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

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.

“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 halfway 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