The Brothers Karamazov
evidence. Further examination elicited that Grushenka knew, too, where
that money had come from, and that Dmitri Fyodorovitch had got it from
Katerina Ivanovna.
“And did you never, once, hear that the money spent a month ago was not
three thousand, but less, and that Dmitri Fyodorovitch had saved half
that sum for his own use?”
“No, I never heard that,” answered Grushenka.
It was explained further that Mitya had, on the contrary, often told
her that he hadn’t a farthing.
“He was always expecting to get some from his father,” said Grushenka
in conclusion.
“Did he never say before you ... casually, or in a moment of
irritation,” Nikolay Parfenovitch put in suddenly, “that he intended to
make an attempt on his father’s life?”
“Ach, he did say so,” sighed Grushenka.
“Once or several times?”
“He mentioned it several times, always in anger.”
“And did you believe he would do it?”
“No, I never believed it,” she answered firmly. “I had faith in his
noble heart.”
“Gentlemen, allow me,” cried Mitya suddenly, “allow me to say one word
to Agrafena Alexandrovna, in your presence.”
“You can speak,” Nikolay Parfenovitch assented.
“Agrafena Alexandrovna!” Mitya got up from his chair, “have faith in
God and in me. I am not guilty of my father’s murder!”
Having uttered these words Mitya sat down again on his chair. Grushenka
stood up and crossed herself devoutly before the ikon. “Thanks be to
Thee, O Lord,” she said, in a voice thrilled with emotion, and still
standing, she turned to Nikolay Parfenovitch and added:
“As he has spoken now, believe it! I know him. He’ll say anything as a
joke or from obstinacy, but he’ll never deceive you against his
conscience. He’s telling the whole truth, you may believe it.”
“Thanks, Agrafena Alexandrovna, you’ve given me fresh courage,” Mitya
responded in a quivering voice.
As to the money spent the previous day, she declared that she did not
know what sum it was, but had heard him tell several people that he had
three thousand with him. And to the question where he got the money,
she said that he had told her that he had “stolen” it from Katerina
Ivanovna, and that she had replied to that that he hadn’t stolen it,
and that he must pay the money back next day. On the prosecutor’s
asking her emphatically whether the money he said he had stolen from
Katerina Ivanovna was what he had spent yesterday, or what he had
squandered here a month ago, she declared that he meant the money spent
a month ago, and that that was how she understood him.
Grushenka was at last released, and Nikolay Parfenovitch informed her
impulsively that she might at once return to the town and that if he
could be of any assistance to her, with horses for example, or if she
would care for an escort, he ... would be—
“I thank you sincerely,” said Grushenka, bowing to him, “I’m going with
this old gentleman, I am driving him back to town with me, and
meanwhile, if you’ll allow me, I’ll wait below to hear what you decide
about Dmitri Fyodorovitch.”
She went out. Mitya was calm, and even looked more cheerful, but only
for a moment. He felt more and more oppressed by a strange physical
weakness. His eyes were closing with fatigue. The examination of the
witnesses was, at last, over. They proceeded to a final revision of the
protocol. Mitya got up, moved from his chair to the corner by the
curtain, lay down on a large chest covered with a rug, and instantly
fell asleep.
He had a strange dream, utterly out of keeping with the place and the
time.
He was driving somewhere in the steppes, where he had been stationed
long ago, and a peasant was driving him in a cart with a pair of
horses, through snow and sleet. He was cold, it was early in November,
and the snow was falling in big wet flakes, melting as soon as it
touched the earth. And the peasant drove him smartly, he had a fair,
long beard. He was not an old man, somewhere about fifty, and he had on
a gray peasant’s smock. Not far off was a village, he could see the
black huts, and half the huts were burnt down, there were only the
charred beams sticking up. And as they drove in, there were peasant
women drawn up along the road, a lot of women, a whole row, all thin
and wan, with their faces a sort of brownish color, especially one at
the edge, a tall, bony woman, who looked forty, but might have been
only twenty, with a long thin face. And in her arms was a little baby
crying. And her breasts seemed so dried up that there was not a drop of
milk in them. And the child cried and cried, and held out its little
bare arms, with its little fists blue from cold.
“Why are they crying? Why are they crying?” Mitya asked, as they dashed
gayly by.
“It’s the babe,” answered the driver, “the babe weeping.”
And Mitya was struck by his saying, in his peasant way, “the babe,” and
he liked the peasant’s calling it a “babe.” There seemed more pity in
it.
“But why is it weeping?” Mitya persisted stupidly, “why are its little
arms bare? Why don’t they wrap it up?”
“The babe’s cold, its little clothes are frozen and don’t warm it.”
“But why is it? Why?” foolish Mitya still persisted.
“Why, they’re poor people, burnt out. They’ve no bread. They’re begging
because they’ve been burnt out.”
“No, no,” Mitya, as it were, still did not understand. “Tell me why it
is those poor mothers stand there? Why are people poor? Why is the babe
poor? Why is the steppe barren? Why don’t they hug each other and kiss?
Why don’t they sing songs of joy? Why are they so dark from black
misery? Why don’t they feed the babe?”
And he felt that, though his questions were unreasonable and senseless,
yet he wanted to ask just that, and he had to ask it just in that way.
