"I'll come tomorrow. Right now I'm going home; will you . . . come with me?"

"Why? I've told you everything. Good-bye."

"You won't come?" the prince asked softly.

"You're a queer one, Lev Nikolaich, you really amaze me."

Rogozhin grinned sarcastically.

"Why? What makes you so spiteful towards me now?" the prince picked up sadly and ardently. "You know now that everything you were thinking was not true. I did think, however, that your spite towards me had still not gone away, and do you know why? Because you raised your hand against me, that's why your spite won't go away. I tell you that I remember only the Parfyon Rogozhin with whom I exchanged crosses that day as a brother; I wrote that to you in my letter yesterday, so that you'd forget to think about all that delirium and not start talking with me about it. Why are you backing away from me? Why are you hiding your hand from me? I tell you, I consider all that happened then as nothing but delirium: all that you went through that day I now know as well as I know my own self. What you were imagining did not and could not exist. Why, then, should our spite exist?"

"What spite could you have!" Rogozhin laughed again in response to the prince's ardent, unexpected speech. He was indeed standing back from him, two steps to the side, and hiding his hands.

"It's not a right thing for me to come to you at all now, Lev Nikolaich," he added in conclusion, slowly and sententiously.

"Do you really hate me so much?"

"I don't like you, Lev Nikolaich, so why should I come to you? Eh, Prince, you're just like some child, you want a toy, you've got to have it right now, but you don't understand what it's about. Everything you're saying now is just like what you wrote in your letter, and do you think I don't believe you? I believe every word of yours, and I know you've never deceived me and never will in the future; but I still don't like you. You write that you've forgotten everything and only remember your brother Rogozhin that you exchanged crosses with, and not the Rogozhin who raised a knife against you that time. But how should you know my feelings?"

(Rogozhin grinned again.) "Maybe I never once repented of it afterwards, and you've gone and sent me your brotherly forgiveness. Maybe that evening I was already thinking about something completely different, and ..."

"Forgot all about it!" the prince picked up. "What else! And I'll bet you went straight to the train that time, and here in Pavlovsk to the music, and watched and searched for her in the crowd just as you did today. Some surprise! But if you hadn't been in such a state then that you could only think of one particular thing, maybe you wouldn't have raised a knife at me. I had a presentiment that morning, as I looked at you; do you know how you were then? When we were exchanging crosses, this thought began to stir in me. Why did you take me to see the old woman then? Did you want to restrain your hand that way? But it can't be that you thought of it, you just sensed it, as I did . . . We sensed it word for word then. If you hadn't raised your hand against me (which God warded off), how would I come out before you now? Since I suspected you of it anyway, our sin is the same, word for word! (And don't make a wry face! Well, and what are you laughing for?) 'I've never repented!' But even if you wanted to, maybe you wouldn't be able to repent, because on top of it all you don't like me. And if I were as innocent as an angel before you, you still wouldn't be able to stand me, as long as you think it's not you but me that she loves. That's jealousy for you. Only I was thinking about it this week, Parfyon, and I'll tell you: do you know that she may now love you most of all, and so much, even, that the more she torments you, the more she loves you? She won't tell you that, but you must be able to see it. Why in the end is she going to marry you all the same? Someday she'll tell you herself. There are women who even want to be loved in that way, and that's precisely her character! And your character and your love had to strike her! Do you know that a woman is capable of torturing a man with her cruelties and mockeries, and will not feel remorse even once, because she thinks to herself each time she looks at you: 'Now I'll torture him to death, but later I'll make up for it with my love . . .'"

Rogozhin, having listened to the prince, burst out laughing.

"And have you happened upon such a woman yourself, Prince? I've heard a little something about you, if it's true!"

"What, what could you have heard?" the prince suddenly shook and stopped in extreme embarrassment.

Rogozhin went on laughing. He had listened to the prince not

without curiosity and perhaps not without pleasure; the prince's joyful and ardent enthusiasm greatly struck and encouraged him.

"I've not only heard it, but I see now that it's true," he added. "Well, when did you ever talk the way you do now? That kind of talk doesn't seem to come from you at all. If I hadn't heard as much about you, I wouldn't have come here; and to the park, at midnight, besides."

"I don't understand you at all, Parfyon Semyonych."

"She explained to me about you long ago, and now today I saw it myself, the way you were sitting at the music with the other one. She swore to me by God, yesterday and today, that you're in love like a tomcat with Aglaya Epanchin. It makes no difference to me, Prince, and it's none of my business: even if you don't love her anymore, she still loves you. You know, she absolutely wants you to marry that girl, she gave me her word on it, heh, heh! She says to me: 'Without that I won't marry you, they go to church, and we go to church.' What it's all about, I can't understand and never could: either she loves you no end, or . . . but if she loves you, why does she want you to marry another woman? She says: 'I want to see him happy'—so that means she loves you."

"I told you and wrote to you that she's . . . not in her right mind," said the prince, having listened to Rogozhin with suffering.

"Lord knows! You may be mistaken about that . . . anyhow, today she set the date for me, when I brought her home from the music: in three weeks, and maybe sooner, she says, we'll certainly get married; she swore to me, took down an icon, kissed it. So, Prince, now it's up to you, heh, heh!"

"That's all raving! What you're saying about me will never, never happen! I'll come to you tomorrow . . ."

"What kind of madwoman is she?" observed Rogozhin. "How is it she's in her right mind for everybody else, and for you alone she's crazy? How is it she writes letters there? If she's a madwoman, it would have been noticed there from her letters."

"What letters?" the prince asked in alarm.

"She writes there, to that one, and she reads them. Don't you know? Well, then you will; she's sure to show you herself."

"That's impossible to believe!" cried the prince.

"Eh, Lev Nikolaich, it must be you haven't gone very far down that path yet, as far as I can see, you're just at the beginning. Wait a while: you'll hire your own police, you'll keep watch yourself day and night, and know every step they make there, if only . . ."

"Drop it and never speak of it again!" cried the prince. "Listen, Parfyon, I was walking here just now before you came and suddenly began to laugh, I didn't know what about, but the reason was that I remembered that tomorrow, as if on purpose, is my birthday. It's nearly midnight now. Let's go and meet the day! I have some wine, we'll drink wine, you must wish me something I myself don't know how to wish for now, and it's precisely you who must wish it, and I'll wish you your fullest happiness. Or else give me back my cross! You didn't send it back to me the next day! You're wearing it? Wearing it even now?"