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

And they had already of course, begun writing it down. But while

they wrote, the prosecutor said suddenly, as though pitching on a

new idea:

“But if Smerdyakov also knew of these signals and you absolutely

deny all responsibility for the death of your father, was it not he,

perhaps, who knocked the signal agreed upon, induced your father to

open to him, and then… committed the crime?”

Mitya turned upon him a look of profound irony and intense hatred.

His silent stare lasted so long that it made the prosecutor blink.

“You’ve caught the fox again,” commented Mitya at last; “you’ve

got the beast by the tail. Ha ha! I see through you, Mr. Prosecutor.

You thought, of course, that I should jump at that, catch at your

prompting, and shout with all my might, ‘Aie! it’s Smerdyakov; he’s

the murderer.’ Confess that’s what you thought. Confess, and I’ll go

on.”

But the prosecutor did not confess. He held his tongue and waited.

“You’re mistaken. I’m not going to shout, ‘It’s Smerdyakov,’” said

Mitya.

“And you don’t even suspect him?”

“Why, do you suspect him?”

“He is suspected, too.”

Mitya fixed his eyes on the floor.

“Joking apart,” he brought out gloomily. “Listen. From the very

beginning, almost from the moment when I ran out to you from behind

the curtain, I’ve had the thought of Smerdyakov in my mind. I’ve

been sitting here, shouting that I’m innocent and thinking all the

time ‘Smerdyakov!’ I can’t get Smerdyakov out of my head. In fact,

I, too, thought of Smerdyakov just now; but only for a second.

Almost at once I thought, ‘No, it’s not Smerdyakov.’ It’s not his

doing, gentlemen.”

“In that case is there anybody else you suspect?” Nikolay

Parfenovitch inquired cautiously.

“I don’t know anyone it could be, whether it’s the hand of

Heaven or of Satan, but… not Smerdyakov,” Mitya jerked out with

decision.

“But what makes you affirm so confidently and emphatically that

it’s not he?”

“From my conviction-my impression. Because Smerdyakov is a man of

the most abject character and a coward. He’s not a coward, he’s the

epitome of all the cowardice in the world walking on two legs. He

has the heart of a chicken. When he talked to me, he was always

trembling for fear I should kill him, though I never raised my hand

against him. He fell at my feet and blubbered; he has kissed these

very boots, literally, beseeching me ‘not to frighten him.’ Do you

hear? ‘Not to frighten him.’ What a thing to say! Why, I offered him

money. He’s a puling chicken-sickly, epileptic, weak-minded- a

child of eight could thrash him. He has no character worth talking

about. It’s not Smerdyakov, gentlemen. He doesn’t care for money; he

wouldn’t take my presents. Besides, what motive had he for murdering

the old man? Why, he’s very likely his son, you know-his natural son.

Do you know that?”

“We have heard that legend. But you are your father’s son, too,

you know; yet you yourself told everyone you meant to murder him.”

“That’s a thrust! And a nasty, mean one, too! I’m not afraid!

Oh, gentlemen, isn’t it too base of you to say that to my face? It’s

base, because I told you that myself. I not only wanted to murder him,

but I might have done it. And, what’s more, I went out of my way to

tell you of my own accord that I nearly murdered him. But, you see,

I didn’t murder him; you see, my guardian angel saved me-that’s

what you’ve not taken into account. And that’s why it’s so base of

you. For I didn’t kill him, I didn’t kill him! Do you hear, I did

not kill him.”

He was almost choking. He had not been so moved before during

the whole interrogation.

“And what has he told you, gentlemen-Smerdyakov, I mean?” he

added suddenly, after a pause. “May I ask that question?”

“You may ask any question,” the prosecutor replied with frigid

severity, “any question relating to the facts of the case, and we are,

I repeat, bound to answer every inquiry you make. We found the servant

Smerdyakov, concerning whom you inquire, lying unconscious in his bed,

in an epileptic fit of extreme severity, that had recurred,

possibly, ten times. The doctor who was with us told us, after

seeing him, that he may possibly not outlive the night.”

“Well, if that’s so, the devil must have killed him,” broke

suddenly from Mitya, as though until that moment had been asking

himself: “Was it Smerdyakov or not?”

