白痴 英文版 The Idiot
陀思妥耶夫斯基 Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Idiot III. Page 2
"Then, in another week, she had run away again, and came here toLebedeff's; and when I found her here, she said to me, 'I'm notgoing to renounce you altogether, but I wish to put off thewedding a bit longer yet--just as long as I like--for I am stillmy own mistress; so you may wait, if you like.' That's how thematter stands between us now. What do you think of all this, LefNicolaievitch?"
"'What do you think of it yourself?" replied the prince, lookingsadly at Rogojin.
"As if I can think anything about it! I--" He was about to saymore, but stopped in despair.
The prince rose again, as if he would leave.
"At all events, I shall not interfere with you!" he murmured, asthough making answer to some secret thought of his own.
"I'll tell you what!" cried Rogojin, and his eyes flashed fire."I can't understand your yielding her to me like this; I don'tunderstand it. Have you given up loving her altogether? At firstyou suffered badly--I know it--I saw it. Besides, why did youcome post-haste after us? Out of pity, eh? He, he, he!" His mouthcurved in a mocking smile.
"Do you think I am deceiving you?" asked the prince.
"No! I trust you--but I can't understand. It seems to me thatyour pity is greater than my love." A hungry longing to speak hismind out seemed to flash in the man's eyes, combined with anintense anger.
"Your love is mingled with hatred, and therefore, when your lovepasses, there will be the greater misery," said the prince. "Itell you this, Parfen--"
"What! that I'll cut her throat, you mean?"
The prince shuddered.
"You'll hate her afterwards for all your present love, and forall the torment you are suffering on her account now. What seemsto me the most extraordinary thing is, that she can again consentto marry you, after all that has passed between you. When I heardthe news yesterday, I could hardly bring myself to believe it.Why, she has run twice from you, from the very altar rails, as itwere. She must have some presentiment of evil. What can she wantwith you now? Your money? Nonsense! Besides, I should think youmust have made a fairly large hole in your fortune already.Surely it is not because she is so very anxious to find ahusband? She could find many a one besides yourself. Anyone wouldbe better than you, because you will murder her, and I feel sureshe must know that but too well by now. Is it because you loveher so passionately? Indeed, that may be it. I have heard thatthere are women who want just that kind of love ... but still ..."The prince paused, reflectively.
"What are you grinning at my father's portrait again for?" askedRogojin, suddenly. He was carefully observing every change in theexpression of the prince's face.
"I smiled because the idea came into my head that if it were notfor this unhappy passion of yours you might have, and would have,become just such a man as your father, and that very quickly,too. You'd have settled down in this house of yours with somesilent and obedient wife. You would have spoken rarely, trustedno one, heeded no one, and thought of nothing but making money."
"Laugh away! She said exactly the same, almost word for word,when she saw my father's portrait. It's remarkable how entirelyyou and she are at one now-a-days."
"What, has she been here?" asked the prince with curiosity.
"Yes! She looked long at the portrait and asked all about myfather. 'You'd be just such another,' she said at last, andlaughed. 'You have such strong passions, Parfen,' she said, 'thatthey'd have taken you to Siberia in no time if you had not,luckily, intelligence as well. For you have a good deal ofintelligence.' (She said this--believe it or not. The first timeI ever heard anything of that sort from her.) 'You'd soon havethrown up all this rowdyism that you indulge in now, and you'dhave settled down to quiet, steady money-making, because you havelittle education; and here you'd have stayed just like yourfather before you. And you'd have loved your money so that you'damass not two million, like him, but ten million; and you'dhave died of hunger on your money bags to finish up with, for youcarry everything to extremes.' There, that's exactly word forword as she said it to me. She never talked to me like thatbefore. She always talks nonsense and laughs when she's with me.We went all over this old house together. 'I shall change allthis,' I said, 'or else I'll buy a new house for the wedding.''No, no!' she said, 'don't touch anything; leave it all as it is;I shall live with your mother when I marry you.'
"I took her to see my mother, and she was as respectful and kindas though she were her own daughter. Mother has been almostdemented ever since father died--she's an old woman. She sits andbows from her chair to everyone she sees. If you left her aloneand didn't feed her for three days, I don't believe she wouldnotice it. Well, I took her hand, and I said, 'Give your blessingto this lady, mother, she's going to be my wife.' So Nastasiakissed mother's hand with great feeling. 'She must have sufferedterribly, hasn't she?' she said. She saw this book here lyingbefore me. 'What! have you begun to read Russian history?' sheasked. She told me once in Moscow, you know, that I had betterget Solovieff's Russian History and read it, because I knewnothing. 'That's good,' she said, 'you go on like that, readingbooks. I'll make you a list myself of the books you ought to readfirst--shall I?' She had never once spoken to me like thisbefore; it was the first time I felt I could breathe before herlike a living creature."
"I'm very, very glad to hear of this, Parfen," said the prince,with real feeling. "Who knows? Maybe God will yet bring you nearto one another."
"Never, never!" cried Rogojin, excitedly.
