and the gilt roof was glittering in the bright sunshine. He remembered that he stared very persistently at that roof and the light flashing from it; he could not tear himself away from the light. It seemed to him that those rays were his new nature and that in three minutes he would somehow melt into them. . . . The uncertainty and feeling of aversion for that new thing which would be and was just coming was awful. But he said that nothing was so dreadful at that time as the continual thought, ‘What if I were not to die! What if I could go back to life — what eternity! And it would all be mine! I would turn every minute into an age; I would lose nothing, I would count every minute as it passed, I would not waste one!’ He said that this idea turned to such a fury at last that he longed to be shot quickly.”
Myshkin suddenly ceased speaking; every one expected him to go on and draw some conclusion.
“Have you finished?” asked Aglaia.
“What? Yes,” said Myshkin, rousing himself from a momentary dreaminess.
“But what did you tell that story for?”
“Oh . . . something in our talk reminded me of it. ..
“You are very disconnected,” observed Alexandra. “You probably meant to show, prince, that not one instant of life can be considered petty, and that sometimes five minutes is a precious treasure. That’s all very laudable, but let me ask, how did that friend who told you such horrors … he was reprieved, so he was presented with that ‘eternity of life.’ What did he do with that wealth afterwards? Did he live counting each moment?”
“Oh no, he told me himself. I asked him about that too. He didn’t live like that at all; he wasted many, many minutes.”
“Well, there you have it tried. So it seems it’s impossible really to live ‘counting each moment.’ For some reason it’s impossible.”
“Yes, for some reason it is impossible,” repeated Myshkin. “I thought so myself . . . and yet I somehow can’t believe it…”
“Then you think you will live more wisely than any one?” said Aglaia.
“Yes, I have thought that too sometimes.”
“And you think so still?”
“Yes … I think so still,” answered Myshkin, looking at Aglaia with the same gentle and even timid smile;
but he laughed again at once and looked gaily at her.
“That’s modest,” said Aglaia almost irritably.
“But how brave you are, you laugh! But I was so impressed by his story that I dreamt of it afterwards. I … dreamt of that five minutes …”
Once more he looked earnestly and searchingly from one to another of his listeners.
“You are not angry with me for anything?” he asked suddenly, seeming embarrassed, but looking them straight in the face.
“What for?” cried the three young ladies in surprise.
“Why, because I seem all the while to be preaching to you.”
They all laughed.
“If you are angry, don’t be,” he said. “I know for myself that I have lived less than others and that I know less of life than any one. Perhaps I talk very queerly at times …”
And he was overwhelmed with confusion.
“If you’re happy, as you say, you must have lived more, not less, than others. Why do you make a pretence and apoloqise?” Aqlaia persisted naggingly. “And please don’t mind about preaching to us; it’s no sign of superiority on your part. With your quietism one might fill a hundred years of life with happiness. If one shows you an execution or if one holds out one’s finger to you, you will draw equally edifying reflections from both and be quite satisfied. Life is easy like that.”
“I can’t make out why you are so cross,” said Madame Epanchin, who had been watching the speakers’ faces for some time, “and I can’t make out what you are talking about either. Why a finger? What nonsense! The prince talks splendidly, only rather sadly. Why do you discourage him? When he began he was laughing, and now he is quite glum.”
“It’s all right, maman. But it’s a pity you haven’t seen an execution, prince, I should like to have asked you one question.”
“I have seen an execution,” answered Myshkin.
“You have?” cried Aglaia. “I ought to have guessed it. That’s the last straw! If you’ve seen that, how can you say that you were happy all the time? Didn’t I tell you the truth?”
“But do they have executions in your village?”
asked Adelaida.
“I saw it at Lyons. I visited the town with Schneider; he took me with him. We chanced upon it directly we arrived.”
“Well, did you like it? Was there much that was edifying and instructive?” asked Aglaia.
“I did not like it at all and I was rather ill afterwards, but I must confess I was riveted to the spot; I could not take my eyes off it.”
“I couldn’t have taken my eyes off it either,” said Aglaia.
“They don’t like women to look on at it; they even write about such women in the papers.”
“I suppose, if they consider that it’s not fit for women, they mean to infer (and so justify it) that it is fit for men. I congratulate them on their logic. And you think so too, no doubt.”
“Tell us about the execution,” Adelaida interrupted.
“I don’t feel at all inclined to now.” Myshkin was confused and almost frowned.
“You seem to grudge telling us about it,” Aglaia said tauntingly.
“No; but I’ve just been describing that execution.”
“Describing it to whom?”
“To your footman while I was waiting …”
“To which footman?” he heard on all sides.
“The one who sits in the entry, with grey hair and a red face. I sat in the entry waiting to see Ivan Fyodorovitch.”
“That’s odd,” said the general’s wife.
“The prince is a democrat,” Aglaia rapped out. “Well, if you told Alexey about it, you can’t refuse us.”
“I simply must hear about it,” said Adelaida.
“One thought came into my mind just now,” Myshkin said to her, growing rather more eager again (he seemed easily roused to confiding eagerness), “when you asked me for a subject for a picture, to suggest that you should paint the face of the condemned man the moment before the blade falls, when he is still standing on the scaffold before he lies down on the plank.”
“The face? The face alone?” asked Adelaida. “That would be a strange subject. And what sort of picture would it make?”
“I don’t know. Why not?” Myshkin insisted warmly. “I saw a picture like that at Bale not long ago. I should like to tell you about it. . . . I’ll tell you about it some day…. It struck me very much.”
“You shall certainly tell us afterwards about the picture at Bale,” said Adelaida; “and now explain the picture of this execution. Can you tell me how you imagine it to yourself? How is one to draw the face? Is it to be only the face? What sort of a face is it?”
“It’s practically the minute before death,” Myshkin began with perfect readiness, carried away by his memories and to all appearance instantly forgetting everything else, “that moment when he has just mounted the ladder and has just stepped on to the scaffold. Then he glanced in my direction. I looked at his face and I understood it all. . . . But how can one describe it? I wish, I do wish that you or some one would paint it. It would be best if it were you. I thought at the time that a picture of it would do good. You know one has to imagine everything that has been before — everything, everything. He has been in prison awaiting execution for a week at least; he has been reckoning on the usual formalities, on the sentence being forwarded somewhere for signature and not coming back again for a week. But now by some chance this business was over sooner. At five o’clock in the morning he was asleep. It was at the end of October; at five o’clock it was still cold and dark. The superintendent of the prison came in quietly with the guard and touched him carefully on the shoulder. He sat up, leaning on his elbow, saw the light, asked ‘What’s the matter?”The execution is at ten o’clock.’ He was half awake and couldn’t take it in, and began objecting that the sentence wouldn’t be ready for a week. But when he was fully awake he left off protesting and was silent — so I was told. Then he said, ‘But it’s hard it should be so sudden. . . .’ And again he was silent and wouldn’t say anything more. The next three or four hours are spent on the usual things: seeing the priest, breakfast at which he is given wine, coffee and beef (isn’t that a mockery? Only think how cruel it is! Yet on the other hand, would you believe it, these innocent people act in good faith and are convinced that it’s humane); then the toilet (do you know what a criminal’s toilet is?); and at last they take him through the town to the scaffold. … I think that he too must have thought he had an endless
