The First Ordeal



    AND so Mitya sat looking wildly at the people round him, not

understanding what was said to him. Suddenly he got up, flung up his

hands, and shouted aloud:

    "I'm not guilty! I'm not guilty of that blood! I'm not guilty of

my father's blood.... I meant to kill him. But I'm not guilty. Not I."

    But he had hardly said this, before Grushenka rushed from behind

the curtain and flung herself at the police captain's feet.

    "It was my fault! Mine! My wickedness!" she cried, in a

heart-rending voice, bathed in tears, stretching out her clasped hands

towards them. "He did it through me. I tortured him and drove him to

it. I tortured that poor old man that's dead, too, in my wickedness,

and brought him to this! It's my fault, mine first, mine most, my

fault!"

    "Yes, it's your fault! You're the chief criminal! You fury! You

harlot! You're the most to blame!" shouted the police captain,

threatening her with his hand. But he was quickly and resolutely

suppressed. The prosecutor positively seized hold of him.

    "This is absolutely irregular, Mihail Makarovitch!" he cried. "You

are positively hindering the inquiry.... You're ruining the case."

he almost gasped.

    "Follow the regular course! Follow the regular course!" cried

Nikolay Parfenovitch, fearfully excited too, "otherwise it's

absolutely impossible!..."

    "Judge us together!" Grushenka cried frantically, still

kneeling. "Punish us together. I will go with him now, if it's to

death!"

    "Grusha, my life, my blood, my holy one!" Mitya fell on his

knees beside her and held her tight in his arms. "Don't believe

her," he cried, "she's not guilty of anything, of any blood, of

anything!"

    He remembered afterwards that he was forcibly dragged away from

her by several men, and that she was led out, and that when he

recovered himself he was sitting at the table. Beside him and behind

him stood the men with metal plates. Facing him on the other side of

the table sat Nikolay Parfenovitch, the investigating lawyer. He

kept persuading him to drink a little water out of a glass that

stood on the table.

    "That will refresh you, that will calm you. Be calm, don't be

frightened," he added, extremely politely. Mitya (he remembered it

afterwards) became suddenly intensely interested in his big rings, one

with an amethyst, and another with a transparent bright yellow

stone, of great brilliance. And long afterwards he remembered with

wonder how those rings had riveted his attention through all those

terrible hours of interrogation, so that he was utterly unable to tear

himself away from them and dismiss them, as things that had nothing to

do with his position. On Mitya's left side, in the place where Maximov

had been sitting at the beginning of the evening, the prosecutor was

now seated, and on Mitya's right hand, where Grushenka had been, was a

rosy-cheeked young man in a sort of shabby hunting-jacket, with ink

and paper before him. This was the secretary of the investigating

lawyer, who had brought him with him. The police captain was now

standing by the window at the other end of the room, beside

Kalganov, who was sitting there.

    "Drink some water," said the investigating lawyer softly, for

the tenth time.

    "I have drunk it, gentlemen, I have... but come gentlemen, crush

me, punish me, decide my fate!" cried Mitya, staring with terribly

fixed wide-open eyes at the investigating lawyer.

    "So you positively declare that you are not guilty of the death of

your father, Fyodor Pavlovitch?" asked the investigating lawyer,

softly but insistently.

    "I am not guilty. I am guilty of the blood of another old man, but

not of my father's. And I weep for it! I killed, I killed the old

man and knocked him down.... But it's hard to have to answer for

that murder with another, a terrible murder of which I am not

guilty....It's a terrible accusation, gentlemen, a knockdown blow. But

who has killed my father, who has killed him? Who can have killed

him if I didn't? It's marvellous, extraordinary, impossible."

    "Yes, who can have killed him?" the investigating lawyer was

beginning, but Ippolit Kirillovitch, the prosecutor, glancing at

him, addressed Mitya.

    "You need not worry yourself about the old servant, Grigory

Vasilyevitch. He is alive, he has recovered, and in spite of the

terrible blows inflicted, according to his own and your evidence, by

you, there seems no doubt that he will live, so the doctor says, at

least."

