"No, better not," Rogozhin replied and, taking the prince by the hand, he bent him down onto a chair; he sat down facing him and moved the chair so that his knees almost touched the prince's.
Between them, a little to the side, was a small, round table.
"Sit down, let's sit a while!" he said, as if persuading him to sit down.
They were silent for a minute.
"I just knew you'd stay in that same inn," he began, as people sometimes do, approaching the main conversation by starting with extraneous details, not directly related to the matter. "As soon as I stepped into the corridor, I thought: maybe he's sitting and waiting for me now, like me him, this same minute?
Did you go to the teacher's widow's?"
"I did," the prince could barely speak for the strong pounding of his heart.
"I thought about that, too.
There'll be talk, I thought . . . and then I thought: I'll bring him here to spend the night, so that this night together . . ."
"Rogozhin!
Where is Nastasya Filippovna?" the prince suddenly whispered and stood up, trembling in every limb.
Rogozhin got up, too.
"There," he whispered, nodding towards the curtain.
"Asleep?" whispered the prince.
Again Rogozhin looked at him intently, as earlier.
"Okay, let's go! . . .
Only you . . . Well, let's go!"
He raised the curtain, stopped, and again turned to the prince.
"Come in!" he nodded towards the opening, inviting him to go first.
The prince went in.
"It's dark here," he said.
"You can see!" Rogozhin muttered.
"I can barely see . . . the bed."
"Go closer," Rogozhin suggested quietly.
The prince took one step closer, then another, and stopped.
He stood and peered for a minute or two; neither man said anything all the while they were there by the bed; the prince's heart was pounding so that it seemed audible in the dead silence of the room.
But his eyes were accustomed now, so that he could make out the whole bed; someone was sleeping there, a completely motionless sleep; not the slightest rustle, not the slightest breath could be heard.
The sleeper was covered from head to foot with a white sheet, but the limbs were somehow vaguely outlined; one could only see by the raised form that a person lay stretched out there.
Scattered in disorder on the bed, at its foot, on the chair next to the bed, even on the floor, were the taken-off clothes, a costly white silk dress, flowers, ribbons.
On the little table by the head of the bed, the taken-off and scattered diamonds sparkled.
At the foot of the bed some lace lay crumpled in a heap, and against this white lace, peeping from under the sheet, the tip of a bare foot was outlined; it seemed carved from marble and was terribly still.
The prince looked and felt that the more he looked, the more dead and quiet the room became.
Suddenly an awakened fly buzzed, flew over the bed, and alighted by its head.
The prince gave a start.
"Let's get out," Rogozhin touched his arm.
They went out, sat down again in the same chairs, again facing each other.
The prince was trembling more and more, and did not take his questioning eyes off Rogozhin's face.
"You're trembling, I notice, Lev Nikolaevich," Rogozhin said at last, "almost like when your disorder comes over you, remember, how it was in Moscow?
Or the way it was once before a fit.
And I just can't think what I'm going to do with you now ..."
The prince listened, straining all his powers to understand, and still asking with his eyes.
"It was you?" he finally managed to say, nodding towards the curtain.
"It was . . . me . . ." Rogozhin whispered and looked down.
They were silent for about five minutes.
"Because," Rogozhin suddenly began to go on, as if he had not interrupted his speech, "because if it's your illness, and a fit, and shouting now, somebody may hear it in the street or the courtyard, and they'll figure that people are spending the night in the apartment; they'll start knocking, they'll come in . . . because they all think I'm not home.
I didn't light a candle so they wouldn't suspect that in the street or the courtyard.
Because when I'm not home, I take the key with me, and nobody comes in for three or four days, even to tidy up, that's how I set it up.
Now, so they won't know we're spending the night..."
"Wait," said the prince, "I asked the caretaker and the old woman earlier whether Nastasya Filippovna hadn't spent the night.
So they already know."