"Perhaps you're worrying too much."

"You're amazing, Prince. Don't you believe he's capable now of killing a dozen souls?"

"I'm afraid to answer you; it's all very strange, but . . ."

"Well, as you wish, as you wish!" Evgeny Pavlovich concluded irritably. "Besides, you're such a brave man; only don't get yourself included in that dozen."

"Most likely he won't kill anybody," said the prince, looking pensively at Evgeny Pavlovich.

The man laughed maliciously.

"Good-bye, it's time to go! And did you notice that he bequeathed a copy of his 'Confession' to Aglaya Ivanovna?"

"Yes, I did and . . . I'm thinking about it."

"Do so, in case of those dozen souls," Evgeny Pavlovich laughed again and left.

An hour later, already past three o'clock, the prince went down into the park. He had tried to fall asleep at home, but could not, because of the violent beating of his heart. At home, however, everything was settled and peaceful, as far as possible; the sick boy had fallen asleep, and the doctor had come and had declared that there was no special danger. Lebedev, Kolya, and Burdovsky lay down in the sick boy's room to take turns watching over him; there was therefore nothing to fear.

But the prince's uneasiness was growing minute by minute. He wandered through the park, absentmindedly looking around, and stopped in surprise when he came to the green in front of the vauxhall and saw a row of empty benches and music stands for the orchestra. The place struck him and for some reason seemed terribly ugly. He turned back and straight down the path he had taken to the vauxhall the day before with the Epanchins, which brought him to the green bench appointed to him for the meeting, sat down on it, and suddenly laughed out loud, which at once

made him terribly indignant. His anguish continued; he would have liked to go away somewhere . . . He did not know where. Above him in the tree a little bird was singing, and he started searching for it with his eyes among the leaves; suddenly the bird flew away from the tree, and at that moment for some reason he recalled the "little fly" in a "hot ray of sunlight," of which Ippolit had written that even this fly "knows its place and participates in the general chorus, and he alone was a castaway." This phrase had struck him earlier, and he remembered it now. A long-forgotten memory stirred in him and suddenly became clear all at once.

It was in Switzerland, during the first year of his treatment, even during the first months. He was still quite like an idiot then, could not even speak properly, and sometimes did not understand what was required of him. Once he went into the mountains on a clear, sunny day, and wandered about for a long time with a tormenting thought that refused to take shape. Before him was the shining sky, below him the lake, around him the horizon, bright and infinite, as if it went on forever. For a long time he looked and suffered. He remembered now how he had stretched out his arms to that bright, infinite blue and wept. What had tormented him was that he was a total stranger to it all. What was this banquet, what was this great everlasting feast, to which he had long been drawn, always, ever since childhood, and which he could never join? Every morning the same bright sun rises; every morning there is a rainbow over the waterfall; every evening the highest snowcapped mountain, there, far away, at the edge of the sky, burns with a crimson flame; every "little fly that buzzes near him in a hot ray of sunlight participates in this whole chorus: knows its place, loves it, and is happy"; every little blade of grass grows and is happy! And everything has its path, and everything knows its path, goes with a song and comes back with a song; only he knows nothing, understands nothing, neither people nor sounds, a stranger to everything and a castaway. Oh, of course, he could not speak then with these words and give voice to his question; he suffered blankly and mutely; but now it seemed to him that he had said it all then, all those same words, and that Ippolit had taken the words about the "little fly" from him, from his own words and tears of that time. He was sure of it, and for some reason his heart throbbed at this thought . . .

He dozed off on the bench, but his anxiousness continued in his sleep. Before falling asleep, he remembered that Ippolit would

kill a dozen people, and he smiled at the absurdity of the suggestion. Around him there was a beautiful, serene silence, with only the rustling of leaves, which seemed to make it still more silent and solitary. He had a great many dreams, and all of them anxious, so that he kept shuddering. Finally a woman came to him; he knew her, knew her to the point of suffering; he could have named her and pointed to her any time, but—strangely— she now seemed to have a different face from the one he had always known, and he was painfully reluctant to recognize her as that woman. There was so much repentance and horror in this face that it seemed she was a terrible criminal who had just committed a horrible crime. A tear trembled on her pale cheek; she beckoned to him with her hand and put her finger to her lips, as if cautioning him to follow her more quietly. His heart stood still; not for anything, not for anything did he want to recognize her as a criminal; yet he felt that something horrible was just about to happen, for the whole of his life. It seemed she wanted to show him something, not far away, there in the park. He got up to follow her, and suddenly someone's bright, fresh laughter rang out close by; someone's hand was suddenly in his hand; he grasped this hand, pressed it hard, and woke up. Before him, laughing loudly, stood Aglaya.

VIII

She was laughing, but she was also indignant. "Asleep! You were asleep!" she cried with scornful surprise. "It's you!" murmured the prince, not quite recovered yet and recognizing her with surprise. "Ah, yes! Our meeting ... I was sleeping here."

"So I saw.

"Did no one else wake me up except you? Was there no one here except you? I thought there was . . . another woman here ..."

"There was another woman here?!"

He finally recovered himself completely.

"It was only a dream," he said pensively, "strange, such a dream at such a moment ... Sit down."

He took her by the hand and sat her on the bench; he sat down beside her and fell to thinking. Aglaya did not begin a conversation,

but only studied her interlocutor intently. He also kept glancing at her, but at times it was as if he did not see her before him at all. She was beginning to blush.

"Ah, yes!" the prince gave a start. "Ippolit shot himself!"

"When? At your place?" she said, but with no great surprise. "Yesterday evening, I believe, he was still alive? How could you fall asleep here after all that?" she cried with unexpected animation.

"But he didn't die, the pistol didn't fire."

At Aglaya's insistence the prince had to retell right then, and even in great detail, the whole story of the past night. She kept hurrying him as he told it, yet she herself interrupted him continually with questions, almost all of them beside the point. Among other things, she listened with great curiosity to what Evgeny Pavlovich had said, and several times even asked the prince to repeat it.

"Well, enough, we must hurry," she concluded, having heard it all, "we can only stay here for an hour, till eight o'clock, because at eight o'clock I must be at home without fail, so they won't know I've been sitting here, and I've come on business; I have a lot to tell you. Only you've got me all thrown off now. About Ippolit, I think his pistol was bound not to fire, it's more suited to him. But are you sure he really wanted to shoot himself and there was no deception in it?"