Page 532 - the-idiot

that you might forget all that madness on your part, and
that you might not feel called to talk about it when we met.
Why do you avoid me? Why do you hold your hand back
from me? I tell you again, I consider all that has passed a de-
lirium, an insane dream. I can understand all you did, and
all you felt that day, as if it were myself. What you were then
imagining was not the case, and could never be the case.
Why, then, should there be anger between us?’
‘You don’t know what anger is!’ laughed Rogojin, in reply
to the prince’s heated words.
He had moved a pace or two away, and was hiding his
hands behind him.
‘No, it is impossible for me to come to your house again,’
he added slowly.
‘Why? Do you hate me so much as all that?’
‘I don’t love you, Lef Nicolaievitch, and, therefore, what
would be the use of my coming to see you? You are just like
a child— you want a plaything, and it must be taken out
and given you—and then you don’t know how to work it.
You are simply repeating all you said in your letter, and
what’s the use? Of course I believe every word you say, and
I know perfectly well that you neither did or ever can de-
ceive me in any way, and yet, I don’t love you. You write
that you’ve forgotten everything, and only remember your
brother Parfen, with whom you exchanged crosses, and that
you don’t remember anything about the Rogojin who aimed
a knife at your throat. What do you know about my feelings,
eh?’ (Rogojin laughed disagreeably.) ‘Here you are holding
out your brotherly forgiveness to me for a thing that I have

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