The mysterious visitor. The Elder Zossima again…

Ivan Kramskoï (1837-1887) - Selfportrait

In a recent article, I started talking about the Elder Zossima. I mentioned his meeting with a "mysterious visitor". Dostoevsky dedicates twenty pages to the account of this meeting. They are a section of the "Notes of the Life or the deceased Priest and Monk, the Elder Zossima, taken from his own words by Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov".

A brief reminder of the background. As a young officer who had become, according to his own words, “a cruel, absurd, almost savage creature”, the future elder⁽¹⁾ became aware of his degradation after provoking a rival to a duel, and then, in his anger, violently hitting his assistant. Overwhelmed by the darkness he discovers in himself, he humbly apologizes to the soldier whom he had struck, and when he meets his opponent in the duel, instead of taking advantage of the first, missed, shot of his rival, he throws away his gun and asks for forgiveness. Finally, he announces his decision to enter a monastery. The rumor of these events spread rapidly, and it is in this context that he meets the mysterious visitor.

If I consider it useful to mention this episode, it is because it illustrates an important spiritual reality, namely that any true experience of God is rooted in a human experience. In other words, the Spirit by whom God speaks to our hearts expresses himself through mediations.

These mediations are numerous and extremely varied. They may come as a powerful word – a word of the Scripture, for example – that pierces the heart. But they may come as well as a tiny event, like the smile of a child or, as I once heard said, a glance that pauses on a small flower pot on a window sill, chasing away in a moment the darkness of despair. In the case aformentioned, it is the story of the uncompleted duel and the accompanying forgiveness that overwhelms the “mysterious visitor” and leads him to conversion.

Here is the storyline of The Mysterious Visitor. At first, he is described as an important man, “in a prominent position, respected by all, rich (…) he was very charitable, too, in secret, a fact which only became known after his death.” He explains why he is coming to visit the young officer: “–‘You are, I see, a man of great strength of character’, he said; ‘as you have dared to serve the truth, even when by doing so you risked incurring the contempt of all’.” And he adds: “–‘Tell me, please (…) what were your exact sensations, if you can recall them, at the moment when you made up your mind to ask forgiveness at the duel’?” And the young Zynovy goes on to tell – what he had still never told to anybody –, how he prostrated himself before his assistant to ask forgiveness, and concludes: “–‘When once I had started on that road, to go farther along it was far from being difficult, but became a source of joy and happiness’.”

In his turn, the visitor shares his deep convictions: “–‘Heaven lies hidden within all of us – here it lies hidden in me now, and if I will it, it will be revealed to me tomorrow and for all time (…) And that we are all responsible to all for all (…) in very truth, so soon as men understand that, the Kingdom of Heaven will be for them not a dream, but a living reality’.”

Even if it is not expressed in a very nuanced manner, this last assertion, typical of Russian spirituality, is a very important aspect in the thinking of Dostoevsky: every human heart shelters a part of evil, and so participates in what darkens the world. Solzhenitsyn expresses the same thing when he writes, in The Gulag Archipelago, that “the battleline between good and evil runs through the heart of every man”.

But let us come back to our mysterious visitor. During their frequent discussions, the young officer began to perceive that his visitor “was brooding over some plan in his heart, and was preparing himself perhaps for a great deed (…) Sometimes an extraordinary agitation would come over him, and almost always on such occasions he would get up and go away.” And, one day, “quite unexpectedly indeed, after he had been talking with great fervor a long time, I saw him suddenly turn pale, and his face worked convulsively, while he stared persistently at me. –‘What’s the matter?’ I said; ‘do you feel ill?’ He had just been complaining of headache. –‘I... do you know... I murdered someone’. He said this and smiled with a face as white as chalk. –‘What are you saying?’ I cried. –‘You see’, he said, with a pale smile, ‘how much it has cost me to say the first word. Now I have said it, I feel I’ve taken the first step and shall go on’.”

 

Ivan Kramskoï (1837-1887) - Portrait of a man

The narrator then describes the circumstances of the murder for which the visitor blamed himself. Mad with passion after having been betrayed by the woman he loved, he made his way to her home one night, and taking advantage of the absence of the servants, he entered her room and planted a dagger in her heart. Then, by an infernal calculation, he arranged it that a servant be accused, arrested and put in prison, where he died in the early days of the trial...

