The Brothers Karamazov
Kindly proceed.”
Alas! it never entered Mitya’s head to tell them, though he remembered
it, that he had jumped back from pity, and standing over the prostrate
figure had even uttered some words of regret: “You’ve come to grief,
old man—there’s no help for it. Well, there you must lie.”
The prosecutor could only draw one conclusion: that the man had jumped
back “at such a moment and in such excitement simply with the object of
ascertaining whether the _only_ witness of his crime were dead; that he
must therefore have been a man of great strength, coolness, decision
and foresight even at such a moment,” ... and so on. The prosecutor was
satisfied: “I’ve provoked the nervous fellow by ‘trifles’ and he has
said more than he meant to.”
With painful effort Mitya went on. But this time he was pulled up
immediately by Nikolay Parfenovitch.
“How came you to run to the servant, Fedosya Markovna, with your hands
so covered with blood, and, as it appears, your face, too?”
“Why, I didn’t notice the blood at all at the time,” answered Mitya.
“That’s quite likely. It does happen sometimes.” The prosecutor
exchanged glances with Nikolay Parfenovitch.
“I simply didn’t notice. You’re quite right there, prosecutor,” Mitya
assented suddenly.
Next came the account of Mitya’s sudden determination to “step aside”
and make way for their happiness. But he could not make up his mind to
open his heart to them as before, and tell them about “the queen of his
soul.” He disliked speaking of her before these chilly persons “who
were fastening on him like bugs.” And so in response to their
reiterated questions he answered briefly and abruptly:
“Well, I made up my mind to kill myself. What had I left to live for?
That question stared me in the face. Her first rightful lover had come
back, the man who wronged her but who’d hurried back to offer his love,
after five years, and atone for the wrong with marriage.... So I knew
it was all over for me.... And behind me disgrace, and that
blood—Grigory’s.... What had I to live for? So I went to redeem the
pistols I had pledged, to load them and put a bullet in my brain
to-morrow.”
“And a grand feast the night before?”
“Yes, a grand feast the night before. Damn it all, gentlemen! Do make
haste and finish it. I meant to shoot myself not far from here, beyond
the village, and I’d planned to do it at five o’clock in the morning.
And I had a note in my pocket already. I wrote it at Perhotin’s when I
loaded my pistols. Here’s the letter. Read it! It’s not for you I tell
it,” he added contemptuously. He took it from his waistcoat pocket and
flung it on the table. The lawyers read it with curiosity, and, as is
usual, added it to the papers connected with the case.
“And you didn’t even think of washing your hands at Perhotin’s? You
were not afraid then of arousing suspicion?”
“What suspicion? Suspicion or not, I should have galloped here just the
same, and shot myself at five o’clock, and you wouldn’t have been in
time to do anything. If it hadn’t been for what’s happened to my
father, you would have known nothing about it, and wouldn’t have come
here. Oh, it’s the devil’s doing. It was the devil murdered father, it
was through the devil that you found it out so soon. How did you manage
to get here so quick? It’s marvelous, a dream!”
“Mr. Perhotin informed us that when you came to him, you held in your
hands ... your blood-stained hands ... your money ... a lot of money
... a bundle of hundred-rouble notes, and that his servant-boy saw it
too.”
“That’s true, gentlemen. I remember it was so.”
“Now, there’s one little point presents itself. Can you inform us,”
Nikolay Parfenovitch began, with extreme gentleness, “where did you get
so much money all of a sudden, when it appears from the facts, from the
reckoning of time, that you had not been home?”
The prosecutor’s brows contracted at the question being asked so
plainly, but he did not interrupt Nikolay Parfenovitch.
“No, I didn’t go home,” answered Mitya, apparently perfectly composed,
but looking at the floor.
“Allow me then to repeat my question,” Nikolay Parfenovitch went on as
though creeping up to the subject. “Where were you able to procure such
a sum all at once, when by your own confession, at five o’clock the
same day you—”
“I was in want of ten roubles and pledged my pistols with Perhotin, and
then went to Madame Hohlakov to borrow three thousand which she
wouldn’t give me, and so on, and all the rest of it,” Mitya interrupted
sharply. “Yes, gentlemen, I was in want of it, and suddenly thousands
turned up, eh? Do you know, gentlemen, you’re both afraid now ‘what if
he won’t tell us where he got it?’ That’s just how it is. I’m not going
to tell you, gentlemen. You’ve guessed right. You’ll never know,” said
Mitya, chipping out each word with extraordinary determination. The
lawyers were silent for a moment.
“You must understand, Mr. Karamazov, that it is of vital importance for
us to know,” said Nikolay Parfenovitch, softly and suavely.
“I understand; but still I won’t tell you.”
The prosecutor, too, intervened, and again reminded the prisoner that
he was at liberty to refuse to answer questions, if he thought it to
his interest, and so on. But in view of the damage he might do himself
by his silence, especially in a case of such importance as—
“And so on, gentlemen, and so on. Enough! I’ve heard that rigmarole
before,” Mitya interrupted again. “I can see for myself how important
it is, and that this is the vital point, and still I won’t say.”
“What is it to us? It’s not our business, but yours. You are doing
yourself harm,” observed Nikolay Parfenovitch nervously.