    "Alive? He's alive?" cried Mitya, flinging up his hands. His

face beamed. "Lord, I thank Thee for the miracle Thou has wrought

for me, a sinner and evildoer. That's an answer to my prayer. I've

been praying all night." And he crossed himself three times. He was

almost breathless.

    "So from this Grigory we have received such important evidence

concerning you, that-" The prosecutor would have continued, but

Mitya suddenly jumped up from his chair.

    "One minute, gentlemen, for God's sake, one minute; I will run

to her-"

    "Excuse me, at this moment it's quite impossible," Nikolay

Parfenovitch almost shrieked. He, too, leapt to his feet. Mitya was

seized by the men with the metal plates, but he sat down of his own

accord....

    "Gentlemen, what a pity! I wanted to see her for one minute

only; I wanted to tell her that it has been washed away, it has

gone, that blood that was weighing on my heart all night, and that I

am not a murderer now! Gentlemen, she is my betrothed!" he said

ecstatically and reverently, looking round at them all. "Oh, thank

you, gentlemen! Oh, in one minute you have given me new life, new

heart!... That old man used to carry me in his arms, gentlemen. He

used to wash me in the tub when I was a baby three years old,

abandoned by everyone, he was like a father to me!..."

    "And so you-" the investigating lawyer began.

    "Allow me, gentlemen, allow me one minute more," interposed Mitya,

putting his elbows on the table and covering his face with his

hands. "Let me have a moment to think, let me breathe, gentlemen.

All this is horribly upsetting, horribly. A man is not a drum,

gentlemen!"

    "Drink a little more water," murmured Nikolay Parfenovitch.

 Mitya took his hands from his face and laughed. His eyes were

confident. He seemed completely transformed in a moment. His whole

bearing was changed; he was once more the equal of these men, with all

of whom he was acquainted, as though they had all met the day

before, when nothing had happened, at some social gathering. We may

note in passing that, on his first arrival, Mitya had been made very

welcome at the police captain's, but later, during the last month

especially, Mitya had hardly called at all, and when the police

captain met him, in the street, for instance, Mitya noticed that he

frowned and only bowed out of politeness. His acquaintance with the

prosecutor was less intimate, though he sometimes paid his wife, a

nervous and fanciful lady, visits of politeness, without quite knowing

why, and she always received him graciously and had, for some

reason, taken an interest in him up to the last. He had not had time

to get to know the investigating lawyer, though he had met him and

talked to him twice, each time about the fair sex.

    "You're a most skilful lawyer, I see, Nikolay Parfenovitch," cried

Mitya, laughing gaily, "but I can help you now. Oh, gentlemen, I

feel like a new man, and don't be offended at my addressing you so

simply and directly. I'm rather drunk, too, I'll tell you that

frankly. I believe I've had the honour and pleasure of meeting you,

Nikolay Parfenovitch, at my kinsman Miusov's. Gentlemen, gentlemen,

I don't pretend to be on equal terms with you. I understand, of

course, in what character I am sitting before you. Oh, of course,

there's a horrible suspicion... hanging over me... if Grigory has

given evidence.... A horrible suspicion! It's awful, awful, I

understand that! But to business, gentlemen, I am ready, and we will

make an end of it in one moment; for, listen, listen, gentlemen! Since

I know I'm innocent, we can put an end to it in a minute. Can't we?

Can't we?"

    Mitya spoke much and quickly, nervously and effusively, as

though he positively took his listeners to be his best friends.

    "So, for the present, we will write that you absolutely deny the

charge brought against you," said Nikolay Parfenovitch,

impressively, and bending down to the secretary he dictated to him

in an undertone what to write.

    "Write it down? You want to write that down? Well, write it; I

consent, I give my full consent, gentlemen, only... do you see?...

Stay, stay, write this. Of disorderly conduct I am guilty, of violence

on a poor old man I am guilty. And there is something else at the

bottom of my heart, of which I am guilty, too but that you need not

write down" (he turned suddenly to the secretary); "that's my personal

life, gentlemen, that doesn't concern you, the bottom of my heart,

that's to say.... But of the murder of my old father I'm not guilty.

That's a wild idea. It's quite a wild idea!... I will prove you that

and you'll be convinced directly.... You will laugh, gentlemen. You'll

laugh yourselves at your suspicion!..."

