Page 903 - the-idiot

ten minutes, and then gone straight back to Pavlofsk. No
one knows she slept here. Last night we came in just as care-
fully as you and I did today. I thought as I came along with
her that she would not like to creep in so secretly, but I was
quite wrong. She whispered, and walked on tip-toe; she car-
ried her skirt over her arm, so that it shouldn’t rustle, and
she held up her finger at me on the stairs, so that I shouldn’t
make a noise—it was you she was afraid of. She was mad
with terror in the train, and she begged me to bring her to
this house. I thought of taking her to her rooms at the Is-
mailofsky barracks first; but she wouldn’t hear of it. She
said, ‘No—not there; he’ll find me out at once there. Take
me to your own house, where you can hide me, and tomor-
row we’ll set off for Moscow.’ Thence she would go to Orel,
she said. When she went to bed, she was still talking about
going to Orel.’
‘Wait! What do you intend to do now, Parfen?’
‘Well, I’m afraid of you. You shudder and tremble so.
We’ll pass the night here together. There are no other beds
besides that one; but I’ve thought how we’ll manage. I’ll
take the cushions off all the sofas, and lay them down on
the floor, up against the curtain here—for you and me—so
that we shall be together. For if they come in and look about
now, you know, they’ll find her, and carry her away, and
they’ll be asking me questions, and I shall say I did it, and
then they’ll take me away, too, don’t you see? So let her lie
close to us—close to you and me.
‘Yes, yes,’ agreed the prince, warmly.
‘So we will not say anything about it, or let them take

0 The Idiot