The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (easy to read books for adults list .txt) 📕

The Third Ordeal

THOUGH Mitya spoke sullenly, it was evident that he was trying

more than ever not to forget or miss a single detail of his story.

He told them how he had leapt over the fence into his father’s garden;

how he had gone up to the window; told them all that had passed

under the window. Clearly, precisely, distinctly, he described the

feelings that troubled him during those moments in the garden when

he longed so terribly to know whether Grushenka was with his father or

not. But, strange to say, both the lawyers listened now with a sort of

awful reserve, looked coldly at him, asked few questions. Mitya

could gather nothing from their faces.

“They’re angry and offended,” he thought. “Well, bother them!”

When he described how he made up his mind at last to make the

“signal” to his father that Grushenka had come, so that he should open

the window, the lawyers paid no attention to the word “signal,” as

though they entirely failed to grasp the meaning of the word in this

connection: so much so, that Mitya noticed it. Coming at last to the

moment when, seeing his father peering out of the window, his hatred

flared up and he pulled the pestle out of his pocket, he suddenly,

as though of design, stopped short. He sat gazing at the wall and

was aware that their eyes were fixed upon him.

“Well?” said the investigating lawyer. “You pulled out the

weapon and… and what happened then?

“Then? Why, then I murdered him… hit him on the head and cracked

his skull…. I suppose that’s your story. That’s it!”

His eyes suddenly flashed. All his smothered wrath suddenly flamed

up with extraordinary violence in his soul.

“Our story?” repeated Nikolay Parfenovitch.

Mitya dropped his eyes and was a long time silent.

“My story, gentlemen? Well, was like this,” he began softly.

“Whether it was like this,” he began softly. “Whether it was someone’s

tears, or my mother prayed to God, or a good angel kissed me at that

instant, I don’t know. But the devil was conquered. I rushed from

the window and ran to the fence. My father was alarmed and, for the

first time, he saw me then, cried out, and sprang back from the

window. I remember that very well. I ran across the garden to the

fence… and there Grigory caught me, when I was sitting on the

fence.”

At that point he raised his eyes at last and looked at his

listeners. They seemed to be staring at him with perfectly unruffled

attention. A sort of paroxysm of indignation seized on Mitya’s soul.

“Why, you’re laughing at me at this moment, gentlemen!” he broke

off suddenly.

“What makes you think that?” observed Nikolay Parfenovitch.

“You don’t believe one word-that’s why! I understand, of

course, that I have come to the vital point. The old man’s lying there

now with his skull broken, while I-after dramatically describing

how I wanted to kill him, and how I snatched up the pestle-I suddenly

run away from the window. A romance! Poetry! As though one could

believe a fellow on his word. Ha ha! You are scoffers, gentlemen!”

And he swung round on his chair so that it creaked.

“And did you notice,” asked the prosecutor suddenly, as though not

observing Mitya’s excitement, “did you notice when you ran away from

the window, whether the door into the garden was open?”

“No, it was not open.”

“It was not?”

“It was shut. And who could open it? Bah! the door. Wait a bit!”

he seemed suddenly to bethink himself, and almost with a start:

“Why, did you find the door open?”

“Yes, it was open.”

“Why, who could have opened it if you did not open it yourselves?”

cried Mitya, greatly astonished.

“The door stood open, and your father’s murderer undoubtedly

went in at that door, and, having accomplished the crime, went out

again by the same door,” the prosecutor pronounced deliberately, as

though chiselling out each word separately. “That is perfectly

clear. The murder was committed in the room and not through the

window; that is absolutely certain from the examination that has

been made, from the position of the body and everything. There can

be no doubt of that circumstance.”

Mitya was absolutely dumbfounded.

“But that’s utterly impossible!” he cried, completely at a loss.

“I… I didn’t go in…. I tell you positively, definitely, the door

was shut the whole time I was in the garden, and when I ran out of the

garden. I only stood at the window and saw him through the window.

That’s all, that’s all…. I remember to the last minute. And if I

didn’t remember, it would be just the same. I know it, for no one knew

the signals except Smerdyakov, and me, and the dead man. And he

wouldn’t have opened the door to anyone in the world without the

signals.”

“Signals? What signals?” asked the prosecutor, with greedy, almost

hysterical, curiosity. He instantly lost all trace of his reserve

and dignity. He asked the question with a sort of cringing timidity.

He scented an important fact of which he had known nothing, and was

already filled with dread that Mitya might be unwilling to disclose

it.

“So you didn’t know!” Mitya winked at him with a malicious and

mocking smile. “What if I won’t tell you? From whom could you find

out? No one knew about the signals except my father, Smerdyakov, and

me: that was all. Heaven knew, too, but it won’t tell you. But it’s an

interesting fact. There’s no knowing what you might build on it. Ha

ha! Take comfort, gentlemen, I’ll reveal it. You’ve some foolish

idea in your hearts. You don’t know the man you have to deal with! You

have to do with a prisoner who gives evidence against himself, to

his own damage! Yes, for I’m a man of honour and you-are not.”

The prosecutor swallowed this without a murmur. He was trembling

with impatience to hear the new fact. Minutely and diffusely Mitya

told them everything about the signals invented by Fyodor Pavlovitch

for Smerdyakov. He told them exactly what every tap on the window

meant, tapped the signals on the table, and when Nikolay

Parfenovitch said that he supposed he, Mitya, had tapped the signal

“Grushenka has come,” when he tapped to his father, he answered

precisely that he had tapped that signal, that “Grushenka had come.”

“So now you can build up your tower,” Mitya broke off, and again

turned away from them contemptuously.

“So no one knew of the signals but your dead father, you, and

the valet Smerdyakov? And no one else?” Nikolay Parfenovitch

inquired once more.

“Yes. The valet Smerdyakov, and Heaven. Write down about Heaven.

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