The Brothers Karamazov 1732 Studios

Russian · Book IX — The Preliminary Investigation

VII. Великая тайна Мити. Освистали

Mitya's Great Secret Received with Hisses

259 sentences · 500 notes

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  1. 1

    "Gentlemen," he began, in the same agitation as before, "this money... I want to confess it fully... this money was mine."

    ГосподаGentlemenгосподин · noun, vocative (nominative form), masculine, pluralvocative address
    началbeganначать · verb, past, indicative, active, singular, perfectivemain verb of the sentence
    онheон · pronoun, nominative, masculine, singularsubject of начал
    всёstillвсё · adverbmodifies волнении (всё в том же = still in the same)
    вinв · prepositionpreposition marking волнении
    томthatтот · determiner, locative, neuter, singulardeterminer of волнении
    жеsameже · particlemodifies том (тот же = the same)
    волненииagitationволнение · noun, locative, neuter, singularoblique complement of начал
    этиthisэтот · determiner, nominative, pluraldeterminer of деньги
    деньгиmoneyденьги · noun, nominative, pluralhead of the interrupted phrase
    яIя · pronoun, nominative, singularsubject of хочу
    хочуwantхотеть · verb, present, indicative, active, first, singular, imperfectivemain verb of the sentence
    признатьсяto confessпризнаться · verb, middle, infinitive, perfectivecomplement of хочу
    вполнеfullyвполне · adverbmodifies признаться
    этиthisэтот · determiner, nominative, pluraldeterminer of деньги
    деньгиmoneyденьги · noun, nominative, pluralsubject of мои
    былиwereбыть · verb, past, indicative, active, plural, imperfectivecopula linking to мои
    моиmineмой · determiner, nominative, pluralpredicate, complement of были
  2. 2

    The faces of both the prosecutor and the examining magistrate actually fell; this was not at all what they had been expecting.

  3. 3

    "How can it be yours," stammered Nikolai Parfenovich, "when only at five o'clock that afternoon, by your own admission..."

  4. 4

    "Eh, to the devil with five o'clock that afternoon and with my own admission — that is not the point now!"

  5. 5

    "This money was mine, mine — that is, stolen money of mine... not mine, that is, but stolen, stolen by me, and there was fifteen hundred of it, and it was on me, on me the whole time..."

  6. 6

    "But where did you get it?"

  7. 7

    "From my neck, gentlemen, I took it from my neck, from this very neck of mine... It was here, on my neck, sewn up in a rag and hanging from my neck, and it had been there a long time, a whole month, that I carried it on my neck in shame and disgrace!"

  8. 8

    "But from whom did you... appropriate it?"

  9. 9

    "You meant to say 'steal'?"

  10. 10

    Speak the words plainly now.

  11. 11

    Yes, I consider that I as good as stole it, and, if you like, I really did 'appropriate' it.

  12. 12

    But to my mind, I stole it.

  13. 13

    And last night I stole it altogether.

  14. 14

    "Last night?"

  15. 15

    But you said just now that it was a month ago that you... came by it!

  16. 16

    "Yes, but not from my father, not from my father, don't worry — it wasn't from my father that I stole it, but from her."

  17. 17

    Let me tell it, and don't interrupt.

  18. 18

    This is hard, after all.

  19. 19

    You see: a month ago Katerina Ivanovna Verkhovtseva, my former betrothed, summons me to her... Do you know her?

  20. 20

    "Why, of course, for pity's sake."

  21. 21

    "I know you know."

  22. 22

    A most noble soul, the noblest of the noble, but one who has long hated me — oh, long, long ago... and hated me deservedly, deservedly!

  23. 23

    "Katerina Ivanovna?" the magistrate echoed in surprise.

  24. 24

    The prosecutor too stared in astonishment.

  25. 25

    "Oh, do not take her name in vain!"

  26. 26

    I am a scoundrel to drag her into this.

  27. 27

    Yes, I saw that she hated me... long ago... from the very first time, from that very first time at my lodgings... But enough, enough, you are not even worthy to know it, there is no need for it at all... All that's needed is this: that a month ago she called me to her and handed me three thousand to send to her sister and to another relative in Moscow (as though she couldn't have sent it herself!), and I... it was at the very fateful hour of my life, when I... well, in a word, when I had just fallen in love with another woman, with her, my present one, the one sitting downstairs at your place now, Grushenka... I carried her off then to here, to Mokroe, and in two days squandered half of those accursed three thousand here — that is, fifteen hundred — and kept the other half on myself.

