Page 298 - the-idiot

was coming to Petersburg or no?’
‘Oh, I supposed you were coming,’ the other replied, smil-
ing sarcastically, and I was right in my supposition, you see;
but how was I to know that you would come TODAY?’
A certain strangeness and impatience in his manner im-
pressed the prince very forcibly.
‘And if you had known that I was coming today, why be
so irritated about it?’ he asked, in quiet surprise.
‘Why did you ask me?’
‘Because when I jumped out of the train this morning,
two eyes glared at me just as yours did a moment since.’
‘Ha! and whose eyes may they have been?’ said Rogojin,
suspiciously. It seemed to the prince that he was trembling.
‘I don’t know; I thought it was a hallucination. I often
have hallucinations nowadays. I feel just as I did five years
ago when my fits were about to come on.’
‘Well, perhaps it was a hallucination, I don’t know,’ said
Parfen.
He tried to give the prince an affectionate smile, and it
seemed to the latter as though in this smile of his some-
thing had broken, and that he could not mend it, try as he
would.
‘Shall you go abroad again then?’ he asked, and suddenly
added, ‘Do you remember how we came up in the train from
Pskoff together? You and your cloak and leggings, eh?’
And Rogojin burst out laughing, this time with uncon-
cealed malice, as though he were glad that he had been able
to find an opportunity for giving vent to it.
‘Have you quite taken up your quarters here?’ asked the