"How strange that criminals seldom swoon at such a moment! On the contrary, the brain is especially active, and works incessantly--probably hard, hard, hard--like an engine at full pressure. Iimagine that various thoughts must beat loud and fast through his head--all unfinished ones, and strange, funny thoughts, very likely!--like this, for instance: 'That man is looking at me, and he has a wart on his forehead! and the executioner has burst one of his buttons, and the lowest one is all rusty!' And meanwhile he notices and remembers everything. There is one point that cannot be forgotten, round which everything else dances and turns about; and because of this point he cannot faint, and this lasts until the very final quarter of a second, when the wretched neck is on the block and the victim listens and waits and KNOWS--that's the point, he KNOWS that he is just NOW about to die, and listens for the rasp of the iron over his head. If I lay there, Ishould certainly listen for that grating sound, and hear it, too!
There would probably be but the tenth part of an instant left to hear it in, but one would certainly hear it. And imagine, some people declare that when the head flies off it is CONSCIOUS of having flown off! Just imagine what a thing to realize! Fancy if consciousness were to last for even five seconds!
"Draw the scaffold so that only the top step of the ladder comes in clearly. The criminal must be just stepping on to it, his face as white as note-paper. The priest is holding the cross to his blue lips, and the criminal kisses it, and knows and sees and understands everything. The cross and the head--there's your picture; the priest and the executioner, with his two assistants, and a few heads and eyes below. Those might come in as subordinate accessories--a sort of mist. There's a picture for you." The prince paused, and looked around.
"Certainly that isn't much like quietism," murmured Alexandra, half to herself.
"Now tell us about your love affairs," said Adelaida, after a moment's pause.
The prince gazed at her in amazement.
"You know," Adelaida continued, "you owe us a description of the Basle picture; but first I wish to hear how you fell in love.
Don't deny the fact, for you did, of course. Besides, you stop philosophizing when you are telling about anything.""Why are you ashamed of your stories the moment after you have told them?" asked Aglaya, suddenly.
"How silly you are!" said Mrs. Epanchin, looking indignantly towards the last speaker.
"Yes, that wasn't a clever remark," said Alexandra.
"Don't listen to her, prince," said Mrs. Epanchin; "she says that sort of thing out of mischief. Don't think anything of their nonsense, it means nothing. They love to chaff, but they like you. I can see it in their faces--I know their faces.""I know their faces, too," said the prince, with a peculiar stress on the words.
"How so?" asked Adelaida, with curiosity.
"What do YOU know about our faces?" exclaimed the other two, in chorus.
But the prince was silent and serious. All awaited his reply.
"I'll tell you afterwards," he said quietly.
"Ah, you want to arouse our curiosity!" said Aglaya. "And how terribly solemn you are about it!""Very well," interrupted Adelaida, "then if you can read faces so well, you must have been in love. Come now; I've guessed--let's have the secret!""I have not been in love," said the prince, as quietly and seriously as before. "I have been happy in another way.""How, how?"
"Well, I'll tell you," said the prince, apparently in a deep reverie.
VI.
"Here you all are," began the prince, "settling yourselves down to listen to me with so much curiosity, that if I do not satisfy you you will probably be angry with me. No, no! I'm only joking!" he added, hastily, with a smile.
"Well, then--they were all children there, and I was always among children and only with children. They were the children of the village in which I lived, and they went to the school there--all of them. I did not teach them, oh no; there was a master for that, one Jules Thibaut. I may have taught them some things, but I was among them just as an outsider, and I passed all four years of my life there among them. I wished for nothing better; I used to tell them everything and hid nothing from them. Their fathers and relations were very angry with me, because the children could do nothing without me at last, and used to throng after me at all times. The schoolmaster was my greatest enemy in the end! I had many enemies, and all because of the children. Even Schneider reproached me. What were they afraid of? One can tell a child everything, anything. I have often been struck by the fact that parents know their children so little. They should not conceal so much from them. How well even little children understand that their parents conceal things from them, because they consider them too young to understand! Children are capable of giving advice in the most important matters. How can one deceive these dear little birds, when they look at one so sweetly and confidingly? I call them birds because there is nothing in the world better than birds!
"However, most of the people were angry with me about one and the same thing; but Thibaut simply was jealous of me. At first he had wagged his head and wondered how it was that the children understood what I told them so well, and could not learn from him; and he laughed like anything when I replied that neither he nor I could teach them very much, but that THEY might teach us a good deal.
"How he could hate me and tell scandalous stories about me, living among children as he did, is what I cannot understand.
Children soothe and heal the wounded heart. I remember there was one poor fellow at our professor's who was being treated for madness, and you have no idea what those children did for him, eventually. I don't think he was mad, but only terribly unhappy. But I'll tell you all about him another day. Now I must get on with this story.