  28. 28

    Well, that fifteen hundred I kept back, that is what I carried about with me on my neck, in place of an amulet, and yesterday I broke it open and drank it away.

  29. 29

    The change of eight hundred roubles is in your hands now, Nikolai Parfenovich; that is the change from yesterday's fifteen hundred.

  30. 30

    "Excuse me, how can that be — surely you squandered three thousand here a month ago, not fifteen hundred; everyone knows it?"

  31. 31

    "Who knows it?"

  32. 32

    Who counted it?

  33. 33

    Whom did I let count it?

  34. 34

    "For pity's sake, but you yourself told everyone that you squandered exactly three thousand at the time."

  35. 35

    "True, I said so, I said it to the whole town, and the whole town said it, and everyone reckoned it so, and here at Mokroe too everyone reckoned it was three thousand."

  36. 36

    Only all the same I squandered not three but fifteen hundred, and the other fifteen hundred I sewed into an amulet; that is how it was, gentlemen, that is where yesterday's money came from...

  37. 37

    "This is almost miraculous..." Nikolai Parfenovich stammered.

  38. 38

    "Allow me to ask," the prosecutor said at last, "did you not declare this circumstance to anyone at all beforehand... that is, that you had set this fifteen hundred aside at the time, a month ago, and kept it by you?"

  39. 39

    "I told no one."

  40. 40

    "That is strange."

  41. 41

    Did you really tell absolutely no one at all?

  42. 42

    "No one at all."

  43. 43

    No one and no one.

  44. 44

    "But why such silence?"

  45. 45

    What moved you to make such a secret of it?

  46. 46

    Let me put it more precisely: you have at last declared to us your secret, one so 'shameful' by your own account, though in essence — that is, of course, only relatively speaking — this act, that is, precisely the appropriation of three thousand roubles belonging to another, and, without doubt, only a temporary one — this act, to my mind at least, is only in the highest degree a thoughtless act, but not so shameful, taking into account, besides, your character... Well, granted, even a most disreputable act, I agree, but disreputable all the same, not shameful...

  47. 47

    That is, what I am really driving at is this: that as to those three thousand you spent of Madame Verkhovtseva's, many people had already guessed it in the course of this month even without your confession; I heard the legend myself... Mikhail Makarovich, for instance, heard it too.

  48. 48

    So that, in the end, it is almost no longer a legend, but the gossip of the whole town.

  49. 49

    Besides, there are signs that you yourself, if I am not mistaken, confessed it to someone — that is, precisely that this money was Madame Verkhovtseva's... And that is why it surprises me all the more that until now, that is, until this very minute, you have attached such extraordinary secrecy to that fifteen hundred you set aside, by your own account, coupling with this secret of yours a kind of horror even...

  50. 50

    It is incredible that such a secret could cost you such torments to confess... seeing that you were even shouting just now that you would rather go to the convict camps than confess it...

  51. 51

    The prosecutor fell silent.

  52. 52

    He had grown heated.

  53. 53

    He made no effort to hide his vexation, almost his spite, and poured out everything that had accumulated, not even troubling about elegance of style — that is, disjointedly and almost incoherently.

  54. 54

    "The disgrace did not lie in the fifteen hundred, but in the fact that I set this fifteen hundred apart from those three thousand," Mitya pronounced firmly.

  55. 55

    "But what of it," the prosecutor smiled irritably, "what exactly is shameful in your having, at your own discretion, set apart half of three thousand already taken disreputably — or, if you like to say so yourself, shamefully?"

  56. 56

    What matters is that you appropriated the three thousand, not how you disposed of it.

  57. 57

    By the way, why did you dispose of it precisely so — that is, set this half aside?

  58. 58

    For what purpose, to what end did you do it — can you explain that to us?

  59. 59

    "Oh gentlemen, but it is in the purpose that the whole crux lies!" exclaimed Mitya. "I set it aside out of baseness — that is, out of calculation, for calculation in this case is itself baseness... And this baseness went on for a whole month!"

  60. 60

    "It is incomprehensible."

  61. 61

    "You amaze me."

  62. 62

    But there, I'll explain further — really, perhaps it is incomprehensible.

