The Idiot

"She's a curious one," agreed the prince.

"We could buy some bouquets and lay flowers all around her? But I think it'd be a pity, friend, to cover her with flowers!"

"Listen . . ." the prince asked, as if in confusion, as if groping for precisely what he had to ask and forgetting it at once, "listen, tell me: what did you use? A knife? That same one?"

"That same one."

"Wait now! I also want to ask you, Parfyon ... I have a lot to ask you, about everything . . . but to begin with, you'd better tell me, from the first begi

"I don't know if I wanted to or not..." Rogozhin replied drily, as if he even marveled somewhat at the question and could not comprehend it.

"You never brought the knife to Pavlovsk with you?"

"I never brought it. I can only tell you this about the knife, Lev Nikolaevich," he added, after a pause. "I took it out of the locked drawer this morning, because the whole thing happened this morning, between three and four. I kept it like a bookmark in a book . . . And . . . and this is still a wonder to me: the knife seemed to go in about three inches ... or even three and a half. . . just under the left breast. . . but only about half a tablespoon of blood came out on her nightshirt; no more than that ..."

"That, that, that," the prince suddenly raised himself up in terrible agitation, "that, that I know, that I've read about . . . it's called an internal hemorrhage . . . Sometimes there isn't even a drop. If the blow goes straight to the heart . . ."

"Wait, do you hear?" Rogozhin suddenly interrupted quickly and sat up fearfully on his bed. "Do you hear?"

"No!" the prince said quickly and fearfully, looking at Rogozhin.

"Footsteps! Do you hear? In the big room . . ."

They both began to listen.

"I hear," the prince whispered firmly.

"Footsteps?"

"Footsteps."

"Should we shut the door or not?"

"Shut it..."

They shut the door, and both lay down again. There was a long silence.

"Ah, yes!" the prince suddenly whispered in the same agitated and hurried whisper, as if he had caught the thought again and was terribly afraid of losing it again, even jumping up a little on his bed, "yes ... I wanted . . . those cards! cards . . . They say you played cards with her?"

"I did," Rogozhin said after some silence.

"Where are . . . the cards?"

"They're here ..." Rogozhin said after a still longer silence, "here . . ."

He pulled a used deck, wrapped in paper, out of his pocket and handed it to the prince. The prince took it, but as if in perplexity. A new, sad, and cheerless feeling weighed on his heart; he suddenly realized that at that moment, and for a long time now, he had not been talking about what he needed to talk about, and had not been doing what he needed to do, and that these cards he was holding in his hands, and which he was so glad to have, would be no help, no help at all now. He stood up and clasped his hands. Rogozhin lay motionless, as if he did not see or hear his movements; but his eyes glittered brightly through the darkness and were completely open and motionless. The prince sat on a chair and began to look at him in fear. About half an hour went by; suddenly Rogozhin cried out loudly and abruptly and began to guffaw, as if forgetting that he had to talk in a whisper:

"That officer, that officer . . . remember how she horsewhipped that officer at the concert, remember, ha, ha, ha! A cadet, too . . . a cadet . . . came ru

The prince jumped up from the chair in new fright. When Rogozhin quieted down (and he did suddenly quiet down), the prince quietly bent over him, sat down beside him, and with a pounding heart, breathing heavily, began to examine him. Rogozhin did not turn his head to him and even seemed to forget about him. The prince watched and waited; time passed, it began

to grow light. Now and then Rogozhin sometimes suddenly began to mutter, loudly, abruptly, and incoherently; began to exclaim and laugh; then the prince would reach out his trembling hand to him and quietly touch his head, his hair, stroke it and stroke his cheeks . . . there was nothing more he could do! He was begi

XII

Conclusion

The teacher's widow, having galloped to Pavlovsk, went straight to Darya Alexeevna, who had been upset since the previous day, and, having told her all she knew, frightened her definitively. The two ladies immediately decided to get in touch with Lebedev, who was also worried in his quality as his tenant's friend and in his quality as owner of the apartment. Vera Lebedev told them everything she knew. On Lebedev's advice, they decided that all three of them should go to Petersburg so as to forestall the more quickly "what might very well happen." And so it came about that the next morning, at about eleven o'clock, Rogozhin's apartment was opened in the presence of the police, Lebedev, the

ladies, and Rogozhin's brother, Semyon Semyonovich Rogozhin, who was quartered in the wing. What contributed most to the success of the affair was the evidence of the caretaker, who had seen Parfyon Semyonovich and his guest going in from the porch and as if on the quiet. After this evidence they did not hesitate to break down the door, which did not open to their ringing.

Rogozhin survived two months of brain fever and, when he recovered—the investigation and the trial. He gave direct, precise, and perfectly satisfactory evidence about everything, as a result of which the prince was eliminated from the case at the very begi