, and then, oh! how I'll compensate him for it
all with my love!'"

Rogojin listened to the end, and then burst out laughing:

"Why, prince, I declare you must have had a taste of this sort of thing
yourself--haven't you? I have heard tell of something of the kind, you
know; is it true?"

"What? What can you have heard?" said the prince, stammering.

Rogojin continued to laugh loudly. He had listened to the prince's
speech with curiosity and some satisfaction. The speaker's impulsive
warmth had surprised and even comforted him.

"Why, I've not only heard of it; I see it for myself," he said. "When
have you ever spoken like that before? It wasn't like yourself, prince.
Why, if I hadn't heard this report about you, I should never have come
all this way into the park--at midnight, too!"

"I don't understand you in the least, Parfen."

"Oh, SHE told me all about it long ago, and tonight I saw for myself.
I saw you at the music, you know, and whom you were sitting with. She
swore to me yesterday, and again today, that you are madly in love with
Aglaya Ivanovna. But that's all the same to me, prince, and it's not my
affair at all; for if you have ceased to love HER, SHE has not ceased to
love YOU. You know, of course, that she wants to marry you to that girl?
She's sworn to it! Ha, ha! She says to me, 'Until then I won't marry
you. When they go to church, we'll go too-and not before.' What on earth
does she mean by it? I don't know, and I never did. Either she loves you
without limits or--yet, if she loves you, why does she wish to marry
you to another girl? She says, 'I want to see him happy,' which is to
say--she loves you."

"I wrote, and I say to you once more, that she is not in her right
mind," said the prince, who had listened with anguish to what Rogojin
said.

"Goodness knows--you may be wrong there! At all events, she named the
day this evening, as we left the gardens. 'In three weeks,' says she,
'and perhaps sooner, we shall be married.' She swore to it, took off her
cross and kissed it. So it all depends upon you now, prince, You see!
Ha, ha!"

"That's all madness. What you say about me, Parfen, never can and never
will be. Tomorrow, I shall come and see you--"

"How can she be mad," Rogojin interrupted, "when she is sane enough for
other people and only mad for you? How can she write letters to HER, if
she's mad? If she were insane they would observe it in her letters."

"What letters?" said the pr