Page 655 - the-brothers-karamazov

and instantly contrived to catch hold of the top of the fence.
Then he vigorously pulled himself up and sat astride on it.
Close by, in the garden stood the bathhouse, but from the
fence he could see the lighted windows of the house too.
‘Yes, the old man’s bedroom is lighted up. She’s there! and
he leapt from the fence into the garden. Though he knew
Grigory was ill and very likely Smerdyakov, too, and that
there was no one to hear him, he instinctively hid himself,
stood still, and began to listen. But there was dead silence
on all sides and, as though of design, complete stillness, not
the slightest breath of wind.
‘And naught but the whispering silence,’ the line for some
reason rose to his mind. ‘If only no one heard me jump over
the fence! I think not.’ Standing still for a minute, he walked
softly over the grass in the garden, avoiding the trees and
shrubs. He walked slowly, creeping stealthily at every step,
listening to his own footsteps. It took him five minutes to
reach the lighted window. He remembered that just under
the window there were several thick and high bushes of
elder and whitebeam. The door from the house into the gar-
den on the left-hand side was shut; he had carefully looked
on purpose to see, in passing. At last he reached the bushes
and hid behind them. He held his breath. ‘I must wait now,’
he thought, ‘to reassure them, in case they heard my foot-
steps and are listening... if only I don’t cough or sneeze.’
He waited two minutes. His heart was beating violently,
and, at moments, he could scarcely breathe. ‘No, this throb-
bing at my heart won’t stop,’ he thought. ‘I can’t wait any
longer.’ He was standing behind a bush in the shadow. The

The Brothers Karamazov