And suddenly, quite unexpectedly, he pulled from his upper side pocket a big, official-sized envelope, sealed with a big red seal. He placed it on the table in front of him.

This unexpectedness had an effect on the company, which was unprepared for it, or, better, was prepared, but not for that. Evgeny Pavlovich even jumped in his chair; Ganya quickly moved to the table; Rogozhin did the same, but with a sort of gruff vexation, as if he knew what it was about. Lebedev, who happened to be near by, came closer with his curious little eyes and gazed at the envelope, trying to guess what it was about.

"What have you got there?" the prince asked uneasily.

"With the first little rim of the sun, I'll lie down, Prince, I told you that; on my word of honor: you'll see!" cried Ippolit. "But . . . but . . . can you possibly think I'm not capable of opening this envelope?" he added, passing his gaze over them all with a sort of defiance, and as if addressing them all indiscriminately. The prince noticed that he was trembling all over.

"None of us thinks that," the prince answered for everyone, "and why do you think that anyone has such an idea, and what. . . what has given you this strange idea of reading? What is it you've got there, Ippolit?"

"What is it? Has something happened to him again?" they asked all around. Everyone came closer, some still eating; the envelope with the red seal attracted them all like a magnet.

"I wrote it myself yesterday, right after I gave you my word that I'd come and live with you, Prince. I spent all day yesterday writing it, then last night, and finished it this morning. Last night, towards morning, I had a dream ..."

"Wouldn't it be better tomorrow?" the prince interrupted timidly.

"Tomorrow 'there will be no more time!'"¹³ Ippolit chuckled hysterically. "Don't worry, however, I can read it through in forty minutes . . . well, in an hour . . . And you can see how interested everyone is; everyone came over; everyone is looking at my seal; if I hadn't sealed the article in an envelope, there would have been

no effect! Ha, ha! That's what mysteriousness means! Shall I open it, gentlemen, or not?" he cried, laughing his strange laugh and flashing his eyes. "A mystery! A mystery! And do you remember, Prince, who it was who announced that 'there will be no more time'? A huge and powerful angel in the Apocalypse announces it."

"Better not read it!" Evgeny Pavlovich suddenly exclaimed, but with an air of uneasiness so unexpected in him that many found it strange.

"Don't read it!" the prince, too, cried, putting his hand on the envelope.

"What's this about reading? Right now we're eating," somebody observed.

"An article? For a magazine, or what?" inquired another.

"Maybe it's boring?" added a third.

"What have you got?" inquired the rest. But the prince's frightened gesture seemed to frighten Ippolit himself.

"So ... I shouldn't read it?" he whispered somehow fearfully to the prince, with a crooked smile on his blue lips. "I shouldn't read it?" he murmured, passing his gaze over all the public, all the eyes and faces, and as if again snatching at everything with his former, almost aggressive expansiveness. "Are you . . . afraid?" he turned to the prince again.

"Of what?" the latter asked, changing countenance more and more.

"Does anybody have a twenty-kopeck piece?" Ippolit suddenly jumped up from his chair as if he had been pulled from it. "A coin of any kind?"

"Here!" Lebedev offered at once; the thought flashed in him that the sick Ippolit had gone crazy.

"Vera Lukyanovna!" Ippolit hastily invited, "take it and toss it on the table: heads or tails? Heads I read!"

Vera looked fearfully at the coin, at Ippolit, then at her father, and, somehow awkwardly, her head thrown back, as if convinced that she herself should not look at the coin, tossed it on the table. It came up heads.

"I read!" whispered Ippolit, as if crushed by the decision of fate; he could not have turned more pale if a death sentence had been read to him. "But anyhow," he suddenly gave a start after pausing half a minute, "what is it? Have I just cast the die?" and with the same aggressive frankness he looked at everyone around him. "But this is an astonishing psychological feature!" he suddenly cried,

turning to the prince in genuine amazement. "This . . . this is an inconceivable feature, Prince!" he confirmed, growing animated and as if coming to his senses. "Write this down, Prince, remember it, I believe you collect materials about capital punishment ... so I was told, ha, ha! Oh, God, what senseless absurdity!" He sat down on the sofa, leaned both elbows on the table, and clutched his head with his hands. "It's even shameful! . . . The devil I care if it's shameful," he raised his head almost at once. "Gentlemen! Gentlemen, I am opening the envelope," he announced with a sort of unexpected resolve, "I . . . however, I'm not forcing you to listen! . . ."

His hands trembling with excitement, he opened the envelope, took out several sheets of paper covered with small writing, placed them in front of him, and began smoothing them out.

"But what is it? What have you got there? What are you going to read?" some muttered gloomily; others kept silent. But they all sat down and watched curiously. Perhaps they indeed expected something extraordinary. Vera gripped her father's chair and all but wept from fear; Kolya was almost as frightened. Lebedev, who had already settled down, suddenly got up, seized the candles, and moved them closer to Ippolit, so that there would be enough light to read by.

"Gentlemen, you . . . you'll presently see what it is," Ippolit added for some reason and suddenly began his reading: " 'A Necessary Explanation'! Epigraph: Après moi le deluge* . . . Pah, devil take it!" he cried as if burned. "Could I have seriously set down such a stupid epigraph? . . . Listen, gentlemen! ... I assure you that in the final end this may all be the most terrible trifles! It's just some of my thoughts ... If you think it's . . . something mysterious or . . . forbidden ... in short . . ."

"Read without any prefaces," Ganya interrupted.

"He's dodging!" somebody added.

"Too much talk," put in Rogozhin, who had been silent the whole time.

Ippolit suddenly looked at him, and when their eyes met, Rogozhin grinned bitterly and sarcastically, and slowly pronounced some strange words:

"That's not how the thing should be handled, man, that's not . . ."

* After me the great flood.

What Rogozhin meant to say, no one, of course, understood, but his words made a rather strange impression on them all; it was as if they had all brushed up against a common thought. But the impression these words made on Ippolit was terrible; he trembled so much that the prince reached out to support him, and he would probably have cried out, if his voice had not suddenly failed him. For a whole minute he was unable to utter a word and, breathing heavily, stared at Rogozhin. At last, breathlessly and with great effort he spoke:

"So that . . . that was you . . . you?"

"What? What about me?" Rogozhin answered in perplexity, but Ippolit, flushed, and suddenly seized almost by rage, cried sharply and loudly:

"You were in my room last week, at night, past one o'clock, the same day I went to see you in the morning! You! Admit it was you!"