III. Хождение души по мытарствам. Мытарство первое

Suddenly he rose, flung his arms up, and shouted aloud:

"Not guilty!"

"Of this blood I am not guilty!"

"Of my father's blood I am not guilty…"

"I wanted to kill him, but I am not guilty!"

"It was not I!"

But no sooner had he managed to shout this than Grushenka darted out from behind the curtains and threw herself down at the very feet of the police captain.

"It was I, I, accursed creature that I am, I am the guilty one!"

she cried out in a wail that tore at the soul, all in tears, stretching out her arms to them all, "it was because of me that he killed!.."

"It was I who tormented him and drove him to it!"

"And that poor little old man, now dead, I tormented him too, out of my own spite, and drove him to it as well!"

"I am the guilty one, I first of all, I above all, I am to blame!"

"Yes, you are the guilty one!"

"You are the chief criminal!"

"You are a wild thing, you are a wanton, you are the one most to blame," bawled the police captain, shaking his fist at her — but here he was quickly and firmly silenced.

The prosecutor even threw his arms around him.

"This is becoming quite a disorder, Mikhail Makarovich," he exclaimed, "you are positively obstructing the inquiry… you are spoiling the case…"

he gasped, almost choking.

"Measures must be taken, measures must be taken, measures must be taken!"

Nikolai Parfenovich too boiled over dreadfully, "otherwise it is positively impossible!.."

"Try us together!"

Grushenka went on exclaiming in a frenzy, still on her knees.

"Punish us together — I will go with him now even to the scaffold!"

"Grusha, my life, my blood, my holy one!"

Mitya too threw himself down on his knees beside her and clasped her tightly in his arms.

"Don't believe her," he cried, "she is not guilty of anything, not of any blood and not of anything at all!"

He remembered afterward that several men had dragged him away from her by force, and that she had suddenly been led off, and that he came to his senses only when he was already sitting at the table.

Beside him and behind him stood men wearing official badges.

Across the table from him, on the sofa, sat Nikolai Parfenovich, the examining magistrate, who kept urging him to take a little water from the glass standing on the table: "It will refresh you, it will calm you, don't be afraid, don't be uneasy," he added with extreme courtesy.

And suddenly — he remembered this — Mitya became dreadfully curious about the magistrate's large rings, one set with an amethyst and the other with some bright-yellow stone, transparent and of such a beautiful luster.

And for a long time afterward he recalled with astonishment that those rings had drawn his gaze irresistibly even throughout all those terrible hours of interrogation, so that for some reason he could not tear himself away from them or forget them, as a thing utterly out of keeping with his situation.

To the left, at Mitya's side, in the place where Maximov had sat at the start of the evening, the prosecutor had now settled himself, while at Mitya's right hand, in the place where Grushenka had then been, a ruddy young man took his seat, in a sort of hunting jacket, and a very shabby one at that, before whom an inkstand and paper had appeared.

He turned out to be the magistrate's clerk, whom the latter had brought with him. The police captain, meanwhile, now stood by the window, at the other end of the room, beside Kalganov, who had also taken a seat on a chair by that same window.

"Drink some water!"

the magistrate repeated gently, for the tenth time.

"I have drunk, gentlemen, I have drunk… but… well, gentlemen, crush me, execute me, decide my fate!"

exclaimed Mitya, fixing the magistrate with a dreadfully motionless, bulging stare.

"And so, you positively maintain that you are not guilty of the death of your father, Fyodor Pavlovich?" the magistrate asked gently but insistently.

"Not guilty!"

"Guilty of other blood, of the blood of another old man, but not of my father's."

"And I mourn it!"

"I killed, I killed the old man, killed him and laid him low…"

"But it is hard to answer for that blood with other blood, with terrible blood, of which I am not guilty… It is a terrible accusation, gentlemen, as though I had been struck a blow on the forehead!"

"But who, then, killed my father, who killed him? Who could have killed him, if not I?"

"A marvel, an absurdity, an impossibility!.."

"Yes, as for who could have killed him…"

the magistrate began, but the prosecutor Ippolit Kirillovich (the deputy prosecutor, though we too shall call him the prosecutor for brevity's sake), exchanging a glance with the magistrate, said, turning to Mitya:

"You are needlessly distressing yourself over the old servant Grigory Vasilyev."

