THE IDIOT & THE GAMBLER. Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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СКАЧАТЬ I, loudly and distinctly — embroidering each word, as it were— “j’ai l’honneur d’etre votre esclave.”

      Then I bowed again, put on my hat, and walked past the Baron with a rude smile on my face.

      Polina had ordered me merely to take off my hat: the bow and the general effrontery were of my own invention. God knows what instigated me to perpetrate the outrage! In my frenzy I felt as though I were walking on air.

      “Hein!” ejaculated — or, rather, growled — the Baron as he turned towards me in angry surprise.

      I too turned round, and stood waiting in pseudo-courteous expectation. Yet still I wore on my face an impudent smile as I gazed at him. He seemed to hesitate, and his brows contracted to their utmost limits. Every moment his visage was growing darker. The Baroness also turned in my direction, and gazed at me in wrathful perplexity, while some of the passersby also began to stare at us, and others of them halted outright.

      “Hein!” the Baron vociferated again, with a redoubled growl and a note of growing wrath in his voice.

      “Ja wohl!” I replied, still looking him in the eyes.

      “Sind sie rasend?” he exclaimed, brandishing his stick, and, apparently, beginning to feel nervous. Perhaps it was my costume which intimidated him, for I was well and fashionably dressed, after the manner of a man who belongs to indisputably good society.

      “Ja wo-o-ohl!” cried I again with all my might with a longdrawn rolling of the “ohl” sound after the fashion of the Berliners (who constantly use the phrase “Ja wohl!” in conversation, and more or less prolong the syllable “ohl” according as they desire to express different shades of meaning or of mood).

      At this the Baron and the Baroness faced sharply about, and almost fled in their alarm. Some of the bystanders gave vent to excited exclamations, and others remained staring at me in astonishment. But I do not remember the details very well.

      Wheeling quietly about, I returned in the direction of Polina Alexandrovna. But, when I had got within a hundred paces of her seat, I saw her rise and set out with the children towards the hotel.

      At the portico I caught up to her.

      “I have perpetrated the — the piece of idiocy,” I said as I came level with her.

      “Have you? Then you can take the consequences,” she replied without so much as looking at me. Then she moved towards the staircase.

      I spent the rest of the evening walking in the park. Thence I passed into the forest, and walked on until I found myself in a neighbouring principality. At a wayside restaurant I partook of an omelette and some wine, and was charged for the idyllic repast a thaler and a half.

      Not until eleven o’clock did I return home — to find a summons awaiting me from the General.

      Our party occupied two suites in the hotel; each of which contained two rooms. The first (the larger suite) comprised a salon and a smoking-room, with, adjoining the latter, the General’s study. It was here that he was awaiting me as he stood posed in a majestic attitude beside his writing-table. Lolling on a divan close by was De Griers.

      “My good sir,” the General began, “may I ask you what this is that you have gone and done?”

      “I should be glad,” I replied, “if we could come straight to the point. Probably you are referring to my encounter of today with a German?”

      “With a German? Why, the German was the Baron Burmergelm — a most important personage! I hear that you have been rude both to him and to the Baroness?”

      “No, I have not.”

      “But I understand that you simply terrified them, my good sir?” shouted the General.

      “Not in the least,” I replied. “You must know that when I was in Berlin I frequently used to hear the Berliners repeat, and repellently prolong, a certain phrase — namely, ‘Ja wohl!’; and, happening to meet this couple in the carriage-drive, I found, for some reason or another, that this phrase suddenly recurred to my memory, and exercised a rousing effect upon my spirits. Moreover, on the three previous occasions that I have met the Baroness she has walked towards me as though I were a worm which could easily be crushed with the foot. Not unnaturally, I too possess a measure of self-respect; wherefore, on THIS occasion I took off my hat, and said politely (yes, I assure you it was said politely): ‘Madame, j’ai l’honneur d’etre votre esclave.’ Then the Baron turned round, and said ‘Hein!’; whereupon I felt moved to ejaculate in answer ‘Ja wohl!’ Twice I shouted it at him — the first time in an ordinary tone, and the second time with the greatest prolonging of the words of which I was capable. That is all.”

      I must confess that this puerile explanation gave me great pleasure. I felt a strong desire to overlay the incident with an even added measure of grossness; so, the further I proceeded, the more did the gusto of my proceeding increase.

      “You are only making fun of me!” vociferated the General as, turning to the Frenchman, he declared that my bringing about of the incident had been gratuitous. De Griers smiled contemptuously, and shrugged his shoulders.

      “Do not think THAT,” I put in. “It was not so at all. I grant you that my behaviour was bad — I fully confess that it was so, and make no secret of the fact. I would even go so far as to grant you that my behaviour might well be called stupid and indecent tomfoolery; but, MORE than that it was not. Also, let me tell you that I am very sorry for my conduct. Yet there is one circumstance which, in my eyes, almost absolves me from regret in the matter. Of late — that is to say, for the last two or three weeks — I have been feeling not at all well. That is to say, I have been in a sick, nervous, irritable, fanciful condition, so that I have periodically lost control over myself. For instance, on more than one occasion I have tried to pick a quarrel even with Monsieur le Marquise here; and, under the circumstances, he had no choice but to answer me. In short, I have recently been showing signs of ill-health. Whether the Baroness Burmergelm will take this circumstance into consideration when I come to beg her pardon (for I do intend to make her amends) I do not know; but I doubt if she will, and the less so since, so far as I know, the circumstance is one which, of late, has begun to be abused in the legal world, in that advocates in criminal cases have taken to justifying their clients on the ground that, at the moment of the crime, they (the clients) were unconscious of what they were doing — that, in short, they were out of health. ‘My client committed the murder — that is true; but he has no recollection of having committed it.’ And doctors actually support these advocates by affirming that there really is such a malady — that there really can arise temporary delusions which make a man remember nothing of a given deed, or only a half or a quarter of it! But the Baron and Baroness are members of an older generation, as well as Prussian Junkers and landowners. To them such a process in the medico-judicial world will be unknown, and therefore, they are the more unlikely to accept any such explanation. What is YOUR opinion about it, General?”

      “Enough, sir!” he thundered with barely restrained fury. “Enough, I say! Once and for all I must endeavour to rid myself of you and your impertinence. To justify yourself in the eyes of the Baron and Baroness will be impossible. Any intercourse with you, even though it be confined to a begging of their pardons, they would look upon as a degradation. I may tell you that, on learning that you formed part of, my household, the Baron approached me in the Casino, and demanded of me additional satisfaction. Do you understand, then, what it is that you have entailed upon me — upon ME, my good sir? You have entailed upon me the fact of my being forced to sue humbly to the Baron, and to give him my word of honour that this very СКАЧАТЬ