every evening that highest snow mountain glows, with a flush of purple against the distant sky, every “little fly that buzzes about him in the hot sunshine has its part in the chorus; knows its place, loves it and is happy.” Every blade of grass grows and is happy! Everything has its path, and everything knows its path, and with a song goes forth, and with a song returns. Only he knows nothing, and understands nothing, neither men nor sounds; he is outside it all, and an outcast. Oh, of course he could not say it then in those words, could not utter his question. He suffered dumbly, not comprehending; but now it seemed to him that he had said all this at the time, those very words, and that that phrase about the “fly” Ippolit took from him; from his words then and his tears. He felt sure of it, and for some reason the thought set his heart beating.
He dropped asleep on the seat, but his agitation still persisted. Just as he was falling asleep he remembered that Ippolit was to kill a dozen people, and smiled at the absurdity of the notion. There was an exquisite brightness and stillness all round him, only broken by the rustle of the leaves which seemed to make it even more silent and solitary He had many dreams, and all were disquieting, and at times made him start uneasily. At last a woman came to him; he knew her, and knowing her was torture; he knew her name, and would have known her anywhere — but strange to say — her face now was not the same as he had always known it, and he felt an agonising reluctance to acknowledge her as the same woman. There was such remorse and horror in this face that it seemed as though she must be a fearful criminal, and had just committed some awful crime. Tears quivered on her pale cheeks; she beckoned to him and put her finger to her lips, as though to warn him to follow her quietly. His heart turned cold; nothing, nothing on earth would induce him to admit that she was a criminal; but he felt that something awful was about to happen, that would ruin his whole life. She seemed anxious to show him something not far off, in the park. He got up to follow her, and suddenly he heard beside him the sound of a gay, fresh laugh; he felt a hand in his. He seized the hand, pressed it tight and waked up. Aglaia was standing before him, laughing aloud.
Chapter 8
SHE WAS laughing, but she was indignant.
“Asleep! You were asleep!” she cried with disdainful wonder.
“It’s you!” muttered Myshkin, hardly awake, and recognising her with surprise. “Oh, yes! We were going to meet…. I’ve been asleep here.”
“So I see.”
“Did no one wake me but you? Has no one been here but you? I thought there was .. . another woman here.”
“Another woman’s been here?”
At last he was wide awake.
“It was only a dream,” he said pensively. “Strange at such a moment to have such a dream. … Sit down!”
He took her hand and made her sit down on the seat; he sat beside her and sank into thought. Aglaia did not begin the conversation, but scrutinised her companion intently. He gazed at her too, though sometimes his eyes looked as though he did not see her. She began to flush.
“Oh, yes,” said Myshkin, starting, “Ippolit shot himself.”
“When? In your rooms?” she asked, but without great surprise. “He was alive only yesterday evening, wasn’t he? How could you sleep after such a thing?” she cried, with sudden animation.
“But he’s not dead, you know. The pistol did not go off.”
Aglaia insisted on Myshkin’s at once giving her a minute account of what had happened the previous evening. She continually urged him on in his story, though she kept interrupting him with questions, almost always irrelevant. She listened with great interest to what Yevgeny Pavlovitch had said, and several times asked him to repeat it.
“Well, that’s enough! We must make haste,” she ended, after hearing everything. “We’ve only an hour to be here, till eight o’clock. For at eight I must be at home, so that they mayn’t know I’ve been sitting here, and I’ve come out with an object. I have a great deal to tell you. Only you’ve quite put me out now. About Ippolit, I think that his pistol was bound not to go off. It’s just like him. But you’re sure that he really meant to shoot himself, and that there was no deception about it?”
“There was no deception.”
“That’s more likely, indeed. So he wrote that you were to bring me his confession? Why didn’t you bring it?”
“Why, he’s not dead. I’ll ask him for it.”
“Be sure to bring it. And there is no need to ask him. He’ll certainly be delighted, for perhaps it was with that object he shot at himself, that I might read his confession afterwards. Please don’t laugh at me, I beg you, Lyov Nikolayevitch, because it may very well be so.”
“I’m not laughing, for I’m convinced myself that that may very likely be partly the reason.”
“You’re convinced! Do you really think so, too?”
Aglaia was extremely surprised.
She asked rapid questions, talked quickly, but sometimes seemed confused, and often did not finish her sentences. At times she seemed in haste to warn him of something. Altogether she was in extraordinary agitation, and, though she looked very bold and almost defiant, she was perhaps a little scared too. She was wearing a very plain every-day dress, which suited her extremely well. She was sitting on the edge of the seat, and she often started and blushed. Myshkin’s confirmation of her idea, that Ippolit had shot himself that she might read his confession afterwards, surprised her very much.
“Of course,” Myshkin explained, “he wanted us all to praise him, as well as you….”
“Praise him?”
“That is . . . how shall I tell you … it is very difficult to explain. Only he certainly wanted every one to come round him and tell him that they loved him very much and respected him; he longed for them all to beg him to remain alive. It may very well be that he had you in his mind more than anyone, because he mentioned you at such a moment . . . though, perhaps, he didn’t know himself that he had you in mind.”
“That I don’t understand at all; that he had it in his mind and didn’t know he had it in his mind. I think I
do understand, though. Do you know that thirty times I dreamed of poisoning myself, when I was only thirteen, and writing it all in a letter to my parents. And I, too, thought how I would lie in my coffin, and they would all weep over me, and blame themselves for having been too cruel to me. . . . Why are you smiling again?” she added quickly, frowning. “What do you think about when you dream by yourself? Perhaps you fancy yourself a field-marshal, and dream you’ve conquered Napoleon?”
“Well, honour bright, I do dream of that, especially when I’m dropping asleep,” said Myshkin, laughing. “Only it’s always the Austrians I conquer, not Napoleon.”
“I’m in no mood for joking with you, Lyov Nikolayevitch. I’ll see Ippolit myself. I beg you to tell him so. I think it’s very horrid on your part, for it’s very brutal to look on and judge a man’s soul, as you judge Ippolit. “Vbu have no tenderness, nothing but truth, and so you judge unjustly.”
Myshkin pondered.
“I think you’re unfair to me,” he said. “Why, I see no harm in his thinking in that way, because all people are inclined to think like that. Besides, perhaps he didn’t think like that at all, but only wanted it. . . . He longed for the last time to come near to men, to win their respect and love. Those are very good feelings, you know. Only it somehow all went wrong. It’s his illness, and something else, perhaps! Besides, everything always goes right with some people, while with others nothing ever comes off….”
“You mean that for yourself, I suppose?” observed Aglaia.
“Yes, I do,” answered Myshkin, not conscious of any sarcasm in the question.
“But I wouldn’t have fallen asleep in your place, anyway. It shows that wherever you pitch you fall asleep on the spot. It’s not at all nice of you.”
“But I haven’t slept all night. I walked and walked afterwards. I’ve been where the music was.”
“What music?”
“Where the band was playing, yesterday. Then I came here, sat down, thought and thought, and fell asleep.”
“Oh, so that’s how it was! That makes it a little better. But why did you go to the band-stand?”
“I don’t know. I happened to.”
“Very well, very well, afterwards; you keep interrupting me. And what does it matter to me if you did go to the band-stand? What woman was
