His face changed. He turned red and pale, and at last flew into violent and righteous indignation beyond anything I should have suspected of him. He is a most honourable man! He tells lies continually, from weakness, but he’s a man of the loftiest sentiments. A man, too, of no guile, who inspires the fullest confidence by his artlessness. I
have told you already, honoured prince, that I’ve more than a weakness, I’ve an affection for him. He suddenly stopped in the middle of the street, unbuttoned his coat, uncovered his chest. ‘Search me!’ he said. ‘\bu searched Keller. Why don’t you search me? That’s only justice!’ said he. And his arms and legs were trembling; he was quite pale; he looked so threatening. I laughed and said, ‘Listen, general, if anyone else had said such a thing about you, I’d have taken my head off with my own hands; I’d have put it on a big dish, and would have carried it myself to every one who doubted you: do you see this head? I would say. I’ll answer for him with this head, and not only so, but I’d go through fire for him. That’s what I’d do,’ said I. Then he threw his arms round me, there in the street, burst into tears, trembling, and squeezed me so tight that it made me cough. ‘You’re the only friend left me in my misfortunes,’ said he. He’s a man of feeling! Then, of course, he told me an anecdote on the spot, of how he had once been suspected of stealing five hundred thousand roubles in his youth, but that next day he had thrown himself into a house on fire, and had dragged out of the flames the count who had suspected him, and Nina Alexandrovna, who was a girl at the time. The count embraced him, and so his marriage followed with Nina Alexandrovna. And next day, in the ruins of the house, they found a box with the lost money in it. It was an iron box of English make, with a secret lock, and it had somehow got under the floor so that no one noticed it, and it was only found after the fire. A complete lie. But when he spoke of Nina Alexandrovna he positively blubbered. A most honourable lady, Nina Alexandrovna, though she is angry with me.”
“You don’t know her, do you?”
“Scarcely at all, but I should be heartily glad to, if only to justify myself to her. Nina Alexandrovna has a grievance against me, pretending that I lead her spouse astray into drunkenness. But far from leading him astray, I restrain him. I perhaps entice him away from more pernicious society. Besides, he’s my friend and, I confess it to you, I won’t desert him now. In fact, it’s like this: where he goes there I go. For you can only manage him through his sensibility. He’s quite given up visiting his captain’s widow now, though he secretly longs for her, and even sometimes moans for her, especially in the morninq when he puts on his boots. I don’t know why it’s at that time. He’s no money, that’s the trouble, and there’s no going to see her without. Hasn’t he asked you for money, honoured prince?”
“No, he hasn’t.”
“He’s ashamed to. He did mean to. He owned to me, in fact, that he meant to trouble you, but he’s bashful, seeing you obliged him not long ago, and besides he thinks you wouldn’t give it him. He told me this as his friend.”
“But you don’t give him money?”
“Prince! Honoured prince! For that man I’d give not money, alone, but, so to say, my life. . . . But no, I don’t want to exaggerate, not my life, but if it were a case of fever, an abscess, or even a cough, I’d be ready to bear it for him, I really would. For I look upon him as a great, though fallen man! “Yes, indeed, not only money.”
“Then, you do give him money?”
“N-no; money I have not given him, and he knows himself that I won’t give it him. But that’s solely with a view to his elevation and reformation. Now he is insisting on coming to Petersburg with me. “You see,
I’m going to Petersburg to find Mr. Ferdyshtchenko while the tracks are fresh. For I know for a fact that he is there by now. My general is all eagerness, but I suspect that he’ll give me the slip in Petersburg to visit his widow. I’m letting him go on purpose, I must own, as we’ve agreed to go in different directions, as soon as we arrive, so as to catch Mr. Ferdyshtchenko more easily. So I shall let him go, and then fall on him all of a sudden, like snow on the head, at the widow’s — just to put him to shame, as a family man, and as a man, indeed, speaking generally.”
