‘Oh, my good sir, I assure you it’s entirely the same to me. Please leave me in peace,’ said Evgenie, angrily, turning his back on him.
‘Good-night, prince,’ said Ptitsin, approaching his host.
‘What are you thinking of? Don’t go, he’ll blow his brains out in a minute!’ cried Vera Lebedeff, rushing up to Hip-polyte and catching hold of his hands in a torment of alarm.
‘What are you thinking of? He said he would blow his brains out at sunrise.’
‘Oh, he won’t shoot himself!’ cried several voices, sarcas-tically.
‘Gentlemen, you’d better look out,’ cried Colia, also seiz-ing Hippolyte by the hand. ‘Just look at him! Prince, what are you thinking of?’ Vera and Colia, and Keller, and Bur-dovsky were all crowding round Hippolyte now and holding him down.
‘He has the right—the right—‘-murmured Burdovsky. ‘Excuse me, prince, but what are your arrangements?’ asked Lebedeff, tipsy and exasperated, going up to Muishkin.
‘What do you mean by ‘arrangements’?’
‘No, no, excuse me! I’m master of this house, though I do not wish to lack respect towards you. You are master of the house too, in a way; but I can’t allow this sort of thing—‘
‘He won’t shoot himself; the boy is only playing the fool,’ said General Ivolgin, suddenly and unexpectedly, with in-dignation.
‘I know he won’t, I know he won’t, general; but I—I’m master here!’
‘Listen, Mr. Terentieff,’ said Ptitsin, who had bidden the prince good-night, and was now holding out his hand to Hippolyte; ‘I think you remark in that manuscript of yours, that you bequeath your skeleton to the Academy. Are you referring to your own skeleton—I mean, your very bones?’
‘Yes, my bones, I—‘
‘Quite so, I see; because, you know, little mistakes have occurred now and then. There was a case—‘
Why do you tease him?’ cried the prince, suddenly. ‘You’ve moved him to tears,’ added Ferdishenko. But
Hippolyte was by no means weeping. He was about to move from his place, when his four guards rushed at him and seized him once more. There was a laugh at this.
‘He led up to this on purpose. He took the trouble of writ-ing all that so that people should come and grab him by the arm,’ observed Rogojin. ‘Good-night, prince. What a time we’ve sat here, my very bones ache!’
‘If you really intended to shoot yourself, Terentieff,’ said Evgenie Pavlovitch, laughing, ‘if I were you, after all these compliments, I should just not shoot myself in order to vex them all.’
‘They are very anxious to see me blow my brains out,’ said Hippolyte, bitterly.
‘Yes, they’ll be awfully annoyed if they don’t see it.’ ‘Then you think they won’t see it?’
‘I am not trying to egg you on. On the contrary, I think it very likely that you may shoot yourself; but the principal thing is to keep cool,’ said Evgenie with a drawl, and with great condescension.
‘I only now perceive what a terrible mistake I made in reading this article to them,’ said Hippolyte, suddenly, ad-dressing Evgenie, and looking at him with an expression of trust and confidence, as though he were applying to a friend for counsel.
‘Yes, it’s a droll situation; I really don’t know what advice to give you,’ replied Evgenie, laughing. Hippolyte gazed steadfastly at him, but said nothing. To look at him one might have supposed that he was unconscious at intervals.
‘Excuse me,’ said Lebedeff, ‘but did you observe the young gentleman’s style? ‘I’ll go and blow my brains out in the park,’ says he,’ so as not to disturb anyone.’ He thinks he won’t disturb anybody if he goes three yards away, into the park, and blows his brains out there.’
‘Gentlemen—‘ began the prince.
‘No, no, excuse me, most revered prince,’ Lebedeff inter-rupted, excitedly. ‘Since you must have observed yourself that this is no joke, and since at least half your guests must also have concluded that after all that has been said this youth MUST blow his brains out for honour’s sake—I—as master of this house, and before these witnesses, now call upon you to take steps.’
‘Yes, but what am I to do, Lebedeff? What steps am I to take? I am ready.’
‘I’ll tell you. In the first place he must immediately deliver up the pistol which he boasted of, with all its appurtenanc-es. If he does this I shall consent to his being allowed to spend the night in this house—considering his feeble state of health, and of course conditionally upon his being under proper supervision. But tomorrow he must go elsewhere. Excuse me, prince! Should he refuse to deliver up his weap-on, then I shall instantly seize one of his arms and General Ivolgin the other, and we shall hold him until the police arrive and take the matter into their own hands. Mr. Fer-
dishenko will kindly fetch them.’
