The Idiot (106 page)

‘Why don’t you light a candle?’ said the prince.

‘No, there’s no need,’ replied Rogozhin and, taking the prince by the arm, bent him down towards a chair; he himself sat opposite, moving his chair up so that it almost touched the prince’s knees. Between them, slightly to one side, was a small round table. ‘Sit down, let’s sit for a while!’ he said, as though trying to persuade the prince not to move. For about a minute they said nothing. ‘I knew you’d be staying at that inn,’ he said, as people sometimes do when proceeding to the main conversation, beginning with irrelevant details that have nothing directly to do with the matter in hand. ‘When I entered that corridor, I thought: perhaps he’s sitting there waiting for me now, just as I’m waiting for him, at this very moment. Did you go to the schoolteacher’s widow?’

‘Yes,’ the prince barely managed to get out, as his heart was pounding violently.

‘I thought about that, too. There’ll be talk, I thought ... and then again I thought: I’ll bring him here for the night, so that this night, together ...’

‘Rogozhin! Where is Nastasya Filippovna?’ the prince whispered suddenly and got up, shaking in every limb. Rogozhin also got up.

‘There,’ he whispered, nodding at the curtain.

‘She is sleeping?’ whispered the prince.

Again Rogozhin gave him a fixed look, as earlier.

‘Oh, come on, then! ... Only, you ... well, come on!’

He raised the curtain a little, stopped and turned back to face the prince.

‘Go in!’ he nodded beyond the curtain, inviting him to pass through. The prince did so.

‘It’s dark here,’ he said.

‘One can see,’ muttered Rogozhin.

‘I can just see ... a bed.’

‘Then go closer,’ Rogozhin suggested quietly.

The prince stepped even closer, one step, another, and came to a halt. He stood taking a good look for a minute or two; all the time that they stood by the bed, neither said anything; the prince’s heart was beating so violently that it seemed one could hear it in the room, in the room’s deathly silence. But by now he had grown accustomed to the dark, and could make out the whole of the bed; someone was asleep on it, in a perfectly motionless slumber; not the slightest rustle was audible, not the slightest breath. The sleeper was covered from the head downward with a white sheet, but the limbs somehow showed through indistinctly; all one could see, from the raised shape, was that a human being lay stretched out there. All around in disorder, on the bed, at its foot, on the armchairs beside it, on the floor, even, clothes that had been taken off were scattered, an extravagant white silk dress, flowers, ribbons. On a small table, by the headboard, diamonds scattered from a removed necklace gleamed. At the foot of the bed, some kind of lace garment had been crumpled into a ball, and on the white lace, peeping out from under the sheet, one could see the tip of a bare foot; it looked as though it had been chiselled from marble and was horribly motionless.
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The prince stared, feeling that the more he stared, the more deathly and quiet the room became. Suddenly a fly that had woken up began to buzz, flew around above the bed and settled down by the headboard. The prince shuddered.

‘Let’s go out,’ Rogozhin touched him on the arm.

They went out, sat down again in the same chairs, again facing each other. The prince was trembling more and more violently, and did not lower his questioning gaze from Rogozhin’s face.

‘I see you are trembling, Lev Nikolayevich,’ Rogozhin said quietly at last, ‘almost as much as you do when you have your disorder, you remember, it happened in Moscow? Or it happened just before a fit. And I can’t think what I would do with you now ...’

The prince listened closely, straining all his powers in order to understand, and still questioning with his gaze.

‘It was you?’ he got out at last, nodding towards the door curtain.

‘It was ... me ...’ Rogozhin whispered, and lowered his eyes.

They said nothing for about five minutes.

‘Because,’ Rogozhin began to continue suddenly, as if he had never broken off, ‘because if you were to have your illness, and a fit, and shrieking, then someone might hear it from the street or the courtyard, and they’d guess that people are spending the night in this apartment; they’d start knocking, they’d come in ... because they all think I’m not at home. I haven’t even lit a candle, so that no one will guess in the street or the courtyard. Because when I’m not here, I take the keys with me, and no one can get in to tidy up for three or four days at a time, that’s how I’ve arranged it. So that as now, no one will find out that we’re
here overnight ...’