“Only don’t make a disturbance, Lebedyev. For goodness’ sake, don’t make a disturbance,” Myshkin said in an undertone with great uneasiness.
“Oh, no, simply to put him to shame and see what sort of a face he makes, for one can judge a great deal from the face, honoured prince, especially with a man like that! Ah, prince! Great as my own trouble is now, I cannot help thinking of him and the reformation of his morals. I have a great favour to ask of you, prince, and I must confess it was expressly for that I have come to you. You are familiar with their home, you have even lived with them; so, if you would decide to assist me, honoured prince, entirely for the sake of the general and his happiness….”
Lebedyev positively clasped his hands, as though in supplication.
“Assist you? Assist you how? Believe me, I am extremely anxious to understand you, Lebedyev.”
“It was entirely with that conviction I have come to you! We could act through Nina Alexandrovna, constantly watching over, and, so to speak, tracking his excellency in the bosom of his family. I don’t know them, unluckily. . . moreover, Nikolay Ardalionovitch adores you, so to speak, with every fibre of his youthful heart, he could help, perhaps….”
“No, to bring Nina Alexandrovna into this business . . . Heaven forbid! Nor Kolya either. . . . But perhaps I still fail to understand you, Lebedyev.”
“Why, there’s nothing to understand!” Lebedyev sprang up from his chair. “Sympathy, sympathy, and tenderness — that’s all the treatment our invalid requires. \bu, prince, will allow me to think of him as an invalid?”
“Yes, it shows your delicacy and intelligence.”
“For the sake of clearness, I will explain to you by an example taken from my practice. You see the kind of man he is: his only weakness now is for that widow, who won’t let him come without money, and at whose house I mean to discover him to-day, for his own good; but supposing it were not only the captain’s widow, supposing he had committed an actual crime, or anyway a most dishonourable action (though of course he’s incapable of it), even then, I tell you, you could do anything with him simply by generous tenderness, so to speak, for he is the most sensitive of men! Believe me, he wouldn’t hold out for five days; he would speak out of himself; he would weep and confess, especially if one went to work cleverly, and in an honourable style, by means of his family’s vigilant watch, and yours, over his comings and goings. . . . Oh, most noble-hearted prince!” Lebedyev leapt up in a sort of exaltation. “Of course I’m not asserting that he. … I am ready to shed my last drop of blood, so to speak, for him at this moment, though his incontinence and drunkenness and the captain’s widow, and all that, taken together, may lead him on to anything.”
“In such a cause I am always ready to assist,” said Mvshkin, qettinq up. “Onlv, I confess, Lebedvev, I am dreadfully uneasy; tell me, do you still. … In one word you say yourself that you suspect Mr. Ferdyshtchenko.”
“Why, who else? Who else, true-hearted prince?” Again Lebedyev clasped his hands ingratiatingly, with a sugary smile.
Myshkin frowned and got up from his place.
“Look here, Lukyan Timofeyitch, a mistake here would be a dreadful thing. This Ferdyshtchenko. … I should not like to speak ill of him. . . . This Ferdyshtchenko . . . well, who knows, perhaps it is he! … I mean to say that perhaps he really is more capable of it than … anyone else.”
Lebedyev opened his eyes and pricked up his ears.
“You see,” said Myshkin, stumbling and frowning more and more, as he walked up and down the verandah, trying not to look at Lebedyev— “I was given to understand. … I was told about Mr. Ferdyshtchenko that he was a man before whom one must be careful not to say anything … too much — you understand? I say this to show that perhaps he really is more capable of it than anyone else … so as not to make a mistake, that’s the great thing — do you understand?”
“Who told you that about Mr. Ferdyshtchenko?” Lebedyev caught him up instantly.
“Oh, it was whispered to me. I don’t believe it myself, though. … I’m awfully vexed to be obliged to tell you. … I assure you I don’t believe it myself . . . it’s some nonsense…. Foo! how stupid I’ve been!”
“You see, prince,” Lebedyev was positively quivering all over, “this is important. This is extremely important