    "Be calm, Dmitri Fyodorovitch," said the investigating lawyer

evidently trying to allay Mitya's excitement by his own composure.

"Before we go on with our inquiry, I should like, if you will

consent to answer, to hear you confirm the statement that you disliked

your father, Fyodor Pavlovitch, that you were involved in continual

disputes with him. Here at least, a quarter of an hour ago, you

exclaimed that you wanted to kill him: 'I didn't kill him,' you

said,'but I wanted to kill him.'"

    "Did I exclaim that? Ach, that may be so, gentlemen! Yes,

unhappily, I did want to kill him... many times I wanted to...

unhappily, unhappily!"

    "You wanted to. Would you consent to explain what motives

precisely led you to such a sentiment of hatred for your parent?"

    "What is there to explain, gentlemen?" Mitya shrugged his

shoulders sullenly, looking down. "I have never concealed my feelings.

All the town knows about it- everyone knows in the tavern. Only lately

I declared them in Father Zossima's cell. And the very same day, in

the evening I beat my father. I nearly killed him, and I swore I'd

come again and kill him, before witnesses.... Oh, a thousand

witnesses! I've been shouting it aloud for the last month, anyone

can tell you that!... The fact stares you in the face, it speaks for

itself, it cries aloud, but feelings, gentlemen, feelings are

another matter. You see, gentlemen"- Mitya frowned- "it seemed to me

that about feelings you've no right to question me. I know that you

are bound by your office, I quite understand that, but that's my

affair, my private, intimate affair, yet... since I haven't

concealed my feelings in the past... in the tavern, for instance, I've

talked to everyone, so... so I won't make a secret of it now. You see,

I understand, gentlemen, that there are terrible facts against me in

this business. I told everyone that I'd kill him, and now, all of a

sudden, he's been killed. So it must have been me! Ha ha! I can make

allowances for you, gentlemen, I can quite make allowances. I'm struck

all of a heap myself, for who can have murdered him, if not I?

That's what it comes to, isn't it? If not I, who can it be, who?

Gentlemen, I want to know, I insist on knowing!" he exclaimed

suddenly. "Where was he murdered? How was he murdered? How, and with

what? Tell me," he asked quickly, looking at the two lawyers.

    "We found him in his study, lying on his back on the floor, with

his head battered in," said the prosecutor.

    "That's horrible!" Mitya shuddered and, putting his elbows on

the table, hid his face in his right hand.

    "We will continue," interposed Nikolay Parfenovitch. "So what

was it that impelled you to this sentiment of hatred? You have

asserted in public, I believe, that it was based upon jealousy?"

    "Well, yes, jealousy. not only jealousy."

    "Disputes about money?"

    "Yes, about money, too."

    "There was a dispute about three thousand roubles, I think,

which you claimed as part of your inheritance?"

    "Three thousand! More, more," cried Mitya hotly; "more than six

thousand, more than ten, perhaps. I told everyone so, shouted it at

them. But I made up my mind to let it go at three thousand. I was

desperately in need of that three thousand... so the bundle of notes

for three thousand that I knew he kept under his pillow, ready for

Grushenka, I considered as simply stolen from me. Yes, gentlemen, I

looked upon it as mine, as my own property..."

    The prosecutor looked significantly at the investigating lawyer,

and had time to wink at him on the sly.

    "We will return to that subject later," said the lawyer

promptly. "You will allow us to note that point and write it down;

that you looked upon that money as your own property?"

    "Write it down, by all means. I know that's another fact that

tells against me, but I'm not afraid of facts and I tell them

against myself. Do you hear? Do you know, gentlemen, you take me for a

different sort of man from what I am," he added, suddenly gloomy and

dejected. "You have to deal with a man of honour, a man of the highest

honour; above all don't lose sight of it- a man who's done a lot of

nasty things, but has always been, and still is, honourable at bottom,

in his inner being. I don't know how to express it. That's just what's

made me wretched all my life, that I yearned to be honourable, that

I was, so to say, a martyr to a sense of honour, seeking for it with a

lantern, with the lantern of Diogenes, and yet all my life I've been

doing filthy things like all of us, gentlemen... that is like me

alone. That was a mistake, like me alone, me alone!... