He had absently taken up the knife a second time, and again Rogojin
snatched it from his hand, and threw it down on the table. It was a plain
looking knife, with a bone handle, a blade about eight inches long, and
broad in proportion, it did not clasp.
Seeing that the prince was considerably struck by the fact that he had
twice seized this knife out of his hand, Rogojin caught it up with some
irritation, put it inside the book, and threw the latter across to another table.
“Do you cut your pages with it, or what?” asked Muishkin, still rather
absently, as though unable to throw off a deep preoccupation into which the
conversation had thrown him.
“Yes.”
“It’s a garden knife, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Can’t one cut pages with a garden knife?”
“It’s quite new.”
“Well, what of that? Can’t I buy a new knife if I like?” shouted Rogojin
furiously, his irritation growing with every word.
The prince shuddered, and gazed fixedly at Parfen. Suddenly he burst out
laughing.
“Why, what an idea!” he said. “I didn’t mean to ask you any of these
questions; I was thinking of something quite different! But my head is
heavy, and I seem so absent-minded nowadays! Well, good-bye—I can’t
remember what I wanted to say—good-bye!”
“Not that way,” said Rogojin.
“There, I’ve forgotten that too!”
“This way—come along—I’ll show you.”
IV.
They passed through the same rooms which the prince had traversed on
his arrival. In the largest there were pictures on the walls, portraits and
landscapes of little interest. Over the door, however, there was one of
strange and rather striking shape; it was six or seven feet in length, and not
more than a foot in height. It represented the Saviour just taken from the
cross.
The prince glanced at it, but took no further notice. He moved on hastily,
as though anxious to get out of the house. But Rogojin suddenly stopped
underneath the picture.
“My father picked up all these pictures very cheap at auctions, and so
on,” he said; “they are all rubbish, except the one over the door, and that is
valuable. A man offered five hundred roubles for it last week.”
“Yes—that’s a copy of a Holbein,” said the prince, looking at it again,
“and a good copy, too, so far as I am able to judge. I saw the picture abroad,
and could not forget it—what’s the matter?”
Rogojin had dropped the subject of the picture and walked on. Of course
his strange frame of mind was sufficient to account for his conduct; but,
still, it seemed queer to the prince that he should so abruptly drop a
conversation commenced by himself. Rogojin did not take any notice of his
question.
“Lef Nicolaievitch,” said Rogojin, after a pause, during which the two
walked along a little further, “I have long wished to ask you, do you believe
in God?”
“How strangely you speak, and how odd you look!” said the other,
involuntarily.
“I like looking at that picture,” muttered Rogojin, not noticing,
apparently, that the prince had not answered his question.
“That picture! That picture!” cried Muishkin, struck by a sudden idea.
“Why, a man’s faith might be ruined by looking at that picture!”
“So it is!” said Rogojin, unexpectedly. They had now reached the front
door.
The prince stopped.
“How?” he said. “What do you mean? I was half joking, and you took me
up quite seriously! Why do you ask me whether I believe in God?”
“Oh, no particular reason. I meant to ask you before—many people are
unbelievers nowadays, especially Russians, I have been told. You ought to
know—you’ve lived abroad.”
Rogojin laughed bitterly as he said these words, and opening the door,
held it for the prince to pass out. Muishkin looked surprised, but went out.
The other followed him as far as the landing of the outer stairs, and shut the
door behind him. They both now stood facing one another, as though
oblivious of where they were, or what they had to do next.
“Well, good-bye!” said the prince, holding out his hand.
“Good-bye,” said Rogojin, pressing it hard, but quite mechanically.
The prince made one step forward, and then turned round.
“As to faith,” he said, smiling, and evidently unwilling to leave Rogojin
in this state—“as to faith, I had four curious conversations in two days, a
week or so ago. One morning I met a man in the train, and made
acquaintance with him at once. I had often heard of him as a very learned
man, but an atheist; and I was very glad of the opportunity of conversing
with so eminent and clever a person. He doesn’t believe in God, and he
talked a good deal about it, but all the while it appeared to me that he was
speaking outside the subject. And it has always struck me, both in speaking
to such men and in reading their books, that they do not seem really to be
touching on that at all, though on the surface they may appear to do so. I
told him this, but I dare say I did not clearly express what I meant, for he
could not understand me.
“That same evening I stopped at a small provincial hotel, and it so
happened that a dreadful murder had been committed there the night before,
and everybody was talking about it. Two peasants—elderly men and old
friends—had had tea together there the night before, and were to occupy the
same bedroom. They were not drunk but one of them had noticed for the
first time that his friend possessed a silver watch which he was wearing on
a chain. He was by no means a thief, and was, as peasants go, a rich man;
but this watch so fascinated him that he could not restrain himself. He took
a knife, and when his friend turned his back, he came up softly behind,
raised his eyes to heaven, crossed himself, and saying earnestly—‘God
forgive me, for Christ’s sake!’ he cut his friend’s throat like a sheep, and
took the watch.”
Rogojin roared with laughter. He laughed as though he were in a sort of
fit. It was strange to see him laughing so after the sombre mood he had been
in just before.
“Oh, I like that! That beats anything!” he cried convulsively, panting for
breath. “One is an absolute unbeliever; the other is such a thorough-going
believer that he murders his friend to the tune of a prayer! Oh, prince,
prince, that’s too good for anything! You can’t have invented it. It’s the best
thing I’ve heard!”