“You see, gentlemen, joking apart”—Mitya lifted his eyes and looked
firmly at them both—“I had an inkling from the first that we should
come to loggerheads at this point. But at first when I began to give my
evidence, it was all still far away and misty; it was all floating, and
I was so simple that I began with the supposition of mutual confidence
existing between us. Now I can see for myself that such confidence is
out of the question, for in any case we were bound to come to this
cursed stumbling-block. And now we’ve come to it! It’s impossible and
there’s an end of it! But I don’t blame you. You can’t believe it all
simply on my word. I understand that, of course.”
He relapsed into gloomy silence.
“Couldn’t you, without abandoning your resolution to be silent about
the chief point, could you not, at the same time, give us some slight
hint as to the nature of the motives which are strong enough to induce
you to refuse to answer, at a crisis so full of danger to you?”
Mitya smiled mournfully, almost dreamily.
“I’m much more good-natured than you think, gentlemen. I’ll tell you
the reason why and give you that hint, though you don’t deserve it. I
won’t speak of that, gentlemen, because it would be a stain on my
honor. The answer to the question where I got the money would expose me
to far greater disgrace than the murder and robbing of my father, if I
had murdered and robbed him. That’s why I can’t tell you. I can’t for
fear of disgrace. What, gentlemen, are you going to write that down?”
“Yes, we’ll write it down,” lisped Nikolay Parfenovitch.
“You ought not to write that down about ‘disgrace.’ I only told you
that in the goodness of my heart. I needn’t have told you. I made you a
present of it, so to speak, and you pounce upon it at once. Oh, well,
write—write what you like,” he concluded, with scornful disgust. “I’m
not afraid of you and I can still hold up my head before you.”
“And can’t you tell us the nature of that disgrace?” Nikolay
Parfenovitch hazarded.
The prosecutor frowned darkly.
“No, no, _c’est fini_, don’t trouble yourselves. It’s not worth while
soiling one’s hands. I have soiled myself enough through you as it is.
You’re not worth it—no one is ... Enough, gentlemen. I’m not going on.”
This was said too peremptorily. Nikolay Parfenovitch did not insist
further, but from Ippolit Kirillovitch’s eyes he saw that he had not
given up hope.
“Can you not, at least, tell us what sum you had in your hands when you
went into Mr. Perhotin’s—how many roubles exactly?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“You spoke to Mr. Perhotin, I believe, of having received three
thousand from Madame Hohlakov.”
“Perhaps I did. Enough, gentlemen. I won’t say how much I had.”
“Will you be so good then as to tell us how you came here and what you
have done since you arrived?”
“Oh! you might ask the people here about that. But I’ll tell you if you
like.”
He proceeded to do so, but we won’t repeat his story. He told it dryly
and curtly. Of the raptures of his love he said nothing, but told them
that he abandoned his determination to shoot himself, owing to “new
factors in the case.” He told the story without going into motives or
details. And this time the lawyers did not worry him much. It was
obvious that there was no essential point of interest to them here.
“We shall verify all that. We will come back to it during the
examination of the witnesses, which will, of course, take place in your
presence,” said Nikolay Parfenovitch in conclusion. “And now allow me
to request you to lay on the table everything in your possession,
especially all the money you still have about you.”
“My money, gentlemen? Certainly. I understand that that is necessary.
I’m surprised, indeed, that you haven’t inquired about it before. It’s
true I couldn’t get away anywhere. I’m sitting here where I can be
seen. But here’s my money—count it—take it. That’s all, I think.”
He turned it all out of his pockets; even the small change—two pieces
of twenty copecks—he pulled out of his waistcoat pocket. They counted
the money, which amounted to eight hundred and thirty-six roubles, and
forty copecks.
“And is that all?” asked the investigating lawyer.
“Yes.”
“You stated just now in your evidence that you spent three hundred
roubles at Plotnikovs’. You gave Perhotin ten, your driver twenty, here
you lost two hundred, then....”
Nikolay Parfenovitch reckoned it all up. Mitya helped him readily. They
recollected every farthing and included it in the reckoning. Nikolay
Parfenovitch hurriedly added up the total.
“With this eight hundred you must have had about fifteen hundred at
first?”
“I suppose so,” snapped Mitya.
“How is it they all assert there was much more?”
“Let them assert it.”
“But you asserted it yourself.”
“Yes, I did, too.”
“We will compare all this with the evidence of other persons not yet
examined. Don’t be anxious about your money. It will be properly taken
care of and be at your disposal at the conclusion of ... what is
beginning ... if it appears, or, so to speak, is proved that you have
undisputed right to it. Well, and now....”
Nikolay Parfenovitch suddenly got up, and informed Mitya firmly that it
was his duty and obligation to conduct a minute and thorough search “of
your clothes and everything else....”
“By all means, gentlemen. I’ll turn out all my pockets, if you like.”
And he did, in fact, begin turning out his pockets.
“It will be necessary to take off your clothes, too.”
“What! Undress? Ugh! Damn it! Won’t you search me as I am! Can’t you?”
“It’s utterly impossible, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. You must take off your
clothes.”
“As you like,” Mitya submitted gloomily; “only, please, not here, but
behind the curtains. Who will search them?”
“Behind the curtains, of course.”
Nikolay Parfenovitch bent his head in assent. His small face wore an
expression of peculiar solemnity.
Chapter VI.
The Prosecutor Catches Mitya
Something utterly unexpected and amazing to Mitya followed. He could
never, even a minute before, have conceived that any one could behave