PART III - VII

The Idiot

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Translated by Eva Martin

PART III - VII, THE IDIOT by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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"I HAD a small pocket pistol. I had procured it while still a
boy, at that droll age when the stories of duels and highwaymen
begin to delight one, and when one imagines oneself nobly
standing fire at some future day, in a duel.

"There were a couple of old bullets in the bag which contained
the pistol, and powder enough in an old flask for two or three
charges.

"The pistol was a wretched thing, very crooked and wouldn't carry
farther than fifteen paces at the most. However, it would send
your skull flying well enough if you pressed the muzzle of it
against your temple.

"I determined to die at Pavlofsk at sunrise, in the park--so as
to make no commotion in the house.

"This 'explanation' will make the matter clear enough to the
police. Students of psychology, and anyone else who likes, may
make what they please of it. I should not like this paper,
however, to be made public. I request the prince to keep a copy
himself, and to give a copy to Aglaya Ivanovna Epanchin. This is
my last will and testament. As for my skeleton, I bequeath it to
the Medical Academy for the benefit of science.

"I recognize no jurisdiction over myself, and I know that I am
now beyond the power of laws and judges.

"A little while ago a very amusing idea struck me. What if I were
now to commit some terrible crime--murder ten fellow-creatures,
for instance, or anything else that is thought most shocking and
dreadful in this world--what a dilemma my judges would be in,
with a criminal who only has a fortnight to live in any case, now
that the rack and other forms of torture are abolished! Why, I
should die comfortably in their own hospital--in a warm, clean
room, with an attentive doctor--probably much more comfortably
than I should at home.

"I don't understand why people in my position do not oftener
indulge in such ideas--if only for a joke! Perhaps they do! Who
knows! There are plenty of merry souls among us!

"But though I do not recognize any jurisdiction over myself,
still I know that I shall be judged, when I am nothing but a
voiceless lump of clay; therefore I do not wish to go before I
have left a word of reply--the reply of a free man--not one
forced to justify himself--oh no! I have no need to ask
forgiveness of anyone. I wish to say a word merely because I
happen to desire it of my own free will.

"Here, in the first place, comes a strange thought!

"Who, in the name of what Law, would think of disputing my full
personal right over the fortnight of life left to me? What
jurisdiction can be brought to bear upon the case? Who would wish
me, not only to be sentenced, but to endure the sentence to the
end? Surely there exists no man who would wish such a thing--why
should anyone desire it? For the sake of morality? Well, I can
understand that if I were to make an attempt upon my own life
while in the enjoyment of full health and vigour--my life which
might have been 'useful,' etc., etc.--morality might reproach me,
according to the old routine, for disposing of my life without
permission--or whatever its tenet may be. But now, NOW, when my
sentence is out and my days numbered! How can morality have need
of my last breaths, and why should I die listening to the
consolations offered by the prince, who, without doubt, would not
omit to demonstrate that death is actually a benefactor to me?
(Christians like him always end up with that--it is their pet
theory.) And what do they want with their ridiculous 'Pavlofsk
trees'? To sweeten my last hours? Cannot they understand that the
more I forget myself, the more I let myself become attached to
these last illusions of life and love, by means of which they try
to hide from me Meyer's wall, and all that is so plainly written
on it--the more unhappy they make me? What is the use of all your
nature to me--all your parks and trees, your sunsets and
sunrises, your blue skies and your self-satisfied faces--when all
this wealth of beauty and happiness begins with the fact that it
accounts me--only me--one too many! What is the good of all this
beauty and glory to me, when every second, every moment, I cannot
but be aware that this little fly which buzzes around my head in
the sun's rays--even this little fly is a sharer and participator
in all the glory of the universe, and knows its place and is
happy in it;--while I--only I, am an outcast, and have been blind
to the fact hitherto, thanks to my simplicity! Oh! I know well
how the prince and others would like me, instead of indulging in
all these wicked words of my own, to sing, to the glory and
triumph of morality, that well-known verse of Gilbert's:

"'0, puissent voir longtemps votre beaute sacree
Tant d'amis, sourds a mes adieux!
Qu'ils meurent pleins de jours, que leur mort soit pleuree,
Qu'un ami leur ferme les yeux!'

