was over. Ippolit at last stopped.
There is, in extreme cases, a pitch of cynical frankness when a nervous man, exasperated, and beside himself, shrinks from nothing, and is readyfor any scandal, even glad of it. He falls upon people with a vague but firm determination to fling himself from a belfry a minute later, and so settle any difficulties that may arise. And the approaching physical exhaustion is usually the symptom of this condition. The extreme, almost unnatural tension which had kept Ippolit up till that moment had reached that fatal pitch. This eighteen-year-old boy, exhausted by illness, seemed as weak as a trembling leaf torn from a tree. But as soon as — for the first time in the course of the last hour — he looked round upon his audience, the most haughty, most disdainful and resentful repugnance was at once apparent in his eyes and his smile. He made haste with his challenge. But his listeners too were very indignant. They were all noisily and angrily getting up from the table. Weariness, wine, nervous strain increased the disorderliness and, as it were, foulness of the impression, if one may so express it.
Suddenly Ippolit leapt up, as though he had been thrust from his seat,
“The sun has risen,” he cried to Myshkin, seeing the treetops lighted up, and pointing to them as though to a marvel. “It has risen!”
“Why, did you think it wasn’t going to rise?” observed Ferdyshtchenko.
“It will be baking hot again, all day,” muttered Ganya, with careless annoyance, stretching and yawning, with his hat in his hands. “What if there’s a month of this drought! . . . Are we going or not, Ptitsyn?”
Ippolit listened with an astonishment that approached stupefaction. He suddenly turned fearfully pale and began trembling all over.
“You act your indifference very awkwardly to insult me,” he said, staring at Ganya. “You’re a cur!”
“Well, that’s beyond anything, to let oneself go like that!” roared Ferdyshtchenko. “What phenomenal feebleness!”
“He’s simplya fool,” said Ganya.
Ippolit pulled himself together a little.
“I understand, gentlemen,” he began, trembling as before, and stuttering at every word— “that I may deserve your personal resentment, and … I’m sorry I’ve distressed you with these ravings (he pointed to the manuscript), or rather I’m sorry that I haven’t distressed you at all”… (he smiled stupidly). “Have I distressed you, Yevgeny Pavlovitch?” he darted across to him with the question. “Did I distress you or not, tell me?”
“It was rather drawn out, still it was …”
“Speak out! Don’t tell lies for once in your life!” Ippolit insisted, trembling.
“Oh! It’s absolutely nothing to me! I beg you to be so good as to leave me alone.”
“Vfevgeny Pavlovitch turned awaydisdainfully.
“Good-night, prince,” said Ptitsyn, going up to Myshkin.
“But he’s going to shoot himself directly! What are you thinking of? Look at him,” cried Vera, and she flew to Ippolit in great alarm; she even clutched at his arms. “Why, he said he would shoot himself at sunrise! What are you about!”
“He won’t shoot himself!” several voices, among them Ganya’s, muttered malignantly.
“Gentlemen, take care!” cried Kolya, and he, too, caught at Ippolit’s arm. “Only look at him. Prince, prince, what are you thinking of?”
Ippolit was surrounded by Vera, Kolya, Keller and Burdovsky. They all caught hold of him.
“He has the right … the right . . .” Burdovsky murmured, though he, too, seemed quite beside himself.
“Excuse me, prince, what arrangements do you propose to make?” said Lebedyev, going up to Myshkin. He was drunk and so enraged that he was insolent.
“What arrangements?”
“No, sir; excuse me; I’m the master of the house, though I don’t wish to be lacking in respect to you. . . . Granting that you are master here too, still I don’t care in my own house….”
“He won’t shoot himself! The wretched boy is fooling!” General Ivolgin cried unexpectedly, with indignation and aplomb.
“Bravo, general!” Ferdyshtchenko applauded.
“I know he won’t shoot himself, qeneral, honoured general, but all the same … seeing I’m master of the house.”
“Listen, I say. Mr. Terentyev,” said Ptitsyn suddenly, holding out his hand to Ippolit, after saying good-bye to Myshkin. “I believe you speak in your manuscript of your skeleton and leave it to the Academy? You mean your own skeleton, your bones you mean, isn’t it?”
“Yes, my bones….”
“That’s all right then. I asked for fear there should be a mistake; I’ve been told there was such a case.”
“How can you tease him?” cried Myshkin suddenly.
“You’ve made him cry,” added Ferdyshtchenko.
But Ippolit was not crying. He tried to move from his place, but the four standing about him seized his hands at once. There was a sound of laughter.