At this there was a dreadful noise; Lebedeff danced about in his excitement; Ferdishenko prepared to go for the po-lice; Gania frantically insisted that it was all nonsense, ‘for nobody was going to shoot themselves.’ Evgenie Pavlovitch said nothing.
‘Prince,’ whispered Hippolyte, suddenly, his eyes all ablaze, ‘you don’t suppose that I did not foresee all this ha-tred?’ He looked at the prince as though he expected him to reply, for a moment. ‘Enough!’ he added at length, and addressing the whole company, he cried: ‘It’s all my fault, gentlemen! Lebedeff, here’s the key,’ (he took out a small bunch of keys); ‘this one, the last but one—Colia will show you—Colia, where’s Colia?’ he cried, looking straight at Co-lia and not seeing him. ‘Yes, he’ll show you; he packed the bag with me this morning. Take him up, Colia; my bag is upstairs in the prince’s study, under the table. Here’s the key, and in the little case you’ll find my pistol and the powder, and all. Colia packed it himself, Mr. Lebedeff; he’ll show you; but it’s on condition that tomorrow morning, when I leave for Petersburg, you will give me back my pistol, do you hear? I do this for the prince’s sake, not yours.’
‘Capital, that’s much better!’ cried Lebedeff, and seizing the key he made off in haste.
Colia stopped a moment as though he wished to say something; but Lebedeff dragged him away.
Hippolyte looked around at the laughing guests. The prince observed that his teeth were chattering as though in a violent attack of ague.
‘What brutes they all are!’ he whispered to the prince. Whenever he addressed him he lowered his voice.
‘Let them alone, you’re too weak now—‘ Yes, directly; I’ll go away directly. I’ll—‘ Suddenly he embraced Muishkin.
‘Perhaps you think I am mad, eh?’ he asked him, laugh-ing very strangely.
‘No, but you—‘
‘Directly, directly! Stand still a moment, I wish to look in your eyes; don’t speak—stand so—let me look at you! I am bidding farewell to mankind.’
He stood so for ten seconds, gazing at the prince, mo-tionless, deadly pale, his temples wet with perspiration; he held the prince’s hand in a strange grip, as though afraid to let him go.
‘Hippolyte, Hippolyte, what is the matter with you?’ cried Muishkin.
‘Directly! There, that’s enough. I’ll lie down directly. I must drink to the sun’s health. I wish to—I insist upon it! Let go!’
He seized a glass from the table, broke away from the prince, and in a moment had reached the terrace steps.
The prince made after him, but it so happened that at this moment Evgenie Pavlovitch stretched out his hand to say good-night. The next instant there was a general outcry, and then followed a few moments of indescribable excite-ment.
Reaching the steps, Hippolyte had paused, holding the glass in his left hand while he put his right hand into his
coat pocket.
Keller insisted afterwards that he had held his right hand in his pocket all the while, when he was speaking to the prince, and that he had held the latter’s shoulder with his left hand only. This circumstance, Keller afirmed, had led him to feel some suspicion from the first. However this may be, Keller ran after Hippolyte, but he was too late.
He caught sight of something flashing in Hippolyte’s right hand, and saw that it was a pistol. He rushed at him, but at that very instant Hippolyte raised the pistol to his temple and pulled the trigger. There followed a sharp metal-lic click, but no report.
When Keller seized the would-be suicide, the latter fell forward into his arms, probably actually believing that he was shot. Keller had hold of the pistol now. Hippolyte was immediately placed in a chair, while the whole company thronged around excitedly, talking and asking each other questions. Every one of them had heard the snap of the trig-ger, and yet they saw a live and apparently unharmed man before them.
Hippolyte himself sat quite unconscious of what was go-ing on, and gazed around with a senseless expression.
Lebedeff and Colia came rushing up at this moment. ‘What is it?’ someone asked, breathlessly—‘A misfire?’ ‘Perhaps it wasn’t loaded,’ said several voices.
‘It’s loaded all right,’ said Keller, examining the pistol, ‘but—‘
‘What! did it miss fire?’
‘There was no cap in it,’ Keller announced.
It would be dificult to describe the pitiable scene that now followed. The first sensation of alarm soon gave place to amusement; some burst out laughing loud and hearti-ly, and seemed to find a malicious satisfaction in the joke. Poor Hippolyte sobbed hysterically; he wrung his hands; he approached everyone in turn—even Ferdishenko—and took them by both hands, and swore solemnly that he had forgotten—absolutely forgotten— ‘accidentally, and not on purpose,’—to put a cap in—that he ‘had ten of them, at least, in his pocket.’ He pulled them out and showed them to everyone; he protested that he had not liked
