THE IDIOT. Федор Достоевский
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then what and where? He thought he would decide this question once for all in these last three minutes. A little way off there stood a church, and its gilded spire glittered in the sun. He remembered staring stubbornly at this spire, and at the rays of light sparkling from it. He could not tear his eyes from these rays of light; he got the idea that these rays were his new nature, and that in three minutes he would become one of them, amalgamated somehow with them.
“The repugnance to what must ensue almost immediately, and the uncertainty, were dreadful, he said; but worst of all was the idea, ‘What should I do if I were not to die now? What if I were to return to life again? What an eternity of days, and all mine! How I should grudge and count up every minute of it, so as to waste not a single instant!’ He said that this thought weighed so upon him and became such a terrible burden upon his brain that he could not bear it, and wished they would shoot him quickly and have done with it.”
The prince paused and all waited, expecting him to go on again and finish the story.
“Is that all?” asked Aglaya.
“All? Yes,” said the prince, emerging from a momentary reverie.
“And why did you tell us this?”
“Oh, I happened to recall it, that’s all! It fitted into the conversation —”
“You probably wish to deduce, prince,” said Alexandra, “that moments of time cannot be reckoned by money value, and that sometimes five minutes are worth priceless treasures. All this is very praiseworthy; but may I ask about this friend of yours, who told you the terrible experience of his life? He was reprieved, you say; in other words, they did restore to him that ‘eternity of days.’ What did he do with these riches of time? Did he keep careful account of his minutes?”
“Oh no, he didn’t! I asked him myself. He said that he had not lived a bit as he had intended, and had wasted many, and many a minute.”
“Very well, then there’s an experiment, and the thing is proved; one cannot live and count each moment; say what you like, but one CANNOT.”
“That is true,” said the prince, “I have thought so myself. And yet, why shouldn’t one do it?”
“You think, then, that you could live more wisely than other people?” said Aglaya.
“I have had that idea.”
“And you have it still?”
“Yes — I have it still,” the prince replied.
He had contemplated Aglaya until now, with a pleasant though rather timid smile, but as the last words fell from his lips he began to laugh, and looked at her merrily.
“You are not very modest!” said she.
“But how brave you are!” said he. “You are laughing, and I— that man’s tale impressed me so much, that I dreamt of it afterwards; yes, I dreamt of those five minutes . . .”
He looked at his listeners again with that same serious, searching expression.
“You are not angry with me?” he asked suddenly, and with a kind of nervous hurry, although he looked them straight in the face.
“Why should we be angry?” they cried.
“Only because I seem to be giving you a lecture, all the time!”
At this they laughed heartily.
“Please don’t be angry with me,” continued the prince. “I know very well that I have seen less of life than other people, and have less knowledge of it. I must appear to speak strangely sometimes . . .”
He said the last words nervously.
“You say you have been happy, and that proves you have lived, not less, but more than other people. Why make all these excuses?” interrupted Aglaya in a mocking tone of voice. “Besides, you need not mind about lecturing us; you have nothing to boast of. With your quietism, one could live happily for a hundred years at least. One might show you the execution of a felon, or show you one’s little finger. You could draw a moral from either, and be quite satisfied. That sort of existence is easy enough.”
“I can’t understand why you always fly into a temper,” said Mrs. Epanchin, who had been listening to the conversation and examining the faces of the speakers in turn. “I do not understand what you mean. What has your little finger to do with it? The prince talks well, though he is not amusing. He began all right, but now he seems sad.”
“Never mind, mamma! Prince, I wish you had seen an execution,” said Aglaya. “I should like to ask you a question about that, if you had.”
“I have seen an execution,” said the prince.
“You have!” cried Aglaya. “I might have guessed it. That’s a fitting crown to the rest of the story. If you have seen an execution, how can you say you lived happily all the while?”
“But is there capital punishment where you were?” asked Adelaida.
“I saw it at Lyons. Schneider took us there, and as soon as we arrived we came in for that.”
“Well, and did you like it very much? Was it very edifying and instructive?” asked Aglaya.
“No, I didn’t like it at all, and was ill after seeing it; but I confess I stared as though my eyes were fixed to the sight. I could not tear them away.”
“I, too, should have been unable to tear my eyes away,” said Aglaya.
“They do not at all approve of women going to see an execution there. The women who do go are condemned for it afterwards in the newspapers.”
“That is, by contending that it is not a sight for women they admit that it is a sight for men. I congratulate them on the deduction. I suppose you quite agree with them, prince?”
“Tell us about the execution,” put in Adelaida.
“I would much rather not, just now,” said the prince, a little disturbed and frowning slightly;
“ You don’t seem to want to tell us,” said Aglaya, with a mocking air.
“ No,— the thing is, I was telling all about the execution a little while ago, and —”
“Whom did you tell about it?”
“The man-servant, while I was waiting to see the general.”
“Our man-servant?” exclaimed several voices at once.
“Yes, the one who waits in the entrance hall, a greyish, red-faced man —”
“The prince is clearly a democrat,” remarked Aglaya.
“Well, if you could tell Aleksey about it, surely you can tell us too.”
“I do so want to hear about it,” repeated Adelaida.
“Just now, I confess,” began the prince, with more animation, “when you asked me for a subject for a picture, I confess I had serious thoughts of giving you one. I thought of asking you to draw the face of a criminal, one minute before the fall of the guillotine, while the wretched man is still standing on the scaffold, preparatory to placing his neck on the block.”
“What, his face? only his face?” asked Adelaida. “That would be a strange subject indeed. And what sort of a picture would that make?”
“Oh, why not?” the prince insisted, with some warmth. “When I was in Basle I saw a picture very much in that style — I should like to tell you about it; I will some time or other; it struck me very forcibly.”
“Oh, you shall tell us about the Basle picture another time; now we must have all about the execution,” said Adelaida. “Tell us about that face as; it appeared to your imagination-how should it be drawn?— just the face alone, do you mean?”
“It was just a minute before the execution,” began the prince, readily,