The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (easy to read books for adults list .txt) 📕
"Those innocent eyes slit my soul up like a razor," he used to say afterwards, with his loathsome snigger. In a man so depraved this might, of course, mean no more than sensual attraction. As he had received no dowry with his wife, and had, so to speak, taken her "from the halter," he did not stand on ceremony with her. Making her feel that she had "wronged" him, he took advantage of her phenomenal meekness and submissiveness to trample on the elemen
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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?”
“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.
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
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