‘Wait,’ said the prince, ‘earlier I asked both the yardkeeper and the old woman whether Nastasya Filippovna had spent the night here ... So they must already know.’

‘I know that you asked them. I told Pafnutyevna that Nastasya Filippovna called in yesterday and left for Pavlovsk, also yesterday, staying only ten minutes with me here. They don’t know that she spent the night here - no one does. Last night we entered just as quietly as you and I did today. As we were on the way here I thought she might not come in quietly — not at all! She whispered, walked on tiptoe, gathered her dress up around her so as not to make any rustling, carried the folds in her hands, even wagged her finger at me on the staircase — all because she was afraid of you. On the train she was out of her mind, all because of fear, and wanted to come here to stay the night with me; at first I thought of taking her to the schoolmaster’s widow’s apartment - not at all! “He’ll find me there as soon as it gets light,” she said. “No, you must hide me, and tomorrow we’ll go to Moscow at daybreak,” though then she wanted to go to Oryol for some reason. And she went to bed, still saying we’d go to Oryol ...’

‘Wait; what will you do now, Parfyon, what are your plans?’

‘I’m worried about you, you’re still trembling. We’ll stay the night here, together. There’s only that bed here, so I thought I’d take the cushions off the two sofas, and set them up here beside the curtain, for you and me, so we can be together. Because if they come in, they’ll start looking round or searching, they’ll see her at once and carry her out. They’ll begin to question me, and I’ll tell them it was me, and they’ll take me away immediately. So let her lie here beside us, beside you and me ...’

‘Yes, yes!’ the prince agreed.

‘That means there’ll be no confession and we won’t let them take her out.’

‘N-not on any account!’ the prince decided. ‘No, no, no!’

‘That’s what I’ve decided, not on any account, my lad, and I won’t let anyone have her! We’ll pass the night quietly. I only went out of the house for an hour, this morning, otherwise I’ve been with her all the time. Well, and then I went to get you this evening. The only other thing I’m afraid of is that it’s so hot, and there’ll be a smell. Can you smell anything?’

‘Perhaps, I don’t know. By morning there probably will be a smell.’

‘I’ve covered her with oilcloth, good American oilcloth, and on top of the oilcloth a sheet, and I’ve put four unstoppered bottles of Zhdanov fluid beside her, they stand there now.’

‘Is that what they did ... in Moscow?’

‘Because of the smell, brother. But I mean, the way she lies there ... Towards morning, when it gets light, take a look. What’s the matter, aren’t you even able to stand up?’ asked Rogozhin in anxious surprise, seeing that the prince was trembling so much that he could not get up.

‘My legs are weak,’ the prince muttered. ‘It’s because of fear, I know that ... When the fear passes, I’ll get up ...’

‘No, wait, I’ll make up a bed, and then you can lie down ... and I’ll lie down too ... and I’ll listen ... because, lad, I don’t know yet ... I don’t know everything yet, lad, so I’m telling you in advance, so you know all about it in advance ...’

Muttering these indistinct words, Rogozhin began make up the bed. It was evident that he had thought up this idea of the bed perhaps as early as that morning. During the night now past he had slept on a sofa. It was not possible for two people to lie side by side on a sofa, but he was determined that they should lie side by side, and so now, with great effort, he dragged cushions of various sizes from both sofas the entire length of the room, right to the very entrance to the curtain. Somehow the bed was arranged; he went up to the prince, took him tenderly and rapturously by the hand, brought him to his feet and led him to the bed; but it turned out that the prince was able to walk by himself; so ‘the fear was passing’; and yet he still continued to tremble.

‘Because, brother,’ Rogozhin began suddenly, making the prince lie down on the left and best cushion, and stretching out himself on the right-hand side, without undressing, and putting both hands behind his head, ‘it’s hot now and of course, there’ll be a smell ... I’m afraid to open the windows; but my mother has some pots of flowers, a lot of flowers, and they give off a pleasant smell; I thought of moving them in here, but Pafnutyevna would put two and two together, because she’s inquisitive.’

‘Yes, she is,’ the prince confirmed.

‘Perhaps if I were to buy some, and put bouquets and flowers all round her? But, friend, I think I’ll feel sorry for her, seeing her all covered in flowers!’

