He snatched the note from his pocket and kissed it, but at once stopped and pondered.
"How strange! How strange!" he said after a moment, even with a sort of sadness: he always felt sad at moments of great joy, he did not know why himself. He looked around intently and was surprised that he had come there. He was very tired, went over to the bench and sat down. It was extremely quiet all around. The music in the vauxhall was over. There was probably no one in the park now; it was certainly at least half-past eleven. The night was quiet, warm, bright—a Petersburg night at the beginning of the month of June—but in the thick, shady park, in the alley where he was, it was almost completely dark.
If anyone had told him at that moment that he had fallen in love, that he was passionately in love, he would have rejected the idea with astonishment and perhaps even with indignation. And if anyone had added that Aglaya's note was a love letter, setting up a lovers' tryst, he would have burned with shame for that man and might have challenged him to a duel. All this was perfectly sincere, and he never once doubted it or allowed for the slightest "second" thought about the possibility of this girl loving him or even the possibility of him loving this girl. The possibility of loving him, "a man like him," he would have considered a monstrous thing. He vaguely thought that it was simply a prank on her part, if there
indeed was anything to it; but he was somehow all too indifferent to the prank itself and found it all too much in the order of things; he himself was concerned and preoccupied with something completely different. He fully believed the words that had escaped the agitated general earlier, that she was laughing at everyone and especially at him, the prince. He had not felt insulted by it in the least; in his opinion, it had to be so. The main thing for him was that tomorrow he would see her again, early in the morning, would sit beside her on the green bench, listen to how a pistol is loaded, and look at her. He needed nothing more. The question of what it was that she intended to tell him, and what the important matter was that concerned him directly, also flashed once or twice in his head. Besides, he had never doubted even for a minute the actual existence of this "important matter" for which he had been summoned, but he almost did not think of this important matter now, to the point that he even did not feel the slightest urge to think about it.
The crunch of quiet steps on the sand of the alley made him raise his head. A man, whose face it was difficult to make out in the darkness, came up to the bench and sat down beside him. The prince quickly moved close to him, almost touching him, and made out the pale face of Rogozhin.
"I just knew you'd be wandering about here somewhere, I didn't have to look long," Rogozhin muttered through his teeth.
It was the first time they had come together since their meeting in the corridor of the inn. Struck by Rogozhin's sudden appearance, the prince was unable to collect his thoughts for some time, and a painful sensation rose again in his heart. Rogozhin evidently understood the impression he had made; but though at first he kept getting confused, spoke as if with the air of a sort of studied casualness, it soon seemed to the prince that there was nothing studied in him and not even any particular embarrassment; if there was any awkwardness in his gestures and conversation, it was only on the outside; in his soul this man could not change.
"How . . . did you find me here?" asked the prince, in order to say something.
"I heard from Keller (I went by your place) that 'he went to the park.' Well, I thought, so there it is."
"There what is?" the prince anxiously picked up the escaped remark.
Rogozhin grinned, but gave no explanation.
"I got your letter, Lev Nikolaich; you don't need all that . . . what do you care! . . . And now I'm coming to you from her:she told me to be sure and invite you; she needs very much to tell you something. She asks you to come tonight."
"I'll come tomorrow. Right now I'm going home; will you . . . come with me?"
"Why? I've told you everything. Good-bye."
"You won't come?" the prince asked softly.
"You're a queer one, Lev Nikolaich, you really amaze me."
Rogozhin grinned sarcastically.
"Why? What makes you so spiteful towards me now?" the prince picked up sadly and ardently. "You know now that everything you were thinking was not true. I did think, however, that your spite towards me had still not gone away, and do you know why? Because you raised your hand against me, that's why your spite won't go away. I tell you that I remember only the Parfyon Rogozhin with whom I exchanged crosses that day as a brother; I wrote that to you in my letter yesterday, so that you'd forget to think about all that delirium and not start talking with me about it. Why are you backing away from me? Why are you hiding your hand from me? I tell you, I consider all that happened then as nothing but delirium: all that you went through that day I now know as well as I know my own self. What you were imagining did not and could not exist. Why, then, should our spite exist?"
"What spite could you have!" Rogozhin laughed again in response to the prince's ardent, unexpected speech. He was indeed standing back from him, two steps to the side, and hiding his hands.
"It's not a right thing for me to come to you at all now, Lev Nikolaich," he added in conclusion, slowly and sententiously.
"Do you really hate me so much?"
"I don't like you, Lev Nikolaich, so why should I come to you? Eh, Prince, you're just like some child, you want a toy, you've got to have it right now, but you don't understand what it's about. Everything you're saying now is just like what you wrote in your letter, and do you think I don't believe you? I believe every word of yours, and I know you've never deceived me and never will in the future; but I still don't like you. You write that you've forgotten everything and only remember your brother Rogozhin that you exchanged crosses with, and not the Rogozhin who raised a knife against you that time. But how should you know my feelings?"
(Rogozhin grinned again.) "Maybe I never once repented of it afterwards, and you've gone and sent me your brotherly forgiveness. Maybe that evening I was already thinking about something completely different, and ..."
"Forgot all about it!" the prince picked up. "What else! And I'll bet you went straight to the train that time, and here in Pavlovsk to the music, and watched and searched for her in the crowd just as you did today. Some surprise! But if you hadn't been in such a state then that you could only think of one particular thing, maybe you wouldn't have raised a knife at me. I had a presentiment that morning, as I looked at you; do you know how you were then? When we were exchanging crosses, this thought began to stir in me. Why did you take me to see the old woman then? Did you want to restrain your hand that way? But it can't be that you thought of it, you just sensed it, as I did . . . We sensed it word for word then. If you hadn't raised your hand against me (which God warded off), how would I come out before you now? Since I suspected you of it anyway, our sin is the same, word for word! (And don't make a wry face! Well, and what are you laughing for?) 'I've never repented!' But even if you wanted to, maybe you wouldn't be able to repent, because on top of it all you don't like me. And if I were as innocent as an angel before you, you still wouldn't be able to stand me, as long as you think it's not you but me that she loves. That's jealousy for you. Only I was thinking about it this week, Parfyon, and I'll tell you: do you know that she may now love you most of all, and so much, even, that the more she torments you, the more she loves you? She won't tell you that, but you must be able to see it. Why in the end is she going to marry you all the same? Someday she'll tell you herself. There are women who even want to be loved in that way, and that's precisely her character! And your character and your love had to strike her! Do you know that a woman is capable of torturing a man with her cruelties and mockeries, and will not feel remorse even once, because she thinks to herself each time she looks at you: 'Now I'll torture him to death, but later I'll make up for it with my love . . .'"