The prince rang the bell, and asked for Nastasia Philipovna. The lady of the
house came out, and stated that Nastasia had gone to stay with Daria Alexeyevna
at Pavlofsk, and might be there some days.
Madame Filisoff was a little woman of forty, with a cunning face, and crafty,
piercing eyes. When, with an air of mystery, she asked her visitor's name, he
refused at first to answer, but in a moment he changed his mind, and left strict
instructions that it should be given to Nastasia Philipovna. The urgency of his
request seemed to impress Madame Filisoff, and she put on a knowing expression,
as if to say, "You need not be afraid, I quite understand." The prince's name
evidently was a great surprise to her. He stood and looked absently at her for a
moment, then turned, and took the road back to his hotel. But he went away not
as he came. A great change had suddenly come over him. He went blindly forward;
his knees shook under him; he was tormented by "ideas"; his lips were blue, and
trembled with a feeble, meaningless smile. His demon was upon him once more.
What had happened to him? Why was his brow clammy with drops of moisture, his
knees shaking beneath him, and his soul oppressed with a cold gloom? Was it
because he had just seen these dreadful eyes again? Why, he had left the Summer
Garden on purpose to see them; that had been his "idea." He had wished to assure
himself that he would see them once more at that house. Then why was he so
overwhelmed now, having seen them as he expected? just as though he had not
expected to see them! Yes, they were the very same eyes; and no doubt about it.
The same that he had seen in the crowd that morning at the station, the same
that he had surprised in Rogojin's rooms some hours later, when the latter had
replied to his inquiry with a sneering laugh, "Well, whose eyes were they?" Then
for the third time they had appeared just as he was getting into the train on
his way to see Aglaya. He had had a strong impulse to rush up to Rogojin, and
repeat his words of the morning "Whose eyes are they?" Instead he had fled from
the station, and knew nothing more, until he found himself gazing into the
window of a cutler's shop, and wondering if a knife with a staghorn handle would
cost more than sixty copecks. And as the prince sat dreaming in the Summer
Garden under a lime-tree, a wicked demon had come and whispered in his car:
"Rogojin has been spying upon you and watching you all the morning in a frenzy
of desperation. When he finds you have not gone to Pavlofsk--a terrible
discovery for him--he will surely go at once to that house in Petersburg Side,
and watch for you there, although only this morning you gave your word of honour
not to see HER, and swore that you had not come to Petersburg for that purpose."
And thereupon the prince had hastened off to that house, and what was there in
the fact that he had met Rogojin there? He had only seen a wretched, suffering
creature, whose state of mind was gloomy and miserable, but most comprehensible.
In the morning Rogojin had seemed to be trying to keep out of the way; but at
the station this afternoon he had stood out, he had concealed himself, indeed,
less than the prince himself; at the house, now, he had stood fifty yards off on
the other side of the road, with folded hands, watching, plainly in view and
apparently desirous of being seen. He had stood there like an accuser, like a
judge, not like a--a what?
And why had not the prince approached him and
spoken to him, instead of turning away and pretending he had seen nothing,
although their eyes met? (Yes, their eyes had met, and they had looked at each
other.) Why, he had himself wished to take Rogojin by the hand and go in
together, he had himself determined to go to him on the morrow and tell him that
he had seen her, he had repudiated the demon as he walked to the house, and his
heart had been full of joy.
Was there something in the whole aspect of the man, today, sufficient to
justify the prince's terror, and the awful suspicions of his demon? Something
seen, but indescribable, which filled him with dreadful presentiments? Yes, he
was convinced of it--convinced of what? (Oh, how mean and hideous of him to feel
this conviction, this presentiment! How he blamed himself for it!) "Speak if you
dare, and tell me, what is the presentiment?" he repeated to himself, over and
over again. "Put it into words, speak out clearly and distinctly. Oh, miserable
coward that I am!" The prince flushed with shame for his own baseness. "How
shall I ever look this man in the face again? My God, what a day! And what a
nightmare, what a nightmare!"
There was a moment, during this long, wretched walk back from the Petersburg
Side, when the prince felt an irresistible desire to go straight to Rogojin's,
wait for him, embrace him with tears of shame and contrition, and tell him of
his distrust, and finish with it--once for all.
How often during the day he had thought of this hotel with loathing--its
corridor, its rooms, its stairs. How he had dreaded coming back to it, for some
reason.
"What a regular old woman I am today," he had said to himself each time, with
annoyance. "I believe in every foolish presentiment that comes into my
head."
He stopped for a moment at the door; a great flush of shame came over him. "I
am a coward, a wretched coward," he said, and moved forward again; but once more
he paused.
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