It took time before remorse assailed him, but once it arrived, it was terrible: “He had begun to have awful dreams. But, being a man of fortitude, he bore his suffering a long time, thinking: ‘I shall expiate everything by this secret agony’. But that hope, too, was vain; the longer it went on, the more intense was his suffering”. Then, he began to be pursued by a thought: “He dreamed of rising up, going out and confessing in the face of all men that he had committed murder”. This thought obsessed him for three years, and when he heard of this story of duel and forgiveness he made the decision to accept blame. The visitor then evokes the disaster that his confession would be for his wife and his children… “–‘Go!’ said I, ‘confess. Everything passes, only the truth remains. Your children will understand, when they grow up, the nobility of your resolution’.”

But doubts and hesitations continued for weeks. The visitor came every night, often bitter and showing at times a kind of hatred: “–‘Every time I come to you, you look at me so inquisitively as though to say, ‘He has still not confessed!’ Wait a bit, don’t despise me too much. It’s not such an easy thing to do, as you would think. Perhaps I shall not do it at all. You won’t go and inform against me then, will you?’ (…) –‘I have just come from my wife’, he went on. ‘Do you understand what the word ‘wife’ means? When I went out, the children called to me, ‘Good-by, father, make haste back to read The Children’s Magazine with us’. No, you don’t understand that! No one is wise from another man’s woe’.”

The description of the extraordinary spiritual struggle continues over several pages. One day, Zynovy reads him a verse of the Epistle to the Hebrews: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” The man takes the book and flings it down. “He was trembling all over. –‘An awful text, he said’ (…) He rose from the chair. –‘Well!’ he said, ‘good-by, perhaps I shan’t come again... we shall meet in heaven. So I have been for fourteen years ‘in the hands of the living God’, that’s how one must think of those fourteen years. Tomorrow I will beseech those hands to let me go’.” The visitor goes away, while his host starts praying. In the middle of the night, the man returns, claiming to have forgotten something... a handkerchief... or anything whatever... “He sat down. I stood over him. –‘You sit down, too’, said he. I sat down. We sat still for two minutes; he looked intently at me and suddenly smiled – I remembered that – then he got up, embraced me warmly and kissed me. –‘Remember’, he said, ‘how I came to you a second time. Do you hear, remember it!’ And he went out. ‘Tomorrow’, I thought.”

Indeed, the next day, in front of the numerous guests gathered to celebrate his birthday, the visitor confesses his crime and gives various proofs that incriminate him. All believe that he had become crazy. Actually, a few days later, he falls ill. His wife, together with many others, accuses Zynovy of being responsible for his ‘madness’. But, eventually, she allows him to see her husband.

“–‘It is done!’ he said. ‘I’ve long been yearning to see you, why didn’t you come?’ I did not tell him that they would not let me see him. –‘God has had pity on me and is calling me to Himself. I know I am dying, but I feel joy and peace for the first time after so many years (…) Neither my wife nor the judges, nor any one has believed it. My children will never believe it either. I see in that God’s mercy to them. I shall die, and my name will be without a stain for them’.” Then, he adds: “–‘Do you remember how I came back to you that second time, at midnight? I told you to remember it. You know what I came back for? I came to kill you! (…) I went out from you then into the darkness, I wandered about the streets, struggling with myself. And suddenly I hated you so that I could hardly bear it (…) I hated you as though you were the cause, as though you were to blame for everything (…) The Lord vanquished the devil in my heart. But let me tell you, you were never nearer death’.”

A week later, the visitor dies. After some time, Zynovy is bothered by people who came “and questioned me with great interest and eagerness, for man loves to see the downfall and disgrace of the righteous. But I held my tongue, and very shortly after, I left the town”. Five months later, he entered the monastery where he took the name Zossima. “But I remember in my prayer to this day, the servant of God, Mihail [it is only at the end of the story that we learn the name of the mysterious visitor], who suffered so greatly”.

Besides its intensity, this story makes us, once more, plumb the depths of human consciousness and, if we have faith, contemplate the invisible but powerful action of God who, according to Paul Claudel, “writes straight with crooked lines”.

Fiodor (the other one)

(1) In the Russian original as well as in the French translation, we learn that his name is Zynovy. This name does not appear in the English translation quoted here.

