y be; in a country with which one is unfamiliar it is
difficult to understand the people one meets." He was beginning to have
a passionate faith in the Russian soul, however, and what discoveries he
had made in the last six months, what unexpected discoveries! But every
soul is a mystery, and depths of mystery lie in the soul of a Russian.
He had been intimate with Rogojin, for example, and a brotherly
friendship had sprung up between them--yet did he really know him?
What chaos and ugliness fills the world at times! What a self-satisfied
rascal is that nephew of Lebedeff's! "But what am I thinking," continued
the prince to himself. "Can he really have committed that crime? Did he
kill those six persons? I seem to be confusing things... how strange
it all is.... My head goes round... And Lebedeff's daughter--how
sympathetic and charming her face was as she held the child in her arms!
What an innocent look and child-like laugh she had! It is curious that I
had forgotten her until now. I expect Lebedeff adores her--and I really
believe, when I think of it, that as sure as two and two make four, he
is fond of that nephew, too!"

Well, why should he judge them so hastily! Could he really say what they
were, after one short visit? Even Lebedeff seemed an enigma today.
Did he expect to find him so? He had never seen him like that before.
Lebedeff and the Comtesse du Barry! Good Heavens! If Rogojin should
really kill someone, it would not, at any rate, be such a senseless,
chaotic affair. A knife made to a special pattern, and six people killed
in a kind of delirium. But Rogojin also had a knife made to a special
pattern. Can it be that Rogojin wishes to murder anyone? The prince
began to tremble violently. "It is a crime on my part to imagine
anything so base, with such cynical frankness." His face reddened with
shame at the thought; and then there came across him as in a flash
the memory of the incidents at the Pavlofsk station, and at the other
station in the morning; and the question asked him by Rogojin about
THE EYES and Rogojin's cross, that he was even now wearing; and the
benediction of Rogojin's mother; and his embrace on the darkened
staircase--that last supreme renunciation--and now, to find himself full
of this new "idea," staring into shop-windows, and looking round for
things--how base he was!

Despair overmastered his soul; he would not go on, he would go back to
his hotel; he even turned and went the other wa