The Idiot

"Hm! . . . The courts. The courts, it's true, there's the courts. And do the courts there judge more fairly or not?"

"I don't know. I've heard a lot of good about ours. Then, again, we have no capital punishment."14

"And they have it there?"

"Yes. I saw it in France, in Lyons. Schneider took me there with him."

"By hanging?"

"No, in France they always cut their heads off."

"And what, do they scream?"

"Hardly! It's instantaneous. The man is laid down, and a broad knife drops, it's a special machine called the guillotine, heavy, powerful... The head bounces off before you can blink an eye. The preparations are the bad part. When they read out the sentence, get everything ready, tie him up, lead him to the scaffold, then it's terrible! People gather, even women, though they don't like it when women watch."

"It's not their business."

"Of course not! Of course not! Such suffering! . . . The criminal was an intelligent man, fearless, strong, mature, his name was Legros. And I tell you, believe it or not, he wept as he climbed the scaffold, he was white as paper. Is it possible? Isn't it terrible? Do people weep from fear? I never thought it was possible for a man who has never wept, for a man of forty-five, not a child, to weep from fear! What happens at that moment with the soul, what convulsions is it driven to? It's an outrage on the soul, and nothing more! It's said, 'Do not kill.' So he killed, and then they kill him? No, that's impossible. I saw it a month ago, and it's as if it were still there before my eyes. I've dreamed about it five times."

The prince even grew animated as he spoke, a slight flush came to his pale face, though his speech was as quiet as before. The valet watched him with sympathetic interest and seemed unwilling to

tear himself away; perhaps he, too, was a man with imagination and an inclination to thinking.

"It's a good thing there's not much suffering," he observed, "when the head flies off."

"You know what?" the prince picked up hotly. "You've just observed that, and everybody makes the same observation as you, and this machine, the guillotine, was invented for that. But a thought occurred to me then: what if it's even worse? To you it seems ridiculous, to you it seems wild, but with some imagination even a thought like that can pop into your head. Think: if there's torture, for instance, then there's suffering, wounds, bodily pain, and it means that all that distracts you from i

The valet, though of course he could not have expressed it all

like the prince, nevertheless understood, if not all, at least the main thing, as could be seen by his softened expression.

"If you have such a wish to smoke," he said, "it might be possible, if you do it quickly. Because he may ask for you suddenly, and you won't be here. There, under the stairway, you see, there's a door. As you go through the door, there's a little room to the right: you can smoke there, only open the vent window, because it's against the rules . . ."

But the prince had no time to go and smoke. A young man suddenly came into the anteroom with papers in his hands. The valet began to help him out of his fur coat. The young man cocked an eye at the prince.

"Gavrila Ardalionych," the valet began confidentially and almost familiarly, "this gentleman here presents himself as Prince Myshkin and the lady's relation, come by train from abroad with a bundle in his hands, only . . ."

The prince did not hear the rest, because the valet started whispering. Gavrila Ardalionovich listened attentively and kept glancing at the prince with great curiosity. Finally he stopped listening and approached him impatiently.

"You are Prince Myshkin?" he asked extremely amiably and politely. He was a very handsome young man, also of about twenty-eight, a trim blond, of above average height, with a small imperial, and an intelligent and very handsome face. Only his smile, for all its amiability, was somewhat too subtle; it revealed his somewhat too pearly and even teeth; his gaze, for all its cheerfulness and ostensible simple-heartedness, was somewhat too intent and searching.

"When he's alone he probably doesn't look that way, and maybe never laughs," the prince somehow felt.

The prince explained all he could, hurriedly, almost in the same way as he had explained to the valet earlier, and to Rogozhin earlier still. Gavrila Ardalionovich meanwhile seemed to be recalling something.

"Was it you," he asked, "who sent a letter to Elizaveta Prokofyevna about a year ago, from Switzerland, I believe?"

"Exactly so."

"In that case they know you here and certainly remember. You wish to see his excellency? I'll a

"I tell you, he didn't want to . . ."

At that moment the door of the office suddenly opened and some military man with a portfolio in his hand came through it, speaking loudly and bowing his way out.

"Are you there, Ganya?" a voice called from the office. "Come in, please!"

Gavrila Ardalionovich nodded to the prince and hastily went into the office.

About two minutes later the door opened again and the affable voice of Gavrila Ardalionovich rang out:

"Please come in, Prince!"

III

General Ivan Fyodorovich Epanchin was standing in the middle of his office, looking with extreme curiosity at the entering prince, and even took two steps towards him. The prince approached and introduced himself.