they’ll beasking me questions, and I shall say I did it, and then they’ll take meaway, too, don’t you see? So let her lie close to us--close to you andme.
“Yes, yes,” agreed the prince, warmly.
“So we will not say anything about it, or let them take her away?”
“Not for anything!” cried the other; “no, no, no!”
“So I had decided, my friend; not to give her up to anyone,” continuedRogojin. “We’ll be very quiet. I have only been out of the house onehour all day, all the rest of the time I have been with her. I dare saythe air is very bad here. It is so hot. Do you find it bad?”
“I don’t know--perhaps--by morning it will be.”
“I’ve covered her with oilcloth--best American oilcloth, and putthe sheet over that, and four jars of disinfectant, on account of thesmell--as they did at Moscow--you remember? And she’s lying so still;you shall see, in the morning, when it’s light. What! can’t you get up?” asked Rogojin, seeing the other was trembling so that he could not risefrom his seat.
“My legs won’t move,” said the prince; “it’s fear, I know. When my fearis over, I’ll get up--”
“Wait a bit--I’ll make the bed, and you can lie down. I’ll lie down,too, and we’ll listen and watch, for I don’t know yet what I shall do...I tell you beforehand, so that you may be ready in case I--”
Muttering these disconnected words, Rogojin began to make up the beds.It was clear that he had devised these beds long before; last night heslept on the sofa. But there was no room for two on the sofa, and heseemed anxious that he and the prince should be close to one another;therefore, he now dragged cushions of all sizes and shapes from thesofas, and made a sort of bed of them close by the curtain. He thenapproached the prince, and gently helped him to rise, and led himtowards the bed. But the prince could now walk by himself, so that hisfear must have passed; for all that, however, he continued to shudder.
“It’s hot weather, you see,” continued Rogojin, as he lay down on thecushions beside Muishkin, “and, naturally, there will be a smell. Idaren’t open the window. My mother has some beautiful flowers in pots;they have a delicious scent; I thought of fetching them in, but that oldservant will find out, she’s very inquisitive.”
“Yes, she is inquisitive,” assented the prince.
“I thought of buying flowers, and putting them all round her; but I wasafraid it would make us sad to see her with flowers round her.”
“Look here,” said the prince; he was bewildered, and his brain wandered.He seemed to be continually groping for the questions he wished to ask,and then losing them. “Listen--tell me--how did you--with a knife?--Thatsame one?”
“Yes, that same one.”
“Wait a minute, I want to ask you something else, Parfen; all sorts ofthings; but tell me first, did you intend to kill her before my wedding,at the church door, with your knife?”
“I don’t know whether I did or not,” said Rogojin, drily, seeming to bea little astonished at the question, and not quite taking it in.
“Did you never take your knife to Pavlofsk with you?” “No. As to theknife,” he added, “this is all I can tell you about it.” He was silentfor a moment, and then said, “I took it out of the locked drawer thismorning about three, for it was in the early morning all this--happened.It has been inside the book ever since--and--and--this is what is sucha marvel to me, the knife only went in a couple of inches at most, justunder her left breast, and there wasn’t more than half a tablespoonfulof blood altogether, not more.”
“Yes--yes--yes--” The prince jumped up in extraordinary agitation.“I know, I know, I’ve read of that sort of thing--it’s internalhaemorrhage, you know. Sometimes there isn’t a drop--if the blow goesstraight to the heart--”
“Wait--listen!” cried Rogojin, suddenly, starting up. “Somebody’swalking about, do you hear? In the hall.” Both sat up to listen.
“I hear,” said the prince in a whisper, his eyes fixed on Rogojin.
“Footsteps?”
“Yes.”
“Shall we shut the door, and lock it, or not?”
“Yes, lock it.”
They locked the door, and both lay down again. There was a long silence.
“Yes, by-the-by,” whispered the prince, hurriedly and excitedly asbefore, as though he had just seized hold of an idea and was afraid oflosing it again. “I--I wanted those cards! They say you played cardswith her?”
“Yes, I played with her,” said Rogojin, after a short silence.
“Where are the cards?”
“Here they are,” said Rogojin, after a still longer pause.
