the main point. "As I entered the passage it struck me
that perhaps you were sitting and waiting for me, just as I was waiting
for you. Have you been to the old lady at Ismailofsky barracks?"

"Yes," said the prince, squeezing the word out with difficulty owing to
the dreadful beating of his heart.

"I thought you would. 'They'll talk about it,' I thought; so I
determined to go and fetch you to spend the night here--'We will be
together,' I thought, 'for this one night--'"

"Rogojin, WHERE is Nastasia Philipovna?" said the prince, suddenly
rising from his seat. He was quaking in all his limbs, and his words
came in a scarcely audible whisper. Rogojin rose also.

"There," he whispered, nodding his head towards the curtain.

"Asleep?" whispered the prince.

Rogojin looked intently at him again, as before.

"Let's go in--but you mustn't--well--let's go in."

He lifted the curtain, paused--and turned to the prince. "Go in," he
said, motioning him to pass behind the curtain. Muishkin went in.

"It's so dark," he said.

"You can see quite enough," muttered Rogojin.

"I can just see there's a bed--"

"Go nearer," suggested Rogojin, softly.

The prince took a step forward--then another--and paused. He stood and
stared for a minute or two.

Neither of the men spoke a word while at the bedside. The prince's heart
beat so loud that its knocking seemed to be distinctly audible in the
deathly silence.

But now his eyes had become so far accustomed to the darkness that he
could distinguish the whole of the bed. Someone was asleep upon
it--in an absolutely motionless sleep. Not the slightest movement was
perceptible, not the faintest breathing could be heard. The sleeper
was covered with a white sheet; the outline of the limbs was hardly
distinguishable. He could only just make out that a human being lay
outstretched there.

All around, on the bed, on a chair beside it, on the floor, were
scattered the different portions of a magnificent white silk dress, bits
of lace, ribbons and flowers. On a small table at the bedside glittered
a mass of diamonds, torn off and thrown down anyhow. From under a heap
of lace at the end of the bed peeped a small white foot, which looked as
though it had been chiselled out of marble; it was terribly still.

The prince gazed and gazed, and felt that the more he gazed the more
death-like became the silence. Suddenly a fly awoke somewhere, buzzed
across the room, and settled on the pi