"But believe me, believe me, my simple-hearted friends, that in
this highly moral verse, in this academical blessing to the world
in general in the French language, is hidden the intensest gall
and bitterness; but so well concealed is the venom, that I dare
say the poet actually persuaded himself that his words were full
of the tears of pardon and peace, instead of the bitterness of
disappointment and malice, and so died in the delusion.

"Do you know there is a limit of ignominy, beyond which man's
consciousness of shame cannot go, and after which begins
satisfaction in shame? Well, of course humility is a great force
in that sense, I admit that--though not in the sense in which
religion accounts humility to be strength!

"Religion!--I admit eternal life--and perhaps I always did admit
it.

"Admitted that consciousness is called into existence by the will
of a Higher Power; admitted that this consciousness looks out
upon the world and says 'I am;' and admitted that the Higher
Power wills that the consciousness so called into existence, be
suddenly extinguished (for so--for some unexplained reason--it is
and must be)--still there comes the eternal question--why must I
be humble through all this? Is it not enough that I am devoured,
without my being expected to bless the power that devours me?
Surely--surely I need not suppose that Somebody--there--will be
offended because I do not wish to live out the fortnight allowed
me? I don't believe it.

"It is much simpler, and far more likely, to believe that my
death is needed--the death of an insignificant atom--in order to
fulfil the general harmony of the universe--in order to make even
some plus or minus in the sum of existence. Just as every day the
death of numbers of beings is necessary because without their
annihilation the rest cannot live on--(although we must admit
that the idea is not a particularly grand one in itself!)

"However--admit the fact! Admit that without such perpetual
devouring of one another the world cannot continue to exist, or
could never have been organized--I am ever ready to confess that
I cannot understand why this is so--but I'll tell you what I DO
know, for certain. If I have once been given to understand and
realize that I AM--what does it matter to me that the world is
organized on a system full of errors and that otherwise it cannot
be organized at all? Who will or can judge me after this? Say
what you like--the thing is impossible and unjust!

"And meanwhile I have never been able, in spite of my great
desire to do so, to persuade myself that there is no future
existence, and no Providence.

"The fact of the matter is that all this DOES exist, but that we
know absolutely nothing about the future life and its laws!

"But it is so difficult, and even impossible to understand, that
surely I am not to be blamed because I could not fathom the
incomprehensible?

"Of course I know they say that one must be obedient, and of
course, too, the prince is one of those who say so: that one must
be obedient without questions, out of pure goodness of heart, and
that for my worthy conduct in this matter I shall meet with
reward in another world. We degrade God when we attribute our own
ideas to Him, out of annoyance that we cannot fathom His ways.

"Again, I repeat, I cannot be blamed because I am unable to
understand that which it is not given to mankind to fathom. Why
am I to be judged because I could not comprehend the Will and
Laws of Providence? No, we had better drop religion.

"And enough of this. By the time I have got so far in the reading
of my document the sun will be up and the huge force of his rays
will be acting upon the living world. So be it. I shall die
gazing straight at the great Fountain of life and power; I do not
want this life!

"If I had had the power to prevent my own birth I should
certainly never have consented to accept existence under such
ridiculous conditions. However, I have the power to end my
existence, although I do but give back days that are already
numbered. It is an insignificant gift, and my revolt is equally
insignificant.

"Final explanation: I die, not in the least because I am unable
to support these next three weeks. Oh no, I should find strength
enough, and if I wished it I could obtain consolation from the
thought of the injury that is done me. But I am not a French
poet, and I do not desire such consolation. And finally, nature
has so limited my capacity for work or activity of any kind, in
allotting me but three weeks of time, that suicide is about the
only thing left that I can begin and end in the time of my own
free will.

