at him there in the darkness. He shuddered: that thought which had been striving for expression suddenly came into his head.
He thouqht that if Roqozhin were in Petersburq,
even though he were hiding for a time, he would certainly end by coming to him, Myshkin, with good or with evil intention, as he had done then. Anyway, if Rogozhin did want to see him, there would be nowhere else for him to come but here, to this corridor. He did not know his address, so he might very well suppose that Myshkin would go to the same hotel as before; anyway, he would try looking for him here if he had great need of him. And who knows, perhaps he had great need of him?
So he mused and the idea seemed to him for some reason quite possible.
He could not have explained if he had probed his own thought why he should be suddenly so necessary to Rogozhin, and why it was so impossible that they should not meet. But the thought was an oppressive one. “If he is all right, he will not come,” Myshkin went on thinking; “he is more likely to come if he is unhappy; and he is certain to be unhappy.”
Of course, with that conviction he ought to have remained at home in his room, waiting for Rogozhin; but he seemed unable to remain with this new idea;
he snatched up his hat and went out hurriedly. It was almost dark in the corridor by now. “What if he suddenly comes out of that corner and stops me at the stairs?” flashed through his mind, as he reached the same spot. But no one came out. He passed out at the gate, went out into the street, wondered at the dense crowd of people who had flocked into the streets at sunset (as they always do in Petersburg in summer-time) and turned in the direction of Gorohovy. Fifty paces from the hotel, at the first crossing some one in the crowd suddenly touched his elbow, and in an undertone said in his ear:
“Lyov Nikolayevitch, follow me, brother, I want you.”
It was Rogozhin.
Strange to say, Myshkin began telling him joyfully, gabbling at a great rate and hardly articulating the words, how he had just expected to see him at the hotel in the corridor.
“I’ve been there,” Rogozhin unexpectedly answered. “Come along.”
Myshkin was surprised at his answer, but did not wonder till two minutes later at least, when he realised it. When he reflected on the answer, he was alarmed and began to look intently at Rogozhin, who was walking almost half a step in front of him, looking straight before him, not glancing at anyone they passed, making way for other people with mechanical care.
“Why didn’t you ask for me at my room … if you have been at the hotel?” asked Myshkin suddenly.
Rogozhin stopped, looked at him, thought a little, and as though he did not take in the question, said:
“I say, Lyov Nikolayevitch, you go straight along, here to the house, you know? But I’ll walk on the other side. And mind that we keep together….”
Saying this, he crossed the road to the opposite pavement, stood still to see whether Myshkin were walking on and seeing that he was standing still, gazing at him open-eyed, motioned him towards Gorohovy and walked on turning every moment to look at Myshkin and sign him to follow. He was evidently reassured by Myshkin’s understanding him and followed him on the other side of the pavement. It occurred to Myshkin that Rogozhin wanted to keep a look out, and not let some one pass him on the way, and that therefore he had crossed to the other side, “only why didn’t he say whom he has to look out for?”
So they walked for five hundred paces, and all at once, for some reason, Myshkin began trembling. Rogozhin still kept looking back at him, though not so often. Myshkin could not stand it and beckoned to him. Rogozhin at once crossed the road to him.
“Is Nastasya Filippovna in your house?”
“Yes.”
“And was it you looked at me behind the curtain this morning?”
“Yes.”
“How, was it you? …”
But Myshkin did not know what more to ask or how to finish his question. Moreover, his heart was throbbing so violently that he could scarcely speak. Rogozhin, too, was silent, and he still gazed at him as before, that is, as it were, dreamily.
“Well, I am going,” he said suddenly, preparing to cross the road again, “and you go by yourself. Let us go separately in the street. . . that’s better for us . . . on different sides…. You will see.”
