The meeting with Kolya induced Myshkin to accompany the general to Marfa Borissovna’s, but only for one minute. Myshkin wanted Kolya; he made up his mind to give up the general in any case, and could not forgive himself for having rested his hopes on him. They were a long time climbing up to the fourth storey by a back staircase.
“Do you want to introduce the prince?” Kolya asked on the way.
“Yes, my dear, to introduce him: General Ivolgin and Prince Myshkin. But what is . .. how is . . . Marfa Borissovna? …”
“Do you know, father, you’d better not go! She’ll give it to you! There has been no sign of you for three days and she is expecting the money. Why did you promise her money? You are always doing things like that! Now you’ve got to get out of it!”
On the fourth storey they stopped before a low door. The general was evidently downcast, and pushed Myshkin in front of him.
“I’ll stay here,” he muttered. “I want to surprise her.”
Kolya went in first. The general’s surprise missed fire, for a lady peeped out of the door. She was heavily rouged and painted, wore slippers and a dressing-jacket, had her hair plaited in pigtails and was about forty. As soon as the lady saw him, she promptly screamed:
“Here he is, the base, viperish man! My heart misgave me it was he!”
“Come in, it’s all right,” the general muttered to Myshkin, still trying to laugh it off with a guileless air.
But it was not all right. They had hardly passed through a dark, low-pitched passage into a narrow sitting-room, furnished with half a dozen rush-bottom chairs and two cardtables, when the lady of the house returned at once to the charge in a peevish tone of habitual complaint.
“Aren’t you ashamed — aren’t you ashamed, you savage and tyrant of my family, tyrant and monster? “Vbu have robbed me of everything! “Vbu have sucked me dry and are still not content, you vampire! I will put up with you no longer, you shameless, dishonourable man!”
“Marfa Borissovna — Marfa Borissovna, this is Prince Myshkin — General Ivolgin and Prince Myshkin,” muttered the general, trembling and overwhelmed.
“Would you believe it,” said the captain’s widow, turning suddenly to Myshkin, “would you believe that this shameless man has not spared my orphan children! He’s robbed us of everything, carried off everything, sold and pawned everything and left us nothing! What am I to do with your lOUs, designing and unscrupulous man? Answer, you deceiver; answer, you devouring monster! How, how am I to nourish my orphan children? And here he comes in drunk and can’t stand on his legs! . . . What have I done to call down the wrath of God? Answer, base and hideous hypocrite!”
But the general was not equal to the occasion.
“Marfa Borissovna, twenty-five roubles … all I can, thanks to a generous friend. Prince, I was cruelly mistaken! Such is .. . life. But now .. . excuse me, I feel weak,” said the general, standing in the middle of the room and bowing in all directions, “lam weak, forgive me! Lenotchka, a pillow . . . dear child!”
Lenotchka, a girl about eight years old, ran at once to fetch a pillow and put it on the hard sofa covered with ragged American leather. The general sat down, intending to say much more, but as soon as he touched the sofa, he turned on his side facing the wall, and sank into the sleep of the just. Marfa Borissovna mournfully and ceremoniously motioned Myshkin to a chair at one of the card-tables. She sat down facing him, with her right cheek on her hand, and began looking at Myshkin in silence. Three little children, two girls and a boy, of whom Lenotchka was the eldest, went up to the table, laid their arms on it, and all three also stared at Myshkin.
Kolya made his appearance from the next room.
“I am very glad I’ve met you here, Kolya,” said Myshkin to him. “Can’t you help me? I must be at Nastasya Filippovna’s. I asked Ardalion Alexandrovitch to take me there, but you see he is asleep. Will you take me there, for I don’t know the streets, nor the way? I have the address though, by the Great Theatre, Mytovtsov’s house.”
“Nastasya Filippovna? But she has never lived near the Great Theatre, and father’s never been at Nastasya Filippovna’s, if you care to know. It’s strange you should have expected anything of him. She lives near Vladimirsky Street, at the Five Corners: it’s much nearer here. Do you want to go at once? It’s half-past nine. If you like, I’ll take you there.”
Myshkin and Kolya went out at once. Myshkin (alas!) had nothing with which to pay for a cab, so they had to walk.
“I wanted to introduce you to Ippolit,” said Kolya; “he is the eldest son of the widow in the dressing-jacket. He was in the other room. He is ill and has been in bed all day. But he is so queer. He is frightfully touchy, and I fancied he’d feel ashamed with you because of your coming at such a moment.. . . I am not so much ashamed as he is, anyway, because it’s my father but his mother. It does make a difference, for there’s no dishonour for the male sex in such a position. But maybe it’s only a prejudice that one sex is more privileged than the other in such cases. Ippolit is a splendid fellow, but he is a slave to certain prejudices.”
“You say he is in consumption?”
“Yes; I think the best thing for him would be to die soon. If I were in his place, I should certainly wish I were dead. He is sorry for his brother and sisters, the little ones you saw. If it were possible, if we only had the money, he and I would have taken a flat together and have left our families. That’s our dream. And do you know, when I told him just now what happened to you, he flew into a regular rage and said that a man who accepts a blow without fiqhtinq a duel is a scoundrel. But he is frightfully irritable; I’ve given up arguing with him. So Nastasya Filippovna invited you at once, did she?”
“That’s just it, she didn’t.”
“How is it you are going, then?” cried Kolya, and he stopped short in the middle of the pavement. “And … in such clothes! “Vbu know, it’s an evening party.”
“Goodness knows how I shall go in. If they let me in, all right; if they don’t, there’s no help for it. As for clothes, what can I do?”
“Have you some object in going? Or are you only going just pour passer le temps in ‘honourable society?”
“No, I really. . . that is, I am going with an object.. . it’s difficult to put into words, but…”
“Oh, well, what it is exactly is your affair. What I care to know is that you are not simply inviting yourself to a party in the fascinating society of cocottes, generals and money-lenders. If it had been so, you must excuse me, prince, I should have laughed at you and despised you. Honest people are terribly scarce here, so that there’s really nobody one can respect. One can’t help looking down on people, and they all insist on respect; Varya especially. And have you noticed, prince, that we are all adventurers nowadays? And particularly among us, in Russia, in our beloved country. And how it’s all come about, I don’t understand. The foundations seem so firm, but what do we see now? Everyone is talking and writing about it, showing it up. In Russia everyone is showing things up. Our parents are the first to go back on themselves, and are ashamed of their old morals. \bu have a father in Moscow teaching his son not to stick at anything to get money; we know it from the papers. Just look at my general; what has he come to? And yet you know, it seems to me that my general is an honest man. Yes, I really think so! It’s nothing but irregularity and wine; it really is so. I feel sorry for him, in fact, only I am afraid to say so, because every one laughs. But I really am sorry for him. And what is there in them, the sensible people? They are all money-grubbers, every one of them. Ippolit justifies usury, he says it’s right; he talks about an economic upheaval, the ebb and flow of capital, confound them! It vexes me to hear it from him, but he is exasperated. Only fancy,
his mother, the captain’s widow, you know, gets money from the general and lends it him at high interest! It’s a horrible disgrace! And do you know that mother — my mother, I mean, Nina Alexandrovna — helps Ippolit with money, clothes and everything, and provides for the children partly too, through Ippolit, because theyare neglected. And Varya helps too.”
“There, you see, you say that there are no strong, honest people, that we are all money-grubbers; but there you have strong people — your mother and Varya. Don’t you think to help like that and in such circumstances is a proof of moral strength?”
“Varya does it
