"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 marvellous, 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 honour. 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.
"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?"
&nbs
p; "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 6 The Prosecutor Catches Mitya
SOMETHING utterly unexpected and amazing to Mitya followed. He could never, even a minute before, have conceived that anyone could behave like that to him, Mitya Karamazov. What was worst of all, there was something humiliating in it, and on their side something "supercilious and scornful." It was nothing to take off his coat, but he was asked to undress further, or rather not asked but "commanded," he quite understood that. From pride and contempt he submitted without a word. Several peasants accompanied the lawyers and remained on the same side of the curtain. "To be ready if force is required," thought Mitya, "and perhaps for some other reason, too."
"Well, must I take off my shirt, too?" he asked sharply, but Nikolay Parfenovitch did not answer. He was busily engaged with the prosecutor in examining the coat, the trousers, the waistcoat and the cap; and it was evident that they were both much interested in the scrutiny. "They make no bones about it," thought Mitya, "they don't keep up the most elementary politeness."
"I ask you for the second time- need I take off my shirt or not?" he said, still more sharply and irritably.
"Don't trouble yourself. We will tell you what to do," Nikolay Parfenovitch said, and his voice was positively peremptory, or so it seemed to Mitya.
Meantime a consultation was going on in undertones between the lawyers. There turned out to be on the coat, especially on the left side at the back, a huge patch of blood, dry, and still stiff. There were bloodstains on the trousers, too. Nikolay Parfenovitch, moreover, in the presence of the peasant witnesses, passed his fingers along the collar, the cuffs, and all the seams of the coat and trousers, obviously looking for something- money, of course. He didn't even hide from Mitya his suspicion that he was capable of sewing money up in his clothes.
"He treats me not as an officer but as a thief," Mitya muttered to himself. They communicated their ideas to one another with amazing frankness. The secretary, for instance, who was also behind the curtain, fussing about and listening, called Nikolay Parfenovitch's attention to the cap, which they were also fingering.
"You remember Gridyenko, the copying clerk," observed the secretary. "Last summer he received the wages of the whole office, and pretended to have lost the money when he was drunk. And where was it found? Why, in just such pipings in his cap. The hundred-rouble notes were screwed up in little rolls and sewed in the piping."
Both the lawyers remembered Gridyenko's case perfectly, and so laid aside Mitya's cap, and decided that all his clothes must be more thoroughly examined later.
"Excuse me," cried Nikolay Parfenovitch, suddenly, noticing that the right cuff of Mitya's shirt was turned in, and covered with blood, "excuse me, what's that, blood?"
"Yes," Mitya jerked out.
"That is, what blood?… and why is the cuff turned in?"
Mitya told him how he had got the sleeve stained with blood looking after Grigory, and had turned it inside when he was washing his hands at Perhotin's.
"You must take off your shirt, too. That's very important as material evidence."
Mitya flushed red and flew into a rage.
"What, am I to stay naked?" he shouted.
"Don't disturb yourself. We will arrange something. And meanwhile take off your socks."
"You're not joking? Is that really necessary?"
Mitya's eyes flashed.
"We are in no mood for joking," answered Nikolay Parfenovitch sternly.
"Well, if I must-" muttered Mitya, and sitting down on the bed, he took off his socks. He felt unbearably awkward. All were clothed, while he was naked, and strange to say, when he was undressed he felt somehow guilty in their presence, and was almost ready to believe himself that he was inferior to them, and that now they had a perfect right to despise him.
"When all are undressed, one is somehow not ashamed, but when one's the only one undressed and everybody is looking, it's degrading," he kept repeating to himself, again and again. "It's like a dream; I've sometimes dreamed of being in such degrading positions." It was a misery to him to take off his socks. They were very dirty, and so were his underclothes, and now everyone could see it. And what was worse, he disliked his feet. All his life he had thought both his big toes hideous. He particularly loathed the coarse, flat, crooked nail on the right one, and now they would all see it. Feeling intolerably ashamed made him, at once and intentionally, rougher. He pulled off his shirt, himself.
