Grushenka was finally dismissed, Nikolai Parfenovich impetuously announcing to her that she could even return to town at once, and that if he, for his part, could be of any assistance to her, for example, in connection with the horses, or if, for example, she wished to be accompanied, then he ... for his part . . .
“I humbly thank you,” Grushenka bowed to him, “I’ll go with that little old man, the landowner, I’ll take him back with me, but meanwhile I’ll wait downstairs, with your permission, until you decide here about Dmitri Fyodorovich.”
She went out. Mitya was calm and even looked quite encouraged, but only for a moment. Some strange physical powerlessness was gradually overwhelming him. His eyes kept closing with fatigue. The interrogation of the witnesses finally came to an end. They moved on to the final editing of the transcript. Mitya got up, went from his chair to the corner, near the curtain, lay down on a large chest covered with a rug, and was asleep in a second. He had a strange sort of dream, somehow entirely out of place and out of time. It seemed he was driving somewhere in the steppe, in a place where he had served once long ago; he is being driven through the slush by a peasant, in a cart with a pair of horses. And it seems to Mitya that he is cold, it is the beginning of November, and snow is pouring down in big, wet flakes that melt as soon as they touch the ground. And the peasant is driving briskly, waving his whip nicely, he has a long, fair beard, and he is not an old man, maybe around fifty, dressed in a gray peasant coat. And there is a village nearby— black, black huts, and half of the huts are burnt, just charred beams sticking up. And at the edge of the village there are peasant women standing along the road, many women, a long line of them, all of them thin, wasted, their faces a sort of brown color. Especially that one at the end—such a bony one, tall, looking as if she were forty, but she may be only twenty, with a long, thin face, and in her arms a baby is crying, and her breasts must be all dried up, not a drop of milk in them. And the baby is crying, crying, reaching out its bare little arms, its little fists somehow all blue from the cold.
“Why are they crying? Why are they crying?” Mitya asks, flying past them at a great clip.
“The wee one,” the driver answers, “it’s the wee one crying.” And Mitya is struck that he has said it in his own peasant way: “the wee one,” and not “the baby.” And he likes it that the peasant has said “wee one”: there seems to be more pity in it.
“But why is it crying?” Mitya insists, as if he were foolish, “why are its little arms bare, why don’t they wrap it up?”
“The wee one’s cold, its clothes are frozen, they don’t keep it warm.”
“But why is it so? Why?” foolish Mitya will not leave off.
“They’re poor, burnt out, they’ve got no bread, they’re begging for their burnt-down place.”
“No, no,” Mitya still seems not to understand, “tell me: why are these burnt-out mothers standing here, why are the people poor, why is the wee one poor, why is the steppe bare, why don’t they embrace and kiss, why don’t they sing joyful songs, why are they blackened with such black misery, why don’t they feed the wee one?”
And he feels within himself that, though his questions have no reason or sense, he still certainly wants to ask in just that way, and he should ask in just that way. And he also feels a tenderness such as he has never known before surging up in his heart, he wants to weep, he wants to do something for them all, so that the wee one will no longer cry, so that the blackened, dried-up mother of the wee one will not cry either, so that there will be no more tears in anyone from that moment on, and it must be done at once, at once, without delay and despite everything, with all his Karamazov unrestraint.
“And I am with you, too, I won’t leave you now, I will go with you for the rest of my life,” the dear, deeply felt words of Grushenka came from somewhere near him. And his whole heart blazed up and turned towards some sort of light, and he wanted to live and live, to go on and on along some path, towards the new, beckoning light, and to hurry, hurry, right now, at once!
“What? Where?” he exclaims, opening his eyes and sitting up on the chest, as if he were just coming out of a faint, and smiling brightly. Over him stands Nikolai Parfenovich, inviting him to listen to the transcript and sign it. Mitya guessed that he had slept for an hour or more, but he did not listen to Nikolai Parfenovich. It suddenly struck him that there was a pillow under his head, which, however, had not been there when he had sunk down powerlessly on the chest.
“Who put that pillow under my head? What good person did it?” he exclaimed with a sort of rapturous gratitude, in a sort of tear-filled voice, as though God knows what kindness had been shown him. The good man remained unidentified even later—perhaps one of the witnesses, or even Nikolai Parfenovich’s clerk, had arranged that a pillow be put under his head, out of compassion—but his whole soul was as if shaken with tears. He went up to the table and declared that he would sign whatever they wanted.
“I had a good dream, gentlemen,” he said somehow strangely, with a sort of new face, as if lit up with joy.
Chapter 9: Mitya Is Taken Away
When the transcript had been signed, Nikolai Parfenovich solemnly addressed the accused and read to him a “Resolution,” setting forth that on such and such a day, of such and such a year, in such and such a place, having interrogated so and so (that is, Mitya), accused of such and such (all the charges were carefully enumerated), and insofar as the accused, while declaring himself not guilty of any of the crimes imputed to him, has brought forth nothing to vindicate himself, whereas the witnesses (so and so) and the circumstances (such and such) show him to be guilty in the highest degree, the district attorney of such and such district court, in accordance with such and such paragraphs of the Criminal Code, etc., hereby resolves: to commit so and so (Mitya) to such and such prison, in order to deprive him of all means of evading investigation and trial; to inform the accused of this fact; to forward a copy of this resolution to the deputy prosecutor, etc., etc. In short, Mitya was informed that from that moment on he was a prisoner, and that he would now be driven to town, where he would be locked up in a very unpleasant place. Mitya, having listened attentively, merely shrugged.
“Well, gentlemen, I don’t blame you, I’m ready ... I understand that you have no other choice.”
Nikolai Parfenovich gently explained to him that he would be taken away at once by the deputy commissioner, Mavriky Mavrikievich, who happened to be there at the moment . . .
“Wait,” Mitya interrupted suddenly, and with some irrepressible feeling he spoke, addressing everyone in the room. “Gentlemen, we are all cruel, we are all monsters, we all make people weep, mothers and nursing babies, but of all—let it be settled here and now—of all, I am the lowest vermin! So be it! Every day of my life I’ve been beating my breast and promising to reform, and every day I’ve done the same vile things. I understand now that for men such as I a blow is needed, a blow of fate, to catch them as with a noose and bind them by an external force. Never, never would I have risen by myself! But the thunder has struck.[275]I accept the torment of accusation and of my disgrace before all, I want to suffer and be purified by suffering! And perhaps I will be purified, eh, gentlemen? But hear me, all the same, for the last time: I am not guilty of my father’s blood! I accept punishment not because I killed him, but because I wanted to kill him, and might well have killed him ... But even so I intend to fight you, and I am letting you know it. I will fight you to the very end, and then let God decide! Farewell, gentlemen, do not be angry that I shouted at you during the interrogation—oh, I was still so foolish then ... Another moment and I’ll be a prisoner, but now, for the last time, while he is still a free man, Dmitri Karamazov offers you his hand. Saying farewell to you, I say it to all men...!”