous wealth. It seemed to him that in those five minutes he would live so many lives that there was no point yet in thinking about his last moment, so that he even made various arrangements: he reckoned up the time for bidding his comrades farewell and allotted two minutes to that, then allotted two more minutes to thinking about himself for the last time, and then to looking around for the last time. He remembered very well that he made precisely those three arrangements, and reckoned them up in precisely that way. He was dying at the age of twenty-seven, healthy and strong; bidding farewell to his comrades, he remembered asking one of them a rather irrelevant question and even being very interested in the answer. Then, after he had bidden his comrades farewell, the two minutes came that he had allotted to thinking about himself. He knew beforehand what he was going to think about: he kept wanting to picture to himself as quickly and vividly as possible how it could be like this: now he exists and
lives, and in three minutes there would be something, some person or thing—but who? and where? He wanted to resolve it all in those two minutes! There was a church nearby, and the top of the cathedral with its gilded dome shone in the bright sun. He remembered gazing with terrible fixity at that dome and the rays shining from it: it seemed to him that those rays were his new nature and in three minutes he would somehow merge with them . . . The ignorance of and loathing for this new thing that would be and would come presently were terrible; yet he said that nothing was more oppressive for him at that moment than the constant thought: 'What if I were not to die! What if life were given back to me—what infinity! And it would all be mine! Then I'd turn each minute into a whole age, I'd lose nothing, I'd reckon up every minute separately, I'd let nothing be wasted!' He said that in the end this thought turned into such anger in him that he wished they would hurry up and shoot him."
The prince suddenly fell silent; everyone waited for him to go on and arrive at a conclusion.
"Have you finished?" asked Aglaya.
"What? Yes," said the prince, coming out of a momentary pensiveness.
"Why did you tell us about that?"
"Just ... I remembered ... to make conversation . . ."
"You're very fragmentary," observed Alexandra. "You probably wanted to conclude, Prince, that there's not a single moment that can be valued in kopecks, and that five minutes are sometimes dearer than a treasure. That is all very praiseworthy, but, forgive me, what ever happened to the friend who told you all those horrors ... his punishment was changed, which means he was granted that 'infinite life.' Well, what did he do with so much wealth afterwards? Did he live 'reckoning up' every minute?"
"Oh, no, he told me himself—I asked him about it—he didn't live that way at all and lost many, many minutes."
"Well, so, there's experience for you, so it's impossible to live really 'keeping a reckoning.' There's always some reason why it's impossible."
"Yes, for some reason it's impossible," the prince repeated. "I thought so myself. . . But still it's somehow hard to believe . . ."
"That is, you think you can live more intelligently than everyone else?" asked Aglaya.
"Yes, I've sometimes thought so."
"And you still do?"
"And ... I still do," the prince replied, looking at Aglaya, as before, with a quiet and even timid smile; but he immediately laughed again and looked at her merrily.
"How modest!" said Aglaya, almost vexed.
"But how brave you all are, though. You're laughing, but I was so struck by everything in his story that I dreamed about it later, precisely about those five minutes . . ."
Once again he looked around keenly and gravely at his listeners.
"You're not angry with me for something?" he asked suddenly, as if in perplexity, and yet looking straight into their eyes.
"For what?" the three girls cried in astonishment.
"That it's as if I keep teaching . . ."
They all laughed.
"If you're angry, don't be," he said. "I myself know that I've lived less than others and understand less about life than anyone. Maybe I sometimes speak very strangely ..."
And he became decidedly embarrassed.
"Since you say you were happy, it means you lived more, not less; why do you pretend and apologize?" Aglaya began sternly and carpingly. "And please don't worry about lecturing us, there's nothing there to make you triumphant. With your quietism23 one could fill a hundred years of life with happiness. Show you an execution or show you a little finger, you'll draw an equally praiseworthy idea from both and be left feeling pleased besides. It's a way to live."
"Why you're so angry I don't understand," picked up Mrs. Epanchin, who had long been watching the faces of the speakers, "and what you're talking about I also cannot understand. What little finger, what is this nonsense? The prince speaks beautifully, only a little sadly. Why do you discourage him? He laughed at the beginning, but now he's quite crestfallen."
"Never mind, maman. But it's a pity you haven't seen an execution, there's one thing I'd ask you."
"I have seen an execution," the prince replied.
"You have?" cried Aglaya. "I must have guessed it! That crowns the whole thing. If you have, how can you say you lived happily the whole time? Well, isn't it true what I told you?"