“Next morning I went out for a stroll through the town,” continued the
prince, so soon as Rogojin was a little quieter, though his laughter still burst
out at intervals, “and soon observed a drunken-looking soldier staggering
about the pavement. He came up to me and said, ‘Buy my silver cross, sir!
You shall have it for fourpence—it’s real silver.’ I looked, and there he held
a cross, just taken off his own neck, evidently, a large tin one, made after
the Byzantine pattern. I fished out fourpence, and put his cross on my own
neck, and I could see by his face that he was as pleased as he could be at the
thought that he had succeeded in cheating a foolish gentleman, and away he
went to drink the value of his cross. At that time everything that I saw made
a tremendous impression upon me. I had understood nothing about Russia
before, and had only vague and fantastic memories of it. So I thought, ‘I
will wait awhile before I condemn this Judas. Only God knows what may
be hidden in the hearts of drunkards.’
“Well, I went homewards, and near the hotel I came across a poor
woman, carrying a child—a baby of some six weeks old. The mother was
quite a girl herself. The baby was smiling up at her, for the first time in its
life, just at that moment; and while I watched the woman she suddenly
crossed herself, oh, so devoutly! ‘What is it, my good woman?’ I asked her.
(I was never but asking questions then!) ‘Exactly as is a mother’s joy when
her baby smiles for the first time into her eyes, so is God’s joy when one of
His children turns and prays to Him for the first time, with all his heart!’
This is what that poor woman said to me, almost word for word; and such a
deep, refined, truly religious thought it was—a thought in which the whole
essence of Christianity was expressed in one flash—that is, the recognition
of God as our Father, and of God’s joy in men as His own children, which is
the chief idea of Christ. She was a simple country-woman—a mother, it’s
true—and perhaps, who knows, she may have been the wife of the drunken
soldier!
“Listen, Parfen; you put a question to me just now. This is my reply. The
essence of religious feeling has nothing to do with reason, or atheism, or
crime, or acts of any kind—it has nothing to do with these things—and
never had. There is something besides all this, something which the
arguments of the atheists can never touch. But the principal thing, and the
conclusion of my argument, is that this is most clearly seen in the heart of a
Russian. This is a conviction which I have gained while I have been in this
Russia of ours. Yes, Parfen! there is work to be done; there is work to be
done in this Russian world! Remember what talks we used to have in
Moscow! And I never wished to come here at all; and I never thought to
meet you like this, Parfen! Well, well—good-bye—good-bye! God be with
you!”
He turned and went downstairs.
“Lef Nicolaievitch!” cried Parfen, before he had reached the next
landing. “Have you got that cross you bought from the soldier with you?”
“Yes, I have,” and the prince stopped again.
“Show it me, will you?”
A new fancy! The prince reflected, and then mounted the stairs once
more. He pulled out the cross without taking it off his neck.
“Give it to me,” said Parfen.
“Why? do you—”
The prince would rather have kept this particular cross.
“I’ll wear it; and you shall have mine. I’ll take it off at once.”
“You wish to exchange crosses? Very well, Parfen, if that’s the case, I’m
glad enough—that makes us brothers, you know.”
The prince took off his tin cross, Parfen his gold one, and the exchange
was made.
Parfen was silent. With sad surprise the prince observed that the look of
distrust, the bitter, ironical smile, had still not altogether left his newly-
adopted brother’s face. At moments, at all events, it showed itself but too
plainly,
At last Rogojin took the prince’s hand, and stood so for some moments,
as though he could not make up his mind. Then he drew him along,
murmuring almost inaudibly,
“Come!”
They stopped on the landing, and rang the bell at a door opposite to
Parfen’s own lodging.
An old woman opened to them and bowed low to Parfen, who asked her
some questions hurriedly, but did not wait to hear her answer. He led the
prince on through several dark, cold-looking rooms, spotlessly clean, with
white covers over all the furniture.
Without the ceremony of knocking, Parfen entered a small apartment,
furnished like a drawing-room, but with a polished mahogany partition
dividing one half of it from what was probably a bedroom. In one corner of
this room sat an old woman in an arm-chair, close to the stove. She did not
look very old, and her face was a pleasant, round one; but she was white-
haired and, as one could detect at the first glance, quite in her second
childhood. She wore a black woollen dress, with a black handkerchief
round her neck and shoulders, and a white cap with black ribbons. Her feet
were raised on a footstool. Beside her sat another old woman, also dressed
in mourning, and silently knitting a stocking; this was evidently a
companion. They both looked as though they never broke the silence. The
first old woman, so soon as she saw Rogojin and the prince, smiled and
bowed courteously several times, in token of her gratification at their visit.
“Mother,” said Rogojin, kissing her hand, “here is my great friend, Prince
Muishkin; we have exchanged crosses; he was like a real brother to me at
Moscow at one time, and did a great deal for me. Bless him, mother, as you
would bless your own son. Wait a moment, let me arrange your hands for
you.”
But the old lady, before Parfen had time to touch her, raised her right
hand, and, with three fingers held up, devoutly made the sign of the cross
three times over the prince. She then nodded her head kindly at him once
more.
“There, come along, Lef Nicolaievitch; that’s all I brought you here for,”
said Rogojin.
When they reached the stairs again he added:
“She understood nothing of what I said to her, and did not know what I
wanted her to do, and yet she blessed you; that shows she wished to do so
herself. Well, goodbye; it’s time you went, and I must go too.”
He opened his own door.
“Well, let me at least embrace you and say goodbye, you strange fellow!”
cried the prince, looking with gentle reproach at Rogojin, and advancing
towards him. But the latter had hardly raised his arms when he dropped
