Holbein,” said the prince, looking at it again,“and a good copy, too, so far as I am able to judge. I saw the pictureabroad, and could not forget it--what’s the matter?”
Rogojin had dropped the subject of the picture and walked on. Of coursehis strange frame of mind was sufficient to account for his conduct;but, still, it seemed queer to the prince that he should so abruptlydrop a conversation commenced by himself. Rogojin did not take anynotice of his question.
“Lef Nicolaievitch,” said Rogojin, after a pause, during which the twowalked along a little further, “I have long wished to ask you, do youbelieve in God?”
“How strangely you speak, and how odd you look!” said the other,involuntarily.
“I like looking at that picture,” muttered Rogojin, not noticing,apparently, that the prince had not answered his question.
“That picture! That picture!” cried Muishkin, struck by a sudden idea.“Why, a man’s faith might be ruined by looking at that picture!”
“So it is!” said Rogojin, unexpectedly. They had now reached the frontdoor.
The prince stopped.
“How?” he said. “What do you mean? I was half joking, and you took me upquite seriously! Why do you ask me whether I believe in God?”
“Oh, no particular reason. I meant to ask you before--many people areunbelievers nowadays, especially Russians, I have been told. You oughtto know--you’ve lived abroad.”
Rogojin laughed bitterly as he said these words, and opening the door,held it for the prince to pass out. Muishkin looked surprised, but wentout. The other followed him as far as the landing of the outer stairs,and shut the door behind him. They both now stood facing one another, asthough oblivious of where they were, or what they had to do next.
“Well, good-bye!” said the prince, holding out his hand.
“Good-bye,” said Rogojin, pressing it hard, but quite mechanically.
The prince made one step forward, and then turned round.
“As to faith,” he said, smiling, and evidently unwilling to leaveRogojin in this state--“as to faith, I had four curious conversationsin two days, a week or so ago. One morning I met a man in the train, andmade acquaintance with him at once. I had often heard of him as a verylearned man, but an atheist; and I was very glad of the opportunity ofconversing with so eminent and clever a person. He doesn’t believe inGod, and he talked a good deal about it, but all the while it appearedto me that he was speaking _outside the subject_. And it has always struckme, both in speaking to such men and in reading their books, that theydo not seem really to be touching on that at all, though on the surfacethey may appear to do so. I told him this, but I dare say I did notclearly express what I meant, for he could not understand me.
“That same evening I stopped at a small provincial hotel, and it sohappened that a dreadful murder had been committed there the nightbefore, and everybody was talking about it. Two peasants--elderly menand old friends--had had tea together there the night before, and wereto occupy the same bedroom. They were not drunk but one of them hadnoticed for the first time that his friend possessed a silver watchwhich he was wearing on a chain. He was by no means a thief, and was, aspeasants go, a rich man; but this watch so fascinated him that he couldnot restrain himself. He took a knife, and when his friend turned hisback, he came up softly behind, raised his eyes to heaven, crossedhimself, and saying earnestly--‘God forgive me, for Christ’s sake!’ hecut his friend’s throat like a sheep, and took the watch.”
Rogojin roared with laughter. He laughed as though he were in a sort offit. It was strange to see him laughing so after the sombre mood he hadbeen in just before.
“Oh, I like that! That beats anything!” he cried convulsively, pantingfor breath. “One is an absolute unbeliever; the other is such athorough-going believer that he murders his friend to the tune of aprayer! Oh, prince, prince, that’s too good for anything! You can’t haveinvented it. It’s the best thing I’ve heard!”
“Next morning I went out for a stroll through the town,” continued theprince, so soon as Rogojin was a little quieter, though his laughterstill burst out at intervals, “and soon observed a drunken-lookingsoldier staggering about the pavement. He came up to me and said,‘Buy my silver cross, sir! You shall have it for fourpence--it’s realsilver.’ I looked, and there he held a cross, just taken off his ownneck, evidently, a large tin one, made after the Byzantine pattern. Ifished out fourpence, and put his cross on my own neck, and I could seeby his face that he was as pleased as he could be at the thought that hehad succeeded in cheating a foolish gentleman, and away he went todrink the value of his cross. At that time everything that I saw madea tremendous impression upon me. I had understood nothing about Russiabefore, and had only vague and fantastic memories of it. So I thought,‘I will wait awhile before I condemn this Judas. Only God knows what maybe hidden in the hearts of drunkards.’
