“No; because I am unworthy of my sufferings, if you like!”
“Whoever can suffer is worthy to suffer, I should think. Aglaya Ivanovna wished to see you, after she had read your confession, but—”
“She postponed the pleasure—I see—I quite understand!” said Hippolyte, hurriedly, as though he wished to banish the subject. “I hear—they tell me—that you read her all that nonsense aloud? Stupid bosh it was—written in delirium. And I can’t understand how anyone can be so—I won’t say cruel, because the word would be humiliating to myself, but we’ll say childishly vain and revengeful, as to reproach me with this confession, and use it as a weapon against me. Don’t be afraid, I’m not referring to yourself.”
“Oh, but I’m sorry you repudiate the confession, Hippolyte—it is sincere; and, do you know, even the absurd parts of it—and these are many” (here Hippolyte frowned savagely) “are, as it were, redeemed by suffering—for it must have cost you something to admit what you there say—great torture, perhaps, for all I know. Your motive must have been a very noble one all through. Whatever may have appeared to the contrary, I give you my word, I see this more plainly every day. I do not judge you; I merely say this to have it off my mind, and I am only sorry that I did not say it all then—”
Hippolyte flushed hotly. He had thought at first that the prince was “humbugging” him; but on looking at his face he saw that he was absolutely serious, and had no thought of any deception. Hippolyte beamed with gratification.
“And yet I must die,” he said, and almost added: “a man like me!
“And imagine how that Gania annoys me! He has developed the idea—or pretends to believe—that in all probability three or four others who heard my confession will die before I do. There’s an idea for you—and all this by way of consoling me! Ha! ha! ha! In the first place they haven’t died yet; and in the second, if they did die—all of them—what would be the satisfaction to me in that? He judges me by himself. But he goes further, he actually pitches into me because, as he declares, ‘any decent fellow’ would die quietly, and that ‘all this’ is mere egotism on my part. He doesn’t see what refinement of egotism it is on his own part—and at the same time, what ox-like coarseness! Have you ever read of the death of one Stepan Gleboff, in the eighteenth century? I read of it yesterday by chance.”
“Who was he?”
“He was impaled on a stake in the time of Peter.”
“I know, I know! He lay there fifteen hours in the hard frost, and died with the most extraordinary fortitude—I know—what of him?”