  63. 63

    You see, follow me: I appropriate three thousand entrusted to my honour, I carouse them away, I squander it all, and the next morning I present myself to her and say: 'Katya, I am guilty, I have squandered your three thousand' — well, is that good?

  64. 64

    No, it isn't good — it is dishonourable and cowardly, a beast, a man who cannot restrain himself short of bestiality — isn't that so, isn't it?

  65. 65

    But still not a thief?

  66. 66

    Not an outright thief, after all, not outright, you must admit!

  67. 67

    He squandered it, but he didn't steal it!

  68. 68

    Now the second case, a still more advantageous one — follow me, or else I'll lose the thread again, my head is somehow spinning — so then, the second case: I squander away only fifteen hundred out of the three thousand here, that is, half.

  69. 69

    The next day I come to her and bring her this half: 'Katya, take from me, a villain and a thoughtless scoundrel, this half, because I squandered the one half, and I'll squander this one too, so better to keep it out of harm's way!'

  70. 70

    Well, what about it in such a case?

  71. 71

    Anything you like — both a beast and a scoundrel — but no longer a thief, decidedly not a thief, for if he were a thief he surely would not have brought back half the change, but would have appropriated that too.

  72. 72

    And at once she sees that, since he brought back half, he will pay back the rest as well — that is, the squandered part — that he will hunt for it all his life, will work, but will find it and pay it back.

  73. 73

    In that way, he is a scoundrel, but not a thief, not a thief, say what you will, not a thief!

  74. 74

    "Let us grant there is a certain difference," the prosecutor smiled coldly. "But it is strange all the same that you should see in it so fatal a difference."

  75. 75

    "Yes, I see so fatal a difference!"

  76. 76

    Anyone may be a scoundrel, and is one, perhaps — anyone — but not anyone can be a thief; only an arch-scoundrel can.

  77. 77

    Well, I'm no good at such fine distinctions there... But a thief is baser than a scoundrel — that is my conviction.

  78. 78

    Listen: I carry the money on me a whole month; tomorrow I may resolve to give it back, and then I am no longer a scoundrel — but resolve I cannot, that's the thing, though every day I resolve, though every day I goad myself: 'Resolve, resolve, you scoundrel,' and for a whole month, you see, I cannot resolve, that's the thing!

  79. 79

    Well, is that good, in your view, is it good?

  80. 80

    "Let us grant it is not so good — that I can perfectly well understand, and on that point I do not dispute," the prosecutor answered with restraint. "But in any case let us set aside all wrangling over these fine points and distinctions, and let us again, if you please, get back to the matter at hand."

  81. 81

    And the matter is precisely this, which you have not yet deigned to explain to us, though we asked: for what purpose did you originally make such a division in those three thousand — that is, squander the one half and hide away the other?

  82. 82

    Precisely for what did you hide it away — what, precisely, did you mean to do with this fifteen hundred you had set apart?

  83. 83

    I insist upon this question, Dmitri Fyodorovich.

  84. 84

    "Ah yes, indeed!" cried Mitya, striking himself on the forehead. "Forgive me, I'm tormenting you and not explaining the main thing, or else you would have understood in a flash, for it is in the purpose, in the purpose of it, that the shame lies!"

  85. 85

    You see, it all comes back to that old man, the dead man — he was always troubling Agrafena Aleksandrovna, and I was jealous, I thought then that she was wavering between me and him; and so every day I think: what if a decision suddenly comes from her side, what if she tires of tormenting me and suddenly says to me, 'I love you, not him, carry me off to the ends of the earth.'

  86. 86

    And I have only two twenty-copeck pieces to my name; with what could you carry her off, what would there be to do then — and so I'm done for.

  87. 87

    For I did not know her then and did not understand her; I thought she needed money and that she would not forgive me my poverty.

  88. 88

    And so I spitefully count off half of the three thousand and sew it up with a needle, cold-bloodedly, sew it up by calculation, sew it up even before the drinking, and then, once it was sewn up, off I go with the other half to carouse!

  89. 89

    No, sir, that is baseness!

  90. 90

    Do you understand now?

  91. 91

    The prosecutor laughed aloud, and so did the magistrate.

  92. 92

    "To my mind it was even prudent and moral that you held back and did not squander it all," Nikolai Parfenovich tittered, "for what is there in that, sir?"

  93. 93

    "The fact that I stole it, that's what!"

  94. 94

    Good God, you appall me with your failure to understand!