(2) All quotations are from The Brothers Karamazov, translated by Constance Garnett, on Gutenberg project http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28054/28054-0.txt

Church in Suzdal - Picture Véronique Hallereau
vhallereau.net

“You cannot be a judge of anyone." The Elder Zossima, continued

 

Mikhail Nesterov (1862-1942) - The Hermit

“Even five minutes before his death, they said afterwards wonderingly, it was impossible to foresee it. He seemed suddenly to feel an acute pain in his chest, he turned pale and pressed his hands to his heart. All rose from their seats and hastened to him. But though suffering, he still looked at them with a smile, sank slowly from his chair on to his knees, then bowed his face to the ground, stretched out his arms and as though in joyful ecstasy, praying and kissing the ground, quietly and joyfully gave up his soul to God.”(1).

Such was the death of Elder Zossima. But what kind of man was he? What kind of role does he play in the complex composition of The Brothers Karamazov? After all, an entire book – about one-twelfth of the work – is almost entirely dedicated to him. Nevertheless, even if the old monk has a determining influence on the young Alyosha, he does not really participate in the plot of the novel. As Paul Evdokimov points out, Dostoevsky’s spiritual characters (the Elder Zosima in The Brothers Karamazov, or Father Tykhon, in Demons) are present "as icons." They are not actors in the story, but they enlighten it.

The spiritual light he receives from his master is the power that will lead Alyosha throughout the novel. And the sections on this monk form a kind of spiritual biography, written by the disciple, that Dostoevsky integrates into the story, under a significant title: “Notes of the Life of the deceased Priest and Monk, the Elder Zossima, taken from his own words by Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov”.

The old man whom Alexey (Alyosha) has known is a peaceful man, rooted in God, with a bright and comforting look. But it was not always so, as the elder portends in these words: “It’s the great mystery of human life that old grief passes gradually into quiet, tender joy. The mild serenity of age takes the place of the riotous blood of youth. I bless the rising sun each day, and, as before, my hearts sings to meet it, but now I love even more its setting, its long slanting rays and the soft, tender, gentle memories that come with them, the dear images from the whole of my long, happy life — and over all the Divine Truth, softening, reconciling, forgiving!”

The reader then discovers the darker side of the life of Zynovy, the name he bore before entering the monastery. As a young man, he entered the Cadet Corps in St. Petersburg. He remembers how, in military life: “many of my childish impressions grew dimmer (…) I was transformed into a cruel, absurd, almost savage creature. A surface polish of courtesy and society manners I did acquire together with the French language. But we all, myself included, looked upon the soldiers in our service as cattle.”

Ilya Repine (1844-1930) - Ivan the Terrible and his son

This last statement comes to life in an event he describes in detail. He has just incited another soldier to a duel. “In the evening, returning home in a savage and brutal humor, I flew into a rage with my orderly Afanasy, and gave him two blows in the face with all my might, so that it was covered with blood. He had not long been in my service and I had struck him before, but never with such ferocious cruelty.” The next morning, at dawn, he sees the sun rising and hears the birds singing, and he feels in his “heart as it were something vile and shameful.” He suddenly remembers  the event of the previous evening. “It all rose before my mind (…), he stood before me and I was beating him straight on the face and he was holding his arms stiffly down, his head erect, his eyes fixed upon me as though on parade. He staggered at every blow and did not even dare to raise his hands to protect himself. That is what a man has been brought to, and that was a man beating a fellow creature! What a crime! It was as though a sharp dagger had pierced me right through.” Now, a lieutenant, his friend, comes and finds him for the duel... He tells him to wait a moment, rushes to the closet of his orderly: “’Afanasy’, I said, ‘I gave you two blows on the face yesterday, forgive me’, I said. He started as though he were frightened, and looked at me; and I saw that it was not enough, and on the spot, in my full officer’s uniform, I dropped at his feet and bowed my head to the ground. ‘Forgive me’, I said. Then he was completely aghast. ‘Your honor... sir, what are you doing? Am I worth it?’ And he burst out crying as I had done before, hid this face in his hands, turned to the window and shook all over with his sobs.”

Immediately afterward, the one who is going to become the Elder Zossima goes to the scene of the duel. His opponent shoots first and misses. But our man, instead of fighting back, throws away his gun and asks for forgiveness... The reactions are mitigated: the honor of the regiment, etc. But his comrades are completely confused by the fiery words he addresses to them. He announces to them that he is resigning from the regiment in order to enter a monastery. The rumor of the event spreads quickly: he becomes a kind of hero, and many people try to meet or to invite him. It is in this context that he meets a mysterious visitor. But that is another story... to be continued. 

