The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky (the reader ebook txt) 📖

come here,” said a voice, speaking not loudly, but firmly and peremptorily.

Mitya passed to the other side of the curtain and stood stock still. The room was filled with people, but not those who had been there before. An instantaneous shiver ran down his back, and he shuddered. He recognized all those people instantly. That tall, stout old man in the overcoat and forage-cap with a cockade⁠—was the police captain, Mihail Makarovitch. And that “consumptive-looking” trim dandy, “who always has such polished boots”⁠—that was the deputy prosecutor. “He has a chronometer worth four hundred roubles; he showed it to me.” And that small young man in spectacles.⁠ ⁠… Mitya forgot his surname though he knew him, had seen him: he was the “investigating lawyer,” from the “school of jurisprudence,” who had only lately come to the town. And this man⁠—the inspector of police, Mavriky Mavrikyevitch, a man he knew well. And those fellows with the brass plates on, why are they here? And those other two⁠ ⁠… peasants.⁠ ⁠… And there at the door Kalganov with Trifon Borissovitch.⁠ ⁠…

“Gentlemen! What’s this for, gentlemen?” began Mitya, but suddenly, as though beside himself, not knowing what he was doing, he cried aloud, at the top of his voice:

“I un⁠—der⁠—stand!”

The young man in spectacles moved forward suddenly, and stepping up to Mitya, began with dignity, though hurriedly:

“We have to make⁠ ⁠… in brief, I beg you to come this way, this way to the sofa.⁠ ⁠… It is absolutely imperative that you should give an explanation.”

“The old man!” cried Mitya frantically. “The old man and his blood!⁠ ⁠… I understand.”

And he sank, almost fell, on a chair close by, as though he had been mown down by a scythe.

“You understand? He understands it! Monster and parricide! Your father’s blood cries out against you!” the old captain of police roared suddenly, stepping up to Mitya.

He was beside himself, crimson in the face and quivering all over.

“This is impossible!” cried the small young man. “Mihail Makarovitch, Mihail Makarovitch, this won’t do!⁠ ⁠… I beg you’ll allow me to speak. I should never have expected such behavior from you.⁠ ⁠…”

“This is delirium, gentlemen, raving delirium,” cried the captain of police; “look at him: drunk, at this time of night, in the company of a disreputable woman, with the blood of his father on his hands.⁠ ⁠… It’s delirium!⁠ ⁠…”

“I beg you most earnestly, dear Mihail Makarovitch, to restrain your feelings,” the prosecutor said in a rapid whisper to the old police captain, “or I shall be forced to resort to⁠—”

But the little lawyer did not allow him to finish. He turned to Mitya, and delivered himself in a loud, firm, dignified voice:

“Ex-Lieutenant Karamazov, it is my duty to inform you that you are charged with the murder of your father, Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, perpetrated this night.⁠ ⁠…”

He said something more, and the prosecutor, too, put in something, but though Mitya heard them he did not understand them. He stared at them all with wild eyes.

Book IX The Preliminary Investigation I The Beginning of Perhotin’s Official Career

Pyotr Ilyitch Perhotin, whom we left knocking at the strong locked gates of the widow Morozov’s house, ended, of course, by making himself heard. Fenya, who was still excited by the fright she had had two hours before, and too much “upset” to go to bed, was almost frightened into hysterics on hearing the furious knocking at the gate. Though she had herself seen him drive away, she fancied that it must be Dmitri Fyodorovitch knocking again, no one else could knock so savagely. She ran to the house-porter, who had already waked up and gone out to the gate, and began imploring him not to open it. But having questioned Pyotr Ilyitch, and learned that he wanted to see Fenya on very “important business,” the man made up his mind at last to open. Pyotr Ilyitch was admitted into Fenya’s kitchen, but the girl begged him to allow the house-porter to be present, “because of her misgivings.” He began questioning her and at once learnt the most vital fact, that is, that when Dmitri Fyodorovitch had run out to look for Grushenka, he had snatched up a pestle from the mortar, and that when he returned, the pestle was not with him and his hands were smeared with blood.

“And the blood was simply flowing, dripping from him, dripping!” Fenya kept exclaiming. This horrible detail was simply the product of her disordered imagination. But although not “dripping,” Pyotr Ilyitch had himself seen those hands stained with blood, and had helped to wash them. Moreover, the question he had to decide was not how soon the blood had dried, but where Dmitri Fyodorovitch had run with the pestle, or rather, whether it really was to Fyodor Pavlovitch’s, and how he could satisfactorily ascertain. Pyotr Ilyitch persisted in returning to this point, and though he found out nothing conclusive, yet he carried away a conviction that Dmitri Fyodorovitch could have gone nowhere but to his father’s house, and that therefore something must have happened there.

“And when he came back,” Fenya added with excitement, “I told him the whole story, and then I began asking him, ‘Why have you got blood on your hands, Dmitri Fyodorovitch?’ and he answered that that was human blood, and that he had just killed someone. He confessed it all to me, and suddenly ran off like a madman. I sat down and began thinking, where’s he run off to now like a madman? He’ll go to Mokroe, I thought, and kill my mistress there. I ran out to beg him not to kill her. I was running to his lodgings, but I looked at Plotnikov’s shop, and saw him just setting off, and there was no blood on his hands then.” (Fenya had noticed this and remembered it.) Fenya’s old grandmother confirmed her evidence as far as she was capable. After asking some further questions, Pyotr Ilyitch left the house, even more upset and uneasy than he had been when he entered it.

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