Poor Folk Anthology

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  "Yes, that one… on your middle finger, with the little veins in it, what stone is that?" Mitya persisted, like a peevish child.

  "That's a smoky topaz," said Nikolay Parfenovitch, smiling. "Would you like to look at it? I'll take it off… "

  "No, don't take it off," cried Mitya furiously, suddenly waking up, and angry with himself. "Don't take it off… there's no need… . Damn it!… Gentlemen, you've sullied my heart! Can you suppose that I would conceal it from you, if I had really killed my father, that I would shuffle, lie, and hide myself? No, that's not like Dmitri Karamazov, that he couldn't do, and if I were guilty, I swear I shouldn't have waited for your coming, or for the sunrise as I meant at first, but should have killed myself before this, without waiting for the dawn! I know that about myself now. I couldn't have learnt so much in twenty years as I've found out in this accursed night!… And should I have been like this on this night, and at this moment, sitting with you, could I have talked like this, could I have moved like this, could I have looked at you and at the world like this, if I had really been the murderer of my father, when the very thought of having accidentally killed Grigory gave me no peace all night- not from fear- oh, not simply from fear of your punishment! The disgrace of it! And you expect me to be open with such scoffers as you, who see nothing and believe in nothing, blind moles and scoffers, and to tell you another nasty thing I've done, another disgrace, even if that would save me from your accusation! No, better Siberia! The man who opened the door to my father and went in at that door, he killed him, he robbed him. Who was he? I'm racking my brains and can't think who. But I can tell you it was not Dmitri Karamazov, and that's all I can tell you, and that's enough, enough, leave me alone… . Exile me, punish me, but don't bother me any more. I'll say no more. Call your witnesses!"

  Mitya uttered his sudden monologue as though he were determined to be absolutely silent for the future. The prosecutor watched him the whole time and only when he had ceased speaking, observed, as though it were the most ordinary thing, with the most frigid and composed air:

  "Oh, about the open door of which you spoke just now, we may as well inform you, by the way, now, of a very interesting piece of evidence of the greatest importance both to you and to us, that has been given us by Grigory, the old man you wounded. On his recovery, he clearly and emphatically stated, in reply to our questions, that when, on coming out to the steps, and hearing a noise in the garden, he made up his mind to go into it through the little gate which stood open, before he noticed you running, as you have told us already, in the dark from the open window where you saw your father, he, Grigory, glanced to the left, and, while noticing the open window, observed at the same time, much nearer to him, the door, standing wide open- that door which you have stated to have been shut the whole time you were in the garden. I will not conceal from you that Grigory himself confidently affirms and bears witness that you must have run from that door, though, of course, he did not see you do so with his own eyes, since he only noticed you first some distance away in the garden, running towards the fence."

  Mitya had leapt up from his chair half-way through this speech.

  "Nonsense!" he yelled, in a sudden frenzy, "it's a barefaced lie. He couldn't have seen the door open because it was shut. He's lying!"

  "I consider it my duty to repeat that he is firm in his statement. He does not waver. He adheres to it. We've cross-examined him several times."

  "Precisely. I have cross-examined him several times," Nikolay Parfenovitch confirmed warmly.

  "It's false, false! It's either an attempt to slander me, or the hallucination of a madman," Mitya still shouted. "He's simply raving, from loss of blood, from the wound. He must have fancied it when he came to… . He's raving."

  "Yes, but he noticed the open door, not when he came to after his injuries, but before that, as soon as he went into the garden from the lodge."

  "But it's false, it's false! It can't be so! He's slandering me from spite… . He couldn't have seen it… I didn't come from the door," gasped Mitya.

  The prosecutor turned to Nikolay Parfenovitch and said to him impressively:

  "Confront him with it."

  "Do you recognise this object?"

  Nikolay Parfenovitch laid upon the table a large and thick official envelope, on which three seals still remained intact. The envelope was empty, and slit open at one end. Mitya stared at it with open eyes.

  "It… it must be that envelope of my father's, the envelope that contained the three thousand roubles… and if there's inscribed on it, allow me, 'For my little chicken'… yes- three thousand!" he shouted, "do you see, three thousand, do you see?"

  "Of course, we see. But we didn't find the money in it. It was empty, and lying on the floor by the bed, behind the screen."