"Perhaps then I am anxious to take advantage of my last chance of
doing something for myself. A protest is sometimes no small
thing."

The explanation was finished; Hippolyte paused at last.

There is, in extreme cases, a final stage of cynical candour when
a nervous man, excited, and beside himself with emotion, will be
afraid of nothing and ready for any sort of scandal, nay, glad of
it. The extraordinary, almost unnatural, tension of the nerves
which upheld Hippolyte up to this point, had now arrived at this
final stage. This poor feeble boy of eighteen--exhausted by
disease--looked for all the world as weak and frail as a leaflet
torn from its parent tree and trembling in the breeze; but no
sooner had his eye swept over his audience, for the first time
during the whole of the last hour, than the most contemptuous,
the most haughty expression of repugnance lighted up his face. He
defied them all, as it were. But his hearers were indignant, too;
they rose to their feet with annoyance. Fatigue, the wine
consumed, the strain of listening so long, all added to the
disagreeable impression which the reading had made upon them.

Suddenly Hippolyte jumped up as though he had been shot.

"The sun is rising," he cried, seeing the gilded tops of the
trees, and pointing to them as to a miracle. "See, it is rising
now!"

"Well, what then? Did you suppose it wasn't going to rise?" asked
Ferdishenko.

"It's going to be atrociously hot again all day," said Gania,
with an air of annoyance, taking his hat. "A month of this... Are
you coming home, Ptitsin?" Hippolyte listened to this in
amazement, almost amounting to stupefaction. Suddenly he became
deadly pale and shuddered.

"You manage your composure too awkwardly. I see you wish to
insult me," he cried to Gania. "You--you are a cur!" He looked at
Gania with an expression of malice.

"What on earth is the matter with the boy? What phenomenal
feeble-mindedness!" exclaimed Ferdishenko.

"Oh, he's simply a fool," said Gania.

Hippolyte braced himself up a little.

"I understand, gentlemen," he began, trembling as before, and
stumbling over every word," that I have deserved your resentment,
and--and am sorry that I should have troubled you with this
raving nonsense" (pointing to his article),"or rather, I am sorry
that I have not troubled you enough." He smiled feebly. "Have I
troubled you, Evgenie Pavlovitch?" He suddenly turned on Evgenie
with this question. "Tell me now, have I troubled you or not?"

"Well, it was a little drawn out, perhaps; but--"

"Come, speak out! Don't lie, for once in your life--speak out!"
continued Hippolyte, quivering with agitation.

"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 Hippolyte 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,
sarcastically.

"Gentlemen, you'd better look out," cried Colia, also seizing
Hippolyte by the hand. "Just look at him! Prince, what are you
thinking of?" Vera and Colia, and Keller, and Burdovsky 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 indignation.

"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 writing 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, addressing
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 interrupted,
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 appurtenances. 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 weapon, 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. Ferdishenko will kindly fetch them."

At this there was a dreadful noise; Lebedeff danced about in his
excitement; Ferdishenko prepared to go for the police; 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 hatred?" 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 Colia 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, laughing 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, motionless,
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 excitement.

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 affirmed, 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 metallic 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 trigger, and yet they saw a live
and apparently unharmed man before them.

Hippolyte himself sat quite unconscious of what was going 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 difficult to describe the pitiable scene that now
followed. The first sensation of alarm soon gave place to
amusement; some burst out laughing loud and heartily, 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
to put one in beforehand for fear of an accidental explosion in
his pocket. That he had thought he would have lots of time to put
it in afterwards--when required--and, that, in the heat of the
moment, he had forgotten all about it. He threw himself upon the
prince, then on Evgenie Pavlovitch. He entreated Keller to give
him back the pistol, and he'd soon show them all that "his
honour--his honour,"--but he was "dishonoured, now, for ever!"

He fell senseless at last--and was carried into the prince's
study.

