Dostoevsky
but not so much the next day, and by the day after that had quite
forgotten it. And though I sometimes thought of the girl again, it was
only casually, for a moment. It was only after I’d been a fortnight in
Petersburg I suddenly recalled the whole scene. I remembered it, and
I was suddenly so ashamed that tears of shame literally ran down my
cheeks. I was wretched the whole evening, and all that night, and I am
rather miserable about it now. I could not understand at first how I
could have sunk to such a depth of degradation, and still less how I
could have forgotten it without feeling shame or remorse. It is only
now that I understand what was at the root of it; it was all due to my
‘_idea_.’... The ‘_idea_’ comforted me in disgrace and insignificance.
But all the nasty things I did took refuge, as it were, under the
‘_idea_.’ It, so to speak, smoothed over everything, but it also put
a mist before my eyes, and such a misty understanding of things and
events may, of course, be a great hindrance to the ‘_idea_’ itself, to
say nothing of other things.
“Now for another anecdote.
“On the 1st of April last year, Marie Ivanovna was keeping her name
day; some visitors, though only a few, came for the evening. Suddenly
Agrafena rushed in, out of breath, announcing that a baby was crying in
the passage before the kitchen, and that she didn’t know what to do. We
were all excited at the news. We went out and saw a bark basket, and
in the basket a three- or four-week-old child, crying. I picked up the
basket and took it into the kitchen. Then I immediately found a folded
note:
“‘Gracious benefactors, show kind charity to the girl christened
Arina, and we will join with her to send our tears to the Heavenly
Throne for you for ever, and congratulate you on your name day.
“‘Persons unknown to you.’
“Then Nikolay Semyonovitch, for whom I have such a respect, greatly
disappointed me. He drew a very long face, and decided to send the
child at once to the Foundling Home. I felt very sad. They lived
frugally and had no children and Nikolay Semyonovitch was always
glad of it. I carefully took the little Arina out of the basket and
held her up under the arms. The basket had that sour, pungent odour
characteristic of a small child which has not been washed for a long
time. I opposed Nikolay Semyonovitch and suddenly announced that I
would keep the child at my expense. In spite of his gentleness he
protested with some severity, and, though he ended by joking, he
adhered to his intention in regard to the foundling. I got my way,
however. In the same block of buildings, but in a different wing, lived
a very poor carpenter, an elderly man, given to drink, but his wife, a
very healthy and still youngish woman, had only just lost a baby, and
what is more, the only child she had had in eight years of marriage,
also a girl, and by a strange piece of luck also called Arina. I call
it good luck, because while we were arguing in the kitchen, the woman,
hearing of what had happened, ran in to look at the child, and when she
learned that it was called Arina, she was greatly touched. She still
had milk, and unfastening her dress, she put the baby to her breast. I
began persuading her to take the child home with her, saying I would
pay for it every month. She was afraid her husband would not allow it,
but she took it for the night. Next morning, her husband consented
to her keeping it for eight roubles a month, and I immediately paid
him for the first month in advance. He at once spent the money on
drink. Nikolay Semyonovitch, still with a strange smile, agreed to
guarantee that the money would be paid regularly every month. I would
have given my sixty roubles into Nikolay Semyonovitch’s keeping as
security, but he did not take it. He knew, however, that I had the
money, and trusted me. Our momentary quarrel was smoothed over by this
delicacy on his part. Marie Ivanovna said nothing, but wondered at my
undertaking such a responsibility. I particularly appreciated their
delicacy in refraining from the slightest jest at my expense, but on
the contrary, taking the matter with proper seriousness. I used to
run over to the carpenter’s wife three times a day, and at the end of
the week I slipped an extra three roubles into her hand without her
husband’s knowledge. For another three I bought a little quilt and
swaddling clothes. But ten days later little Arina fell ill. I called
in a doctor at once, he wrote a prescription, and we were up all night
tormenting the mite with horrid medicine. Next day he declared that he
had been sent for too late, and answered my entreaties--which I fancy
were more like reproaches--by saying with majestic evasiveness: ‘I
am not God.’ The baby’s little tongue and lips and whole mouth were
covered with a minute white rash and towards evening she died, gazing
at me with her big black eyes as though she understood already. I don’t
know why I never thought to take a photograph of the dead baby. But
will it be believed that I cried that evening, and, in fact, I howled
as I had never let myself do before, and Marie Ivanovna had to try to
comfort me, again without the least mockery either on her part or on
Nikolay Semyonovitch’s. The carpenter made a little coffin, and Marie
Ivanovna finished it with a frill and a pretty little pillow, while I
bought flowers and strewed them on the baby. So they carried away my
poor little blossom, whom it will hardly be believed I can’t forget
even now. A little afterwards, however, this sudden adventure made me
reflect seriously. Little Arina had not cost me much, of course, the
coffin, the burial, the doctor, the flowers, and the payment of the
carpenter’s wife came altogether to thirty roubles. As I was going to
Petersburg I made up this sum from the forty roubles sent to me by
Versilov for the journey and from the sale of various articles before
my departure, so that my capital remained intact. But I thought: ‘If I
am going to be turned aside like this, I shan’t get far.’ The affair
with the student showed that the ‘_idea_’ might absorb me till it
blurred my impressions and drew me away from the realities of life. The
incident with little Arina proved, on the contrary, that no ‘_idea_’
was strong enough to absorb me, at least so completely that I should
not stop short in the face of an overwhelming fact and sacrifice to it
at once all that I had done for the ‘idea’ by years of labour. Both
conclusions were nevertheless true.”[139]
II
“‘In what way can I be of use to you, honoured prince, since anyway you
... called me just now,’ he said at last after a brief silence.
