ly. If this marriage were to be broken off again, I admit I should be greatly pleased; but at the same time I have not the slightest intention of trying to part you. You may be quite easy in your mind, and you need not suspect me. You know yourself whether I was ever really your rival or not, even when she ran away and came to me.
‘There, you are laughing at me—I know why you laugh. It is perfectly true that we lived apart from one another all the time, in different towns. I told you before that I did not love her with love, but with pity! You said then that you un-derstood me; did you really understand me or not? What hatred there is in your eyes at this moment! I came to re-lieve your mind, because you are dear to me also. I love you very much, Parfen; and now I shall go away and never come back again. Goodbye.’
The prince rose.
‘Stay a little,’ said Parfen, not leaving his chair and rest-ing his head on his right hand. ‘I haven’t seen you for a long time.’
The prince sat down again. Both were silent for a few mo-ments.
‘When you are not with me I hate you, Lef Nicolaievitch. I have loathed you every day of these three months since I last saw you. By heaven I have!’ said Rogojin.’ I could have poisoned you at any minute. Now, you have been with me but a quarter of an hour, and all my malice seems to have melted away, and you are as dear to me as ever. Stay here a little longer.’
‘When I am with you you trust me; but as soon as my
back is turned you suspect me,’ said the prince, smiling, and trying to hide his emotion.
‘I trust your voice, when I hear you speak. I quite under-stand that you and I cannot be put on a level, of course.’
‘Why did you add that?—There! Now you are cross again,’ said the prince, wondering.
‘We were not asked, you see. We were made different, with different tastes and feelings, without being consulted. You say you love her with pity. I have no pity for her. She hates me— that’s the plain truth of the matter. I dream of her every night, and always that she is laughing at me with another man. And so she does laugh at me. She thinks no more of marrying me than if she were changing her shoe. Would you believe it, I haven’t seen her for five days, and I daren’t go near her. She asks me what I come for, as if she were not content with having disgraced me—‘
‘Disgraced you! How?’
‘Just as though you didn’t know! Why, she ran away from me, and went to you. You admitted it yourself, just now.’
‘But surely you do not believe that she…’
‘That she did not disgrace me at Moscow with that oficer. Zemtuznikoff? I know for certain she did, after having fixed our marriage-day herself!’
‘Impossible!’ cried the prince.
‘I know it for a fact,’ replied Rogojin, with conviction.
‘It is not like her, you say? My friend, that’s absurd. Per-haps such an act would horrify her, if she were with you, but it is quite different where I am concerned. She looks on me as vermin. Her affair with Keller was simply to make a
laughing-stock of me. You don’t know what a fool she made of me in Moscow; and the money I spent over her! The mon-ey! the money!’
‘And you can marry her now, Parfen! What will come of it all?’ said the prince, with dread in his voice.
Rogojin gazed back gloomily, and with a terrible expres-sion in his eyes, but said nothing.
‘I haven’t been to see her for five days,’ he repeated, af-ter a slight pause. ‘I’m afraid of being turned out. She says she’s still her own mistress, and may turn me off altogether, and go abroad. She told me this herself,’ he said, with a pe-culiar glance at Muishkin. ‘I think she often does it merely to frighten me. She is always laughing at me, for some rea-son or other; but at other times she’s angry, and won’t say a word, and that’s what I’m afraid of. I took her a shawl one day, the like of which she might never have seen, although she did live in luxury and she gave it away to her maid, Katia. Sometimes when I can keep away no longer, I steal past the house on the sly, and once I watched at the gate till dawn— I thought something was going on—and she saw me from the window. She asked me what I should do if I found she had deceived me. I said, ‘You know well enough.’’
‘What did she know?’ cried the prince.
‘How was I to tell?’ replied Rogojin, with an angry laugh. ‘I did my best to catch her tripping in Moscow, but did not
succeed. However, I caught hold of her one day, and said: ‘You are engaged to be married into a respectable family, and do you know what sort of a woman you are? THAT’S
the sort of woman you are,’ I said.’
