"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."
"I know you asked. I told Pafnutyevna that Nastasya Filippovna came yesterday and left for Pavlovsk yesterday, and that she spent ten minutes at my place. They don't know she spent the night— nobody knows. Yesterday we came in very quietly, like you and me today. I thought to myself on the way that she'd refuse to go in quietly—forget it! She talked in a whisper, walked on tiptoe, gathered her dress up all around her so it wouldn't rustle, and held it with her hands, she shook her finger at me on the stairs—all because she was frightened of you. On the train it was like she was completely crazy, all from fear, and she herself wanted to come here to spend the night; I first thought I'd take her to the teacher's widow's—forget it! 'He'll find me there,' she says, 'at dawn, but you can hide me, and tomorrow morning I'll go to Moscow,' and then she wanted to go to Orel somewhere. And as she was getting ready for bed, she kept saying we'd go to Orel. . ."
"Wait, what about now, Parfyon, what do you want now?"
"See, I just have doubts about you trembling all the time. We'll spend the night here together. There's no other bed here than that
one, so I decided to take the pillows from the two sofas, and I'll arrange them next to each other there, by the curtain, for you and me, so we're together. Because if they come in, they'll start looking and searching, they'll see her at once and take her out. They'll start questioning me, I'll tell them it was me, and they'll take me away at once. So let her lie here now, next to us, next to me and you . . ."
"Yes, yes!" the prince agreed warmly.
"Meaning not to confess or let them take her out."
"N-not for anything!" the prince decided. "No, no, no!"
"That's how I decided, too, so as not to give her up, man, not for anything, not to anybody! We'll spend the night quietly. Today I left the house only for one hour, in the morning, otherwise I was always by her. And then in the evening I went to get you. I'm also afraid it's stuffy and there'll be a smell. Do you notice the smell or not?"
"Maybe I do, I don't know. By morning there will be."
"I covered her with oilcloth, good American oilcloth, and the sheet's on top of the oilcloth, and I put four uncorked bottles of Zhdanov liquid there, they're standing there now."
"It's like there ... in Moscow?"
"Because of the smell, brother. But she's lying there so ... In the morning, when it's light, have a look. What, you can't get up?" Rogozhin asked with timorous surprise, seeing the prince trembling so much that he could not stand up.
"My legs won't work," the prince murmured. "It's from fear, I know it . . . The fear will pass, and I'll get up . . ."
"Wait, I'll make up the bed meanwhile, and then you can lie down . . . and I'll lie down with you . . . and we'll listen . . . because I don't know yet, man ... I don't know everything yet, man, so I'm telling you ahead of time, so you'll know all about it ahead of time ..."
Muttering these vague words, Rogozhin began to make up the beds. It was clear that he had perhaps thought of these beds as early as that morning. He himself had spent the past night lying on the sofa. But two people could not lie on the sofa, and he absolutely wanted to make up beds now side by side, and that was why, with great effort, he now dragged pillows of various sizes from both sofas all the way across the room, right up to the opening in the curtain. The bed got made up anyhow; he went over to the prince, took him tenderly and rapturously by the arm, got him to his feet, and led him to the bed; but it turned out that the prince
could walk by himself; which meant that "the fear was passing"; and yet he still went on trembling.
"Because, brother," Rogozhin began suddenly, laying the prince down on the left, better, pillows and himself stretching out on the right side, without undressing and thrusting both hands behind his head, "it's hot now, and sure to smell . . . I'm afraid to open the windows; but at my mother's there are pots of flowers, a lot of flowers, and they have such a wonderful smell; I thought I might bring them here, but Pafnutyevna would guess, because she's a curious one."
"She's a curious one," agreed the prince.
"We could buy some bouquets and lay flowers all around her? But I think it'd be a pity, friend, to cover her with flowers!"
"Listen . . ." the prince asked, as if in confusion, as if groping for precisely what he had to ask and forgetting it at once, "listen, tell me: what did you use? A knife? That same one?"
"That same one."
"Wait now! I also want to ask you, Parfyon ... I have a lot to ask you, about everything . . . but to begin with, you'd better tell me, from the first beginning, so that I know: did you want to kill her before my wedding, before the ceremony, on the church porch, with the knife? Did you want to or not?"
"I don't know if I wanted to or not..." Rogozhin replied drily, as if he even marveled somewhat at the question and could not comprehend it.
"You never brought the knife to Pavlovsk with you?"
"I never brought it. I can only tell you this about the knife, Lev Nikolaevich," he added, after a pause. "I took it out of the locked drawer this morning, because the whole thing happened this morning, between three and four. I kept it like a bookmark in a book . . . And . . . and this is still a wonder to me: the knife seemed to go in about three inches ... or even three and a half. . . just under the left breast. . . but only about half a tablespoon of blood came out on her nightshirt; no more than that ..."
"That, that, that," the prince suddenly raised himself up in terrible agitation, "that, that I know, that I've read about . . . it's called an internal hemorrhage . . . Sometimes there isn't even a drop. If the blow goes straight to the heart . . ."
"Wait, do you hear?" Rogozhin suddenly interrupted quickly and sat up fearfully on his bed. "Do you hear?"
"No!" the prince said quickly and fearfully, looking at Rogozhin.
"Footsteps! Do you hear? In the big room . . ."
They both began to listen.
"I hear," the prince whispered firmly.
"Footsteps?"
"Footsteps."
"Should we shut the door or not?"
"Shut it..."
They shut the door, and both lay down again. There was a long silence.
"Ah, yes!" the prince suddenly whispered in the same agitated and hurried whisper, as if he had caught the thought again and was terribly afraid of losing it again, even jumping up a little on his bed, "yes ... I wanted . . . those cards! cards . . . They say you played cards with her?"