But suddenly he began speaking gently and meekly with Fenya, like a gentle and affectionate child, as if he had quite forgotten that he had just frightened, offended, and tormented her so much. He suddenly began questioning Fenya with great and, in his position, even surprising precision. And Fenya, though she gazed wildly at his bloodstained hands, also began answering each of his questions with surprising readiness and haste, as if she were even hastening to lay the whole “truthful truth” before him. Little by little, and even with a sort of joy, she began giving him all the details, not wishing in the least to torment him, but as if she were hastening, with all her heart, to please him as much as she could. She also told him to the last detail about that day, the visit of Rakitin and Alyosha, how she, Fenya, had kept watch, how her mistress had driven off, and that she had called from the window to Alyosha to bow to him, Mitenka, and tell him he should “remember forever how she had loved him for one hour.” Hearing of the bow, Mitya suddenly grinned and a blush came to his pale cheeks. At that same moment, Fenya, now not the least bit afraid of her curiosity, said to him:
“But your hands, Dmitri Fyodorovich, they’re all covered with blood!”
“Yes,” Mitya answered mechanically, looked distractedly at his hands, and immediately forgot about them and about Fenya’s question. Again he sank into silence. Some twenty minutes had already passed since he ran in. His initial fear was gone, but he was evidently now totally possessed by some new, inflexible resolve. He suddenly stood up and smiled pensively.
“What has happened to you, sir?” Fenya said, pointing again at his hands; said with regret, as if she were now the person closest to him in his grief.
Mitya again looked at his hands.
“That’s blood, Fenya,” he said, looking at her with a strange expression, “that is human blood, and, my God, why was it shed? But ... Fenya ... there is a fence here” (he looked at her as though he were setting her a riddle), “a high fence, and fearful to look at, but ... tomorrow at dawn, when the sun soars aloft,’ Mitenka will jump over that fence ... You don’t understand about the fence, Fenya, but never mind ... it doesn’t matter, tomorrow you will hear and understand everything ... and now, farewell! I won’t interfere, I’ll remove myself, I’ll know how to remove myself. Live, my joy ... you loved me for one little hour, so remember Mitenka Karamazov forever ... She always called me Mitenka, remember?”
And with those words he suddenly walked out of the kitchen. Fenya was almost more frightened by this exit than she had been earlier when he ran in and fell upon her.
Exactly ten minutes later, Dmitri Fyodorovich walked into the rooms of the young official, Pyotr Ilyich Perkhotin, to whom he had pawned his pistols earlier that day. It was then half past eight, and Pyotr Ilyich, having had his tea at home, had just dressed himself once more in his frock coat in order to set off to the “Metropolis” for a game of billiards. Mitya caught him as he was going out. Seeing him and his bloodstained face, the young man cried out:
“Lord! What’s with you?”
“So,” Mitya said quickly, “I’ve come for my pistols and brought you the money. Many thanks. I’m in a hurry, Pyotr Ilyich, please make it fast.”
Pyotr Ilyich grew more and more surprised: in Mitya’s hand he suddenly noticed a pile of money, and, what was more, he had walked in holding this pile as no one in the world holds money and comes walking in with it: he had all the bills in his right hand, and was holding his hand, as if for show, straight out in front of him. A boy, the official’s servant, who had met Mitya in the hallway, recounted later that he had walked through the front door just like that, with the money in his hand, which means that he had also been walking through the streets like that, carrying the money before him in his right hand. It was all in iridescent hundred-rouble bills, and he was holding them with his bloodied fingers. Afterwards, to the further questioning of certain interested persons as to how much money there was, Pyotr Ilyich replied that it was difficult to tell then by eye, maybe two thousand, maybe three, but it was a big, “hefty” wad. Dmitri Fyodorovich, as Perkhotin also testified later, “was not quite himself, as it were, not that he was drunk, but he seemed to be in some sort of ecstasy, quite distracted, and at the same time apparently concentrated, as if he were thinking about something, getting at something, but could not make up his mind. He was in a great hurry, responded abruptly in a very strange manner, and at moments seemed not grieved at all but even cheerful.” “But what is it, what’s happened?” Pyotr Ilyich shouted again, staring wildly at his visitor. “How did you get so covered with blood? Did you fall? Look!”
He seized Mitya by the elbow and placed him in front of a mirror. Mitya saw his bloodstained face, gave a start, and frowned wrathfully.
“Ah, the devil! Just what I need,” he muttered angrily, quickly shifted the bills from his right hand to his left, and convulsively snatched the handkerchief from his pocket. But the handkerchief, too, turned out to be all covered with blood (it was the same handkerchief he had used to wipe Grigory’s head and face): there was hardly a white spot left on it, and it had not merely begun to dry, but had stiffened into a ball and refused to be unfolded. Mitya angrily flung it to the floor.
“Eh, the devil! Have you got some rag ... to wipe myself off ... ?”
“So you’re only stained, you’re not wounded? Then you’d better wash,” Pyotr Ilyich answered. “There’s the basin, let me help you.”
“The basin? Good ... only where am I going to put this?” With quite a strange sort of bewilderment he pointed at his wad of bills, looking questioningly at Pyotr Ilyich, as if the latter had to decide where he should put his own money.
“Put it in your pocket, or here on the table—nothing will happen to it.”
“In my pocket? Yes, my pocket. Good ... No, you see, it’s all nonsense!” he cried, as if suddenly coming out of his distraction. “Look: first let’s finish this business, the pistols, I mean, give them back to me, and here’s your money ... because I really, really must ... and I have no time, no time at all...”
And taking the topmost hundred-rouble bill from the wad, he handed it to the official.
“But I don’t have any change,” the latter remarked, “don’t you have something smaller?”
“No,” Mitya said, glancing at the money again, and, as if uncertain of his words, he peeled back the first two or three bills with his fingers. “No, they’re all the same,” he added, and again looked questioningly at Pyotr Ilyich.
“How did you get so rich?” the latter asked. “Wait, I’ll have my boy run over to Plomikov’s. They close late—maybe they’ll change it. Hey, Misha!” he shouted into the hallway.
“To Plotnikov’s shop—splendid!” Mitya, too, shouted, as if some thought had struck him. “Misha,” he turned to the boy as he came in, “look, run over to Plotnikov’s and tell them that Dmitri Fyodorovich sends them his respects and will come himself shortly ... But listen, listen: tell them to have some champagne ready when he comes, three dozen bottles, let’s say, and packed the same way as when I went to Mokroye ... I bought four dozen that time,” he turned suddenly to Pyotr Ilyich. “Don’t worry, Misha, they’ll know what I mean,” he turned back to the boy. “And listen: some cheese, too, some Strasbourg pâté, smoked whitefish, ham, caviar, and everything, everything, whatever they’ve got, up to a hundred roubles, or a hundred and twenty, like the other time ... And listen: they mustn’t forget some sweets, candies, pears, watermelons—two, three, maybe four—well, no, one watermelon is enough, but there must be chocolate, sour balls, fruit-drops, toffee—well, all the same things they packed for me to take to Mokroye that time, it should come to about three hundred roubles with the champagne ... It must be exactly the same this time. Try to remember, Misha, if you are Misha ... His name is Misha, isn’t it?” he again turned to Pyotr Ilyich.