The Brothers Karamazov
“Why?” smiled the prosecutor irritably. “What is there disgraceful, to
your thinking, in your having set aside half of the three thousand you
had discreditably, if you prefer, ‘disgracefully,’ appropriated? Your
taking the three thousand is more important than what you did with it.
And by the way, why did you do that—why did you set apart that half,
for what purpose, for what object did you do it? Can you explain that
to us?”
“Oh, gentlemen, the purpose is the whole point!” cried Mitya. “I put it
aside because I was vile, that is, because I was calculating, and to be
calculating in such a case is vile ... and that vileness has been going
on a whole month.”
“It’s incomprehensible.”
“I wonder at you. But I’ll make it clearer. Perhaps it really is
incomprehensible. You see, attend to what I say. I appropriate three
thousand entrusted to my honor, I spend it on a spree, say I spend it
all, and next morning I go to her and say, ‘Katya, I’ve done wrong,
I’ve squandered your three thousand,’ well, is that right? No, it’s not
right—it’s dishonest and cowardly, I’m a beast, with no more
self-control than a beast, that’s so, isn’t it? But still I’m not a
thief? Not a downright thief, you’ll admit! I squandered it, but I
didn’t steal it. Now a second, rather more favorable alternative:
follow me carefully, or I may get confused again—my head’s going
round—and so, for the second alternative: I spend here only fifteen
hundred out of the three thousand, that is, only half. Next day I go
and take that half to her: ‘Katya, take this fifteen hundred from me,
I’m a low beast, and an untrustworthy scoundrel, for I’ve wasted half
the money, and I shall waste this, too, so keep me from temptation!’
Well, what of that alternative? I should be a beast and a scoundrel,
and whatever you like; but not a thief, not altogether a thief, or I
should not have brought back what was left, but have kept that, too.
She would see at once that since I brought back half, I should pay back
what I’d spent, that I should never give up trying to, that I should
work to get it and pay it back. So in that case I should be a
scoundrel, but not a thief, you may say what you like, not a thief!”
“I admit that there is a certain distinction,” said the prosecutor,
with a cold smile. “But it’s strange that you see such a vital
difference.”
“Yes, I see a vital difference! Every man may be a scoundrel, and
perhaps every man is a scoundrel, but not every one can be a thief, it
takes an arch-scoundrel to be that. Oh, of course, I don’t know how to
make these fine distinctions ... but a thief is lower than a scoundrel,
that’s my conviction. Listen, I carry the money about me a whole month,
I may make up my mind to give it back to-morrow, and I’m a scoundrel no
longer, but I cannot make up my mind, you see, though I’m making up my
mind every day, and every day spurring myself on to do it, and yet for
a whole month I can’t bring myself to it, you see. Is that right to
your thinking, is that right?”
“Certainly, that’s not right, that I can quite understand, and that I
don’t dispute,” answered the prosecutor with reserve. “And let us give
up all discussion of these subtleties and distinctions, and, if you
will be so kind, get back to the point. And the point is, that you have
still not told us, altogether we’ve asked you, why, in the first place,
you halved the money, squandering one half and hiding the other? For
what purpose exactly did you hide it, what did you mean to do with that
fifteen hundred? I insist upon that question, Dmitri Fyodorovitch.”
“Yes, of course!” cried Mitya, striking himself on the forehead;
“forgive me, I’m worrying you, and am not explaining the chief point,
or you’d understand in a minute, for it’s just the motive of it that’s
the disgrace! You see, it was all to do with the old man, my dead
father. He was always pestering Agrafena Alexandrovna, and I was
jealous; I thought then that she was hesitating between me and him. So
I kept thinking every day, suppose she were to make up her mind all of
a sudden, suppose she were to leave off tormenting me, and were
suddenly to say to me, ‘I love you, not him; take me to the other end
of the world.’ And I’d only forty copecks; how could I take her away,
what could I do? Why, I’d be lost. You see, I didn’t know her then, I
didn’t understand her, I thought she wanted money, and that she
wouldn’t forgive my poverty. And so I fiendishly counted out the half
of that three thousand, sewed it up, calculating on it, sewed it up
before I was drunk, and after I had sewn it up, I went off to get drunk
on the rest. Yes, that was base. Do you understand now?”
Both the lawyers laughed aloud.
“I should have called it sensible and moral on your part not to have
squandered it all,” chuckled Nikolay Parfenovitch, “for after all what
does it amount to?”
“Why, that I stole it, that’s what it amounts to! Oh, God, you horrify
me by not understanding! Every day that I had that fifteen hundred sewn
up round my neck, every day and every hour I said to myself, ‘You’re a
thief! you’re a thief!’ Yes, that’s why I’ve been so savage all this
month, that’s why I fought in the tavern, that’s why I attacked my
father, it was because I felt I was a thief. I couldn’t make up my
mind, I didn’t dare even to tell Alyosha, my brother, about that
fifteen hundred: I felt I was such a scoundrel and such a pickpocket.
But, do you know, while I carried it I said to myself at the same time
every hour: ‘No, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, you may yet not be a thief.’ Why?
Because I might go next day and pay back that fifteen hundred to Katya.
And only yesterday I made up my mind to tear my amulet off my neck, on
my way from Fenya’s to Perhotin. I hadn’t been able till that moment to
bring myself to it. And it was only when I tore it off that I became a
downright thief, a thief and a dishonest man for the rest of my life.
