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

money in it. It was empty, and lying on the floor by the bed, behind the screen.”

For some seconds Mitya stood as though thunderstruck.

“Gentlemen, it’s Smerdyakov!” he shouted suddenly, at the top of his voice. “It’s he who’s murdered him! He’s robbed him! No one else knew where the old man hid the envelope. It’s Smerdyakov, that’s clear, now!”

“But you, too, knew of the envelope and that it was under the pillow.”

“I never knew it. I’ve never seen it. This is the first time I’ve looked at it. I’d only heard of it from Smerdyakov.⁠ ⁠… He was the only one who knew where the old man kept it hidden, I didn’t know⁠ ⁠…” Mitya was completely breathless.

“But you told us yourself that the envelope was under your deceased father’s pillow. You especially stated that it was under the pillow, so you must have known it.”

“We’ve got it written down,” confirmed Nikolay Parfenovitch.

“Nonsense! It’s absurd! I’d no idea it was under the pillow. And perhaps it wasn’t under the pillow at all.⁠ ⁠… It was just a chance guess that it was under the pillow. What does Smerdyakov say? Have you asked him where it was? What does Smerdyakov say? that’s the chief point.⁠ ⁠… And I went out of my way to tell lies against myself.⁠ ⁠… I told you without thinking that it was under the pillow, and now you⁠—Oh, you know how one says the wrong thing, without meaning it. No one knew but Smerdyakov, only Smerdyakov, and no one else.⁠ ⁠… He didn’t even tell me where it was! But it’s his doing, his doing; there’s no doubt about it, he murdered him, that’s as clear as daylight now,” Mitya exclaimed more and more frantically, repeating himself incoherently, and growing more and more exasperated and excited. “You must understand that, and arrest him at once.⁠ ⁠… He must have killed him while I was running away and while Grigory was unconscious, that’s clear now.⁠ ⁠… He gave the signal and father opened to him⁠ ⁠… for no one but he knew the signal, and without the signal father would never have opened the door.⁠ ⁠…”

“But you’re again forgetting the circumstance,” the prosecutor observed, still speaking with the same restraint, though with a note of triumph, “that there was no need to give the signal if the door already stood open when you were there, while you were in the garden.⁠ ⁠…”

“The door, the door,” muttered Mitya, and he stared speechless at the prosecutor. He sank back helpless in his chair. All were silent.

“Yes, the door!⁠ ⁠… It’s a nightmare! God is against me!” he exclaimed, staring before him in complete stupefaction.

“Come, you see,” the prosecutor went on with dignity, “and you can judge for yourself, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. On the one hand we have the evidence of the open door from which you ran out, a fact which overwhelms you and us. On the other side your incomprehensible, persistent, and, so to speak, obdurate silence with regard to the source from which you obtained the money which was so suddenly seen in your hands, when only three hours earlier, on your own showing, you pledged your pistols for the sake of ten roubles! In view of all these facts, judge for yourself. What are we to believe, and what can we depend upon? And don’t accuse us of being ‘frigid, cynical, scoffing people,’ who are incapable of believing in the generous impulses of your heart.⁠ ⁠… Try to enter into our position⁠ ⁠…”

Mitya was indescribably agitated. He turned pale.

“Very well!” he exclaimed suddenly. “I will tell you my secret. I’ll tell you where I got the money!⁠ ⁠… I’ll reveal my shame, that I may not have to blame myself or you hereafter.”

“And believe me, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,” put in Nikolay Parfenovitch, in a voice of almost pathetic delight, “that every sincere and complete confession on your part at this moment may, later on, have an immense influence in your favor, and may, indeed, moreover⁠—”

But the prosecutor gave him a slight shove under the table, and he checked himself in time. Mitya, it is true, had not heard him.

VII Mitya’s Great Secret. Received with Hisses

“Gentlemen,” he began, still in the same agitation, “I want to make a full confession: that money was my own.” The lawyers’ faces lengthened. That was not at all what they expected.

“How do you mean?” faltered Nikolay Parfenovitch, “when at five o’clock on the same day, from your own confession⁠—”

“Damn five o’clock on the same day and my own confession! That’s nothing to do with it now! That money was my own, my own, that is, stolen by me⁠ ⁠… not mine, I mean, but stolen by me, and it was fifteen hundred roubles, and I had it on me all the time, all the time⁠ ⁠…”

“But where did you get it?”

“I took it off my neck, gentlemen, off this very neck⁠ ⁠… it was here, round my neck, sewn up in a rag, and I’d had it round my neck a long time, it’s a month since I put it round my neck⁠ ⁠… to my shame and disgrace!”

“And from whom did you⁠ ⁠… appropriate it?”

“You mean, ‘steal it’? Speak out plainly now. Yes, I consider that I practically stole it, but, if you prefer, I ‘appropriated it.’ I consider I stole it. And last night I stole it finally.”

“Last night? But you said that it’s a month since you⁠ ⁠… obtained it?⁠ ⁠…”

“Yes. But not from my father. Not from my father, don’t be uneasy. I didn’t steal it from my father, but from her. Let me tell you without interrupting. It’s hard to do, you know. You see, a month ago, I was sent for by Katerina Ivanovna, formerly my betrothed. Do you know her?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I know you know her. She’s a noble creature, noblest of the noble. But she has hated me ever so long, oh, ever so long⁠ ⁠… and hated me with good reason, good reason!”

“Katerina Ivanovna!” Nikolay Parfenovitch exclaimed with wonder. The prosecutor, too, stared.

“Oh, don’t take her name in vain! I’m a scoundrel to