“‘Why, I asked you about the general,’ Myshkin, who had been musing for
a moment, answered hurriedly, ‘and ... in regard to that theft you told
me about.’
“‘In regard to what?’
“‘Why, as though you don’t understand me now! Oh dear, Lukyan
Timofeyitch, you’re always acting a part! The money, the money, the
four hundred roubles you lost, that day in your pocket-book, and about
which you came to tell me in the morning, as you were setting off for
Petersburg. Do you understand at last?’
“‘Ah, you’re talking about that four hundred roubles!’ drawled
Lebedyev, as though he had only just guessed. ‘I thank you, prince, for
your sincere sympathy: it is too flattering for me, but ... I’ve found
it some time since.’
“‘Found it? Ah, thank God!’
“‘That exclamation is most generous on your part, for four hundred
roubles is no small matter for a poor man who lives by his hard work,
with a large family of motherless children....’
“‘But I didn’t mean that! Of course, I am glad you found the money,’
Myshkin corrected himself quickly, ‘but how did you find it?’
“‘Very simply. I found it under the chair on which my coat had been
hung, so that the pocket-book must have slipped out of the pocket on to
the floor!’
“‘Under the chair? It’s impossible! Why, you told me yourself you
had hunted in every corner. How was it you came to overlook the most
obvious place?’
“‘I should think I did look! I remember only too well how I looked! I
crawled on all fours, felt the place with my hands, moving back the
chairs because I couldn’t trust my own eyes: I saw there was nothing
there, for the place was as smooth and empty as my hands, and yet I
went on fumbling. You always see that weakness in anyone who is very
anxious to find anything, when anything serious and important has been
lost. A man sees there’s nothing there, the place is empty, and yet he
peeps into it a dozen times.’
“‘Yes, I dare say; only, how was it seen?... I still don’t understand,’
muttered Myshkin, disconcerted. ‘You told me before it wasn’t there,
and you had looked in that place, and then it suddenly turned up!’
“‘And then it suddenly turned up.’
“Myshkin looked strangely at Lebedyev. ‘And the general?’ he asked
suddenly. ‘What about the general?...’ Lebedyev seemed at a loss again.
“‘Oh dear! I ask you what did the general say when you found the
pocket-book under the chair? You looked for it together, you know.’
“‘We did look together before. But that time, I confess, I held my
tongue, and preferred not to tell him that the pocket-book had been
found by me and alone.’
“‘But ... why? And the money--was it all there?’
“‘I opened the pocket-book. The money was untouched, every rouble of
it.’
“‘You might have come to tell me,’ Myshkin observed thoughtfully.
“‘I was afraid to disturb you, prince, in your personal and, so to say,
absorbing interests, and besides, I made as though I had found nothing.
I opened the pocket-book and looked at it, then I shut it and put it
back under the chair.’
“‘But what for?’
“‘Oh, n-nothing, from curiosity,’ chuckled Lebedyev, rubbing his hands.
“‘Then it has been lying there since the day before yesterday?’
“‘Oh, no; it only lay there for a day and a night. You see it was
partly that I wanted the general to find it. For since I had found it,
why should not the general notice the object, which lay conspicuous
under the chair, so to speak, catching the eye.
“‘I lifted that chair several times and put it so that the pocket-book
was completely in view, but the general simply didn’t notice it, and
so it went on for twenty-four hours. He seems to be extraordinarily
unobservant now, and there’s no making him out. He talks, tells
stories, laughs, chuckles, and then flies into a violent temper with
me. I don’t know why. At last, as we were going out of the room, I left
the door open on purpose; he hesitated, would have said something, most
likely he was uneasy about the pocket-book with such a sum of money in
it, but suddenly flew into an awful rage and said nothing. Before we
had gone two steps in the street, he left me and walked away in the
other direction. We only met in the evening in the tavern.’
“‘But in the end you did take the pocket-book from under the chair?’
“‘No, it vanished from under the chair that same night.’
“‘Then where is it now?’
“‘Oh, here,’ cried Lebedyev, laughing suddenly, drawing himself up to
his full height and looking amiably at Myshkin. ‘It suddenly turned up
here, in the lappet of my coat. Here; won’t you look, feel?’
“The left lappet of the coat had indeed been formed into something like
a bag in front, in the most conspicuous place, and it was clear at once
to the touch that there was a leather pocket-book there that had fallen
down from a torn pocket.
“‘I took it out and looked. The money’s all there. I dropped it in
again, and so I’ve been walking about since yesterday morning. I carry
it in my coat and it knocks against my legs.’
“‘And you take no notice of it?’
“‘And I take no notice of it. He-he! And would you believe it, honoured