never noticed before. The man was not a thief, he was even honest, and not all that poor as peasant life goes. But he liked the watch so much and was so tempted by it that he finally couldn't stand it: he pulled out a knife and, while his friend was looking the other way, went up to him cautiously from behind, took aim, raised his eyes to heaven, crossed himself and, after praying bitterly to himself: 'Lord, forgive me for Christ's sake!'—killed his friend with one blow, like a sheep, and took his watch." 20
Rogozhin rocked with laughter. He guffawed as if he was in some sort of fit. It was even strange to look at this laughter coming right after such a gloomy mood.
"Now that I like! No, that's the best yet!" he cried out spasmodically, nearly breathless. "The one doesn't believe in God at all, and the other believes so much that he even stabs people with a prayer . . . No, that, brother Prince, couldn't have been made up! Ha, ha, ha! No, that's the best yet! . . ."
"The next morning I went out for a stroll about town," the prince went on, as soon as Rogozhin paused, though laughter still twitched spasmodically and fitfully on his lips, "and I saw a drunken soldier staggering along the wooden sidewalk, all in tatters. He comes up to me: 'Buy a silver cross, master. I'm asking only twenty kopecks. It's silver!' I see a cross in his hand—he must have just taken it off—on a worn light blue ribbon, only it's a real tin one, you could see it at first glance, big, eight-pointed, of the full Byzantine design. I took out twenty kopecks, gave them to him, and put the cross on at once—and I could see by his face how pleased he was to have duped the foolish gentleman, and he went at once to drink up his cross, there's no doubt of that. Just then, brother, I was under the strongest impression of all that had flooded over me in Russia; before I understood nothing of it, as if I'd grown up a dumb brute, and I had somehow fantastic memories of it during those five years I spent abroad. So I went along and thought: no, I'll wait before condemning this Christ-seller. God knows what's locked away in these drunken and weak hearts. An hour later, going back to my hotel, I ran into a peasant woman with a nursing baby. She was a young woman, and the baby was about six weeks old. And the baby smiled at her, as far as she'd noticed, for the first time since it was born. I saw her suddenly cross herself very, very piously. 'What is it, young woman?' I say. (I was asking questions all the time then.) 'It's just that a mother rejoices,' she says, 'when she notices her baby's first smile, the same as God
rejoices each time he looks down from heaven and sees a sinner standing before him and praying with all his heart.' The woman said that to me, in almost those words, and it was such a deep, such a subtle and truly religious thought, a thought that all at once expressed the whole essence of Christianity, that is, the whole idea of God as our own father, and that God rejoices over man as a father over his own child—the main thought of Christ! A simple peasant woman! True, she's a mother . . . and, who knows, maybe this woman was that soldier's wife. Listen, Parfyon, you asked me earlier, here is my answer: the essence of religious feeling doesn't fit in with any reasoning, with any crimes and trespasses, or with any atheisms; there's something else here that's not that, and it will eternally be not that; there's something in it that atheisms will eternally glance off, and they will eternally be talking not about that.But the main thing is that one can observe it sooner and more clearly in a Russian heart, and that is my conclusion! That is one of the first convictions I've formed about our Russia. There are things to be done, Parfyon! There are things to be done in our Russian world, believe me! Remember, there was a time in Moscow when we used to get together and talk . . . And I didn't want to come back here at all now! And this is not at all, not at all how I thought of meeting you! . . . Well, no matter! . . . Farewell, goodbye! God be with you!"
He turned and went down the stairs.
"Lev Nikolaevich!" Parfyon cried from above, when the prince had reached the first landing. "That cross you bought from the soldier, are you wearing it?"
"Yes."
And the prince stopped again.
"Show me."
Again a new oddity! The prince thought a little, went back up, and showed him the cross without taking it from his neck.
"Give it to me," said Rogozhin.
"Why? Or do you ..."
The prince seemed unwilling to part with this cross.
"I'll wear it, and you can wear mine, I'll give it to you."
"You want to exchange crosses? Very well, Parfyon, if so, I'm glad; we'll be brothers!" 21
The prince took off his tin cross, Parfyon his gold one, and they exchanged them. Parfyon was silent. With painful astonishment the prince noticed that the former mistrust, the former bitter and
almost derisive smile still did not seem to leave the face of his adopted brother—at least it showed very strongly at moments. Finally Rogozhin silently took the prince's hand and stood for a while, as if undecided about something; in the end he suddenly drew the prince after him, saying in a barely audible voice: "Come on." They crossed the first-floor landing and rang at the door facing the one they had just come out of. It was promptly opened. An old woman, all bent over and dressed in black, a kerchief on her head, bowed silently and deeply to Rogozhin. He quickly asked her something and, not waiting for an answer, led the prince further through the rooms. Again there were dark rooms, of some extraordinary, cold cleanness, coldly and severely furnished with old furniture in clean white covers. Without announcing himself, Rogozhin led the prince into a small room that looked like a drawing room, divided by a gleaming mahogany partition with doors at either end, behind which there was probably a bedroom. In the corner of the drawing room, near the stove, in an armchair, sat a little old woman, who did not really look so very old, even had a quite healthy, pleasant, and round face, but was already completely gray-haired and (one could tell at first sight) had fallen into complete senility. She was wearing a black woolen dress, a big black kerchief around her neck, and a clean white cap with black ribbons. Her feet rested on a footstool. Next to her was another clean little old woman, a bit older, also in mourning and also in a white cap, apparently some companion, who was silently knitting a stocking. The two looked as if they were always silent. The first old woman, seeing Rogozhin and the prince, smiled at them and inclined her head affectionately several times as a sign of pleasure.
"Mama," said Rogozhin, kissing her hand, "this is my great friend, Prince Lev Nikolaevich Myshkin; he and I have exchanged crosses; he was like a brother to me in Moscow for a time, and did a lot for me. Bless him, mama, as you would your own son. Wait, old girl, like this, let me put your hand the right way . . ."
But before Parfyon had time to do anything, the old woman raised her right hand, put three fingers together, and piously crossed the prince three times. Then once more she nodded her head gently and tenderly.