白痴 英文版 The Idiot
陀思妥耶夫斯基 Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Idiot VI. Page 2
"'In Moscow,' I said, 'there was an old state counsellor, a civilgeneral, who, all his life, had been in the habit of visiting theprisons and speaking to criminals. Every party of convicts on itsway to Siberia knew beforehand that on the Vorobeef Hills the"old general" would pay them a visit. He did all he undertookseriously and devotedly. He would walk down the rows of theunfortunate prisoners, stop before each individual and ask afterhis needs--he never sermonized them; he spoke kindly to them--he gavethem money; he brought them all sorts of necessaries for thejourney, and gave them devotional books, choosing those who couldread, under the firm conviction that they would read to those whocould not, as they went along.
"'He scarcely ever talked about the particular crimes of any ofthem, but listened if any volunteered information on that point.All the convicts were equal for him, and he made no distinction.He spoke to all as to brothers, and every one of them looked uponhim as a father. When he observed among the exiles some poorwoman with a child, he would always come forward and fondle thelittle one, and make it laugh. He continued these acts of mercyup to his very death; and by that time all the criminals, allover Russia and Siberia, knew him!
"'A man I knew who had been to Siberia and returned, told me thathe himself had been a witness of how the very most hardenedcriminals remembered the old general, though, in point of fact,he could never, of course, have distributed more than a few penceto each member of a party. Their recollection of him was notsentimental or particularly devoted. Some wretch, for instance,who had been a murderer--cutting the throat of a dozen fellow-creatures, for instance; or stabbing six little children for hisown amusement (there have been such men!)--would perhaps, withoutrhyme or reason, suddenly give a sigh and say, "I wonder whetherthat old general is alive still!" Although perhaps he had notthought of mentioning him for a dozen years before! How can onesay what seed of good may have been dropped into his soul, neverto die?'
"I continued in that strain for a long while, pointing out toBachmatoff how impossible it is to follow up the effects of anyisolated good deed one may do, in all its influences and subtleworkings upon the heart and after-actions of others.
"'And to think that you are to be cut off from life!' remarkedBachmatoff, in a tone of reproach, as though he would like tofind someone to pitch into on my account.
"We were leaning over the balustrade of the bridge, looking intothe Neva at this moment.
"'Do you know what has suddenly come into my head?' said I,suddenly--leaning further and further over the rail.
"'Surely not to throw yourself into the river?' cried Bachmatoffin alarm. Perhaps he read my thought in my face.
"'No, not yet. At present nothing but the followingconsideration. You see I have some two or three months left me tolive--perhaps four; well, supposing that when I have but a monthor two more, I take a fancy for some "good deed" that needs bothtrouble and time, like this business of our doctor friend, forinstance: why, I shall have to give up the idea of it and take tosomething else--some LITTLE good deed, MORE WITHIN MY MEANS, eh?Isn't that an amusing idea!'
"Poor Bachmatoff was much impressed--painfully so. He took me allthe way home; not attempting to console me, but behaving with thegreatest delicacy. On taking leave he pressed my hand warmly andasked permission to come and see me. I replied that if he came tome as a 'comforter,' so to speak (for he would be in thatcapacity whether he spoke to me in a soothing manner or only keptsilence, as I pointed out to him), he would but remind me eachtime of my approaching death! He shrugged his shoulders, butquite agreed with me; and we parted better friends than I hadexpected.
"But that evening and that night were sown the first seeds of my'last conviction.' I seized greedily on my new idea; I thirstilydrank in all its different aspects (I did not sleep a wink thatnight!), and the deeper I went into it the more my being seemedto merge itself in it, and the more alarmed I became. A dreadfulterror came over me at last, and did not leave me all next day.
"Sometimes, thinking over this, I became quite numb with theterror of it; and I might well have deduced from this fact, thatmy 'last conviction' was eating into my being too fast and tooseriously, and would undoubtedly come to its climax before long.And for the climax I needed greater determination than I yetpossessed.
"However, within three weeks my determination was taken, owing toa very strange circumstance.
"Here on my paper, I make a note of all the figures and datesthat come into my explanation. Of course, it is all the same tome, but just now--and perhaps only at this moment--I desire thatall those who are to judge of my action should see clearly out ofhow logical a sequence of deductions has at length proceeded my'last conviction.'
"I have said above that the determination needed by me for theaccomplishment of my final resolve, came to hand not through anysequence of causes, but thanks to a certain strange circumstancewhich had perhaps no connection whatever with the matter atissue. Ten days ago Rogojin called upon me about certain businessof his own with which I have nothing to do at present. I hadnever seen Rogojin before, but had often heard about him.
"I gave him all the information he needed, and he very soon tookhis departure; so that, since he only came for the purpose ofgaining the information, the matter might have been expected toend there.
"But he interested me too much, and all that day I was under theinfluence of strange thoughts connected with him, and Idetermined to return his visit the next day.
