could not have been in Moscow in 1812. He’s not old enough. It’s absurd.”
“That’s the first thing; but even supposing he could have been born then, how can he declare to one’s face that the French chasseur aimed a cannon at him and shot off his leg, just for fun; that he picked the leg up and carried it home, and afterwards buried it in the Vagankovsky cemetery; and he says that he put a monument over it with an inscription on one side: ‘Here lies the leg of the collegiate secretary, Lebedyev,’ and on the other: ‘Rest, beloved ashes, till the dawn of a happy resurrection,’ and that he had a service read over it every year (which is nothing short of blasphemy), and that he goes to Moscow every year for the occasion. To prove it he invites me to go to Moscow to show me the tomb, and even the very cannon taken from the French, now in the Kremlin. He declares it’s the eleventh from the gate, a French falconet of an old-fashioned pattern.”
“And besides, he has both his legs, uninjured, apparently,” laughed Myshkin. “I assure you it was harmless jest. Don’t be angry.”
“But allow me to have my own opinion; as for his appearing to have two legs, that’s not altogether improbable; he declares that he got his leg from Tchernosvitov….”
“Oh, yes, they say that people can dance with legs from that maker.”
“I’m perfectly aware of that; when Tchernosvitov invented his leg, the first thing he did was to run and show it to me. But his legs were invented much later.
. . . What’s more, he asserts that his late wife never knew, all the years they were married, that he, her husband, had a wooden leg. When I observed to him how foolish it all was, he said to me: ‘If you were a page of Napoleon’s in 1812, you might let me bury my leg in Vagankovsky.’”
“But did you really . . .” Myshkin began, and broke off embarrassed.
The general too seemed a shade embarrassed, but at the same instant he looked at Myshkin with distinct condescension, and even irony.
“Go on, prince, go on,” he drawled with peculiar suavity. “I can make allowances, speak out; confess that you are amused at the very thought of seeing before you a man in his present degradation and .. . uselessness, and to hear that that man was an eyewitness of . . . great events. Hasn’t he gossiped to you already?”
“No, I’ve heard nothing from Lebedyev, if it’s Lebedyev you are talking about….”
“Hm! … I had supposed the contrary. The particular conversation took place between us yesterday apropos of that strange article in the Archives. I remarked on its absurdity, and since I
had myself been an eye-witness . . . you are smiling, prince, you are looking at myface?”
“N-no. I…”
“I am youngish looking,” the general drawled the words— “but I am somewhat older in years than I appear. In 1812 I was in my tenth or eleventh year. I don’t quite know my own age exactly. In my service list my age is less; it has been my weakness all my life to make myself out younger than I am.”
“I assure you, general, that I don’t think it strange that you should have been in Moscow in 1812, and .. . of course you could describe … like everyone else who was there. One of our writers begins his autobiography by saying that, when he was a baby in arms, in Moscow, in 1812, he was fed with bread by the French soldiers.”
“There, you see,” the general condescendingly approved, “what happened to me was of course out of the ordinary, but there is nothing incredible in it. Truth very often seems impossible. Page! It sounds strange, of course. But the adventure of a ten-year-old boy may perhaps be explained just by his age. It wouldn’t have happened to a boy of fifteen, that’s certain; for at fifteen, I should not, on the day of Napoleon’s entry into Moscow, have run out of the wooden house in Old Bassmann Street, where I was living with my mother, who had not left the town in time and was terror-stricken. At fifteen I too should have been afraid, but at ten I feared nothing, and I forced my way through the crowd to the very steps of the palace just when Napoleon was dismounting from the horse.”
“Certainly, that’s a very true remark, that at ten years old one might not be afraid . . .” Myshkin assented, abashed and distressed byfeeling that he was just going to blush.
“Most certainly, and it all happened as simply and naturally as possible, in reality; set a novelist to work on the subject, he would weave in all sorts of incredible and improbable details.”
“Oh, that’s true!” cried Myshkin. “I was struck by the same idea, quite lately. I know a genuine case of murder for the sake of stealing a watch — it’s appearing in the newspapers now. If some author had invented it, critics and those who know the life of the people would have cried out at once that it was improbable; but reading it in the newspapers as a fact, you feel that in such facts you are studying the reality of Russian life. That’s an excellent observation of yours, general,” Myshkin concluded warmly, greatly relieved at finding a refuge from his blushes.
“Isn’t it? Isn’t it?” cried the general, his eyes sparkling with pleasure. “A boy, a child who knows nothing of fear, makes his way through the crowd to see the fine show, the uniforms, the suite, and the great man about whom he has heard such a lot. For at that time people had talked of nothing else for years. The world was full of that name. I drank it in with my milk, so to speak. Napoleon was two paces away when he chanced to catch my eye. I looked like a little nobleman, they dressed me well. There was no one like me in the crowd you may believe….”
“No doubt it must have struck him and have shown him that every one had not left Moscow, and that there were still some of the nobility there with their children.”
“Just so! Just so! He wanted to win over the boyars! When he bent his eagle glance upon me, my eye must have flashed in response, Vo/’/a un garcon bien eveille! Qui est ton pere?’ I answered him at once, almost breathless with excitement: ‘A general who died in the field for his country.”Le fils d’un boyard et d’un brave par-dessus le marche! J’aime les boyards. M’aimes tu, petit?’ To this rapid question I answered as rapidly: ‘A Russian heart can discern a great man even in the enemy of his country!’ That is, I don’t remember whether I literally used those words. … I was a child . . . but that was certainly the drift of them! Napoleon was struck, he thought a moment and said to his suite: ‘I like the pride of that child! But if all Russians think like that child, then. . . .’ He said no more, but walked into the palace. I at once mingled with the suite and ran after him. They made way for me, and already looked upon me as a favourite. But all that was only for a moment. … I only remember that when the Emperor went into the first room he stopped before the portrait of the Empress Catherine, looked at it a long time thoughtfully, and at last pronounced: That was a great woman!’ and passed by. Within two days every one knew me in the palace and the Kremlin and called me: ‘le petit boyard.’ I only went home to sleep. At home they were almost frantic about it. Two days later, one of Napoleon’s pages, Baron de Basencour, died, exhausted by the campaign. Napoleon remembered me; they took me, brought me to him without explanation; they tried on me the uniform of the dead page — a boy of twelve, and when they had brought me, wearing the uniform to the Emperor and he had nodded to me, they announced to me that I had been found worthy of favour and appointed a page-in-waiting to his Majesty. I was glad; I had, in fact, long felt warmly attracted by him . . . and besides, as you know very well, a brilliant uniform means a great deal to a child. … I wore a dark green dress-coat, with long narrow tails, gold buttons, red edgings worked with gold on the sleeves, and with a high, erect, open-collar, worked in gold, and embroidery on the tails; tight white chamois leather breeches, a white silk waistcoat, silk stockings, and buckled shoes . . . and when the Emperor rode out, if I was one of the suite, I wore high top-boots. Although the situation was anything but promising, and there was a feeling of terrible catastrophe in the air, etiquette was kept up as far as possible, and in fact, the greater the foreboding of catastrophe, the more rigorous was the court punctilio.”
“Yes, of course . . ,” muttered Myshkin with an almost hopeless air. “\bur memoirs would be . . . extremely i nteresti ng.”
The general, of course, had been repeating the story he had already told Lebedyev the day before, and so he repeated it fluently; but at this point he stole a mistrustful glance at Myshkin again.
“My memoirs,” he brought out with redoubled dignity— “write my memoirs? That