And he felt that a passion of pity, such as he had never known before,
was rising in his heart, that he wanted to cry, that he wanted to do
something for them all, so that the babe should weep no more, so that
the dark-faced, dried-up mother should not weep, that no one should
shed tears again from that moment, and he wanted to do it at once, at
once, regardless of all obstacles, with all the recklessness of the
Karamazovs.
“And I’m coming with you. I won’t leave you now for the rest of my
life, I’m coming with you,” he heard close beside him Grushenka’s
tender voice, thrilling with emotion. And his heart glowed, and he
struggled forward towards the light, and he longed to live, to live, to
go on and on, towards the new, beckoning light, and to hasten, hasten,
now, at once!
“What! Where?” he exclaimed opening his eyes, and sitting up on the
chest, as though he had revived from a swoon, smiling brightly. Nikolay
Parfenovitch was standing over him, suggesting that he should hear the
protocol read aloud and sign it. Mitya guessed that he had been asleep
an hour or more, but he did not hear Nikolay Parfenovitch. He was
suddenly struck by the fact that there was a pillow under his head,
which hadn’t been there when he had leant back, exhausted, on the
chest.
“Who put that pillow under my head? Who was so kind?” he cried, with a
sort of ecstatic gratitude, and tears in his voice, as though some
great kindness had been shown him.
He never found out who this kind man was; perhaps one of the peasant
witnesses, or Nikolay Parfenovitch’s little secretary, had
compassionately thought to put a pillow under his head; but his whole
soul was quivering with tears. He went to the table and said that he
would sign whatever they liked.
“I’ve had a good dream, gentlemen,” he said in a strange voice, with a
new light, as of joy, in his face.
Chapter IX.
They Carry Mitya Away
When the protocol had been signed, Nikolay Parfenovitch turned solemnly
to the prisoner and read him the “Committal,” setting forth, that in
such a year, on such a day, in such a place, the investigating lawyer
of such-and-such a district court, having examined so-and-so (to wit,
Mitya) accused of this and of that (all the charges were carefully
written out) and having considered that the accused, not pleading
guilty to the charges made against him, had brought forward nothing in
his defense, while the witnesses, so-and-so, and so-and-so, and the
circumstances such-and-such testify against him, acting in accordance
with such-and-such articles of the Statute Book, and so on, has ruled,
that, in order to preclude so-and-so (Mitya) from all means of evading
pursuit and judgment he be detained in such-and-such a prison, which he
hereby notifies to the accused and communicates a copy of this same
“Committal” to the deputy prosecutor, and so on, and so on.
In brief, Mitya was informed that he was, from that moment, a prisoner,
and that he would be driven at once to the town, and there shut up in a
very unpleasant place. Mitya listened attentively, and only shrugged
his shoulders.
“Well, gentlemen, I don’t blame you. I’m ready.... I understand that
there’s nothing else for you to do.”
Nikolay Parfenovitch informed him gently that he would be escorted at
once by the rural police officer, Mavriky Mavrikyevitch, who happened
to be on the spot....
“Stay,” Mitya interrupted, suddenly, and impelled by uncontrollable
feeling he pronounced, addressing all in the room:
“Gentlemen, we’re all cruel, we’re all monsters, we all make men weep,
and mothers, and babes at the breast, but of all, let it be settled
here, now, of all I am the lowest reptile! I’ve sworn to amend, and
every day I’ve done the same filthy things. I understand now that such
men as I need a blow, a blow of destiny to catch them as with a noose,
and bind them by a force from without. Never, never should I have risen
of myself! But the thunderbolt has fallen. I accept the torture of
accusation, and my public shame, I want to suffer and by suffering I
shall be purified. Perhaps I shall be purified, gentlemen? But listen,
for the last time, I am not guilty of my father’s blood. I accept my
punishment, not because I killed him, but because I meant to kill him,
and perhaps I really might have killed him. Still I mean to fight it
out with you. I warn you of that. I’ll fight it out with you to the
end, and then God will decide. Good-by, gentlemen, don’t be vexed with
me for having shouted at you during the examination. Oh, I was still
such a fool then.... In another minute I shall be a prisoner, but now,
for the last time, as a free man, Dmitri Karamazov offers you his hand.
Saying good-by to you, I say it to all men.”
His voice quivered and he stretched out his hand, but Nikolay
Parfenovitch, who happened to stand nearest to him, with a sudden,
almost nervous movement, hid his hands behind his back. Mitya instantly
noticed this, and started. He let his outstretched hand fall at once.
“The preliminary inquiry is not yet over,” Nikolay Parfenovitch
faltered, somewhat embarrassed. “We will continue it in the town, and
I, for my part, of course, am ready to wish you all success ... in your
defense.... As a matter of fact, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, I’ve always been
disposed to regard you as, so to speak, more unfortunate than guilty.
All of us here, if I may make bold to speak for all, we are all ready
to recognize that you are, at bottom, a young man of honor, but, alas,
one who has been carried away by certain passions to a somewhat
excessive degree....”
Nikolay Parfenovitch’s little figure was positively majestic by the
time he had finished speaking. It struck Mitya that in another minute
this “boy” would take his arm, lead him to another corner, and renew
their conversation about “girls.” But many quite irrelevant and
inappropriate thoughts sometimes occur even to a prisoner when he is
being led out to execution.
“Gentlemen, you are good, you are humane, may I see _her_ to say
‘good-by’ for the last time?” asked Mitya.