"Look here, Parfen; if you love her so much, surely you must beanxious to earn her respect? And if you do so wish, surely youmay hope to? I said just now that I considered it extraordinarythat she could still be ready to marry you. Well, though I cannotyet understand it, I feel sure she must have some good reason, orshe wouldn't do it. She is sure of your love; but besides that,she must attribute SOMETHING else to you--some good qualities,otherwise the thing would not be. What you have just saidconfirms my words. You say yourself that she found it possible tospeak to you quite differently from her usual manner. You aresuspicious, you know, and jealous, therefore when anythingannoying happens to you, you exaggerate its significance. Ofcourse, of course, she does not think so ill of you as you say.Why, if she did, she would simply be walking to death by drowningor by the knife, with her eyes wide open, when she married you.It is impossible! As if anybody would go to their deathdeliberately!"
Rogojin listened to the prince's excited words with a bittersmile. His conviction was, apparently, unalterable.
"How dreadfully you look at me, Parfen!" said the prince, with afeeling of dread.
"Water or the knife?" said the latter, at last. "Ha, ha--that'sexactly why she is going to marry me, because she knows forcertain that the knife awaits her. Prince, can it be that youdon't even yet see what's at the root of it all?"
"I don't understand you."
"Perhaps he really doesn't understand me! They do say that youare a--you know what! She loves another--there, you canunderstand that much! Just as I love her, exactly so she lovesanother man. And that other man is--do you know who? It's you.There--you didn't know that, eh?"
"I?"
"You, you! She has loved you ever since that day, her birthday!Only she thinks she cannot marry you, because it would be theruin of you. 'Everybody knows what sort of a woman I am,' shesays. She told me all this herself, to my very face! She's afraidof disgracing and ruining you, she says, but it doesn't matterabout me. She can marry me all right! Notice how muchconsideration she shows for me!"
"But why did she run away to me, and then again from me to--"
"From you to me? Ha, ha! that's nothing! Why, she always acts asthough she were in a delirium now-a-days! Either she says, 'Comeon, I'll marry you! Let's have the wedding quickly!' and fixesthe day, and seems in a hurry for it, and when it begins to comenear she feels frightened; or else some other idea gets into herhead--goodness knows! you've seen her--you know how she goes on--laughing and crying and raving! There's nothing extraordinaryabout her having run away from you! She ran away because shefound out how dearly she loved you. She could not bear to be nearyou. You said just now that I had found her at Moscow, when sheran away from you. I didn't do anything of the sort; she came tome herself, straight from you. 'Name the day--I'm ready!' shesaid. 'Let's have some champagne, and go and hear the gipsiessing!' I tell you she'd have thrown herself into the water longago if it were not for me! She doesn't do it because I am,perhaps, even more dreadful to her than the water! She's marryingme out of spite; if she marries me, I tell you, it will be forspite!"
"But how do you, how can you--" began the prince, gazing withdread and horror at Rogojin.
with some irritation, put .
"Why don't you finish your sentence? Shall I tell you what youwere thinking to yourself just then? You were thinking, 'How canshe marry him after this? How can it possibly be permitted?' Oh,I know what you were thinking about!"
"I didn't come here for that purpose, Parfen. That was not in mymind--"
"That may be! Perhaps you didn't COME with the idea, but the ideais certainly there NOW! Ha, ha! well, that's enough! What are youupset about? Didn't you really know it all before? You astonishme!"
"All this is mere jealousy--it is some malady of yours, Parfen!You exaggerate everything," said the prince, excessivelyagitated. "What are you doing?"
"Let go of it!" said Parfen, seizing from the prince's hand aknife which the latter had at that moment taken up from thetable, where it lay beside the history. Parfen replaced it whereit had been.
"I seemed to know it--I felt it, when I was coming back toPetersburg," continued the prince, "I did not want to come, Iwished to forget all this, to uproot it from my memoryaltogether! Well, good-bye--what is the matter?"
He had absently taken up the knife a second time, and againRogojin snatched it from his hand, and threw it down on thetable. It was a plainlooking knife, with a bone handle, a bladeabout eight inches long, and broad in proportion, it did notclasp.
Seeing that the prince was considerably struck by the fact thathe had twice seized this knife out of his hand, Rogojin caught itup with some irritation, put it inside the book, and threw thelatter across to another table.
"Do you cut your pages with it, or what?" asked Muishkin, stillrather absently, as though unable to throw off a deeppreoccupation into which the conversation had thrown him.
"Yes."
"It's a garden knife, isn't it?"
"Yes. Can't one cut pages with a garden knife?"
"It's quite new."
"Well, what of that? Can't I buy a new knife if I like?" shoutedRogojin furiously, his irritation growing with every word.
The prince shuddered, and gazed fixedly at Parfen. Suddenly heburst out laughing.
"Why, what an idea!" he said. "I didn't mean to ask you any ofthese questions; I was thinking of something quite different! Butmy head is heavy, and I seem so absent-minded nowadays! Well,good-bye--I can't remember what I wanted to say--good-bye!"
"Not that way," said Rogojin.
"There, I've forgotten that too!"
greater misery," said the prince. "Itell you this,
"This way--come along--I'll show you."