Lebedev and Du Barry—oh, Lord!
Anyhow, if Rogozhin kills, at least he won't kill in such a disorderly way.
There won't be this chaos.
A tool made to order from a sketch and six people laid out in complete delirium!25 Does Rogozhin have a tool made from a sketch . . . does he have . . . but . . . has it been decided that Rogozhin will kill?! The prince gave a sudden start.
"Isn't it a crime, isn't it mean on my part to make such a supposition with such cynical frankness?" he cried out, and a flush of shame all at once flooded his face.
He was amazed, he stood as if rooted to the road.
He remembered all at once the Pavlovsk station earlier, and the Nikolaevsk station earlier, and his direct question to Rogozhin about the eyes, and Rogozhin's cross that he was now wearing, and the blessing of his mother, to whom Rogozhin himself had brought him, and that last convulsive embrace, Rogozhin's last renunciation earlier on the stairs—and after all that to catch himself constantly searching for something around him, and that shopwindow, and that object. . . what meanness!
And after all that he was now going with a "special goal," with a specific "sudden idea"!
Despair and suffering seized his whole soul.
The prince immediately wanted to go back to his hotel; he even turned around and set off; but a minute later he stopped, pondered, and went back the way he had been going.
Yes, and now he was on the Petersburg side, he was near the house; it was not with the former goal that he was going there now, not with any "special idea"!
And how could it be!
Yes, his illness was coming back, that was unquestionable; the fit might certainly come on him today.
It was from the fit that all this darkness came, from the fit that the "idea" came as well!
Now the darkness was dispersed, the demon was driven away, doubts did not exist, there was joy in his heart!
And—it was so long since he had seen her, he had to see her, and . . . yes, he wished he could meet Rogozhin now, he would take him by the hand, and they would walk together . . . His heart was pure; was he any rival of Rogozhin?
Tomorrow he would go himself and tell Rogozhin he had seen her; had he not flown here, as Rogozhin put it earlier, only in order to see her?
Maybe he would find her at home, it was not certain that she was in Pavlovsk!
Yes, all this had to be clearly set down now, so that they could all clearly read in each other, so that there would be none of these dark and passionate renunciations, like Rogozhin's renunciation earlier, and let it all come about freely and . . . brightly.
Is Rogozhin not capable of brightness?
He says he loves her in a different way, that there is no compassion in him, "no such pity."
True, he added later that "your pity is maybe still worse than my love"—but he was slandering himself.
Hm, Rogozhin over a book—isn't that already "pity," the beginning of "pity"?
Isn't the very presence of this book a proof that he is fully conscious of his relations with her?
And his story today?
No, that's deeper than mere passion.
Does her face inspire mere passion?
And is that face even capable of inspiring passion now?
It inspires suffering, it seizes the whole soul, it . . . and a burning, tormenting memory suddenly passed through the prince's heart.
Yes, tormenting.
He remembered how he had been tormented recently, when for the first time he began to notice signs of insanity in her.
What he experienced then was nearly despair.
And how could he abandon her, when she then ran away from him to Rogozhin?
He ought to have run after her himself, and not waited for news.
But . . . can it be that Rogozhin still hasn't noticed any insanity in her? . . .
Hm . . . Rogozhin sees other reasons for everything, passionate reasons!
And what insane jealousy!
What did he mean to say by his suggestion today? (The prince suddenly blushed and something shook, as it were, in his heart.) Anyhow, why recall it?
There was insanity on both sides here.
And for him, the prince, to love this woman passionately—was almost unthinkable, would almost be cruelty, inhumanity.
Yes, yes!
No, Rogozhin was slandering himself; he has an immense heart, which is capable of passion and compassion.
When he learns the whole truth and when he becomes convinced of what a pathetic creature this deranged, half-witted woman is—won't he then forgive her all the past, all his suffering?
Won't he become her servant, her brother, friend, providence?
Compassion will give meaning and understanding to Rogozhin himself.
Compassion is the chief and perhaps the only law of being for all mankind.
Oh, how unpardonably and dishonorably guilty he was before Rogozhin!
No, it's not that "the Russian soul is murky," but the murkiness was in his own soul, if he could imagine such a horror.
For a few warm and heartfelt words in Moscow, Rogozhin called him brother, while he . . . But this is illness and delirium!
It will all be resolved! . . .