  95. 95

    All the while I carried that fifteen hundred sewn up on my breast, every day and every hour I said to myself: 'You are a thief, you are a thief!'

  96. 96

    Indeed, it was for that I raged so this month, for that I brawled in the tavern, for that I beat my father — because I felt myself a thief!

  97. 97

    I could not even bring myself, did not dare, to reveal this fifteen hundred to Alyosha, my own brother — that was how strongly I felt I was a scoundrel and a swindler!

  98. 98

    But know this: that while I carried it, at the very same time, every day and every hour of mine, I said to myself: 'No, Dmitri Fyodorovich, perhaps you are not a thief yet.'

  99. 99

    Why?

  100. 100

    For this very reason — that tomorrow you can go and give that fifteen hundred back to Katya.

  101. 101

    And it was only yesterday that I resolved to tear my amulet from my neck, on my way from Fenya's to Perkhotin's, and until that moment I had not resolved; and the instant I tore it off, that very minute I became at last a settled and indisputable thief, a thief and a dishonourable man for life.

  102. 102

    Why?

  103. 103

    Because along with the amulet I tore up my dream as well — the dream of going to Katya and saying: 'I am a scoundrel, but not a thief'!

  104. 104

    Do you understand now, do you understand!

  105. 105

    "Why was it precisely last night that you resolved on it?" Nikolai Parfenovich tried to put in.

  106. 106

    "Why?"

  107. 107

    It's absurd to ask: because I condemned myself to death, at five o'clock in the morning, here, at daybreak: 'After all,' I thought, 'it makes no difference whether one dies a scoundrel or a man of honour!'

  108. 108

    Well, and there it is — no, it turned out it did make a difference!

  109. 109

    Would you believe it, gentlemen, that was not what tormented me most that night — not that I had killed the old servant and that Siberia threatened me, and that too just when? — just when my love was crowned and heaven opened to me again!

  110. 110

    Oh, that tormented me, but not in the same way: still not in the way that accursed awareness did — that I had at last torn that accursed money from my breast and spent it, and so was now an utter thief for good!

  111. 111

    Oh gentlemen, I repeat it to you with the blood of my heart: I learned a great deal that night!

  112. 112

    I learned that it is not only impossible to live as a scoundrel, but impossible to die as one too... No, gentlemen, one must die honourably!..

  113. 113

    Mitya was pale.

  114. 114

    His face had a worn and exhausted look, in spite of the fact that he was heated in the extreme.

  115. 115

    "I am beginning to understand you, Dmitri Fyodorovich," the prosecutor drawled gently, almost sympathetically, "but all this, as you please, is to my mind merely nerves... your diseased nerves, that's what, sir."

  116. 116

    And why, for example, in order to spare yourself such torments, almost a whole month of them, did you not go and give that fifteen hundred back to the person who had entrusted it to you, and then, having had it out with her, why — in view of your situation at the time, so terrible, as you depict it — did you not try the combination that so naturally presents itself to the mind, that is, after a noble confession to her of your errors, why not ask her for the very sum you needed for your expenses, which she, with her magnanimous heart and seeing your distress, would surely not have refused you — especially against a document, or, finally, against the very same security you offered to the merchant Samsonov and to Madame Khokhlakova?

  117. 117

    For surely you reckon even now that this security is of value?

  118. 118

    Mitya suddenly flushed crimson:

  119. 119

    "Surely you don't take me for such a scoundrel as all that?"

  120. 120

    "It cannot be that you mean this seriously!.." he said with indignation, looking the prosecutor in the eye and as though not believing what he had heard from him.

  121. 121

    "I assure you that I mean it seriously… Why do you suppose it isn't serious?" the prosecutor said, surprised in his turn.

  122. 122

    "Oh, how vile that would have been!"

  123. 123

    Gentlemen, do you realize that you are torturing me!

  124. 124

    Very well, I'll tell you everything, so be it — I'll confess to you now in all my infernal nature, but only to put you to shame, and you yourselves will be astonished at the depth of baseness to which a combination of human feelings can sink.

  125. 125

    Know, then, that I myself once had that very combination, the exact one you were just describing, prosecutor!

  126. 126

    Yes, gentlemen, I too harbored that thought during this accursed month, so that I had almost resolved to go to Katya — that is how base I was!