He pulled out a pack of cards, wrapped in a bit of paper, from hispocket, and handed them to the prince. The latter took them, with a sortof perplexity. A new, sad, helpless feeling weighed on his heart; he hadsuddenly realized that not only at this moment, but for a long while,he had not been saying what he wanted to say, had not been acting as hewanted to act; and that these cards which he held in his hand, and whichhe had been so delighted to have at first, were now of no use--no use...He rose, and wrung his hands. Rogojin lay motionless, and seemed neitherto hear nor see his movements; but his eyes blazed in the darkness, andwere fixed in a wild stare.
The prince sat down on a chair, and watched him in alarm. Half an hourwent by.
Suddenly Rogojin burst into a loud abrupt laugh, as though he had quiteforgotten that they must speak in whispers.
“That officer, eh!--that young officer--don’t you remember that fellowat the band? Eh? Ha, ha, ha! Didn’t she whip him smartly, eh?”
The prince jumped up from his seat in renewed terror. When Rogojinquieted down (which he did at once) the prince bent over him, sat downbeside him, and with painfully beating heart and still more painfulbreath, watched his face intently. Rogojin never turned his head, andseemed to have forgotten all about him. The prince watched and waited.Time went on--it began to grow light.
Rogojin began to wander--muttering disconnectedly; then he took toshouting and laughing. The prince stretched out a trembling hand andgently stroked his hair and his cheeks--he could do nothing more. Hislegs trembled again and he seemed to have lost the use of them. Anew sensation came over him, filling his heart and soul with infiniteanguish.
Meanwhile the daylight grew full and strong; and at last the princelay down, as though overcome by despair, and laid his face against thewhite, motionless face of Rogojin. His tears flowed on to Rogojin’scheek, though he was perhaps not aware of them himself.
At all events when, after many hours, the door was opened and peoplethronged in, they found the murderer unconscious and in a raging fever.The prince was sitting by him, motionless, and each time that the sickman gave a laugh, or a shout, he hastened to pass his own trembling handover his companion’s hair and cheeks, as though trying to soothe andquiet him. But alas! he understood nothing of what was said to him, andrecognized none of those who surrounded him.
If Schneider himself had arrived then and seen his former pupil andpatient, remembering the prince’s condition during the first year inSwitzerland, he would have flung up his hands, despairingly, and cried,as he did then:
“An idiot!”
XII.
When the widow hurried away to Pavlofsk, she went straight to DariaAlexeyevna’s house, and telling all she knew, threw her into a state ofgreat alarm. Both ladies decided to communicate at once with Lebedeff,who, as the friend and landlord of the prince, was also much agitated.Vera Lebedeff told all she knew, and by Lebedeff’s advice it was decidedthat all three should go to Petersburg as quickly as possible, in orderto avert “what might so easily happen.”
This is how it came about that at eleven o’clock next morning Rogojin’sflat was opened by the police in the presence of Lebedeff, the twoladies, and Rogojin’s own brother, who lived in the wing.
The evidence of the porter went further than anything else towards thesuccess of Lebedeff in gaining the assistance of the police. He declaredthat he had seen Rogojin return to
the house last night, accompanied bya friend, and that both had gone upstairs very secretly and cautiously.After this there was no hesitation about breaking open the door, sinceit could not be got open in any other way.
Rogojin suffered from brain fever for two months. When he recovered fromthe attack he was at once brought up on trial for murder.
He gave full, satisfactory, and direct evidence on every point; and theprince’s name was, thanks to this, not brought into the proceedings.Rogojin was very quiet during the progress of the trial. He did notcontradict his clever and eloquent counsel, who argued that the brainfever, or inflammation of the brain, was the cause of the crime;clearly proving that this malady had existed long before the murder wasperpetrated, and had been brought on by the sufferings of the accused.
But Rogojin added no words of his own in confirmation of this view, andas before, he recounted with marvellous exactness the details ofhis crime. He was convicted, but with extenuating circumstances, andcondemned to hard labour in Siberia for fifteen years. He heard hissentence grimly, silently, and thoughtfully. His colossal fortune, withthe exception of the comparatively small
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