In the meantime, we can underline how much, for Dostoevsky, the experience of humiliation and repentance are crucial in shaping the consciousness of a man. Indeed, Fr Zossima will never forget that his heart was capable of sheltering such a violence: “Though it’s forty years ago, I recall it now with shame and pain”. Shaped by such an experience, he would be able to welcome without judging and to comfort by testifying of God’s mercy. He would not stop teaching his disciples: “Remember particularly that you cannot be a judge of any one.”

Today, we seek to exonerate ourselves from any fault and, if necessary, we make of our deviations standards. Meanwhile, there are a few who find favor in our eyes, and we easily regard a criminal as a "monster". Through deified characters, Dostoevsky reminds us that "the heart of man is complicated and sick"(2) and that we all share a responsibility in evil: “For no one can judge a criminal, until he recognizes that he is just such a criminal as the man standing before him, and that he perhaps is more than all men to blame for that crime (…) Though that sounds absurd, it is true. If I had been righteous myself, perhaps there would have been no criminal standing before me.”

Fiodor (the other one)

(1) All quotations are from The Brothers Karamazov, translated by Constance Garnett, on Gutenberg project http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28054/28054-0.txt

(2) Jeremiah 17, 9.

Gentle and compassionate Sonia

Alexei Alexeievitch Harlamoff (1840-1925) – Girl with a red scarf

At the end of last year – with the figure of Makar Dolgoruky – I opened what could be a gallery of characters from Dostoevsky evoking the deified humanity. It's time to continue, because there is work to be done...

Today, I would like to evoke Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladov, or Sonia, the young woman who is going to lead Raskolnikov, the murderer of Crime and Punishment, on the path of redemption.

Sonia is a young girl with a childish aspect. “She had a thin, very thin, pale little face, rather irregular and angular, with a sharp little nose and chin. She could not have been called pretty, but her blue eyes were so clear, and when they lighted up, there was such a kindliness and simplicity in her expression that one could not help being attracted. Her face, and her whole figure indeed, had another peculiar characteristic. In spite of her eighteen years, she looked almost a little girl, almost a child. And in some of her gestures, this childishness seemed almost absurd” (III, iv) ⁽¹⁾.

Her father, Semyon Zakharytch Marmeladov, a former state employee, inveterate alcoholic fallen into the worst of decays, wastes the scarce resources of his family: his second wife, Katerina Ivanovna and the three children born of this marriage, Polya, Kolya and Lyda. It is to bring to them some money that Sonia is engaged in prostitution. But beyond her sordid everyday life, she preserves a pure heart and she is livened up by a simple but profound Christian faith. Raskolnikov does not manage to understand how she can bear that situation: “What held her up? surely not depravity? All that infamy had obviously only touched her mechanically, not one drop of real depravity had penetrated to her heart…” (IV, iv).

But what impresses most is her strength of mind and her self-abnegation. She gives herself entirely for her loved ones. After the murder, in a bout of fever and frenzy, Raskolnikov mumbles: “Sonia! Poor gentle things, with gentle eyes… Dear women! Why don’t they weep? Why don’t they moan? They give up everything… their eyes are soft and gentle… Sonia, Sonia! Gentle Sonia!” (III, vi).

Sonia cannot imagine that the depreciation on which she agrees for herself can impose upon others. When Rodia Raskolnikov comes to speak about the girl Polya, Sonia’s half-sister, suggesting that she too will be forced into prostitution, she reacts strongly: “– It will be the same with Polenka, no doubt, he said suddenly. – No, no! It can’t be, no! Sonia cried aloud in desperation, as though she had been stabbed. God would not allow anything so awful!” As he does it on several occasions, Dostoevsky introduces – here briefly – doubt and temptation against faith. Rodia answers indeed: “– He lets others come to it. – No, no! God will protect her, God! She repeated beside herself. – But, perhaps, there is no God at all, Raskolnikov answered with a sort of malignance, laughed and looked at her. Sonia’s face suddenly changed; a tremor passed over it. She looked at him with unutterable reproach, tried to say something, but could not speak…” (IV, iv).