"Rogojin was evidently by no means pleased to see me, and hinted,delicately, that he saw no reason why our acquaintance shouldcontinue. For all that, however, I spent a very interesting hour,and so, I dare say, did he. There was so great a contrast betweenus that I am sure we must both have felt it; anyhow, I felt itacutely. Here was I, with my days numbered, and he, a man in thefull vigour of life, living in the present, without the slightestthought for 'final convictions,' or numbers, or days, or, infact, for anything but that which-which--well, which he was madabout, if he will excuse me the expression--as a feeble author whocannot express his ideas properly.
"In spite of his lack of amiability, I could not help seeing, inRogojin a man of intellect and sense; and although, perhaps,there was little in the outside world which was of. interest tohim, still he was clearly a man with eyes to see.
"I hinted nothing to him about my 'final conviction,' but itappeared to me that he had guessed it from my words. He remainedsilent--he is a terribly silent man. I remarked to him, as I roseto depart, that, in spite of the contrast and the widedifferences between us two, les extremites se touchent ('extremesmeet,' as I explained to him in Russian); so that maybe he wasnot so far from my final conviction as appeared.
"His only reply to this was a sour grimace. He rose and lookedfor my cap, and placed it in my hand, and led me out of thehouse--that dreadful gloomy house of his--to all appearances, ofcourse, as though I were leaving of my own accord, and he weresimply seeing me to the door out of politeness. His houseimpressed me much; it is like a burial-ground, he seems to likeit, which is, however, quite natural. Such a full life as heleads is so overflowing with absorbing interests that he haslittle need of assistance from his surroundings.
"The visit to Rogojin exhausted me terribly. Besides, I had feltill since the morning; and by evening I was so weak that I tookto my bed, and was in high fever at intervals, and evendelirious. Colia sat with me until eleven o'clock.
"Yet I remember all he talked about, and every word we said,though whenever my eyes closed for a moment I could picturenothing but the image of Surikoff just in the act of finding amillion roubles. He could not make up his mind what to do withthe money, and tore his hair over it. He trembled with fear thatsomebody would rob him, and at last he decided to bury it in theground. I persuaded him that, instead of putting it all awayuselessly underground, he had better melt it down and make agolden coffin out of it for his starved child, and then dig upthe little one and put her into the golden coffin. Surikoffaccepted this suggestion, I thought, with tears of gratitude, andimmediately commenced to carry out my design.
"I thought I spat on the ground and left him in disgust. Coliatold me, when I quite recovered my senses, that I had not beenasleep for a moment, but that I had spoken to him about Surikoffthe whole while.
"At moments I was in a state of dreadful weakness and misery, sothat Colia was greatly disturbed when he left me.
"When I arose to lock the door after him, I suddenly called tomind a picture I had noticed at Rogojin's in one of his gloomiestrooms, over the door. He had pointed it out to me himself as wewalked past it, and I believe I must have stood a good fiveminutes in front of it. There was nothing artistic about it, butthe picture made me feel strangely uncomfortable. It representedChrist just taken down from the cross. It seems to me thatpainters as a rule represent the Saviour, both on the cross andtaken down from it, with great beauty still upon His face. Thismarvellous beauty they strive to preserve even in His moments ofdeepest agony and passion. But there was no such beauty inRogojin's picture. This was the presentment of a poor mangledbody which had evidently suffered unbearable anguish even beforeits crucifixion, full of wounds and bruises, marks of theviolence of soldiers and people, and of the bitterness of themoment when He had fallen with the cross--all this combined withthe anguish of the actual crucifixion.
"The face was depicted as though still suffering; as though thebody, only just dead, was still almost quivering with agony. Thepicture was one of pure nature, for the face was not beautifiedby the artist, but was left as it would naturally be, whosoeverthe sufferer, after such anguish.
"I know that the earliest Christian faith taught that the Savioursuffered actually and not figuratively, and that nature wasallowed her own way even while His body was on the cross.
"It is strange to look on this dreadful picture of the mangledcorpse of the Saviour, and to put this question to oneself:'Supposing that the disciples, the future apostles, the women whohad followed Him and stood by the cross, all of whom believed inand worshipped Him--supposing that they saw this tortured body,this face so mangled and bleeding and bruised (and they MUST haveso seen it)--how could they have gazed upon the dreadful sightand yet have believed that He would rise again?'
"The thought steps in, whether one likes it or no, that death isso terrible and so powerful, that even He who conquered it in Hismiracles during life was unable to triumph over it at the last.He who called to Lazarus, 'Lazarus, come forth!' and the deadman lived--He was now Himself a prey to nature and death. Natureappears to one, looking at this picture, as some huge,implacable, dumb monster; or still better--a stranger simile--someenormous mechanical engine of modern days which has seized andcrushed and swallowed up a great and invaluable Being, a Beingworth nature and all her laws, worth the whole earth, which wasperhaps created merely for the sake of the advent of that Being.
"This blind, dumb, implacable, eternal, unreasoning force is wellshown in the picture, and the absolute subordination of all menand things to it is so well expressed that the idea unconsciouslyarises in the mind of anyone who looks at it. All those faithfulpeople who were gazing at the cross and its mutilated occupantmust have suffered agony of mind that evening; for they must havefelt that all their hopes and almost all their faith had beenshattered at a blow. They must have separated in terror and dread thatnight, though each perhaps carried away with him one greatthought which was never eradicated from his mind for everafterwards. If this great Teacher of theirs could have seenHimself after the Crucifixion, how could He have consented tomount the Cross and to die as He did? This thought also comesinto the mind of the man who gazes at this picture. I thought ofall this by snatches probably between my attacks of delirium--foran hour and a half or so before Colia's departure.