When at last they turned on opposite sides of the road into Gorohovy and began to approach Roqozhin’s house, Mvshkin’s leqs beqan to qive wav under him again, so that it was almost difficult for him to walk. It was about ten o’clock in the evening. The windows in the old lady’s part of the house were still open as before; in Rogozhin’s they were all closed, and in the twilight the white curtains over them seemed still more conspicuous. Myshkin approached the house from the other side of the pavement. Rogozhin from his side of the pavement went straight up the steps and beckoned to him. Myshkin crossed over and joined him.
“The porter doesn’t know that I’ve come home now. I said this morning that I was going to Pavlovsk, and I left word at my mother’s too,” he whispered, with a sly and almost pleased smile. “We’ll go in and no one will hear.”
The key was already in his hand. As he went up the staircase, he turned round and shook his finger at Myshkin to warn him to go up quietly; quietly he opened the door of his rooms, let Myshkin in, followed him in cautiously, closed the door behind him, and put the key in his pocket.
“Come along,” he articulated in a whisper.
He had not spoken above a whisper since they were in Liteyny. In spite of all his outward composure, he was inwardly in a state of intense agitation. When they went into the drawing-room, on their way to the study, he went to the window and mysteriously beckoned to Myshkin.
“When you began ringing here this morning, I guessed at once that it was you. I went on tip-toe to the door and heard you talking to Pafnutyevna. And I gave her orders as soon as it was daylight that if you or anyone from you or anyone whatever began knocking at my door, she wasn’t to say I was here on any account, especially if you yourself came for me, and I gave her your name. And afterwards when you went out, the thought struck me, ‘What if he stands and keeps a look-out and watches in the street.’ I went up to this very window, drew aside the curtain, and there you were, standing looking straight at me.. .. That’s how it happened.”
“Where is . . . Nastasya Filippovna?” Myshkin articulated breathlessly.
“She is . . . here,” Rogozhin brought out slowly, after a moment’s delay.
“Where?”
Rogozhin raised his eyes and looked intently at Myshkin.
“Come along….”
He still talked in a whisper and not hurriedly, but deliberately, and still with the strange dreaminess. Even when he told him about the curtain, he seemed to mean something quite different by his words, in spite of the spontaneousness with which he spoke.
They went into the study. There was some change in the room since Myshkin had been in it last. A heavy green silk curtain that could be drawn at either end hung right across the room, dividing the alcove where Rogozhin’s bed stood from the rest of the apartment. The heavy curtain was closely drawn at both ends. It was very dark in the room. The white nights of the Petersburg summer were beginning to get darker and, had it not been for the full moon, it would have been difficult to make out anything in Rogozhin’s dark rooms with the windows curtained. It is true they could still see each other’s faces, though very indistinctly. Rogozhin’s face was pale as usual; his glittering eyes watched Myshkin intently with a fixed stare.
“You’d better light a candle,” said Myshkin.
“No, no need,” answered Rogozhin, and taking Myshkin’s hand he made him sit down on a chair; he sat opposite, moving his chair up so that he almost touched Myshkin with his knees. Between them, a little to one side, stood a small round table.
“Sit down, let’s stay here a bit,” he said, as though persuading Myshkin to stay. “I seemed to know that you would be staying at that hotel again,” he began, as people sometimes approach an important subject by beginning about quite irrelevant trifles. “As soon as I got into the corridor I thought, what if he is sitting waiting for me, just as I am for him at this very moment? Have you been to the teacher’s widow?”
“Yes,” Myshkin was hardly able to articulate from the violent throbbing of his heart.
“I thought of that, too. There’ll be talk, I thought. . . and then I thought again: I’ll bring him here for the night, so that we may spend this night together.”
“Rogozhin! Where is Nastasya Filippovna?” Myshkin whispered suddenly, and he stood up trembling in every limb. Rogozhin got up, too.
“There,” he whispered, nodding towards the curtain.
“Asleep?” whispered Myshkin.
Aqain Roqozhin looked at him, intentlvas before.
“Well, come along then! . . . Only you . . . well, come along!”
He lifted the curtain, stood still, and turned to Myshkin again.
“Come in,”