An hour later he is in Petersburg. By ten he has rung the bell at Rogojin's. Parfen Semionovitch is not at home, says the aged servant, examining him from head to foot. The porter, downstairs, says yes. He was. Sometimes he takes the keys with him, and leaves the rooms empty for two or three days. The prince searches Nastasia's old lodgings. Landladies know yesterday was his wedding day. He takes a hotel room, sits down to dinner, and cannot eat. At a cross-road someone touches his shoulder and says in a whisper, Lef Nicolaievitch, my friend, come along with me. It is Rogojin. The prince begins eagerly to tell how he had expected to see him in the dark passage. I was there. Come along.
The room is divided by a heavy green silk curtain. The bright Petersburg summer nights are already closing in. They can just see one another's faces. Rogojin parts the curtain. The sleeper is covered with a white sheet. All around, on the bed, on a chair, on the floor, are scattered the different portions of a magnificent white silk dress, bits of lace, ribbons and flowers. On a small table glitter a mass of diamonds, torn off and thrown down anyhow. From under a heap of lace peeps a small white foot, which looks as though it had been chiselled out of marble. It is terribly still. Suddenly a fly awakes, buzzes across the room, and settles on the pillow. The prince shudders. Let's go, says Rogojin, touching his shoulder.
I've covered her with oilcloth, best American oilcloth, and put the sheet over that, and four jars of disinfectant, on account of the smell, as they did at Moscow, you remember. And she's lying so still. You shall see, in the morning, when it's light. They sit down in the two chairs they had occupied before, opposite one another. I see you are shuddering, Lef Nicolaievitch, almost as you did once in Moscow, before your fit. Daylight grows full and strong. At last the prince lays his face against the white, motionless face of Rogojin. His tears flow on to Rogojin's cheek, though he is perhaps not aware of them himself. After many hours the door is opened. They find the murderer unconscious and in a raging fever. The prince is sitting by him, motionless. Each time the sick man gives a laugh, or a shout, he hastens to pass his own trembling hand over his companion's hair and cheeks. He understands nothing. He recognizes none of those who surround him. If Schneider himself had arrived then, he would have flung up his hands, despairingly, and cried, as he did then: An idiot.