Actually, it is faith that allows Sonia to stand firm. Rodia is still unable to understand it, and he looks at her in a condescending and mocking way: “– So you pray God a great deal, Sonia? he asked her. Sonia did not speak; he stood beside her waiting for an answer. – What should I be without God? she whispered rapidly, forcibly, glancing at him with suddenly flashing eyes, and squeezing his hand. ‘Ah, so that is it!’ he thought. – And what does God do for you? he asked, probing her further. Sonia was silent a long while, as though she could not answer. Her weak chest kept heaving with emotion. – Be silent! Don’t ask! You don’t deserve! she cried suddenly, looking sternly and wrathfully at him. ‘That’s it, that’s it’ he repeated to himself. – He does everything, she whispered quickly, looking down again” (IV, iv).

Later, Rodia notices a book lying on the table, a New Testament. Despite Sonia’s reluctance: “– What for? You don’t believe?...”, Raskolnikov insists so that she reads the passage of the raising of Lazarus in the Gospel of John.  With excitement, but inwardly convinced that she had to read: “– He, too, will hear, he, too, will believe, yes, yes! At once, now”, Sonia runs and reads the whole passage. Then: “– That is all about the raising of Lazarus, she whispered severely and abruptly, and turning away she stood motionless, not daring to raise her eyes to him. She still trembled feverishly. The candle-end was flickering out in the battered candlestick, dimly lighting up in the poverty-stricken room the murderer and the harlot who had so strangely been reading together the eternal book” (IV, iv). In a footnote, the translator of the French version rightly points out that, by saying “That is all about the raising of Lazarus”, Sonia means that this chapter of the Gospel story is completed, but also that everything (that is the entire novel, the entire life) is only about one thing: resurrection.

It is indeed to a resurrection that Sonia is going to lead Raskolnikov. It is to her that he will first confess his crime. The reaction of the girl is amazing: “– What have you done, what have you done to yourself? she said in despair, and, jumping up, she flung herself on his neck, threw her arms round him, and held him tightly (...) There is no one, no one in the whole world now so unhappy as you!, she cried…” The path of the redemption opens for Rodia: “A feeling long unfamiliar to him flooded his heart and softened it at once. He did not struggle against it. Two tears started into his eyes and hung on his eyelashes.” (V, iv).

Raskolnikov is still reluctant to surrender to the police, but Sonia has these powerful words: “– Go at once, this very minute, stand at the cross-roads, bow down, first kiss the earth which you have defiled and then bow down to all the world and say to all men aloud, ‘I am a murderer!’ Then God will send you life again.” After much hesitation and questions Rodia is finally ready to give up himself. “– Will you come and see me in prison when I am there? – Oh, I will, I will (...) – Have you a cross on you?, she asked, as though suddenly thinking of it. He did not at first understand the question. No, of course not. Here, take this one (…) Take it... it's mine! It's mine, you know, she begged him. We will go to suffer together, and together we will bear our cross! (…) – Not now, Sonia. Better later, he added to comfort her. – Yes, yes, better, she repeated with conviction, when you go to meet your suffering, then put it on. You will come to me, I'll put it on you, we will pray and go together.” (V, iv).

This dialogue is like a prelude to the genuinely Christlike attitude of Sonia accompanying Rodia in the penal colony, in Siberia. Very concretely, she bears his cross to lead him up to the end of salvation. And remarkably, this attitude produces a saving effect on other convicts: “And when she visited Raskolnikov at work, or met a party of the prisoners on the road, they all took off their hats to her. ‘Little mother Sofya Semyonovna, you are our dear, good little mother’, coarse branded criminals said to that frail little creature. She would smile and bow to them and everyone was delighted when she smiled. (Epilogue, ii).

Rodia himself, who had withdrawn into himself for a long time, is eventually touched by Sonia's love. The last lines of the novel evoke this transformation: “… that is the beginning of a new story, the story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing from one world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life.” (Epilogue, ii). Sonia, the wretched girl, degraded but inhabited by a divine love, has been the instrument of a resurrection. That is all about the raising of Raskolnikov…

Fiodor (the other one…)

(1) All the quotations from Crime and Punishment are from the English translation by Constance Garnett on http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2554/pg2554.txt

The numbers in brackets refer to Part and chapter.

Dostoevsky peering into hearts # 2 - Ardalion Alexandrovitch Ivolgin

Dostoevsky in 1847

I have been absent from the “blogosphere” longer than expected. So, it is time to return to my promise to present some special figures from Dostoevsky’s universe: the marginalized, the humiliated, the rejected, the crazy, the sick.