“That’s what he’s been after, that they should hold his hands; that’s what he read his confession for,” observed Rogozhin. “Good-bye, prince. Ech, we’ve been sitting too long — my bones ache.”
“If you really did mean to shoot yourself, Terentyev,” laughed “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch— “after such compliments, if I were you, I should make a point of not doing it, to tease them.”
“They’re awfully eager to see me shoot myself!” cried Ippolit, flying out at his words.
He spoke as though he were attacking some one. “They’re annoyed that they won’t see it.”
“So you think they won’t see it? I’m not egging you on; quite the contrary; I think it’s very likely you will shoot yourself. The great thing is not to lose your temper. . ,” said “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch in a patronizing drawl.
“I only see now that I made a fearful mistake in reading them my ‘Explanation,’” said Ippolit, looking at Yevgeny Pavlovitch with a sudden trustfulness, as though asking the confidential advice of a friend.
“It’s an absurd position, but… I really don’t know what to advise you,” answered “Vfevgeny Pavlovitch, smiling.
Ippolit bent a stern, persistent gaze at him, and did not answer. It might have been supposed that he was unconscious at some moments.
“No, excuse me, it’s a strange way of doing things,” said Lebedyev. ‘“I’ll shoot myself in the park,’” says he, ‘“so as not to upset anyone.’ That’s his notion, that he won’t upset anyone if he goes down three steps a few feet into the park.”
“Gentlemen ..,” began Myshkin.
“No, allow me, honoured prince,” Lebedyev interrupted, furiously, “as you can see for yourself that it’s not a joke, and as half your guests at least are of the same opinion, and are convinced that, after what he has said, he will feel bound in honour to shoot himself, I, as master of the house, and as a witness of it, call upon you to assist me!”
“What’s to be done, Lebedyev? I am ready to assist you.”
“I’ll tell you what. In the first place he must give up the pistol he boasted about before us all, and all the ammunition too. If he gives it up, I consent to let him stay the night in this house, in consideration of his invalid state, under my own supervision, of course. But to-morrow he must certainly go about his business. Excuse me, prince! If he won’t give up his weapon, I shall at once take hold of him, I on one side, the general on the other, and send at once to inform the police; and then the affair can be left for the police to deal with. Mr. Ferdyshtchenko, as a friend, will go for them.”
An uproar followed. Lebedyev was excited, and threw aside all restraint. Ferdyshtchenko prepared to go for the police. Ganya insisted frantically that no one meant to shoot himself. Yevgeny Pavlovitch said nothing.
“Prince, have you ever jumped from a belfry?” Ippolit whispered to him, suddenly.
“N-no,” answered Myshkin, naively.
“Did you imagine that I did not foresee all this hatred!” Ippolit whispered again, looking at Myshkin with flashing eyes, as though he really expected an answer from him.
“Enough!” he cried, suddenly, to the whole party. “It’s my fault . . . more than anyone’s. Lebedyev, here’s the keys (he took out his purse and from it a steel ring with three or four keys upon it). “Here, the last but one. . . . Kolya will show you. . . . Kolya, where is Kolya?” cried he, looking at Kolya, and not seeing him. “\fes . . . he’ll show you. He packed my bag with me, yesterday. Take him, Kolya. In the prince’s study, under the table … is my bag . . . with this key … at the bottom in a little box … my pistol and powder-horn. He packed it himself, Mr. Lebedvev; he’ll show vou. But on condition that to-
morrow, early, when I start for Petersburg, you’ll give me back my pistol. Do you hear? I do it for the prince, not for you.”
“Well, that’s better,” said Lebedyev, snatching at the key; and, laughing viciously, he ran into the next room.
Kolya would have remained, he tried to say something, but Lebedyev drew him away.
Ippolit looked at the laughing revellers. Myshkin noticed that his teeth were chattering, as though he were in a terrible chill.
“What wretches they all are!” Ippolit whispered to Myshkin, in a frenzy.
When he spoke to Myshkin, he bent right over and whispered to him.
“Leave them. You’re very weak….”
“In a minute, in a minute. … I’m going in a minute.”
Suddenly he put his arms round Myshkin.
“You think I am mad perhaps?” He looked at him strangely, laughing.
“No, but you….”
“In a minute, in a minute, be quiet; don’t say anything, stand still. I want to look you in the eyes. … Stand like that, and let me look. I say good-bye to man.”
He stood and looked fixedly at Myshkin for ten seconds without speaking. Very pale, his hair soaked with sweat, he caught somehow strangely