  127. 127

    But to go to her, to announce my betrayal to her, and for that very betrayal, to carry out that betrayal, to cover the coming expenses of that betrayal, to ask her — Katya herself — for money (to ask, do you hear, to ask!) and then instantly to run off with another woman, her rival, the woman who hates and wrongs her — have mercy, why, you must be out of your mind, prosecutor!

  128. 128

    "Out of my mind or not, I confess that in the heat of the moment I didn't take into account… that very feminine jealousy of yours… if there really could be jealousy here, as you maintain… yes, perhaps there is something of the sort in it," the prosecutor said with a faint smile.

  129. 129

    "But that would have been such an abomination," Mitya brought his fist down savagely on the table, "it would have stunk so badly that I just don't know!

  130. 130

    Do you know that she could have given me that money — and would have given it, would certainly have given it, given it out of revenge against me, out of the delight of revenge, out of contempt for me she would have given it, because she too is an infernal soul, a woman of mighty wrath!

  131. 131

    And I — I would have taken the money, oh, I would have taken it, taken it, and then my whole life… oh God!

  132. 132

    Forgive me, gentlemen, I'm shouting like this because I held that thought so very recently — only the day before yesterday, in fact, the very night I was wrestling with Lyagavy, and then yesterday, yes, yesterday too, all day yesterday, I remember it, right up until this whole business…

  133. 133

    "Up until what business?" Nikolai Parfenovich put in with curiosity, but Mitya did not catch it.

  134. 134

    "I have made you a terrible confession," he concluded gloomily. "So appreciate it, gentlemen.

  135. 135

    And that's not enough — it is not enough to appreciate it, you must not merely appreciate it but prize it, and if you don't, if this too passes your souls by, then you simply have no respect for me, gentlemen, that is what I'm telling you, and I shall die of shame at having confessed to men like you!

  136. 136

    Oh, I'll shoot myself!

  137. 137

    Why, I can see it already, I can see that you don't believe me!

  138. 138

    What, so you mean to write this down too?" he cried out, now in alarm.

  139. 139

    "Why, what you've just said," Nikolai Parfenovich looked at him in astonishment, "namely that right up to the very last hour you still meant to go to Madame Verkhovtseva to ask her for that sum… I assure you that this is very important testimony for us, Dmitri Fyodorovich — that is, the whole business — and especially important for you, especially for you."

  140. 140

    "Have pity, gentlemen," Mitya threw up his hands, "at least don't write that down, for shame!

  141. 141

    Why, I have, so to speak, torn my soul in two before you, and you take advantage of it and go rummaging with your fingers through the torn place in both halves… Oh God!"

  142. 142

    He covered his face with his hands in despair.

  143. 143

    "Don't distress yourself so, Dmitri Fyodorovich," the prosecutor concluded, "everything taken down now you will hear read back to you afterward, and whatever you disagree with we'll alter according to your words; but for now let me put one little question to you for the third time: is it really true that no one — absolutely no one at all — heard from you about the money you had sewn into that little amulet?

  144. 144

    That, I tell you, is almost impossible to imagine."

  145. 145

    "No one, no one, I've told you, otherwise you've understood nothing!

  146. 146

    Leave me in peace."

  147. 147

    "As you wish, sir; this matter will have to be cleared up, and there is much time ahead for that, but in the meantime consider this: we have, perhaps, dozens of testimonies that you yourself were the one spreading the word and even shouting everywhere about three thousand you had squandered — three, not fifteen hundred — and now, too, when yesterday's money turned up, you managed to let many people know that you had once again brought three thousand with you…"

  148. 148

    "Not dozens but hundreds of testimonies you have in your hands, two hundred testimonies, two hundred people heard it, a thousand heard it!" Mitya exclaimed.

  149. 149

    "Well, there you see, sir — they all bear witness to it.

  150. 150

    So that word 'all' must mean something, mustn't it?"

  151. 151

    "It means nothing — I lied, and after me everyone else took to lying too."

  152. 152

    "But why did you have such a need to 'lie,' as you put it?"

  153. 153

    "The devil knows.

  154. 154

    Out of bragging, perhaps… just so… that I'd blown such a lot of money… Or maybe so as to forget about that money sewn away… yes, that's exactly why… damn it… how many times are you going to put me that question?

  155. 155

    Well, I lied, and that's that — once I'd lied I wasn't about to set it straight.

  156. 156

    What does a man lie for, now and then?"