"You should know that he is alive, that he has come round, and that, in spite of the grievous beating dealt him by you — by his account and now by your own — it seems he will undoubtedly remain alive, at least according to the doctor's opinion."

"Alive?"

"So he is alive!" Mitya suddenly wailed, throwing up his hands.

His whole face lit up.

"Lord, I thank Thee for the greatest of miracles, wrought by Thee for me, a sinner and a villain, in answer to my prayer!.."

"Yes, yes, it is in answer to my prayer, I prayed all night long!.."

and he crossed himself three times.

He was almost choking.

"Well, it is precisely from this same Grigory that we have received such weighty testimony against you that…"

the prosecutor began to continue, but Mitya suddenly leapt up from his chair.

"One minute, gentlemen, for God's sake, just one little minute; I'll run to her…" — "Permit me!"

"At this moment it is absolutely impossible!"

Nikolai Parfenovich very nearly shrieked, and he too sprang to his feet.

Men with badges on their chests seized Mitya, though he sat down on the chair of his own accord…

"Gentlemen, what a pity! I only wanted to go to her for a single moment… I wanted to bring her word that the blood is washed away, gone, that blood which sucked at my heart all night long, and that I am no longer a murderer!"

"Gentlemen, she is my betrothed, after all!"

he suddenly pronounced, rapturous and reverent, casting his eyes over them all.

"Oh, I thank you, gentlemen!"

"Oh, how you have revived me, how you have raised me from the dead in a single instant!.."

"That old man — why, he used to carry me about in his arms, gentlemen, he washed me in the tub when, a three-year-old child, everyone had abandoned me — he was a true father to me!.."

"And so you…"

the magistrate began, but "Permit me, gentlemen, permit me just one more little minute," Mitya interrupted, planting both elbows on the table and burying his face in his hands, "do let me collect myself a little, let me catch my breath, gentlemen."

"All of this shakes one terribly, terribly — a man is not a drumhide, gentlemen!"

"You might have a little more water…"

Nikolai Parfenovich murmured.

Mitya took his hands away from his face and burst out laughing.

His look was buoyant; he seemed altogether changed in a single instant.

His whole tone had changed as well: here sat once more a man on equal terms with all these people, with all these former acquaintances of his, exactly as if they had all met the day before, when nothing had yet happened, somewhere in polite society.

Let us note, however, in passing, that at the police captain's house Mitya, in the early days of his arrival among us, had been received cordially, but later, in the last month especially, Mitya had scarcely visited him at all, while the captain, meeting him in the street, for instance, would frown heavily and return his bow only out of politeness — a thing Mitya had marked very well.

With the prosecutor he was even less closely acquainted, but to the prosecutor's wife, a nervous and fanciful lady, he sometimes paid the most respectful visits, though without quite knowing himself why he called on her, and she always received him kindly, taking an interest in him for some reason right up until the most recent times.

With the magistrate he had not yet managed to become acquainted, but he had nonetheless met him too, and had even spoken with him once or twice, both times about the fair sex.

"You, Nikolai Parfenych, are a most skillful magistrate, as I can see," Mitya suddenly laughed merrily, "but I shall help you myself now."

"Oh gentlemen, I am risen from the dead… and don't hold it against me that I address you so casually and so directly."

"Besides, I am a little drunk, I'll tell you that frankly."

"I believe I had the honor… the honor and the pleasure of meeting you, Nikolai Parfenych, at the house of my kinsman Miusov…"

"Gentlemen, gentlemen, I lay no claim to equality, for I do understand who I am, sitting here now before you."

"There lies upon me… if it really is Grigory who has given testimony against me… then there lies — oh, of course, there surely lies — a terrible suspicion!"

"Horror, horror — for I do understand it!"

"But to business, gentlemen, I am ready, and we shall finish it now in a single instant, because — listen, listen, gentlemen."

"For if I know that I am not guilty, then of course we shall finish in a single instant!"

"Is that not so?"

"Is that not so?"

Mitya spoke fast and at length, nervously and expansively, as though resolutely taking his listeners for his very best friends.

"And so, for now we shall record that you radically reject the accusation brought against you," Nikolai Parfenovich pronounced impressively, and, turning to the clerk, dictated to him in an undertone what was to be set down.