Why? Because, with that I destroyed, too, my dream of going to Katya
and saying, ‘I’m a scoundrel, but not a thief!’ Do you understand now?
Do you understand?”
“What was it made you decide to do it yesterday?” Nikolay Parfenovitch
interrupted.
“Why? It’s absurd to ask. Because I had condemned myself to die at five
o’clock this morning, here, at dawn. I thought it made no difference
whether I died a thief or a man of honor. But I see it’s not so, it
turns out that it does make a difference. Believe me, gentlemen, what
has tortured me most during this night has not been the thought that
I’d killed the old servant, and that I was in danger of Siberia just
when my love was being rewarded, and Heaven was open to me again. Oh,
that did torture me, but not in the same way: not so much as the damned
consciousness that I had torn that damned money off my breast at last
and spent it, and had become a downright thief! Oh, gentlemen, I tell
you again, with a bleeding heart, I have learnt a great deal this
night. I have learnt that it’s not only impossible to live a scoundrel,
but impossible to die a scoundrel.... No, gentlemen, one must die
honest....”
Mitya was pale. His face had a haggard and exhausted look, in spite of
his being intensely excited.
“I am beginning to understand you, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,” the prosecutor
said slowly, in a soft and almost compassionate tone. “But all this, if
you’ll excuse my saying so, is a matter of nerves, in my opinion ...
your overwrought nerves, that’s what it is. And why, for instance,
should you not have saved yourself such misery for almost a month, by
going and returning that fifteen hundred to the lady who had entrusted
it to you? And why could you not have explained things to her, and in
view of your position, which you describe as being so awful, why could
you not have had recourse to the plan which would so naturally have
occurred to one’s mind, that is, after honorably confessing your errors
to her, why could you not have asked her to lend you the sum needed for
your expenses, which, with her generous heart, she would certainly not
have refused you in your distress, especially if it had been with some
guarantee, or even on the security you offered to the merchant
Samsonov, and to Madame Hohlakov? I suppose you still regard that
security as of value?”
Mitya suddenly crimsoned.
“Surely you don’t think me such an out and out scoundrel as that? You
can’t be speaking in earnest?” he said, with indignation, looking the
prosecutor straight in the face, and seeming unable to believe his
ears.
“I assure you I’m in earnest.... Why do you imagine I’m not serious?”
It was the prosecutor’s turn to be surprised.
“Oh, how base that would have been! Gentlemen, do you know, you are
torturing me! Let me tell you everything, so be it. I’ll confess all my
infernal wickedness, but to put you to shame, and you’ll be surprised
yourselves at the depth of ignominy to which a medley of human passions
can sink. You must know that I already had that plan myself, that plan
you spoke of, just now, prosecutor! Yes, gentlemen, I, too, have had
that thought in my mind all this current month, so that I was on the
point of deciding to go to Katya—I was mean enough for that. But to go
to her, to tell her of my treachery, and for that very treachery, to
carry it out, for the expenses of that treachery, to beg for money from
her, Katya (to beg, do you hear, to beg), and go straight from her to
run away with the other, the rival, who hated and insulted her—to think
of it! You must be mad, prosecutor!”
“Mad I am not, but I did speak in haste, without thinking ... of that
feminine jealousy ... if there could be jealousy in this case, as you
assert ... yes, perhaps there is something of the kind,” said the
prosecutor, smiling.
“But that would have been so infamous!” Mitya brought his fist down on
the table fiercely. “That would have been filthy beyond everything!
Yes, do you know that she might have given me that money, yes, and she
would have given it, too; she’d have been certain to give it, to be
revenged on me, she’d have given it to satisfy her vengeance, to show
her contempt for me, for hers is an infernal nature, too, and she’s a
woman of great wrath. I’d have taken the money, too, oh, I should have
taken it; I should have taken it, and then, for the rest of my life ...
oh, God! Forgive me, gentlemen, I’m making such an outcry because I’ve
had that thought in my mind so lately, only the day before yesterday,
that night when I was having all that bother with Lyagavy, and
afterwards yesterday, all day yesterday, I remember, till that happened
...”
“Till what happened?” put in Nikolay Parfenovitch inquisitively, but
Mitya did not hear it.
“I have made you an awful confession,” Mitya said gloomily in
conclusion. “You must appreciate it, and what’s more, you must respect
it, for if not, if that leaves your souls untouched, then you’ve simply
no respect for me, gentlemen, I tell you that, and I shall die of shame
at having confessed it to men like you! Oh, I shall shoot myself! Yes,
I see, I see already that you don’t believe me. What, you want to write
that down, too?” he cried in dismay.
“Yes, what you said just now,” said Nikolay Parfenovitch, looking at
him in surprise, “that is, that up to the last hour you were still
contemplating going to Katerina Ivanovna to beg that sum from her.... I
assure you, that’s a very important piece of evidence for us, Dmitri
Fyodorovitch, I mean for the whole case ... and particularly for you,
particularly important for you.”
“Have mercy, gentlemen!” Mitya flung up his hands. “Don’t write that,
anyway; have some shame. Here I’ve torn my heart asunder before you,
and you seize the opportunity and are fingering the wounds in both
halves.... Oh, my God!”
In despair he hid his face in his hands.