Page 329 - the-idiot

possibility of doubt. He felt that they were not analogous
to the fantastic and unreal dreams due to intoxication by
hashish, opium or wine. Of that he could judge, when the
attack was over. These instants were characterized—to de-
fine it in a word—by an intense quickening of the sense of
personality. Since, in the last conscious moment preceding
the attack, he could say to himself, with full understanding
of his words: ‘I would give my whole life for this one instant,’
then doubtless to him it really was worth a lifetime. For the
rest, he thought the dialectical part of his argument of little
worth; he saw only too clearly that the result of these ecstat-
ic moments was stupefaction, mental darkness, idiocy. No
argument was possible on that point. His conclusion, his
estimate of the ‘moment,’ doubtless contained some error,
yet the reality of the sensation troubled him. What’s more
unanswerable than a fact? And this fact had occurred. The
prince had confessed unreservedly to himself that the feel-
ing of intense beatitude in that crowded moment made the
moment worth a lifetime. ‘I feel then,’ he said one day to
Rogojin in Moscow, ‘I feel then as if I understood those
amazing words—‘There shall be no more time.’’ And he
added with a smile: ‘No doubt the epileptic Mahomet refers
to that same moment when he says that he visited all the
dwellings of Allah, in less time than was needed to empty
his pitcher of water.’ Yes, he had often met Rogojin in Mos-
cow, and many were the subjects they discussed. ‘He told
me I had been a brother to him,’ thought the prince. ‘He
said so today, for the first time.’
He was sitting in the Summer Garden on a seat under a

The Idiot