  For some seconds Mitya stood as though thunderstruck.

  "Gentlemen, it's Smerdyakov!" he shouted suddenly, at the top of his voice. "It's he who's murdered him! He's robbed him! No one else knew where the old man hid the envelope. It's Smerdyakov, that's clear, now!"

  "But you, too, knew of the envelope and that it was under the pillow."

  "I never knew it. I've never seen it. This is the first time I've looked at it. I'd only heard of it from Smerdyakov… . He was the only one who knew where the old man kept it hidden, I didn't know… " Mitya was completely breathless.

  "But you told us yourself that the envelope was under your deceased father's pillow. You especially stated that it was under the pillow, so you must have known it."

  "We've got it written down," confirmed Nikolay Parfenovitch.

  "Nonsense! It's absurd! I'd no idea it was under the pillow. And perhaps it wasn't under the pillow at all… . It was just a chance guess that it was under the pillow. What does Smerdyakov say? Have you asked him where it was? What does Smerdyakov say? That's the chief point… . And I went out of my way to tell lies against myself… . I told you without thinking that it was under the pillow, and now you- Oh, you know how one says the wrong thing, without meaning it. No one knew but Smerdyakov, only Smerdyakov, and no one else… . He didn't even tell me where it was! But it's his doing, his doing; there's no doubt about it, he murdered him, that's as clear as daylight now," Mitya exclaimed more and more frantically, repeating himself incoherently, and growing more and more exasperated and excited. "You must understand that, and arrest him at once… . He must have killed him while I was running away and while Grigory was unconscious, that's clear now… . He gave the signal and father opened to him… for no one but he knew the signal, and without the signal father would never have opened the door… ."

  "But you're again forgetting the circumstance," the prosecutor observed, still speaking with the same restraint, though with a note of triumph, "that there was no need to give the signal if the door already stood open when you were there, while you were in the garden… "

  "The door, the door," muttered Mitya, and he stared speechless at the prosecutor. He sank back helpless in his chair. All were silent.

  "Yes, the door!… It's a nightmare! God is against me!" he exclaimed, staring before him in complete stupefaction.

  "Come, you see," the prosecutor went on with dignity, "and you can judge for yourself, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. On the one hand, we have the evidence of the open door from which you ran out, a fact which overwhelms you and us. On the other side, your incomprehensible, persistent, and, so to speak, obdurate silence with regard to the source from which you obtained the money which was so suddenly seen in your hands, when only three hours earlier, on your own showing, you pledged your pistols for the sake of ten roubles! In view of all these facts, judge for yourself. What are we to believe, and what can we depend upon? And don't accuse us of being 'frigid, cynical, scoffing people,' who are incapable of believing in the generous impulses of your heart… . Try to enter into our position… "

  Mitya was indescribably agitated. He turned pale.

  "Very well!" he exclaimed suddenly, "I will tell you my secret. I'll tell you w
here I got the money!… I'll reveal my shame, that I may not have to blame myself or you hereafter."

  "And believe me, Dmitri Fyodorovitch," put in Nikolay Parfenovitch, in a voice of almost pathetic delight, "that every sincere and complete confession on your part at this moment may, later on, have an immense influence in your favour, and may, indeed, moreover-"

  But the prosecutor gave him a slight shove under the table, and he checked himself in time. Mitya, it is true, had not heard him.

  Chapter 7 Mitya's Great Secret Received with Hisses

  "GENTLEMEN," he began, still in the same agitation, "I want to make a full confession: that money was my own."

  The lawyer's faces lengthened. That was not at all what they expected.

  "How do you mean?" faltered Nikolay Parfenovitch, "when at five o'clock on the same day, from your own confession-"

  "Damn five o'clock on the same day and my own confession! That's nothing to do with it now! That money was my own, my own, that is, stolen by me… not mine, I mean, but stolen by me, and it was fifteen hundred roubles, and I had it on me all the time, all the time… "

  "But where did you get it?"

  "I took it off my neck, gentlemen, off this very neck… it was here, round my neck, sewn up in a rag, and I'd had it round my neck a long time, it's a month since I put it round my neck… to my shame and disgrace!"

  "And from whom did you… appropriate it?"