"Would you like to look anywhere else if you're not ashamed to?"
"No, there's no need to, at present."
"Well, am I to stay naked like this?" he added savagely.
"Yes, that can't be helped for the time… . Kindly sit down here for a while. You can wrap yourself in a quilt from the bed, and I… I'll see to all this."
All the things were shown to the witnesses. The report of the search was drawn up, and at last Nikolay Parfenovitch went out, and the clothes were carried out after him. Ippolit Kirillovitch went out, too. Mitya was left alone with the peasants, who stood in silence, never taking their eyes off him. Mitya wrapped himself up in the quilt. He felt cold. His bare feet stuck out, and he couldn't pull the quilt over so as to cover them. Nikolay Parfenovitch seemed to be gone a long time, "an insufferable time."
"He thinks of me as a puppy," thought Mitya, gnashing his teeth. "That rotten prosecutor has gone, too, contemptuous no doubt, it disgusts him to see me naked!"
Mitya imagined, however, that his clothes would be examined and returned to him. But what was his indignation when Nikolay Parfenovitch came back with quite different clothes, brought in behind him by a peasant.
"Here are clothes for you," he observed airily, seeming well satisfied with the success of his mission. "Mr. Kalganov has kindly provided these for this unusual emergency, as well as a clean shirt. Luckily he had them all in his trunk. You can keep your own socks and underclothes."
Mitya flew into a passion.
"I won't have other people's clothes!" he shouted menacingly, "give me my own!"
"It's impossible!"
"Give me my own. Damn Kalganov and his clothes, too!"
It was a long time before they could persuade him. But they succeeded somehow in quieting him down. They impressed upon him that his clothes, being stained with blood, must be "included with the other material evidence," and that they "had not even the right to let him have them now… taking into consideration the possible outcome of the case." Mitya at last understood this. He subsided into gloomy silence and hurriedly dressed himself. He merely observed, as he put them on, that the clothes were much better than his old ones, and that he disliked "gaining by the change." The coat was, besides, "ridiculously tight. Am I to be dressed up like a fool… for your amusement?"
They urged upon him again that he was
exaggerating, that Kalganov was only a little taller, so that only the trousers might be a little too long. But the coat turned out to be really tight in the shoulders.
"Damn it all! I can hardly button it," Mitya grumbled. "Be so good as to tell Mr. Kalganov from me that I didn't ask for his clothes, and it's not my doing that they've dressed me up like a clown."
"He understands that, and is sorry… I mean, not sorry to lend you his clothes, but sorry about all this business," mumbled Nikolay Parfenovitch.
"Confound his sorrow! Well, where now? Am I to go on sitting here?"
He was asked to go back to the "other room." Mitya went in, scowling with anger, and trying to avoid looking at anyone. Dressed in another man's clothes he felt himself disgraced, even in the eyes of the peasants, and of Trifon Borissovitch, whose face appeared, for some reason, in the doorway, and vanished immediately. "He's come to look at me dressed up," thought Mitya. He sat down on the same chair as before. He had an absurd nightmarish feeling, as though he were out of his mind.
"Well, what now? Are you going to flog me? That's all that's left for you," he said, clenching his teeth and addressing the prosecutor. He would not turn to Nikolay Parfenovitch, as though he disdained to speak to him.
"He looked too closely at my socks, and turned them inside out on purpose to show everyone how dirty they were- the scoundrel!"
"Well, now we must proceed to the examination of witnesses," observed Nikolay Parfenovitch, as though in reply to Mitya's question.
"Yes," said the prosecutor thoughtfully, as though reflecting on something.
"We've done what we could in your interest, Dmitri Fyodorovitch," Nikolay Parfenovitch went on, "but having received from you such an uncompromising refusal to explain to us the source from which you obtained the money found upon you, we are, at the present moment-"
"What is the stone in your ring?" Mitya interrupted suddenly, as though awakening from a reverie. He pointed to one of the three large rings adorning Nikolay Parfenovitch's right hand.
"Ring?" repeated Nikolay Parfenovitch with surprise.
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