"Can there be an appearance of that which has no form? And yet itseemed to me, at certain moments, that I beheld in some strangeand impossible form, that dark, dumb, irresistibly powerful,eternal force.
"I thought someone led me by the hand and showed me, by the lightof a candle, a huge, loathsome insect, which he assured me wasthat very force, that very almighty, dumb, irresistible Power,and laughed at the indignation with which I received thisinformation. In my room they always light the little lamp beforemy icon for the night; it gives a feeble flicker of light, but itis strong enough to see by dimly, and if you sit just under ityou can even read by it. I think it was about twelve or a littlepast that night. I had not slept a wink, and was lying with myeyes wide open, when suddenly the door opened, and in cameRogojin.
"He entered, and shut the door behind him. Then he silently gazedat me and went quickly to the corner of the room where the lampwas burning and sat down underneath it.
"I was much surprised, and looked at him expectantly.
"Rogojin only leaned his elbow on the table and silently staredat me. So passed two or three minutes, and I recollect that hissilence hurt and offended me very much. Why did he not speak?
"That his arrival at this time of night struck me as more or lessstrange may possibly be the case; but I remember I was by nomeans amazed at it. On the contrary, though I had not actuallytold him my thought in the morning, yet I know he understood it;and this thought was of such a character that it would not beanything very remarkable, if one were to come for further talkabout it at any hour of night, however late.
"I thought he must have come for this purpose.
"In the morning we had parted not the best of friends; I rememberhe looked at me with disagreeable sarcasm once or twice; and thissame look I observed in his eyes now--which was the cause of theannoyance I felt.
"I did not for a moment suspect that I was delirious and thatthis Rogojin was but the result of fever and excitement. I hadnot the slightest idea of such a theory at first.
"Meanwhile he continued to sit and stare jeeringly at me.
"I angrily turned round in bed and made up my mind that I wouldnot say a word unless he did; so I rested silently on my pillowdetermined to remain dumb, if it were to last till morning. Ifelt resolved that he should speak first. Probably twenty minutesor so passed in this way. Suddenly the idea struck me--what ifthis is an apparition and not Rogojin himself?
"Neither during my illness nor at any previous time had I everseen an apparition;--but I had always thought, both when I was alittle boy, and even now, that if I were to see one I should dieon the spot--though I don't believe in ghosts. And yet NOW, whenthe idea struck me that this was a ghost and not Rogojin at all,I was not in the least alarmed. Nay--the thought actuallyirritated me. Strangely enough, the decision of the question asto whether this were a ghost or Rogojin did not, for some reasonor other, interest me nearly so much as it ought to have done;--Ithink I began to muse about something altogether different. Forinstance, I began to wonder why Rogojin, who had been indressing--gown and slippers when I saw him at home, had now put ona dress-coat and white waistcoat and tie? I also thought tomyself, I remember--'if this is a ghost, and I am not afraid ofit, why don't I approach it and verify my suspicions? Perhaps Iam afraid--' And no sooner did this last idea enter my head thanan icy blast blew over me; I felt a chill down my backbone and myknees shook.
"At this very moment, as though divining my thoughts, Rogojinraised his head from his arm and began to part his lips as thoughhe were going to laugh--but he continued to stare at me aspersistently as before.
"I felt so furious with him at this moment that I longed to rushat him; but as I had sworn that he should speak first, Icontinued to lie still--and the more willingly, as I was still byno means satisfied as to whether it really was Rogojin or not.
"I cannot remember how long this lasted; I cannot recollect,either, whether consciousness forsook me at intervals, or not.But at last Rogojin rose, staring at me as intently as ever, butnot smiling any longer,--and walking very softly, almost on tip-toes, to the door, he opened it, went out, and shut it behindhim.
"I did not rise from my bed, and I don't know how long I lay withmy eyes open, thinking. I don't know what I thought about, norhow I fell asleep or became insensible; but I awoke next morningafter nine o'clock when they knocked at my door. My generalorders are that if I don't open the door and call, by nineo'clock, Matreona is to come and bring my tea. When I now openedthe door to her, the thought suddenly struck me--how could he havecome in, since the door was locked? I made inquiries and foundthat Rogojin himself could not possibly have come in, because allour doors were locked for the night.
"Well, this strange circumstance--which I have described with somuch detail--was the ultimate cause which led me to taking myfinal determination. So that no logic, or logical deductions, hadanything to do with my resolve;--it was simply a matter ofdisgust.
"It was impossible for me to go on living when life was full ofsuch detestable, strange, tormenting forms. This ghost hadhumiliated me;--nor could I bear to be subordinate to that dark,horrible force which was embodied in the form of the loathsomeinsect. It was only towards evening, when I had quite made up mymind on this point, that I began to feel easier.