‘Can there be an appearance of that which has no form? And yet it seemed to me, at certain moments, that I beheld in some strange and impossible form, that dark, dumb, ir-resistibly powerful, eternal force.
‘I thought someone led me by the hand and showed me, by the light of a candle, a huge, loathsome insect, which he assured me was that very force, that very almighty, dumb, irresistible Power, and laughed at the indignation with which I received this information. In my room they always light the little lamp before my icon for the night; it gives a feeble flicker of light, but it is strong enough to see by dimly, and if you sit just under it you can even read by it. I think it was about twelve or a little past that night. I had not slept a wink, and was lying with my eyes wide open, when sud-denly the door opened, and in came Rogojin.
‘He entered, and shut the door behind him. Then he si-lently gazed at me and went quickly to the corner of the room where the lamp was burning and sat down under-neath it.
‘I was much surprised, and looked at him expectantly. ‘Rogojin only leaned his elbow on the table and silently
stared at me. So passed two or three minutes, and I recol-
lect that his silence hurt and offended me very much. Why did he not speak?
‘That his arrival at this time of night struck me as more or less strange may possibly be the case; but I remember I was by no means amazed at it. On the contrary, though I had not actually told him my thought in the morning, yet I know he understood it; and this thought was of such a char-acter that it would not be anything very remarkable, if one were to come for further talk about it at any hour of night, however late.
‘I thought he must have come for this purpose.
‘In the morning we had parted not the best of friends; I remember he looked at me with disagreeable sarcasm once or twice; and this same look I observed in his eyes now— which was the cause of the annoyance I felt.
‘I did not for a moment suspect that I was delirious and that this Rogojin was but the result of fever and excitement. I had not the slightest idea of such a theory at first.
‘Meanwhile he continued to sit and stare jeeringly at me. ‘I angrily turned round in bed and made up my mind
that I would not say a word unless he did; so I rested silently on my pillow determined to remain dumb, if it were to last till morning. I felt resolved that he should speak first. Prob-ably twenty minutes or so passed in this way. Suddenly the idea struck me—what if this is an apparition and not Rogo-jin himself?
‘Neither during my illness nor at any previous time had I ever seen an apparition;—but I had always thought, both when I was a little boy, and even now, that if I were to see
one I should die on the spot—though I don’t believe in ghosts. And yet NOW, when the idea struck me that this was a ghost and not Rogojin at all, I was not in the least alarmed. Nay—the thought actually irritated me. Strangely enough, the decision of the question as to whether this were a ghost or Rogojin did not, for some reason or other, inter-est me nearly so much as it ought to have done;—I think I began to muse about something altogether different. For instance, I began to wonder why Rogojin, who had been in dressing—gown and slippers when I saw him at home, had now put on a dress-coat and white waistcoat and tie? I also thought to myself, I remember—‘if this is a ghost, and I am not afraid of it, why don’t I approach it and verify my sus-picions? Perhaps I am afraid—‘ And no sooner did this last idea enter my head than an icy blast blew over me; I felt a chill down my backbone and my knees shook.
‘At this very moment, as though divining my thoughts, Rogojin raised his head from his arm and began to part his lips as though he were going to laugh—but he continued to stare at me as persistently as before.
‘I felt so furious with him at this moment that I longed to rush at him; but as I had sworn that he should speak first, I continued to lie still—and the more willingly, as I was still by no means satisfied as to whether it really was Rogojin or not.
‘I cannot remember how long this lasted; I cannot recol-lect, either, whether consciousness forsook me at intervals, or not. But at last Rogojin rose, staring at me as intently as ever, but not smiling any longer,—and walking very softly,
almost on tiptoes, to the door, he opened it, went out, and shut it behind him.
‘I did not rise from my bed, and I don’t know how long I lay with my eyes open, thinking. I don’t know what I thought about, nor how I fell asleep or became insensible; but I awoke next morning after nine o’clock when they knocked at my door. My general orders are that if I don’t open the door and call, by nine o’clock, Matreona is to come and bring my tea. When I now opened the door to her, the thought suddenly struck me—how could he have come in, since the door was locked? I made inquiries and found that Rogojin himself could not possibly have come in, because all our doors were locked for the night.
‘Well, this strange circumstance—which I have described with so much detail—was the ultimate cause which led me to taking my final determination. So that no logic, or logi-cal deductions, had anything to do with my resolve;—it was simply a matter of disgust.
‘It was impossible for me to go on living when life was full of such detestable, strange, tormenting forms. This ghost had humiliated me;—nor could I bear to be subordi-nate to that dark, horrible force which was embodied in the form of the loathsome insect. It was only towards evening, when I had quite made up my mind on this point, that I be-gan to feel easier.
VII
IHAD a small pocket pistol. I had procured it while still a boy, at that droll age when the stories of duels and
highwaymen begin to delight one, and when one imagines oneself nobly standing fire at some future day, in a duel.
‘There were a couple of old bullets in the bag which con-tained the pistol, and powder enough in an old flask for two or three charges.
‘The pistol was a wretched thing, very crooked and wouldn’t carry farther than fifteen paces at the most. How-ever, it would send your skull flying well enough if you pressed the muzzle of it against your temple.
‘I determined to die at Pavlofsk at sunrise, in the park— so as to make no commotion in the house.
‘This ‘explanation’ will make the matter clear enough to the police. Students of psychology, and anyone else who likes, may make what they please of it. I should not like this paper, however, to be made public. I request the prince to keep a copy himself, and to give a copy to Aglaya Ivanov-na Epanchin. This is my last will and testament. As for my skeleton, I bequeath it to the Medical Academy for the ben-efit of science.
‘I recognize no jurisdiction over myself, and I know that I am now beyond the power of laws and judges.
‘A little while ago a very amusing idea struck me. What if
I were now to commit some terrible crime—murder ten fel-low-creatures, for instance, or anything else that is thought most shocking and dreadful in this world—what a dilem-ma my judges would be in, with a criminal who only has a fortnight to live in any case, now that the rack and other forms of torture are abolished! Why, I should die comfort-ably in their own hospital—in a warm, clean room, with an attentive doctor—probably much more comfortably than I should at home.
‘I don’t understand why people in my position do not of-tener indulge in such ideas—if only for a joke! Perhaps they do! Who knows! There are plenty of merry souls among us!
‘But though I do not recognize any jurisdiction over my-self, still I know that I shall be judged, when I am nothing but a voiceless lump of clay; therefore I do not wish to go be-fore I have left a word of reply—the reply of a free man—not one forced to justify himself—oh no! I have no need to ask forgiveness of anyone. I wish to say a word merely because I happen to desire it of my own free will.
‘Here, in the first place, comes a strange thought!
‘Who, in the name of what Law, would think of disput-ing my full personal right over the fortnight of life left to me? What jurisdiction can be brought to bear upon the case? Who would wish me, not only to be sentenced, but to endure the sentence to the end? Surely there exists no man who would wish such a thing—why should anyone desire it? For the sake of morality? Well, I can understand that if I were to make an attempt upon
