IV. Мытарство второе

For our part, we will do everything that depends on us, and you have been able to see for yourself, even now, how we are conducting this affair... Do you approve, Ippolit Kirillovich?" he asked, turning suddenly to the prosecutor.

"Oh, beyond a doubt," the prosecutor approved, though somewhat more dryly than the burst of feeling from Nikolai Parfenovich.

Let me note, once and for all: Nikolai Parfenovich, newly arrived among us, had from the very outset of his career here conceived an extraordinary respect for our prosecutor, Ippolit Kirillovich, and had come to feel almost a kinship of heart with him.

He was nearly the only man who believed unconditionally in the uncommon psychological and oratorical gift of our "wronged in the service" Ippolit Kirillovich, and who fully believed, too, that the man had indeed been wronged.

He had heard of him even back in Petersburg.

And in his turn the youthful Nikolai Parfenovich proved to be likewise the one man in all the world whom our "wronged" prosecutor sincerely came to love.

On the way here the two had managed to confer about a few things and to come to an understanding regarding the business ahead, and now, at the table, the keen mind of Nikolai Parfenovich caught on the wing and grasped every hint, every shift in the face of his senior colleague — from half a word, from a glance, from a wink of the eye.

"Gentlemen, only let me tell it myself and don't keep interrupting with trifles, and I'll lay the whole thing out for you in a flash," Mitya seethed.

"Splendid, sir. Thank you.

But before we pass on to hearing your account, would you permit me only to establish one more little fact, very curious to us — namely, about those ten roubles which yesterday, around five o'clock, you borrowed against the pledge of your pistols from your friend Pyotr Ilyich Perkhotin."

"I pawned them, gentlemen, I pawned them, for ten roubles — and what of it? That's all there is to it: the moment I got back to town from the road, I pawned them."

"So you got back from the road? You had been out of town?"

"I had been out, gentlemen, forty versts I'd driven — and you didn't even know it?"

The prosecutor and Nikolai Parfenovich exchanged glances.

"And in general, might you begin your tale with a systematic account of your whole day yesterday, from the very morning? Permit me, for instance, to learn: why did you absent yourself from town, and when exactly did you set out and return... and all these facts..."

"Well then, you should have asked it that way from the start," Mitya laughed out loud, "and if you like, the affair has to be begun not from yesterday but from the day before, from the very morning — then you'll understand where, how, and why I went and drove.

The day before yesterday, gentlemen, in the morning, I went to the local merchant Samsonov to borrow three thousand from him against the surest security — it came over me all at once, gentlemen, all at once it came over me..."

"Permit me to interrupt you," the prosecutor broke in politely, "why did you so suddenly need it, and precisely such a sum — that is, three thousand roubles?"

"Ah, gentlemen, we shouldn't bother with the petty details: how, when, and why, and why exactly so much money and not some other amount, and all this rigmarole... why, at this rate you couldn't get it into three volumes, and an epilogue would be wanted on top!"

All this Mitya rattled off with the good-natured but impatient familiarity of a man who wishes to tell the whole truth and is filled with the best of intentions.

"Gentlemen," he said, as if suddenly recollecting himself, "don't be vexed with me for my balkiness; once again I ask you: believe me one more time that I feel the fullest respect and understand the real position of this affair.

Don't think I'm drunk. I've sobered up by now.

And anyway, being drunk wouldn't be a hindrance at all. With me, you see, it goes like this:

Sobered up, grew wise — turned stupid; Got drunk, turned foolish — grew wise.

Ha-ha! But never mind, I see, gentlemen, that it's still unseemly for me to crack jokes in front of you — that is, until we've come to an understanding.

Allow me to keep up my own dignity, too.

I do understand the present difference between us: after all, I'm sitting here before you as a criminal, and so I'm in the highest degree not your equal, while you've been charged to keep watch over me — you're hardly going to pat me on the head over Grigory; one really cannot go about smashing old men's heads with impunity. You'll be packing me off over him by sentence of the court, well, for half a year, well, for a year in the house of correction — I don't know how it's decided in your line, though without loss of civil rights, surely without loss of rights, prosecutor?

