The Idiot

"The monster found out himself, himself."

"Don't abuse him. Of course, he treated you badly . . ."

"He beat me, he beat me!" Lebedev chimed in with terrible fervor. "And he chased me with a dog through Moscow, chased me down the street with a borzoi bitch. A horrible bitch."

"You take me for a little boy, Lebedev. Tell me, did she seriously abandon him this time, in Moscow?"

"Seriously, seriously, again right at the foot of the altar. The man was already counting the minutes, and she dashed off here to Petersburg and straight to me: 'Save me, protect me, Lukyan, and don't tell the prince . . .' She's afraid of you, Prince, even more than of him, and that's—most wise!"

And Lebedev slyly put his finger to his forehead.

"But now you've brought them together again?"

"Illustrious Prince, how . . . how could I prevent it?"

"Well, enough, I'll find everything out myself. Only tell me, where is she now? At his place?"

"Oh, no! Never! She's still on her own. I'm free, she says, and, you know, Prince, she stands firm on it, she says, I'm still completely free! She's still on the Petersburg side, at my sister-in-law's, as I wrote to you."

"And she's there now?"

"Yes, unless she's in Pavlovsk, what with the fine weather, at Darya Alexeevna's dacha. I'm completely free, she says; just yesterday she kept boasting to Nikolai Ardalionovich about her freedom. A bad sign, sir!"

And Lebedev grinned.

"Does Kolya see much of her?"

"Light-minded, and incomprehensible, and not secretive."

"Were you there long ago?"

"Every day, every day."

"Meaning yesterday?"

"N-no, three days ago, sir."

"Too bad you're slightly drunk, Lebedev! Otherwise I'd ask you something."

"No, no, no, stone sober!"

Lebedev was all agog.

"Tell me, how was she when you left?"

"S-searching . . ."

"Searching?"

"As if she was searching all over for something, as if she'd lost

something. Even the thought of the forthcoming marriage is loathsome to her, and she takes offense at it. Of himshe thinks as much as of an orange peel, not more, or else more, but with fear and horror, she even forbids all mention of him, and they see each other only by necessity . . . and he feels it all too well! But there's no avoiding it, sir! . . . She's restless, sarcastic, double-tongued, explosive . . ."

"Double-tongued and explosive?"

"Explosive—because she all but seized me by the hair last time for one of my conversations. I was reprimanding her with the Apocalypse." ¹¹

"How's that?" asked the prince, thinking he had not heard right.

"I was reading the Apocalypse. A lady with a restless imagination, heh, heh! And, besides, I've come to the conclusion that she's much inclined towards serious topics, even unrelated ones. She likes them, likes them, and even takes it as a sign of special respect for her. Yes, sir. And I'm strong on interpreting the Apocalypse and have been doing it for fifteen years. She agreed with me that we live in the time of the third horse, the black one, and the rider with a balance in his hand, because in our time everything is in balances and contracts, and people are all only seeking their rights: A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny . . .' And with all that they want to preserve a free spirit, and a pure heart, and a healthy body, and all of God's gifts. But they can't do it with rights alone, and there will follow a pale horse and him whose name is Death, and after him Hell ¹². . . We get together and interpret it and—she's strongly affected."

"You believe that yourself?" asked the prince, giving Lebedev a strange look.

"Believe it and interpret it. For I'm poor and naked, and an atom in the whirl of people. Who will honor Lebedev? They all sharpen their wit on him, and accompany him by all but kicks. But here, in this interpreting, I'm the equal of a courtier. The mind! And a courtier trembled once ... in his chair, feeling it with his mind. His excellency, Nil Alexeevich, two years ago, before Easter, heard about me—when I still worked in their department—and had Pyotr Zakharych summon me specially from my duty to his office, and asked me, when we were alone: 'Is it true that you're a professor of the Antichrist?' And I didn't hide it: 'I am,' I said, and I explained it, and presented it, and didn't soften the fear, but mentally increased it as I unrolled the allegorical scroll and quoted the

numbers. And he was smiling, but at the numbers and likenesses he began to tremble, and asked me to close the book, and to leave, and awarded me a bonus for Easter, and on St. Thomas's ¹³he gave up his soul to God."

"Come now, Lebedev!"

"It's a fact. He fell out of his carriage after dinner . . . struck his temple on the hitching post and passed away right there, like a baby, like a little baby. He was seventy-three years old according to his papers; a red-faced, gray-haired little fellow, all sprayed with perfume, and he used to smile, to smile all the time, just like a baby. Pyotr Zakharych remembered then: 'You foretold it,' he said."

The prince began to get up. Lebedev was surprised and even puzzled that the prince was already getting up.

"You've grown awfully indifferent, sir, heh, heh!" he ventured to observe obsequiously.

"I really feel unwell—my head is heavy after the journey," the prince replied, frowning.

"You could do with a bit of dacha life, sir," Lebedev hinted timidly.

The prince stood thinking.

"And I myself, after a three-day wait, will be going to my dacha with the whole household, so as to look after the newborn nestling and meanwhile fix up the little house here. And that's also in Pavlovsk."

"You're also going to Pavlovsk?" the prince asked suddenly. "How is it everyone here goes to Pavlovsk? And you say you have a dacha there?"

"Not everyone goes to Pavlovsk. Ivan Petrovich Ptitsyn is letting me have one of the dachas he came by cheaply. It's nice, and sublime, and green, and cheap, and bon ton, and musical, and that's why we all go to Pavlovsk. I, incidentally, will be in a little wing, while the house itself ..."

"You've rented it out?"

"N-n-no. Not . . . not quite, sir."

"Rent it to me," the prince suddenly suggested.

It seems that this was just what Lebedev had been driving at. The idea had flashed through his mind three minutes earlier. And yet he no longer needed a tenant; he already had a candidate who had informed him that he might take the dacha. Lebedev knew positively, however, that there was no "might" and that he would certainly take it. Yet the thought had suddenly flashed through his

mind, a very fruitful one by his reckoning, of renting the dacha to the prince, under the pretext that the other tenant had not expressed himself definitively. "A whole collision and a whole new turn of affairs" suddenly presented itself to his imagination. He received the prince's suggestion almost with rapture, so that he even waved his hands at the direct question of the price.

"Well, as you wish. I'll ask. You won't come out the loser."

They were both leaving the garden.

"I could ... I could ... if you like, I could tell you something quite interesting, most esteemed Prince, concerning the same matter," Lebedev muttered, joyfully twining himself about at the prince's side.