The Brothers Karamazov

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  He was heard with silent attention. They inquired particularly into the circumstance of his having a place of ambush in Marya Kondratyevna's house at the back of Fyodor Pavlovitch's garden to keep watch on Grushenka, and of Smerdyakov's bringing him information. They laid particular stress on this, and noted it down. [pg 528] Of his jealousy he spoke warmly and at length, and though inwardly ashamed at exposing his most intimate feelings to "public ignominy," so to speak, he evidently overcame his shame in order to tell the truth. The frigid severity, with which the investigating lawyer, and still more the prosecutor, stared intently at him as he told his story, disconcerted him at last considerably.

  "That boy, Nikolay Parfenovitch, to whom I was talking nonsense about women only a few days ago, and that sickly prosecutor are not worth my telling this to," he reflected mournfully. "It's ignominious. 'Be patient, humble, hold thy peace.' " He wound up his reflections with that line. But he pulled himself together to go on again. When he came to telling of his visit to Madame Hohlakov, he regained his spirits and even wished to tell a little anecdote of that lady which had nothing to do with the case. But the investigating lawyer stopped him, and civilly suggested that he should pass on to "more essential matters." At last, when he described his despair and told them how, when he left Madame Hohlakov's, he thought that he'd "get three thousand if he had to murder some one to do it," they stopped him again and noted down that he had "meant to murder some one." Mitya let them write it without protest. At last he reached the point in his story when he learned that Grushenka had deceived him and had returned from Samsonov's as soon as he left her there, though she had said that she would stay there till midnight.

  "If I didn't kill Fenya then, gentlemen, it was only because I hadn't time," broke from him suddenly at that point in his story. That, too, was carefully written down. Mitya waited gloomily, and was beginning to tell how he ran into his father's garden when the investigating lawyer suddenly stopped him, and opening the big portfolio that lay on the sofa beside him he brought out the brass pestle.

  "Do you recognize this object?" he asked, showing it to Mitya.

  "Oh, yes," he laughed gloomily. "Of course I recognize it. Let me have a look at it.... Damn it, never mind!"

  "You have forgotten to mention it," observed the investigating lawyer.

  "Hang it all, I shouldn't have concealed it from you. Do you [pg 529] suppose I could have managed without it? It simply escaped my memory."

  "Be so good as to tell us precisely how you came to arm yourself with it."

  "Certainly I will be so good, gentlemen."

  And Mitya described how he took the pestle and ran.

  "But what object had you in view in arming yourself with such a weapon?"

  "What object? No object. I just picked it up and ran off."

  "What for, if you had no object?"

  Mitya's wrath flared up. He looked intently at "the boy" and smiled gloomily and malignantly. He was feeling more and more ashamed at having told "such people" the story of his jealousy so sincerely and spontaneously.

  "Bother the pestle!" broke from him suddenly.

  "But still--"

  "Oh, to keep off dogs.... Oh, because it was dark.... In case anything turned up."

  "But have you ever on previous occasions taken a weapon with you when you went out, since you're afraid of the dark?"

  "Ugh! damn it all, gentlemen! There's positively no talking to you!" cried Mitya, exasperated beyond endurance, and turning to the secretary, crimson with anger, he said quickly, with a note of fury in his voice:

  "Write down at once ... at once ... 'that I snatched up the pestle to go and kill my father ... Fyodor Pavlovitch ... by hitting him on the head with it!' Well, now are you satisfied, gentlemen? Are your minds relieved?" he said, glaring defiantly at the lawyers.

  "We quite understand that you made that statement just now through exasperation with us and the questions we put to you, which you consider trivial, though they are, in fact, essential," the prosecutor remarked dryly in reply.

  "Well, upon my word, gentlemen! Yes, I took the pestle.... What does one pick things up for at such moments? I don't know what for. I snatched it up and ran--that's all. For to me, gentlemen, passons, or I declare I won't tell you any more."

  [pg 530] He sat with his elbows on the table and his head in his hand. He sat sideways to them and gazed at the wall, struggling against a feeling of nausea. He had, in fact, an awful inclination to get up and declare that he wouldn't say another word, "not if you hang me for it."

  "You see, gentlemen," he said at last, with difficulty controlling himself, "you see. I listen to you and am haunted by a dream.... It's a dream I have sometimes, you know.... I often dream it--it's always the same ... that some one is hunting me, some one I'm awfully afraid of ... that he's hunting me in the dark, in the night ... tracking me, and I hide somewhere from him, behind a door or cupboard, hide in a degrading way, and the worst of it is, he always knows where I am, but he pretends not to know where I am on purpose, to prolong my agony, to enjoy my terror.... That's just what you're doing now. It's just like that!"

  "Is that the sort of thing you dream about?" inquired the prosecutor.

  "Yes, it is. Don't you want to write it down?" said Mitya, with a distorted smile.

  "No; no need to write it down. But still you do have curious dreams."

  "It's not a question of dreams now, gentlemen--this is realism, this is real life! I'm a wolf and you're the hunters. Well, hunt him down!"

  "You are wrong to make such comparisons ..." began Nikolay Parfenovitch, with extraordinary softness.

  "No, I'm not wrong, not at all!" Mitya flared up again, though his outburst of wrath had obviously relieved his heart. He grew more good-humored at every word. "You may not trust a criminal or a man on trial tortured by your questions, but an honorable man, the honorable impulses of the heart (I say that boldly!)--no! That you must believe you have no right indeed ... but--

  Be silent, heart,

  Be patient, humble, hold thy peace.

  Well, shall I go on?" he broke off gloomily.

  "If you'll be so kind," answered Nikolay Parfenovitch.

  [pg 531]

  Chapter V. 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. "Well--and yours?"

  Mitya dropped his eyes and was a long time silent.

  "My story, gentlemen? Well, it was like this," he began softly. "Wheth
er it was some one's tears, or my mother prayed to God, or [pg 532] 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 chiseling out each word separately. "That is perfectly clear. The murder was committed in the room and not through the [pg 533] 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 any one 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 honor 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."

  [pg 534] "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. That may be of use. Besides, you will need God yourselves."

  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; [pg 535] 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 any one it could be, whether it's the hand of Heaven or 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 every one 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.
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br />   [pg 536] "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 he 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 had 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."