Well then, gentlemen, I do understand this distinction... But you must agree, too, that you could throw God Himself off the scent with questions like these: where did you step, how did you step, when did you step, and into what did you step?

I'll get muddled if it's like that, and you'll be ready at once to fault my every word and write it all down — and what will come of it? Nothing will come of it!

And besides, since I've now begun to spin it out, I'll finish it too — and you, gentlemen, being men of the highest education and the noblest sort, will forgive me.

Let me end precisely with a request: unlearn, gentlemen, that bureaucratic routine of interrogation — that is, the way you first, you see, begin with something paltry, something trifling: how, say, the man got up, what he ate, how he spat, and then, having "lulled the criminal's vigilance," you suddenly pounce on him with the staggering question: "Whom did you murder, whom did you rob?"

Ha-ha! There it is, your routine, that's the rule with you, that's the very thing your whole cunning rests upon!

It's peasants you ought to be lulling with tricks like that — not me.

I understand the business, you see, I've served myself, ha-ha-ha! Don't be angry, gentlemen, will you forgive the impertinence?" he cried, looking at them with an almost astonishing good nature.

"It was Mitka Karamazov who said it, after all, so it can be excused — for what's unforgivable in a clever man is forgivable in Mitka! Ha-ha!"

Nikolai Parfenovich listened and laughed too.

The prosecutor, though he did not laugh, scrutinized Mitya keenly, never taking his eyes off him, as if not wishing to let slip the smallest word, the smallest movement of his, the smallest twitch of the smallest feature in his face.

"And yet that is just how we began with you from the first," Nikolai Parfenovich responded, still laughing, "in that we did not set about confusing you with questions like how you got up in the morning and what you ate, but began straight off with something rather too essential."

"I understand — I understood and appreciated it, and I value still more this genuine kindness of yours toward me, unexampled, worthy of the noblest souls.

Here the three of us have come together as men of honor, and let everything between us go on like this, on the mutual trust of educated men of the world, bound by gentle birth and honor.

In any case, allow me to count you among my best friends at this moment of my life, at this moment of the humbling of my honor! It's not offensive to you, gentlemen, is it — not offensive?"

"On the contrary, you have put all this so beautifully, Dmitri Fyodorovich," Nikolai Parfenovich agreed gravely and approvingly.

"And away with the trifles, gentlemen, all these hairsplitting trifles," Mitya exclaimed rapturously, "otherwise it'll simply turn into the devil knows what, isn't that so?"

"I shall follow your sensible advice entirely," the prosecutor suddenly cut in, turning to Mitya, "but I will not withdraw my question all the same.

It is far too essential for us to learn just why you needed such a sum — that is, precisely three thousand."

"What did I need it for? Well, for this and for that... well, to pay back a debt."

"To whom, precisely?"

"That I positively refuse to say, gentlemen! You see, it's not that I couldn't say, or didn't dare, or was afraid, because the whole thing is a mere nothing, the sheerest trifle — but I won't say it because there's a principle at stake: this is my private life, and I will not allow anyone to intrude into my private life.

That is my principle. Your question has no bearing on the case, and everything that has no bearing on the case is my private life!

I wanted to pay a debt, a debt of honor I wanted to pay, but to whom — I won't say."

"Permit us to write that down," said the prosecutor.

"By all means. Write it down just so: that I won't say, and won't say.

Write it, gentlemen, that I even consider it dishonorable to say. My, but you have a great deal of time for writing!"

"Permit me, my dear sir, to warn you and remind you once more, in case you simply did not know it," the prosecutor pronounced with peculiar and most stern emphasis, "that you have every right not to answer the questions now put to you, while we, conversely, have no right whatever to wring answers from you if you yourself decline to answer for one reason or another.