he was not allowed. He was followed into his room by several of the guests who had been invited — Ptitsyn, Gavril Ardalionovitch, and the doctor, who, like the others, seemed indisposed to go home. Moreover, the whole house was literally besieged by an idle crowd. From the verandah Myshkin could hear Keller and Lebedyev in angry dispute with some persons who were complete strangers, though they seemed to be of good position, and were bent on entering the verandah at any cost. Myshkin went out to the disputants, inquired what was the matter, and politely waving aside Lebedyev and Keller, he courteously addressed a stout, grey-headed gentleman who was standing on the steps at the head of a group of others, and invited him to honour him with a visit. The gentleman was somewhat disconcerted, but came in all the same, and after him came a second and a third. Out of the whole crowd seven or eight came in, trying to be as much at their ease as possible in doing so. But it turned out that no more were eager to join them, and they soon began censuring those intruders, who sat down, while a conversation sprang up and tea was offered. All this was done very modestly and decorously, to the considerable surprise of the new arrivals. There were, of course, some attempts to enliven the conversation and turn it to the theme lying uppermost in their minds. A few indiscreet questions were asked, a few risky remarks made. Myshkin answered every one so simply and cordially, yet with so much dignity, with such confidence in the good breeding of his guests, that indiscreet questions died away of themselves. Little by little the conversation became almost serious. One gentleman, catching at a word, suddenly swore with intense indignation that he would not sell his property, whatever happened; that on the contrary he would hang on and on and that “enterprise was better than money.”
“There, my dear sir, you have my system of economy, and I don’t mind your knowing it.” As he was addressing Myshkin, the latter warmly commended his intention, though Lebedyev whispered in his ear that this gentleman had neither house nor home, and never had had a property of any kind. Almost an hour passed, tea was finished, and after tea the visitors began to be ashamed to stay longer. The doctor and the grey-headed gentleman took a warm farewell of Myshkin, and they all said good-bye with noisy heartiness. Good wishes were expressed, and the opinion that “it was no use grieving, and that maybe it was all for the best,” and so on. Attempts were made, indeed, to ask for champagne, but the older guests checked the younger ones. When all were gone, Keller bent over to Lebedyev and informed him, “You and I would have made a row, had a fight, disgraced ourselves, have dragged in the police; but he’s made a lot of new friends — and what friends! I know them!” Lebedyev, who was a little “elevated,” sighed, and articulated, “Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.’ I said so about him before, but now I’ll add that God has saved the babe himself from the bottomless pit, He and His saints!”

At last, about half-past ten, Myshkin was left alone. His head was aching. Kolya had helped him change his wedding clothes for his everyday suit, and was the last to leave. They parted very warmly. Kolya did not speak about what had happened, but promised to come early next day. He bore witness afterwards that Myshkin had given him no hint at their last parting, and so concealed his intentions even from him. Soon there was scarcely anyone left in the house. Burdovsky went off to Ippolit’s. Keller and Lebedyev went away too. Only Vera Lebedyev remained for some time in Myshkin’s rooms, hurriedly restoring them to their usual order. As she went out, she glanced at Myshkin. He was sitting with both elbows on the table and his head hidden in his hands. She went softly up to him and touched him on the shoulder. Myshkin looked at her in surprise, and for a minute seemed trying to remember. But recollecting and recognising everything, he suddenly became extremely agitated, though all he did was to beg Vera very earnestly to knock at his door early next morning, at seven o’clock, in time to catch the first train. Vera promised. Myshkin begged her eagerly not to speak of this to anyone. She promised that too, and at last when she opened the door to go Myshkin stopped her for the third time, and took her hands, kissed them, then kissed her on her forehead, and with rather a “peculiar” air, said, “Til to-morrow!” So at least Vera described it afterwards. She went away in great anxiety about him. She felt rather more cheerful in the morning, when at seven o’clock she knocked at his door as agreed and informed him that the train for Petersburg would leave in a quarter of an hour. It seemed to her that he answered her quite in good spirits, and even with a smile. He had hardly undressed that night, though he had slept. He thought he might be back that day. It appeared therefore that he had thought it possible and necessary to tell no one but her at that moment that he was going to town.

Chapter 11

An HOUR later he was already in Petersburg and soon after nine he was ringing at Rogozhin’s door. He went in at the visitors’ entrance and for a long time there was no answer. At last the door of the flat occupied by Rogozhin’s mother was opened and a trim-looking old servant appeared.
“Parfyon Semyonovitch is not at home,” she announced from the door. “Whom do you want?”
“Parfyon Semyonovitch!”
“He is not at home.”
The old servant looked at Myshkin with wild curiosity.
“Tell me, anyway, did he sleep at home last night? And … did he come back alone yesterday?”
The old woman went on looking at him but made no reply.
“Wasn’t Nastasya Filippovna with him here . . . last night?”
“But allow me to ask who may you be pleased to be?”
“Prince Lyov Nikolayevitch Myshkin, we are very intimate friends.”
“He is not at home.”
The woman dropped her eyes.
“And Nastasya Filippovna?”
“I know nothing about that.”
“Stay, stay! When is he coming back?”
“We know nothing of that either.”
The door was closed.
Myshkin determined to come back in an hour’s time. Glancing into the yard he saw the porter.
“Is Parfyon Semyonovitch at home?”
“Yes.”
“How is it I was told just now that he was not at home?”
“Did his servant tell you that?”
“No, the servant at his mother’s. I rang at Parfyon Semyonovitch’s, but there was no answer.”
“Perhaps he’s gone out,” the porter commented.
“You see, he doesn’t say. And sometimes he takes the key away with him; the rooms are locked up for three days at a time.”
“Do you know for a fact that he was at home yesterday?”
“Yes, he was. Sometimes he goes in at the front door and one doesn’t see him.”
“And was Nastasya Filippovna with him yesterday?”
“That I can’t say. She doesn’t often come; I think we should know if she had been.”
Myshkin went out and for some time walked up and down the pavement lost in thought. The windows of the rooms occupied by Rogozhin were all closed; the windows of the part inhabited by his mother were almost all open. It was a hot, bright day. Myshkin crossed to the pavement on the other side of the street and stopped to look once more at the windows. They were not only closed, but almost everywhere hung with white curtains.
He stood still a moment, and strange to say it suddenly seemed to him that the corner of one curtain was lifted and he caught a glimpse of Rogozhin’s face, a momentary glimpse and it vanished. He waited a little longer and resolved to go back and ring again, but on second thought he put it off for one hour. “And who knows perhaps it was only my fancy….”
What decided him was that he was in haste to get to the Izamailovsky Polk, to the lodging Nastasya Filippovna had lately occupied. He knew that when, at his request, she had left Pavlovsk three weeks before, she had settled in the house of a friend of hers, the widow of a teacher, an estimable lady with a family, who let well-furnished rooms, and in fact almost made her living by doing so. It was highly probable that, when Nastasya Filippovna moved for the second time to Pavlovsk, she had kept her lodging; it was very likely in any case that she had spent the night at those lodgings where Rogozhin, of course, would have brought her that evening. Myshkin took a cab. On the way it struck him that he ought to have begun by doing this, because it was unlikely she should have gone at night straight to Rogozhin’s. He remembered the porter’s words that Nastasya Filippovna did not often come. If she did not at any time come often, what would have induced her to stav at Roqozhin’s now? Comfortinq himself with these reflections, Myshkin reached the lodgings at last more dead than alive.
To his great amazement at the widow’s they had heard nothing of Nastasya Filippovna either that day or the day before, but they all ran out to stare at him, as at a wonder. The lady’s numerous family — all girls of every age between seven and