The Idiot

"Yes, yes, you're right, ah, I feel I'm to blame!" the prince said in inexpressible anguish.

"But is that enough?" Evgeny Pavlovich cried in indignation. "Is it sufficient merely to cry out: 'I'm to blame!' You're to blame, and yet you persist! And where was your heart then, your 'Christian' heart! You saw her face at that moment: tell me, did she suffer less than thatone, than yourother one, her rival? How could you see it and allow it? How?"

"But ... I didn't allow it . . ." murmured the unhappy prince.

"What do you mean you didn't?"

"By God, I didn't allow anything. I still don't understand how it all came about . . . I—I ran after Aglaya Ivanovna then, and Nastasya Filippovna fainted; and since then I haven't been allowed to see Aglaya Ivanovna."

"All the same! You should have run after Aglaya, even though the other one fainted!"

"Yes . . . yes, I should have . . . but she would have died! She would have killed herself, you don't know her, and ... all the same, I'd have told everything to Aglaya Ivanovna afterwards, and . . . You see, Evgeny Pavlych, I can see that you don't seem to know everything. Tell me, why won't they let me see Aglaya Ivanovna? I'd have explained everything to her. You see: neither of them talked about the right thing, not about the right thing at all, that's why it turned out like this . . . There's no way I can explain it to

you; but I might be able to explain it to Aglaya . . . Ah, my God, my God! You speak of her face at the moment she ran out. . . oh, my God, I remember! Let's go, let's go!" he suddenly pulled Evgeny Pavlovich's sleeve, hurriedly jumping up from his seat.

"Where?"

"Let's go to Aglaya Ivanovna, let's go right now! . . ."

"But I told you, she's not in Pavlovsk, and why go?"

"She'll understand, she'll understand!" the prince murmured, pressing his hands together in entreaty. "She'll understand that it's all not that,but something completely, completely different!"

"How is it completely different? Aren't you getting married all the same? That means you persist . . . Are you getting married or not?"

"Well, yes ... I am; yes, I am getting married!"

"Then how is it not that?"

"Oh, no, not that, not that! It makes no difference that I'm getting married, it doesn't matter!"

"It makes no difference and doesn't matter? It's not a trifling thing, is it? You're marrying a woman you love in order to make her happiness, and Aglaya Ivanovna sees and knows it, so how does it make no difference?"

"Happiness? Oh, no! I'm simply getting married; she wants it; and so what if I'm getting married, I . . . Well, it makes no difference! Only she would certainly have died. I see now that this marriage to Rogozhin was madness! I now understand everything I didn't understand before, and you see: when the two of them stood facing each other, I couldn't bear Nastasya Filippovna's face then . . . You don't know, Evgeny Pavlych" (he lowered his voice mysteriously), "I've never spoken to anyone about this, not even Aglaya, but I can't bear Nastasya Filippovna's face . . . You spoke the truth earlier about that evening at Nastasya Filippovna's; but there was one thing you left out, because you don't know it: I was looking at her face!That morning, in her portrait, I already couldn't bear it . . . Take Vera, Vera Lebedev, she has completely different eyes; I . . . I'm afraid of her face!" he added with extreme fear.

"Afraid?"

"Yes; she's—mad!" he whispered, turning pale.

"You know that for certain?" Evgeny Pavlovich asked with extreme curiosity.

"Yes, for certain; now it's certain; now, in these days, I've learned it quite certainly!"

"But what are you doing to yourself?" Evgeny Pavlovich cried out in alarm. "It means you're marrying out of some sort of fear? It's impossible to understand anything here . . . Even without loving her, perhaps?"

"Oh, no, I love her with all my soul! She's ... a child; now she's a child, a complete child! Oh, you don't know anything!"

"And at the same time you assured Aglaya Ivanovna of your love?"

"Oh, yes, yes!"

"How's that? So you want to love them both?"

"Oh, yes, yes!"

"Good heavens, Prince, what are you saying? Come to your senses!"

"Without Aglaya I ... I absolutely must see her! I . . . I'll soon die in my sleep; I thought last night that I was going to die in my sleep. Oh, if Aglaya knew, knew everything . . . that is, absolutely everything. Because here you have to know everything, that's the first thing! Why can we never know everythingabout another person when it's necessary, when the person is to blame! . . . However, I don't know what I'm saying, I'm confused; you struck me terribly . . . Can she really still have the same face as when she ran out? Oh, yes, I'm to blame! Most likely I'm to blame for everything! I still don't know precisely for what, but I'm to blame . . . There's something in it that I can't explain to you, Evgeny Pavlych, I lack the words, but.. . Aglaya Ivanovna will understand! Oh, I've always believed she would understand."

"No, Prince, she won't understand! Aglaya Ivanovna loved as a woman, as a human being, not as ... an abstract spirit. You know, my poor Prince: most likely you never loved either of them!"

"I don't know. .. maybe, maybe; you're right about many things, Evgeny Pavlych. You're extremely intelligent, Evgeny Pavlych; ah, my head's beginning to ache again, let's go to her! For God's sake, for God's sake!"

"I tell you, she's not in Pavlovsk, she's in Kolmino."

"Let's go to Kolmino, let's go now!"

"That is im-pos-sible!" Evgeny Pavlovich drew out, getting up.

"Listen, I'll write a letter; take a letter to her!"

"No, Prince, no! Spare me such errands, I cannot!"

They parted. Evgeny Pavlovich left with some strange convictions: and, in his opinion, it came out that the prince was slightly out of his mind. And what was the meaning of this facethat he

was afraid of and that he loved so much! And at the same time he might actually die without Aglaya, so that Aglaya might never know he loved her so much! Ha, ha! And what was this about loving two women? With two different loves of some sort? That's interesting . . . the poor idiot! And what will become of him now?

X

The prince, however, did not die before his wedding, either awake or "in his sleep," as he had predicted to Evgeny Pavlovich. He may indeed have slept poorly and had bad dreams, but in the daytime, with people, he seemed kind and even content, only sometimes very pensive, but that was when he was alone. They were hurrying the wedding; it was to take place about a week after Evgeny Pavlovich's call. Given such haste, even the prince's best friends, if he had any, were bound to be disappointed in their efforts to "save" the unfortunate madcap. There was a rumor that General Ivan Fyodorovich and his wife Lizaveta Prokofyevna were partly responsible for Evgeny Pavlovich's visit. But even if the two of them, in the immeasurable goodness of their hearts, might have wanted to save the pathetic madman from the abyss, they had, of course, to limit themselves to this one feeble attempt; neither their position, nor even, perhaps, the disposition of their hearts (as was natural) could correspond to more serious efforts. We have mentioned that even those around the prince partly rose up against him. Vera Lebedev, however, limited herself only to solitary tears and to staying home more and looking in on the prince less often than before. Kolya was burying his father at that time; the old man died of a second stroke eight days after the first. The prince shared greatly in the family's grief and in the first days spent several hours a day at Nina Alexandrovna's; he attended the burial and the church service. Many noticed that the public in the church met the prince and saw him off with involuntary whispers; the same thing happened in the streets and in the garden: when he walked or drove by, people talked, spoke his name, pointed at him, mentioned Nastasya Filippovna's name. She was looked for at the burial, but she was not at the burial. Neither was the captain's widow, whom Lebedev had managed to stop and cancel in time. The burial service made a strong and painful impression on the prince; he whispered to Lebedev, still in church, in reply to some