Mitya was pale. His face had a wasted and worn-out look, despite his intense excitement.
“I am beginning to understand you, Dmitri Fyodorovich,” the prosecutor drawled softly and even somehow compassionately, “but, be it as you say, still, in my opinion it is just nerves ... your overwrought nerves, that’s all, sir. And why, for instance, to spare yourself so much torment over almost a whole month, would you not go and return the fifteen hundred to the person who entrusted it to you, and then, having talked things over with her, why, in view of your situation at the time, which you describe as being so terrible, would you not try the solution that so naturally comes to mind—I mean, after nobly confessing your errors to her, why not ask her for the sum needed for your expenses, which she, with her generous heart, seeing how upset you were, of course would not refuse you, especially with some written agreement, or, finally, at least with the same security you offered to the merchant Samsonov and Madame Khokhlakov? I suppose you still consider that security to be of value?”
Mitya suddenly blushed.
“Do you really consider me such a downright scoundrel? You can’t possibly be serious . . .!” he said indignantly, looking the prosecutor in the eye, as if he could not believe what he had heard.
“I assure you I am serious ... Why do you think I am not?” The prosecutor, in turn, was also surprised. “Oh, how base that would be! Gentlemen, you’re tormenting me, do you know that? As you wish, I’ll tell you everything, so be it, I will now confess all my infernality to you, just to put you to shame, and you yourselves will be surprised at what baseness a combination of human feelings can sink to. Know, then, that I already had that solution in mind, the very one you were just talking about, prosecutor! Yes, gentlemen, I, too, had that thought during this cursed month, so that I almost resolved to go to Katya, so base I was! But to go to her, to announce my betrayal to her, and for that betrayal, to carry through that betrayal, for the future expenses of that betrayal, to ask money (to ask, do you hear, to ask! ) from her, from Katya, and immediately run off with another woman, with her rival, with her hater and offender—my God, you’re out of your mind, prosecutor!”
“Out of my mind or not, of course, in the heat of the moment, I did fail to consider ... this matter of female jealousy ... if indeed there is a question of jealousy here, as you affirm ... yes, perhaps there is something of the sort,” the prosecutor grinned.
“But it would be such an abomination!” Mitya pounded the table fiercely with his fist, “it would stink so much, I can’t tell you! And do you know that she might have given me the money, and she would have given it, she certainly would have given it, she would have given it out of vengeance, for the pleasure of revenge, she would have given it out of contempt for me, because she, too, is an infernal soul, and a woman of great wrath! And I’d have taken the money, oh, I’d have taken it, I would, and then all my life ... oh, God! Forgive me, gentlemen, I’m shouting so because I had this idea only recently, only two days ago, that night when I was worrying over Lyagavy, and then yesterday, yes, also yesterday, all day yesterday, I remember it, till this very accident...”
“Till what accident?” Nikolai Parfenovich put in with curiosity, but Mitya did not hear him.
“I’ve made a terrible confession to you,” he concluded gloomily. “Do appreciate it, gentlemen. And it’s not enough, not enough to appreciate it, you must not just appreciate it, it should also be precious to you, and if not, if this, too, goes past your souls, then it means you really do not respect me, gentlemen, I tell you that, and I will die of shame at having confessed to such men as you! Oh, I will shoot myself! And I can see, I can see already that you don’t believe me! What, are you going to write this down, too?”he cried, frightened now.
“But what you have just said,” Nikolai Parfenovich was looking at him in surprise, “that is, that until the very last hour you still thought of going to Miss Verkhovtsev to ask for this sum ... I assure you that this evidence is very important for us, Dmitri Fyodorovich, this whole story, that is ... and especially important for you, especially for you.”
“Have mercy, gentlemen,” Mitya clasped his hands, “at least leave that out, for shame! I have, so to speak, torn my soul asunder before you, and you take advantage of it and go rummaging with your fingers in both halves of the torn spot ... Oh, God!”
He covered his face with his hands in despair.
“Do not upset yourself, Dmitri Fyodorovich,” the prosecutor concluded, “everything that has been written down here will be read over to you afterwards, and whatever you disagree with will be changed as you say, but now I shall repeat one little question for the third time: is it possible that indeed no one, really no one at all, heard from you about this money you sewed into the amulet? I must say I find that almost impossible to imagine.”
“No one, no one, I told you, or else you’ve understood nothing! Leave me alone!”
“As you wish, sir, the matter will have to be clarified, but there is still time enough for that, yet meanwhile consider: we have perhaps dozens of testimonies that precisely you yourself were spreading and even shouted everywhere about the three thousand you had spent, three thousand and not fifteen hundred, and now, too, with the appearance of yesterday’s money, you also let many people understand that once again you had brought three thousand with you...”
“Not dozens, you’ve got hundreds of testimonies, two hundred testimonies, two hundred people heard it, a thousand heard it!” Mitya exclaimed.
“Well, so you see, sir, everyone says it. Does the word everyone mean anything?”
“It means nothing, I lied, and everyone started lying after me.”
“And what need did you have to ‘lie,’ as you put it?”
“Devil knows. Maybe in order to boast ... well ... about squandering so much money ... Or maybe in order to forget about the money I had sewn up ... yes, that’s exactly why ... ah, the devil ... how many times must you ask me? So I lied, and that’s it, I lied once and then I didn’t want to correct it. Why does a man lie sometimes?”
“That is very difficult to say, Dmitri Fyodorovich, why a man lies,” the prosecutor said imposingly. “Tell me, however: this amulet, as you call it, that you wore on your neck—was it big?”
“No, not big.”
“What size was it, for instance?” “Fold a hundred-rouble bill in half—that’s the size for you.”
“Hadn’t you better show us the scraps of it? You must have them somewhere.”
“Ah, the devil ... what foolishness ... I don’t know where they are.”
“I beg your pardon, but where and when did you take it off your neck? According to your own testimony, you did not stop at home.”
“When I left Fenya and was going to Perkhotin’s, on the way I tore the money off my neck and took it out.”
“In the dark?”
“Should I have had a candle? I did it with my fingers in a second.”
“Without scissors, in the street?”
“In the square, I think. And why scissors? It was a wom-out rag, it tore at once.”
“What did you do with it then?”
“I dropped it right there.”
“Where, exactly?”
“In the square, in the square somewhere. Devil knows where in the square! What do you need that for?”
“It is extremely important, Dmitri Fyodorovich: material evidence in your favor, why can’t you understand that? And who helped you to sew it up a month ago?”