The man I would like to talk about today is a character in The Idiot, a novel for which I have a special affection. General Ivolgin, to describe him in a few words, is a pathetic old man, mythomaniac, quite a drinker, but in whose heart lies goodness, and that a painful awareness of his decay crosses his mind, at times. The gentle Kolya, his youngest son, torn between shame and tenderness inspired by his father, speaks to Prince Myshkin: “Look at my father, the general! See what he is, and yet, I assure you, he is an honest man! Only... he drinks too much, and his morals are not all we could desire. Yes, that's true! I pity him, to tell the truth, but I dare not say so, because everybody would laugh at me - but I do pity him!”(*). Myshkin, the “idiot”, has quickly realized what kind of man is the general, and he shows patience, respect and kindness towards him.

The reader discovers general Ivolgin’s mythomania through several episodes, some of which generate hilarity mixed with bad conscience. But the narrator – Dostoevsky does not identify him and does not clearly identify himself with him – gives an interesting portrait of the general, in which the members of his family, especially his wife, Nina Alexandrovna, are also mentionned. “... He had (...) experienced fits of sudden fury, but not very often, because he was really a man of peaceful and kindly disposition. He had tried hundreds of times to overcome the dissolute habits which he had contracted of late years. He would suddenly remember that he was “a father”, would be reconciled with his wife, and shed genuine tears. His feeling for Nina Alexandrovna amounted almost to adoration; she had pardoned so much in silence, and loved him still in spite of the state of degradation into which he had fallen. But the general's struggles with his own weakness never lasted very long. He was, in his way, an impetuous man, and a quiet life of repentance in the bosom of his family soon became insupportable to him. In the end he rebelled, and flew into rages which he regretted, perhaps, even as he gave way to them, but which were beyond his control. He picked quarrels with everyone, began to hold forth eloquently, exacted unlimited respect, and at last disappeared from the house, and sometimes did not return for a long time.”

From his first meeting with Myshkin, Ivolgin flounders in the ridiculous excesses of his imagination. As he just moved into his new home, a room rented to the general’s wife, the prince comes face to face with the general, who introduces himself: “General Ivolgin, retired and miserable...” The general asks the prince’s Christian and genreric names. As the prince answers: “Lev Nicolaevitch”, he immediately declares that he is a childhood friend of his father:

“– So, so, the son of my old, I may say my childhood's friend, Nicolai Petrovitch.

– My father's name was Nicolai Lvovitch.

– Lvovitch, repeated the general without the slightest haste, and with perfect confidence, just as though he had not committed himself the least in the world, but merely made a little slip of the tongue. He sat down, and taking the prince's hand, drew him to a seat next to himself.

– I carried you in my arms as a baby, he observed.”

Gradually, the general becomes completely immoderate. As Myshkin tells him that his father died some years ago, Ivolgin questions him about his mother:

“– Your mother...

– She died a few months later, from a cold, said the prince.

– Oh, not a cold – believe an old man – not from a cold, but from grief for her prince. Oh! your mother, your mother! heigh-ho! Youth! youth! Your father and I, old friends as we were, nearly murdered each other for her sake.

The prince began to be a little incredulous.

– I was passionately in love with her when she was engaged, engaged to my friend.”

The general continues in the same vein, when Kolya, sent by his mother, comes and asks him. In the presence of his wife and the prince, Ivolgin goes on worse and worse, inventing a new episode that Myshkin’s father would have witnessed.

“– It did not occur, it's a mistake! said Nina Alexandrovna quickly, looking, at the prince rather anxiously. Mon mari se trompe, she added, speaking in French.

– My dear, se trompe is easily said. Do you remember any case at all like it?”

When the general was gone, his wife spoke to the prince: 

“– You will have to excuse very much in my husband (...), but he will not disturb you often (...) Everyone has his little peculiarities, you know, and some people perhaps have more than those who are most pointed at and laughed at. One thing I must beg of you: if my husband applies to you for payment for board and lodging, tell him that you have already paid me...”

The general, indeed, as the habit of engaging in small trickery, or even petty theft, to pay for his drink.

A few pages later, the general turns ridicule again. He emphatically tells an incident that happened to him during a trip by rail. But a member of the audience declares that she read “absolutely the same story” in a newspaper a few days ago!

“The general blushed dreadfully; Kolia blushed too (...) – I assure you, said the general, that exactly the same thing happened to myself!”

But the climax of the general’s mythomania is reached when he claims, in a passionate speech, having been close to Napoleon, in Moscow, during the Russian campaign. No less than a dozen pages are devoted to this unforgettable episode. At the turn of another fanciful story, the general suggests he was Napoleon’s pageboy.

Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830) The red boy

“– Why, did you say... began the prince, and paused in confusion. The general gazed at his host disdainfully. – Oh, go on, he said, finish your sentence, by all means. Say how odd it appears to you that a man fallen to such a depth of humiliation as I, can ever have been the actual eye-witness of great events.”

And the general gets embarked on a story more and more incredible, that the prince listens politely and even, when it is not too improbable, he kindly approves:

“– All this is most interesting, said the prince, very softly, if it really was so... that is, I mean... he hastened to correct himself.

– Oh, my dear prince, cried the general, who was now so intoxicated with his own narrative that he probably could not have pulled up at the most patent indiscretion...”

And this is what happens: the general tells how, at night, witness of tears of the emperor, he advised him to write a letter to Josephine, and how, when Napoleon left Moscow, he asked him to write something in the album of his little sister, aged three:

“– ... and he wrote in the album: ‘Ne mentez jamais! Napoléon, votre ami sincère.’ [Do never lie! Napoleon, your sincere friend]. Such advice, and at such a moment, you must allow, prince, was...

– Yes, quite so; very remarkable.”

Ivolgin suddenly stops:

“– How I have kept you, prince! It is really most unpardonable of me.The general rose.

“– Oh, not in the least, said the prince. On the contrary, I have been so much interested, I'm really very much obliged to you.

“– Prince, said the general, pressing his hand, and looking at him with flashing eyes, and an expression as though he were under the influence of a sudden thought which had come upon him with stunning force. Prince, you are so kind, so simple-minded, that sometimes I really feel sorry for you! I gaze at you with a feeling of real affection. Oh, Heaven bless you! May your life blossom and fructify in love. Mine is over. Forgive me, forgive me!”

The next day, in complete crisis, the general has left the house and wanders in the street. Kolya tries to reason with him, but the old man is somewhere else:

“– ‘Where is my youth, where is my golden youth?’ Who was it said that, Kolia?

– It was Gogol, in Dead Souls, father, cried Colia, glancing at him in some alarm.”

The general still evokes the past, the suffering he inflicted on his family. Kolya again:

“– Look here, dear old father, come back home! Let's go back to mother(...) Why are you crying, father? Poor Kolia cried himself, and kissed the old man's hands.

– You kiss my hands, mine?

– Yes, yes, yours, yours! What is there to surprise anyone in that? Come, come, you mustn't go on like this, crying in the middle of the road; and you a general too, a military man! Come, let's go back.”

But the general continues to speak in a strange way. On several occasions, probably inhabited by his Napoleonic story, he says: “the King of Rome.” Exhausted, he sits on the steps of a porch and pulls Kolya towards him:

“– Bend down, bend down your ear. I'll tell you all... disgrace... bend down, I'll tell you in your ear.

– What are you dreaming of? said poor, frightened Kolia, stooping down towards the old man, all the same.

– Le roi de Rome, whispered the general, trembling all over.

– What? What do you mean? What roi de Rome?

– I... I..., the general continued to whisper, clinging more and more tightly to the boy's shoulder. I... wish... Kolia broke loose, seized his father by the shoulders, and stared into his eyes with frenzied gaze. The old man had grown livid... his lips were shaking, convulsions were passing over his features. Suddenly he leant over and began to sink slowly into Kolia's arms.

– He's got a stroke! cried Colia, loudly, realizing what was the matter at last.”

And a few days later, the general passes over

The tender and painful affection that Kolya feels for his father, as well as the embarrassed and worried respect showed towards him by the prince, clearly show that kindness, generosity and ideal are hidden behind the lunacy and the eccentricities of the old man. After all, there is in him something of the child, the child he remained because he could not accommodate the adult world and its meanness.

Children love stories – to listen or to tell them –, filling up their memory and their heart of dreams, beauty and life. Dostoevsky wrote somewhere that drunkards are, of all people, “the nicest.” Maybe that the form of madness as evidenced by general Ivolgin belongs also to “nice” persons, dreamers, people wounded by life who think they are Napoleon...

Before pointing the finger or condemning the Ivolgins, the gentle mythomaniacs, let us look at our masks, our hypocrisy, our dishonest compromises with “dirty things” that give the appearance of “decent”.

Fiodor

   

(*) All quotations are from the English version of The Idiot, translated by Eva Martin, e-book on www.gutenberg.org