Lebedeff, now quite sobered down, sent for a doctor; and he and
his daughter, with Burdovsky and General Ivolgin, remained by the
sick man's couch.

When he was carried away unconscious, Keller stood in the middle
of the room, and made the following declaration to the company in
general, in a loud tone of voice, with emphasis upon each word.

"Gentlemen, if any one of you casts any doubt again, before me,
upon Hippolyte's good faith, or hints that the cap was forgotten
intentionally, or suggests that this unhappy boy was acting a
part before us, I beg to announce that the person so speaking
shall account to me for his words."

No one replied.

The company departed very quickly, in a mass. Ptitsin, Gania, and
Rogojin went away together.

The prince was much astonished that Evgenie Pavlovitch changed
his mind, and took his departure without the conversation he had
requested.

"Why, you wished to have a talk with me when the others left?" he
said.

"Quite so," said Evgenie, sitting down suddenly beside him, "but
I have changed my mind for the time being. I confess, I am too
disturbed, and so, I think, are you; and the matter as to which I
wished to consult you is too serious to tackle with one's mind
even a little disturbed; too serious both for myself and for you.
You see, prince, for once in my life I wish to perform an
absolutely honest action, that is, an action with no ulterior
motive; and I think I am hardly in a condition to talk of it just
at this moment, and--and--well, we'll discuss it another time.
Perhaps the matter may gain in clearness if we wait for two or
three days--just the two or three days which I must spend in
Petersburg."

Here he rose again from his chair, so that it seemed strange that
he should have thought it worth while to sit down at all.

The prince thought, too, that he looked vexed and annoyed, and
not nearly so friendly towards himself as he had been earlier in
the night.

"I suppose you will go to the sufferer's bedside now?" he added.

"Yes, I am afraid..." began the prince.

"Oh, you needn't fear! He'll live another six weeks all right.
Very likely he will recover altogether; but I strongly advise you
to pack him off tomorrow."

"I think I may have offended him by saying nothing just now. I am
afraid he may suspect that I doubted his good faith,--about
shooting himself, you know. What do you think, Evgenie
Pavlovitch?"

"Not a bit of it! You are much too good to him; you shouldn't
care a hang about what he thinks. I have heard of such things
before, but never came across, till tonight, a man who would
actually shoot himself in order to gain a vulgar notoriety, or
blow out his brains for spite, if he finds that people don't care
to pat him on the back for his sanguinary intentions. But what
astonishes me more than anything is the fellow's candid
confession of weakness. You'd better get rid of him tomorrow, in
any case.

"Do you think he will make another attempt?"

"Oh no, not he, not now! But you have to be very careful with
this sort of gentleman. Crime is too often the last resource of
these petty nonentities. This young fellow is quite capable of
cutting the throats of ten people, simply for a lark, as he told
us in his 'explanation.' I assure you those confounded words of
his will not let me sleep."

"I think you disturb yourself too much."

"What an extraordinary person you are, prince! Do you mean to say
that you doubt the fact that he is capable of murdering ten men?"

"I daren't say, one way or the other; all this is very strange--
but--"

"Well, as you like, just as you like," said Evgenie Pavlovitch,
irritably. "Only you are such a plucky fellow, take care you
don't get included among the ten victims!"

"Oh, he is much more likely not to kill anyone at all," said the
prince, gazing thoughtfully at Evgenie. The latter laughed
disagreeably.

"Well, au revoir! Did you observe that he 'willed' a copy of his
confession to Aglaya Ivanovna?"

"Yes, I did; I am thinking of it."

"In connection with 'the ten,' eh?" laughed Evgenie, as he left
the room.

An hour later, towards four o'clock, the prince went into the
park. He had endeavoured to fall asleep, but could not, owing to
the painful beating of his heart.

He had left things quiet and peaceful; the invalid was fast
asleep, and the doctor, who had been called in, had stated that
there was no special danger. Lebedeff, Colia, and Burdovsky were
lying down in the sick-room, ready to take it in turns to watch.
There was nothing to fear, therefore, at home.