  "You mean, 'steal it'? Speak out plainly now. Yes, I consider that I practically stole it, but, if you prefer, I 'appropriated it.' I consider I stole it. And last night I stole it finally."

  "Last night? But you said that it's a month since you… obtained it?… "

  "Yes. But not from my father. Not from my father, don't be uneasy. I didn't steal it from my father, but from her. Let me tell you without interrupting. It's hard to do, you know. You see, a month ago, I was sent for by Katerina Ivanovna, formerly my betrothed. Do you know her?"

  "Yes, of course."

  "I know you know her. She's a noble creature, noblest of the noble. But she has hated me ever so long, oh, ever so long… and hated me with good reason, good reason!"

  "Katerina Ivanovna!" Nikolay Parfenovitch exclaimed with wonder. The prosecutor, too, stared.

  "Oh, don't take her name in vain! I'm a scoundrel to bring her into it. Yes, I've seen that she hated me… a long while… . From the very first, even that evening at my lodging… but enough, enough. You're unworthy even to know of that. No need of that at all… . I need only tell you that she sent for me a month ago, gave me three thousand roubles to send off to her sister and another relation in Moscow (as though she couldn't have sent it off herself!) and I… it was just at that fatal moment in my life when I… well, in fact, when I'd just come to love another, her, she's sitting down below now, Grushenka. I carried her off here to Mokroe then, and wasted here in two days half that damned three thousand, but the other half I kept on me. Well, I've kept that other half, that fifteen hundred, like a locket round my neck, but yesterday I undid it, and spent it. What's left of it, eight hundred roubles, is in your hands now, Nikolay Parfenovitch. That's the change out of the fifteen hundred I had yesterday."

  "Excuse me. How's that? Why, when you were here a month ago you spent three thousand, not fifteen hundred, everybody knows that."

  "Who knows it? Who counted the money? Did I let anyone count it?"

  "Why, you told everyone yourself that you'd spent exactly three thousand."

  "It's true, I did. I told the whole town so, and the whole town said so. And here, at Mokroe, too, everyone reckoned it was three thousand. Yet I didn't spend three thousand, but fifteen hundred. And the other fifteen hundred I sewed into a little bag. That's how it was, gentlemen. That's where I got that money yesterday… ."

  "This is almost miraculous," murmured Nikolay Parfenovitch.

  "Allow me to inquire," observed the prosecutor at last, "have you informed anyone whatever of this circumstance before; I mean that you had fifteen hundred left about you a month ago?"

  "I told no one."

  "That's strange. Do you mean absolutely no one?"

  "Absolutely no one. No one and nobody."

  "What was your reason for this reticence? What was your motive for making such a secret of it? To be more precise: You have told us at last your secret, in your words, so 'disgraceful,' though in reality- that is, of course, comparatively speaking- this action, that is, the appropriation of three thousand roubles belonging to someone else, and, of course, only for a time is, in my view at least, only an act of the greatest recklessness and not so disgraceful, when one takes into consideration your character… . Even admitting that it was an action in the highest degree discreditable, still, discreditable is not 'disgraceful.'… Many people have already guessed, during this last month, about the three thousand of Katerina Ivanovna's that you have spent, and I heard the legend myself, apart from your confession… . Mihail Makarovitch, for instance, had heard it, too, so that indeed, it was scarcely a legend, but the gossip of the whole town. There are indications, too, if I am not mistaken, that you confessed this yourself to someone, I mean that the money was Katerina Ivanovna's, and so, it's extremely surprising to me that hitherto, that is, up to the present moment, you have made such an extraordinary secret of the fifteen hundred you say you put by, apparently connecting a feeling of positive horror with that secret… . It's not easy to believe that it could cost you such distress to confess such a secret… . You cried out, just now, that Siberia would be better than confessing it… "

  The prosecutor ceased speaking. He was provoked. He did not conceal his vexation, which was almost anger, and gave vent to all his accumulated spleen, disconnectedly and incoherently, without choosing words.

  "It's not the fifteen hundred that's the disgrace, but that I put it apart from the rest of the three thousand," said Mitya firmly.

  "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 honour; 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 favourable 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 everyone 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, although 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 and I was jealous; I thought then that she was hesitating between me and him. So I kept thinking everyday, 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?"