‘Listen ...’ said the prince, seeming to grow confused, seeming to search around for just what it was he wanted to ask, and as if at once forgetting again. ‘Listen, tell me, what did you kill her with? That knife? The same one?’

‘The same one.’

‘Wait again! Parfyon, I also want to ask you ... there are many things I want to ask you about, everything ... but you had better tell me first, before anything else, so that I know: were you going to kil
l her before my wedding, before we went to the altar, in the church porch, with the knife? Were you?’

‘I have no idea ...’ Rogozhin replied stiffly, as though he were even somewhat taken aback by the question, and could make no sense of it.

‘You never took the knife to Pavlovsk with you?’

‘I never took it. All I can tell you about that knife is this, Lev Nikolayevich,’ he added, after a silence. ‘I took it out of the locked drawer this morning, because it all happened this morning, between three and four. It was in that book of mine all the time ... And ... and there’s another thing I find strange: the knife only seemed to go in to a depth of three ... or ... maybe four inches ... right under her left breast ... and only about half a tablespoonful of blood flowed out onto her chemise; there was no more than that.’

‘That, that, that,’ the prince suddenly raised himself on one elbow in dreadful agitation, ‘that, that I know, I’ve read that ... it’s called an internal haemorrhage ... Sometimes there’s not even a drop. It’s if the blow goes straight into the heart ...’

‘Wait, do you hear?’ Rogozhin quickly broke in, sitting down on the bedding in fear. ‘Do you hear?’

‘No!’ the prince got out just as quickly, and in just as much fear, staring at Rogozhin.

‘Footsteps! Do you hear? In the hallway ...’

They both began to listen.

‘Yes, I can hear,’ the prince whispered firmly.

‘Footsteps?’

‘Yes, footsteps.’

‘Shall we bolt the door?’

‘Yes...’

They bolted the door, and they both lay down again. For a long time they said nothing.

‘Ah, yes!’ the prince suddenly began to say under his breath, in his earlier agitated and hurried whisper, as though he had regained control of his thought, and was horribly afraid of losing it again, and even leaped up from the bed. ‘Yes ... I mean, I wanted ... those cards! Cards ... They say you used to play cards with her?’

‘I did,’ said Rogozhin after a certain silence.

‘Then where are they ... the cards?’

‘The cards are here ...’ said Rogozhin, after an even longer silence. ‘
Here ...’

He took from his pocket a used pack of cards, wrapped in a piece of paper, and held it out to the prince. The prince took it, but almost in bewilderment. A new, sad and cheerless feeling constricted his heart; he suddenly realized that at that moment, and for a long time now, he had not been saying what he should have been saying, nor doing what he should have been doing, and that these cards he held in his hands, an
d had been so pleased about, could be of no help now. He rose to his feet and threw up his hands. Rogozhin lay motionless, seeming neither to hear nor to see his movement; but his eyes gleamed brightly through the darkness and were completely open and motionless. The prince sat down on a chair and began to stare at him in fear. About half an hour went by; suddenly Rogozhin began to shout and laugh loudly and jerkily, as though he had forgotten that they must talk in whispers:

‘That officer, that officer ... remember how she whipped that officer, at the bandstand, remember, ha-ha-ha! And the cadet ... the cadet ... the cadet darted up ...’

The prince jumped up from his chair in new alarm. When Rogozhin quieted down (and he quieted down suddenly), the prince quietly bent towards him, settled down beside him with violently pounding heart, breathing heavily, and began to study him closely. Rogozhin did not turn his head towards him and even seemed to have forgotten him. The prince watched and waited; time passed, it began to get light, from time to time Rogozhin would suddenly start muttering, loudly, abruptly and incoherently; he began to shout and laugh; then the prince would reach out his trembling hand to him and quietly touch his head, his hair, stroke them and stroke his cheeks ... more than that there was nothing he could do! He himself again began to tremble, and again his legs seemed to give way beneath him. Some completely new sensation tormented his heart with infinite anguish. Meanwhile it had grown completely light; at last, he lay down on the cushion, as though now wholly in the grip of helplessness and despair, and pressed his face against Rogozhin’s pale and motionless face; tears streamed from his eyes on to Rogozhin’s cheeks, but it is possible that by then he no longer felt his own tears and knew nothing of them ...