Page:Dostoevsky - The Idiot, Collected Edition, 1916.djvu/30

but read a sentence of certain death over that same soldier, and he will go out of his mind or burst into tears. Who can tell whether human nature is able to bear this without madness? Why this hideous, useless, unnecessary outrage? Perhaps there is some man who has been sentenced to death, been exposed to this torture and has been told, 'you can go, you are pardoned.' Perhaps such a man could tell us. It was of this torture and of this agony that Christ spoke, too. No you can't treat a man like that!"

Though the footman would not have been able to express himself like Myshkin, he understood most, if not all, of the speech; that was evident from the softened expression of his face.

"If you are so desirous of smoking," he observed, "you might be able to, perhaps, only you would have to make haste about it. For his excellency might ask for you all of a sudden and you wouldn't be here. You see the door under the stair,s go in there and there's a little room on the right; you can smoke there, only you must open the window, for it's against the rules...."

But Myshkin had not time to go and smoke. A young man with papers in his hands suddenly appeared in the anteroom. The footman began helping him off with his coat. The young man looked askance at Myshkin.

"This gentleman, Gavril Ardalionovitch," the footman began, confidentially and almost familiarly, "announces himself as Prince Myshkin and a relation of the mistress; he has just arrived from abroad with the bundle in his hand, only...."

Myshkin could not catch the rest. As the footman began to whisper, Gavril Ardalionovitch listened attentively and looked with great interest at the prince. He ceased listening at last and approached him impatiently.

"You are Prince Myshkin?" he asked with extreme politeness and cordiality.

He was a very good-looking, well-built young man, also about eight-and-twenty, of medium height, with fair hair, a small, Napoleonic beard and a clever and very handsome face. Only his smile, with all its affability, was a trifle too subtle; it displayed teeth too pearl-like and even; in spite of his gaiety and apparent good-nature, there was something too intent and searching in his eyes.

"He must look quite different when he is alone and perhaps he never laughs at all," was what Myshkin felt.

The prince briefly explained all he could, saying almost the