“Well, I went homewards, and near the hotel I came across a poor woman,carrying a child--a baby of some six weeks old. The mother was quite agirl herself. The baby was smiling up at her, for the first time in itslife, just at that moment; and while I watched the woman she suddenlycrossed herself, oh, so devoutly! ‘What is it, my good woman?’ I askedher. (I was never but asking questions then!) ‘Exactly as is a mother’sjoy when her baby smiles for the first time into her eyes, so is God’sjoy when one of His children turns and prays to Him for the first time,with all his heart!’ This is what that poor woman said to me, almostword for word; and such a deep, refined, truly religious thought itwas--a thought in which the whole essence of Christianity was expressedin one flash--that is, the recognition of God as our Father, and ofGod’s joy in men as His own children, which is the chief idea of Christ.She was a simple country-woman--a mother, it’s true--and perhaps, whoknows, she may have been the wife of the drunken soldier!
“Listen, Parfen; you put a question to me just now. This is my reply.The essence of religious feeling has nothing to do with reason, oratheism, or crime, or acts of any kind--it has nothing to do with thesethings--and never had. There is something besides all this, somethingwhich the arguments of the atheists can never touch. But the principalthing, and the conclusion of my argument, is that this is most clearlyseen in the heart of a Russian. This is a conviction which I have gainedwhile I have been in this Russia of ours. Yes, Parfen! there is work tobe done; there is work to be done in this Russian world! Remember whattalks we used to have in Moscow! And I never wished to come here atall; and I never thought to meet you like this, Parfen! Well,well--good-bye--good-bye! God be with you!”
He turned and went downstairs.
“Lef Nicolaievitch!” cried Parfen, before he had reached the nextlanding. “Have you got that cross you bought from the soldier with you?”
“Yes, I have,” and the prince stopped again.
“Show it me, will you?”
A new fancy! The prince reflected, and then mounted the stairs oncemore. He pulled out the cross without taking it off his neck.
“Give it to me,” said Parfen.
“Why? do you--”
The prince would rather have kept this particular cross.
“I’ll wear it; and you shall have mine. I’ll take it off at once.”
“You wish to exchange crosses? Very well, Parfen, if that’s the case,I’m glad enough--that makes us brothers, you know.”
The prince took off his tin cross, Parfen his gold one, and the exchangewas made.
Parfen was silent. With sad surprise the prince observed that the lookof distrust, the bitter, ironical smile, had still not altogether lefthis newly-adopted brother’s face. At moments, at all events, it showeditself but too plainly,
At last Rogojin took the prince’s hand, and stood so for some moments,as though he could not make up his mind. Then he drew him along,murmuring almost inaudibly,
“Come!”
They stopped on the landing, and rang the bell at a door opposite toParfen’s own lodging.
An old woman opened to them and bowed low to
Parfen, who asked her somequestions hurriedly, but did not wait to hear her answer. He led theprince on through several dark, cold-looking rooms, spotlessly clean,with white covers over all the furniture.
Without the ceremony of knocking, Parfen entered a small apartment,furnished like a drawing-room, but with a polished mahogany partitiondividing one half of it from what was probably a bedroom. In one cornerof this room sat an old woman in an arm-chair, close to the stove. Shedid not look very old, and her face was a pleasant, round one; but shewas white-haired and, as one could detect at the first glance, quitein her second childhood. She wore a black woollen dress, with a blackhandkerchief round her neck and shoulders, and a white cap with blackribbons. Her feet were raised on a footstool. Beside her sat another oldwoman, also dressed in mourning, and silently knitting a stocking; thiswas evidently a companion. They both looked as though they never brokethe silence. The first old woman, so soon as she saw Rogojin and theprince, smiled and bowed courteously several times, in token of hergratification at their visit.
“Mother,” said Rogojin, kissing her hand, “here
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