  157. 157

    "That is very hard to decide, Dmitri Fyodorovich — what a man lies for," the prosecutor pronounced weightily. "Tell me, though, was it large, this — what do you call it — amulet on your neck?"

  158. 158

    "No, not large."

  159. 159

    "And what size, for instance?"

  160. 160

    "Fold a hundred-rouble note in half — there's the size."

  161. 161

    "Hadn't you better show us the scraps?

  162. 162

    Surely they're on you somewhere."

  163. 163

    "Eh, the devil… what nonsense… I don't know where they are."

  164. 164

    "But allow me, all the same: where and when did you take it off your neck?

  165. 165

    After all, by your own account you didn't go home?"

  166. 166

    "Why, just as I came out from Fenya's and was walking to Perkhotin's, on the way I tore it off my neck and took out the money."

  167. 167

    "In the dark?"

  168. 168

    "What do you need a candle for?

  169. 169

    I did it with my finger in a single instant."

  170. 170

    "Without scissors, in the street?"

  171. 171

    "In the square, I think; why scissors?

  172. 172

    A worn-out rag — it tore apart at once."

  173. 173

    "Where did you put it afterward?"

  174. 174

    "I threw it down right there."

  175. 175

    "Where exactly?"

  176. 176

    "Why, in the square, somewhere in the square!

  177. 177

    The devil knows where in the square.

  178. 178

    And what do you want it for?"

  179. 179

    "It is extraordinarily important, Dmitri Fyodorovich: material evidence in your own favor — how can you fail to understand that?

  180. 180

    Who helped you sew it up a month ago?"

  181. 181

    "No one helped me, I sewed it myself."

  182. 182

    "You know how to sew?"

  183. 183

    "A soldier has to know how to sew, and here no skill at all was needed."

  184. 184

    "Where did you get the material — that is, the rag you sewed it into?"

  185. 185

    "Surely you aren't laughing at me?"

  186. 186

    "By no means, and we are in no mood whatever for laughter, Dmitri Fyodorovich."

  187. 187

    "I don't remember where I got the rag, I got it somewhere."

  188. 188

    "Surely, one would think, that at least is something you couldn't forget?"

  189. 189

    "But by God I don't remember, maybe I tore a piece off some linen."

  190. 190

    "That is very interesting: tomorrow this item might turn up at your lodgings — a shirt, perhaps, that you tore a piece from.

  191. 191

    What was the rag made of: of coarse cloth, of linen?"

  192. 192

    "The devil knows what it was made of.

  193. 193

    Wait… I don't think I tore it off anything.

  194. 194

    It was of calico… I think I sewed it into my landlady's cap."

  195. 195

    "Into your landlady's cap?"

  196. 196

    "Yes, I filched it from her."

  197. 197

    "How do you mean, filched it?"

  198. 198

    "You see, I really did, as I recall, somehow filch a cap for rags, or maybe to wipe a pen with.

  199. 199

    I took it on the quiet, since the rag was good for nothing, and I had scraps lying about, and then there was this fifteen hundred, and I took it and sewed it up… I think it was into those very rags that I sewed it.

  200. 200

    An old bit of calico trash, washed a thousand times over."

  201. 201

    "And you remember that for certain now?"

  202. 202

    "I don't know whether it's for certain.

  203. 203

    Into the cap, I think.

  204. 204

    Well, never mind, who cares!"

  205. 205

    "In that case your landlady could at least recall that this item had gone missing from her?"

  206. 206

    "Not at all, she never even missed it.

  207. 207

    An old rag, I tell you, an old rag, not worth a penny."

  208. 208

    "And where did you get the needle, the thread?"

  209. 209

    "I'm done, I won't go on. Enough!" Mitya flared up at last.

  210. 210

    "And it's odd again that you've so completely forgotten just which spot in the square you threw that… amulet."

  211. 211

    "Order the square swept tomorrow, maybe you'll find it," Mitya said with a sneer.

  212. 212

    "Enough, gentlemen, enough," he brought it to an end in an exhausted voice. "I see clearly: you have not believed me!

  213. 213

    Not in anything, not by a hair!

  214. 214

    The fault is mine, not yours — I should never have got mixed up in it.

  215. 215

    Why, why did I defile myself by confessing my secret!

  216. 216

    And to you it's a laughing matter — I can see it by your eyes.

  217. 217

    It was you who drove me to it, prosecutor!

  218. 218

    Sing yourselves a hymn of triumph, if you can… Be damned, you tormentors!"

