PART II
5. CHAPTER V.
(continued)
And why had not the prince approached him and spoken to him,
instead of turning away and pretending he had seen nothing,
although their eyes met? (Yes, their eyes had met, and they had
looked at each other.) Why, he had himself wished to take Rogojin
by the hand and go in together, he had himself determined to go
to him on the morrow and tell him that he had seen her, he had
repudiated the demon as he walked to the house, and his heart had
been full of joy.
Was there something in the whole aspect of the man, today,
sufficient to justify the prince's terror, and the awful
suspicions of his demon? Something seen, but indescribable, which
filled him with dreadful presentiments? Yes, he was convinced of
it--convinced of what? (Oh, how mean and hideous of him to feel
this conviction, this presentiment! How he blamed himself for
it!) "Speak if you dare, and tell me, what is the presentiment?"
he repeated to himself, over and over again. "Put it into words,
speak out clearly and distinctly. Oh, miserable coward that I
am!" The prince flushed with shame for his own baseness. "How
shall I ever look this man in the face again? My God, what a day!
And what a nightmare, what a nightmare!"
There was a moment, during this long, wretched walk back from the
Petersburg Side, when the prince felt an irresistible desire to
go straight to Rogojin's, wait for him, embrace him with tears
of shame and contrition, and tell him of his distrust, and finish
with it--once for all.
But here he was back at his hotel.
How often during the day he had thought of this hotel with
loathing--its corridor, its rooms, its stairs. How he had dreaded
coming back to it, for some reason.
"What a regular old woman I am today," he had said to himself
each time, with annoyance. "I believe in every foolish
presentiment that comes into my head."
He stopped for a moment at the door; a great flush of shame came
over him. "I am a coward, a wretched coward," he said, and moved
forward again; but once more he paused.
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