“We will come back to this later,” Nikolay Parfenovitch decided.

“Now wouldn’t you like to continue your statement?”

Mitya asked for a rest. His request was courteously granted. After

resting, he went on with his story. But he was evidently depressed. He

was exhausted, mortified, and morally shaken. To make things worse the

prosecutor exasperated him, as though intentionally, by vexatious

interruptions about “trifling points.” Scarcely had Mitya described

how, sitting on the wall, he had struck Grigory on the head with the

pestle, while the old man had hold of his left leg, and how he then

jumped down to look at him, when the prosecutor stopped him to ask him

to describe exactly how he was sitting on the wall. Mitya was

surprised.

“Oh, I was sitting like this, astride, one leg on one side of

the wall and one on the other.”

“And the pestle?”

“The pestle was in my hand.”

“Not in your pocket? Do you remember that precisely? Was it a

violent blow you gave him?”

“It must have been a violent one. But why do you ask?”

“Would you mind sitting on the chair just as you sat on the wall

then and showing us just how you moved your arm, and in what

direction?”

“You’re making fun of me, aren’t you?” asked Mitya, looking

haughtily at the speaker; but the latter did not flinch.

Mitya turned abruptly, sat astride on his chair, and swung his

arm.

“This was how I struck him! That’s how I knocked him down! What

more do you want?”

“Thank you. May I trouble you now to explain why you jumped

down, with what object, and what you had in view?”

“Oh, hang it!… I jumped down to look at the man I’d hurt… I

don’t know what for!”

“Though you were so excited and were running away?”

“Yes, though I was excited and running away.”

“You wanted to help him?”

“Help!… Yes, perhaps I did want to help him…. I don’t

remember.”

“You don’t remember? Then you didn’t quite know what you were

doing?”

“Not at all. I remember everything-every detail. I jumped down to

look at him, and wiped his face with my handkerchief.”

“We have seen your handkerchief. Did you hope to restore him to

consciousness?”

“I don’t know whether I hoped it. I simply wanted to make sure

whether he was alive or not.”

“Ah! You wanted to be sure? Well, what then?”

“I’m not a doctor. I couldn’t decide. I ran away thinking I’d

killed him. And now he’s recovered.”

“Excellent,” commented the prosecutor. “Thank you. That’s all I

wanted. Kindly proceed.”

Alas! it never entered Mitya’s head to tell them, though he

remembered it, that he had jumped back from pity, and standing over

the prostrate figure had even uttered some words of regret: “You’ve

come to grief, old man-there’s no help for it. Well, there you must

lie.”

The prosecutor could only draw one conclusion: that the man had

jumped back “at such a moment and in such excitement simply with the

object of ascertaining whether the only witness of his crime were

dead; that he must therefore have been a man of great strength,

coolness, decision, and foresight even at such a moment,”… and so

on. The prosecutor was satisfied: “I’ve provoked the nervous fellow by

‘trifles’ and he has said more than he meant With painful effort Mitya

went on. But this time he was pulled up immediately by Nikolay

Parfenovitch.

“How came you to run to the servant, Fedosya Markovna, with your

hands so covered with blood, and, as it appears, your face, too?”

“Why, I didn’t notice the blood at all at the time,” answered

Mitya.

“That’s quite likely. It does happen sometimes.” The prosecutor

exchanged glances with Nikolay Parfenovitch.

“I simply didn’t notice. You’re quite right there, prosecutor,”

Mitya assented suddenly.

Next came the account of Mitya’s sudden determination to “step

aside” and make way for their happiness. But he could not make up

his mind to open his heart to them as before, and tell them about “the

queen of his soul.” He disliked speaking of her before these chilly

persons “who were fastening on him like bugs.” And so in response to

their reiterated questions he answered briefly and abruptly:

“Well, I made up my mind to kill myself. What had I left to live

for? That question stared me in the face. Her first rightful lover had

come back, the man who wronged her but who’d hurried back to offer his

love, after five years, and atone for the wrong with marriage…. So I

knew it was all over for me…. And behind me disgrace, and that

blood-Grigory’s…. What had I to live for? So I went to redeem the

pistols I had pledged, to load them and put a bullet in my brain

to-morrow.”

“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 bloodstained 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,”