  219. 219

    He bowed his head and hid his face in his hands.

  220. 220

    The prosecutor and the investigator kept silent.

  221. 221

    A minute later he raised his head and looked at them somehow vacantly.

  222. 222

    His face expressed a despair already accomplished, already beyond recall, and he fell somehow quietly silent, sat there, and seemed scarcely aware of himself.

  223. 223

    Meanwhile the business had to be brought to a close: there was no putting off the move to the questioning of the witnesses.

  224. 224

    It was already about eight o'clock in the morning.

  225. 225

    The candles had long since been put out.

  226. 226

    Mikhail Makarovich and Kalganov, who throughout the interrogation had been coming in and going out of the room, this time both went out again.

  227. 227

    The prosecutor and the investigator also had an extremely weary look about them.

  228. 228

    The morning that had dawned was foul, the whole sky was overcast with clouds, and the rain came down in buckets.

  229. 229

    Mitya gazed vacantly at the windows.

  230. 230

    "May I look out the window?" he suddenly asked Nikolai Parfenovich.

  231. 231

    "Oh, as much as you like," the other replied.

  232. 232

    Mitya got up and went over to the window.

  233. 233

    The rain lashed away at the little greenish panes of the small windows.

  234. 234

    Directly below the window a muddy road could be seen, and beyond it, farther off in the rainy murk, the black, poor, dismal rows of peasant huts, seeming to have turned even blacker and poorer in the rain.

  235. 235

    Mitya remembered "golden-haired Phoebus" and how he had meant to shoot himself with the god's first ray.

  236. 236

    "On a morning like this it might even be better," he said with a wry smile, and suddenly, with a downward sweep of his hand, he turned to the "tormentors":

  237. 237

    "Gentlemen!" he exclaimed, "I do see that I am done for.

  238. 238

    But what of her?

  239. 239

    Tell me about her, I implore you — is she really to perish along with me?

  240. 240

    She is innocent, after all — when she cried out yesterday that she was 'guilty of everything,' she was out of her mind.

  241. 241

    She is guilty of nothing, of nothing at all!

  242. 242

    I have grieved the whole night through, sitting here with you... Could you not — can you not tell me: what will you do with her now?

  243. 243

    "Set your mind entirely at rest on that score, Dmitri Fyodorovich," the prosecutor answered at once, and with evident haste, "so far we have no significant grounds for troubling, in any respect whatever, the person in whom you take such an interest."

  244. 244

    In the further course of the case, I trust, the same will prove true... On the contrary, in this regard we shall do everything that can possibly be done on our part.

  245. 245

    Be perfectly easy.

  246. 246

    "Gentlemen, I thank you — for I knew all along that you were, after all, honorable and just men, in spite of everything.

  247. 247

    You have lifted a weight from my soul... Well then, what are we to do now?

  248. 248

    I am ready."

  249. 249

    "Why yes, sir, we ought to be quick about it. We must proceed without delay to the examination of the witnesses.

  250. 250

    All of this must take place strictly in your presence, and therefore..."

  251. 251

    "But shouldn't we have some tea first?" Nikolai Parfenovich broke in. "Surely we've earned it by now!"

  252. 252

    They resolved that if there was tea ready downstairs (since Mikhail Makarovich had most likely gone off "to take his tea"), they would each drink a glass and then "go on and on."

  253. 253

    Tea in earnest, and "a little something to eat," they would put off until a freer hour.

  254. 254

    Tea was indeed found downstairs, and it was shortly brought up.

  255. 255

    At first Mitya refused the glass that Nikolai Parfenovich courteously offered him, but then he asked for it himself and drank it greedily.

  256. 256

    On the whole he had, indeed, a look that was even astonishingly worn out.

  257. 257

    One would have thought that, given his heroic strength, what could a single night of carousing mean — and even one charged with the most violent sensations besides?

  258. 258

    Yet he himself felt that he could scarcely sit upright, and at times every object before his eyes began, as it were, to drift and spin.

  259. 259

    "A little more, and I'll likely start raving," he thought to himself.

The particulars

The text
Братья Карамазовы, Fyodor Dostoevsky. Book IX — The Preliminary Investigation.
Translation
Public-domain Russian (Dostoevsky, d. 1881). Translation © 2026 1732 Studios.
Words
Every word of the text, by letter.
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Two whoopie pies and a pine. An inside joke.