ood of all
that?--It's no use, you know. I've come to you from HER,--she bade me
tell you that she must see you, she has something to say to you. She
told me to find you today."

"I'll come tomorrow. Now I'm going home--are you coming to my house?"

"Why should I? I've given you the message.--Goodbye!"

"Won't you come?" asked the prince in a gentle voice.

"What an extraordinary man you are! I wonder at you!" Rogojin laughed
sarcastically.

"Why do you hate me so?" asked the prince, sadly. "You know yourself
that all you suspected is quite unfounded. I felt you were still angry
with me, though. Do you know why? Because you tried to kill me--that's
why you can't shake off your wrath against me. I tell you that I only
remember the Parfen Rogojin with whom I exchanged crosses, and vowed
brotherhood. I wrote you this in yesterday's letter, in order 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 delirium, 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 deceive 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 perhaps never
repented of in the sligh