I believe that so thoroughly that I’ll tell you what I think. To kill for murder is a punishment incomparably worse than the crime itself. Murder by legal sentence is immeasurably more terrible than murder by brigands. Anyone murdered by brigands, whose throat is cut at night in a wood, or something of that sort, must surely hope to escape till the very last minute. There have been instances when a man has still hoped for escape, running or begging for mercy after his throat was cut. But in the other case all that last hope, which makes dying ten times as easy, is taken away for certain. There is the sentence, and the whole awful torture lies in the fact that there is certainly no escape, and there is no torture in the world more terrible. You may lead a soldier out and set him facing the cannon in battle and fire at him and he’ll still hope; but read a sentence of certain death over that same soldier, and he will go out of his mind or burst into tears. Who can tell whether human nature is able to bear this without madness? Why this hideous, useless, unnecessary outrage? Perhaps there is some man who has been sentenced to death, been exposed to this torture and has then been told ‘you can go, you are pardoned.’ Perhaps such a man could tell us. It was of this torture and of this agony that Christ spoke, too. No, you can’t treat a man like that!”
Though the footman would not have been able to express himself like Myshkin, he understood most, if not all, of the speech; that was evident from the softened expression of his face.
“If you are so desirous of smoking,” he observed, “you might be able to, perhaps, only you would have to make haste about it. For his excellency might ask for you all of a sudden and you wouldn’t be here. You see the door under the stairs, go in there and there’s a little room on the right; you can smoke there, only you must open the window, for it’s against the rules. .
But Myshkin had not time to go and smoke. A young man with papers in his hands suddenly appeared in the anteroom. The footman began helping him off with his coat. The young man looked askance at Myshkin.
“This gentleman, Gavril Ardalionovitch,” the footman began confidentially and almost familiarly, “announces himself as Prince Myshkin and a relation of the mistress; he has just arrived from abroad with the bundle in his hand, only… .”
Myshkin could not catch the rest. As the footman began to whisper, Gavril Ardalionovitch listened attentively and looked with great interest at the prince. He ceased listening at last and approached him impatiently.
“You are Prince Myshkin?” he asked with extreme politeness and cordiality.
He was a very good-looking, well-built young man, also about eight-and-twenty, of medium height, with fair hair, a small, Napoleonic beard and a clever and very handsome face. Only his smile, with all its affability, was a trifle too subtle; it displayed teeth too pearl-like and even; in spite of his gaiety and apparent goodnature, there was something too intent and searching in his eyes.
“He must look quite different when he is alone and perhaps he never laughs at all,” was what Myshkin felt.
The prince briefly explained all he could, saying almost the same as he had to the footman and before that to Rogozhin. Meanwhile Gavril Ardalionovitch seemed recalling something.
“Was it you,” he asked, “who sent a letter to Lizaveta Prokofyevna a year ago, or even less, from Switzerland, I think?”
“Yes.”
“Then they know about you here and will certainly remember you. You want to see his excellency? I’ll announce you at once… . He will be at liberty directly. Only you ought … you had better step into the waiting-room… . Why is the gentleman here?” he asked the servant sternly.
“I tell you, he wouldn’t himself …”
At that moment the door from the study was thrown open and a military man with a portfolio in his hand bowed himself out, talking loudly.
“You are there, Ganya,” cried a voice from the study, “come here.”
Gavril Ardalionovitch nodded to Myshkin and went hastily into the study.
Two minutes later the door was opened again and the musical and affable voice of Gavril Ardalionovitch was heard:
“Prince, please come in.”
CHAPTER 3
General ivan fyodorcmtch epanchin stood in the middle of the room and looked with extreme curiosity at the young man as he entered. He even took two steps towards him. Myshkin went up to him and introduced himself.
“Quite so,” said the general, “what can I do for you?”
“I have no urgent business, my object is simply to make your acquaintance. I should be sorry to disturb you, as I don’t know your arrangements, or when you see visitors… . But I have only just come from the station… . I’ve come from Switzerland.”
The general was on the point of smiling, but on second thought he checked himself. Then he thought again, screwed up his eyes, scrutinised his visitor again from head to foot, then rapidly motioned him to a chair, sat down himself a little on one side of him, and turned to him in impatient expectation. Ganya was standing in the corner at the bureau, sorting papers.
“I have little time for making acquaintances as a rule,” observed the general, “but as you have no doubt some object… .”
“That’s just what I expected,” Myshkin interrupted, “that you would look for some special object in my visit. But I assure you I have no personal object except the pleasure of making your acquaintance.”
“It is of course a great pleasure to me too, but life is not all play, you know, one has work sometimes as well… . Moreover, so far, I haven’t been able to discover anything in common between us … any reason, so to speak… .”
“There certainly is no reason, and very little in common, of course. For my being Prince Myshkin and Madame Epanchin’s being of the same family is no reason, to be sure. I quite understand that. And yet it’s only that that has brought me. It’s more than four years since I was in Russia, and I left in such a state — almost out of my mind. I knew nothing then and less than ever now. I need to know good people; there is also a matter of business I must attend to, and I don’t know to whom to apply. The thought struck me at Berlin that you were almost relations, and so I would begin with you; we might perhaps be of use to one another — you to me and I to you — if you were good people, and I had heard that you were good people.”
“I am very much obliged to you,” said the general, surprised. “Allow me to inquire where are you staying?”
“I am not staying anywhere as yet.”
“So you’ve come straight from the train to me? And … with luggage?”
“All the luggage I have is a little bundle of my linen, I’ve nothing else; I generally carry it in my hand. I shall have time to take a room this evening.”
“So you still intend to take a room at a hotel?”
“Oh, yes, of course.”
“From your words I was led to suppose that you had come to stay here.”
“That
