"Read without any prefaces," Ganya interrupted.
"He's dodging!" somebody added.
"Too much talk," put in Rogozhin, who had been silent the whole time.
Ippolit suddenly looked at him, and when their eyes met, Rogozhin grinned bitterly and sarcastically, and slowly pronounced some strange words:
"That's not how the thing should be handled, man, that's not . . ." * After me the great flood.
What Rogozhin meant to say, no one, of course, understood, but his words made a rather strange impression on them all; it was as if they had all brushed up against a common thought.
But the impression these words made on Ippolit was terrible; he trembled so much that the prince reached out to support him, and he would probably have cried out, if his voice had not suddenly failed him.
For a whole minute he was unable to utter a word and, breathing heavily, stared at Rogozhin.
At last, breathlessly and with great effort he spoke:
"So that . . . that was you . . . you?"
"What?
What about me?"
Rogozhin answered in perplexity, but Ippolit, flushed, and suddenly seized almost by rage, cried sharply and loudly:
"You were in my room last week, at night, past one o'clock, the same day I went to see you in the morning! You!
Admit it was you!"
"Last week, at night?
You must have gone clean out of your mind, man."
The "man" was silent again for a minute, putting his forefinger to his forehead and as if thinking hard; but in his pale smile, still twisted with fear, there suddenly flashed something cunning, as it were, and even triumphant.
"It was you!" he repeated at last, almost in a whisper, but with extraordinary conviction. "You came to my room and sat silently on my chair, by the window, for a whole hour; more; from one till past two in the morning; then you got up and left after two ... It was you, you!
Why you frightened me, why you came to torment me—I don't understand, but it was you!"
And in his eyes there suddenly flashed a boundless hatred, in spite of his frightened trembling, which had still not subsided.
"You'll find out all about it presently, gentlemen, I . . . I . . . listen . . ."
Again, and in terrible haste, he seized his pages; they had spilled and scattered, he tried to gather them up; they trembled in his trembling hands; for a long time he could not settle down.
The reading finally began.
At first, for about five minutes, the author of the unexpected article was still breathless and read dis-jointedly and unevenly; but then his voice grew firm and began to express fully the meaning of what he read.
Only occasionally a very strong cough interrupted him; by the middle of the article his voice became very hoarse; the extraordinary animation that came over him more and more as he read, in the end reached the highest pitch, as did its painful impression on his listeners.
Here is the whole of this "article." My Necessary Explanation
Apres moi le deluge!
Yesterday morning the prince came to see me; incidentally, he talked me into moving to his dacha.
I knew he would certainly insist on that, and I was sure he would blurt right out to me that it would be "easier for me to die among people and trees," as he puts it.
But this time he did not say to die, but said "it would be easier to live," which, however, makes almost no difference for me in my situation.
I asked him what he meant by his incessant "trees," and why he was foisting these "trees" on me—and was surprised to learn from him that I myself supposedly said the other evening that I had come to Pavlovsk to look at the trees for the last time.
When I observed to him that it made no difference whether I died under the trees or looking out the window at my bricks, and that there was no point in making a fuss over two weeks, he agreed at once; but greenery and clean air, in his opinion, are bound to produce some physical change in me, and my agitation and my dreams will change and perhaps become lighter.
I again observed to him laughingly that he spoke like a materialist.
He replied with his smile that he had always been a materialist.
Since he never lies, these words must mean something.
His smile is nice; I've looked at him more attentively now.
I do not know whether I love him or not now; I have no time to bother with that now.
My five-month hatred of him, it should be noted, has begun to abate in this last month.
Who knows, maybe I went to Pavlovsk mainly to see him.
But . . . why did I leave my room then?
A man condemned to death should not leave his corner; and if I had not taken a final decision now, but had decided, on the contrary, to wait till the last hour, then, of course, I would not have left my room for anything and would not have accepted the suggestion of moving out "to die" in his place in Pavlovsk.
I must hurry and finish all this "explanation" by tomorrow without fail.
Which means I will not have time to reread and correct it; I will reread it tomorrow when I read it to the prince and the two or three witnesses I intend to find there.
Since there will not be a single lying word in it, but only the whole truth, ultimate and solemn, I am curious beforehand what sort of impression it will make on me at that hour and that moment when I start to reread it.
However, I need not have written the words "ultimate and solemn truth"; there is no need to lie for the sake of two weeks anyway, because it is not worth living for two weeks; that is the best proof that I will write nothing but the truth. (NB.
Do not forget the thought: am I not mad at this moment, that is, at moments?
I have been told positively that people in the last stages of consumption sometimes lose their minds temporarily.
Check this tomorrow during the reading by the impression made on the listeners.
This question must be resolved with the utmost precision; otherwise it is impossible to set about anything.)