‘You told her that?’ ‘Yes.’
‘Well, go on.’
‘She said, ‘I wouldn’t even have you for a footman now, much less for a husband.’ ‘I shan’t leave the house,’ I said, ‘so it doesn’t matter.’ ‘Then I shall call somebody and have you kicked out,’ she cried. So then I rushed at her, and beat her till she was bruised all over.’
‘Impossible!’ cried the prince, aghast.
‘I tell you it’s true,’ said Rogojin quietly, but with eyes ablaze with passion.
‘Then for a day and a half I neither slept, nor ate, nor drank, and would not leave her. I knelt at her feet: ‘I shall die here,’ I said, ‘if you don’t forgive me; and if you have me turned out, I shall drown myself; because, what should I be without you now?’ She was like a madwoman all that day; now she would cry; now she would threaten me with a knife; now she would abuse me. She called in Zaleshoff and Keller, and showed me to them, shamed me in their presence. ‘Let’s all go to the theatre,’ she says, ‘and leave him here if he won’t go—it’s not my business. They’ll give you some tea, Parfen Semeonovitch, while I am away, for you must be hungry.’ She came back from the theatre alone. ‘Those cowards wouldn’t come,’ she said. ‘They are afraid of you, and tried to frighten me, too. ‘He won’t go away as he came,’ they said, ‘he’ll cut your throat—see if he doesn’t.’ Now, I shall go to my bedroom, and I shall not even lock my door, just to show you how much I am afraid of you. You must be shown that once for all. Did you have tea?’ ‘No,’ I
said, ‘and I don’t intend to.’ ‘Ha, ha! you are playing off your pride against your stomach! That sort of heroism doesn’t sit well on you,’ she said.
‘With that she did as she had said she would; she went to bed, and did not lock her door. In the morning she came out. ‘Are you quite mad?’ she said, sharply. ‘Why, you’ll die of hunger like this.’ ‘Forgive me,’ I said. ‘No, I won’t, and I won’t marry you. I’ve said it. Surely you haven’t sat in this chair all night without sleeping?’ ‘I didn’t sleep,’ I said. ‘H’m! how sensible of you. And are you going to have no break-fast or dinner today?’ ‘I told you I wouldn’t. Forgive me!’
‘You’ve no idea how unbecoming this sort of thing is to you,’ she said, ‘it’s like putting a saddle on a cow’s back. Do you think you are frightening me? My word, what a dreadful thing that you should sit here and eat no food! How terribly frightened I am!’ She wasn’t angry long, and didn’t seem to remember my offence at all. I was surprised, for she is a vin-dictive, resentful woman—but then I thought that perhaps she despised me too much to feel any resentment against me. And that’s the truth.
‘She came up to me and said, ‘Do you know who the Pope of Rome is?’ ‘I’ve heard of him,’ I said. ‘I suppose you’ve read the Universal History, Parfen Semeonovitch, haven’t you?’ she asked. ‘I’ve learned nothing at all,’ I said. ‘Then I’ll lend it to you to read. You must know there was a Roman Pope once, and he was very angry with a certain Emperor; so the Emperor came and neither ate nor drank, but knelt before the Pope’s palace till he should be forgiven. And what sort of vows do you think that Emperor was making during all
those days on his knees? Stop, I’ll read it to you!’ Then she read me a lot of verses, where it said that the Emperor spent all the time vowing vengeance against the Pope. ‘You don’t mean to say you don’t approve of the poem, Parfen Semeo-novitch,’ she says. ‘All you have read out is perfectly true,’ say I. ‘Aha!’ says she, ‘you admit it’s true, do you? And you are making vows to yourself that if I marry you, you will remind me of all this, and take it out of me.’ ‘I don’t know,’ I say, ‘perhaps I was thinking like that, and perhaps I was not. I’m not thinking of anything just now.’ ‘What are your thoughts, then?’ ‘I’m thinking that when you rise from your chair and