But the prince's mental perturbation increased every moment. He
wandered about the park, looking absently around him, and paused
in astonishment when he suddenly found himself in the empty space
with the rows of chairs round it, near the Vauxhall. The look of
the place struck him as dreadful now: so he turned round and went
by the path which he had followed with the Epanchins on the way
to the band, until he reached the green bench which Aglaya had
pointed out for their rendezvous. He sat down on it and suddenly
burst into a loud fit of laughter, immediately followed by a
feeling of irritation. His disturbance of mind continued; he felt
that he must go away somewhere, anywhere.

Above his head some little bird sang out, of a sudden; he began
to peer about for it among the leaves. Suddenly the bird darted
out of the tree and away, and instantly he thought of the "fly
buzzing about in the sun's rays" that Hippolyte had talked of;
how that it knew its place and was a participator in the
universal life, while he alone was an "outcast." This picture had
impressed him at the time, and he meditated upon it now. An old,
forgotten memory awoke in his brain, and suddenly burst into
clearness and light. It was a recollection of Switzerland, during
the first year of his cure, the very first months. At that time
he had been pretty nearly an idiot still; he could not speak
properly, and had difficulty in understanding when others spoke
to him. He climbed the mountain-side, one sunny morning, and
wandered long and aimlessly with a certain thought in his brain,
which would not become clear. Above him was the blazing sky,
below, the lake; all around was the horizon, clear and infinite.
He looked out upon this, long and anxiously. He remembered how he
had stretched out his arms towards the beautiful, boundless blue
of the horizon, and wept, and wept. What had so tormented him was
the idea that he was a stranger to all this, that he was outside
this glorious festival.

What was this universe? What was this grand, eternal pageant to
which he had yearned from his childhood up, and in which he could
never take part? Every morning the same magnificent sun; every
morning the same rainbow in the waterfall; every evening the same
glow on the snow-mountains.

Every little fly that buzzed in the sun's rays was a singer in
the universal chorus, "knew its place, and was happy in it.
"Every blade of grass grew and was happy. Everything knew its
path and loved it, went forth with a song and returned with a
song; only he knew nothing, understood nothing, neither men nor
words, nor any of nature's voices; he was a stranger and an
outcast.

Oh, he could not then speak these words, or express all he felt!
He had been tormented dumbly; but now it appeared to him that he
must have said these very words--even then--and that Hippolyte
must have taken his picture of the little fly from his tears and
words of that time.

He was sure of it, and his heart beat excitedly at the thought,
he knew not why.

He fell asleep on the bench; but his mental disquiet continued
through his slumbers.

Just before he dozed off, the idea of Hippolyte murdering ten men
flitted through his brain, and he smiled at the absurdity of such
a thought.

Around him all was quiet; only the flutter and whisper of the
leaves broke the silence, but broke it only to cause it to appear
yet more deep and still.

He dreamed many dreams as he sat there, and all were full of
disquiet, so that he shuddered every moment.

At length a woman seemed to approach him. He knew her, oh! he
knew her only too well. He could always name her and recognize her
anywhere; but, strange, she seemed to have quite a different face
from hers, as he had known it, and he felt a tormenting desire to
be able to say she was not the same woman. In the face before him
there was such dreadful remorse and horror that he thought she
must be a criminal, that she must have just committed some awful
crime.

Tears were trembling on her white cheek. She beckoned him, but
placed her finger on her lip as though to warn him that he must
follow her very quietly. His heart froze within him. He wouldn't,
he COULDN'T confess her to be a criminal, and yet he felt that
something dreadful would happen the next moment, something which
would blast his whole life.

She seemed to wish to show him something, not far off, in the
park.

He rose from his seat in order to follow her, when a bright,
clear peal of laughter rang out by his side. He felt somebody's
hand suddenly in his own, seized it, pressed it hard, and awoke.
Before him stood Aglaya, laughing aloud.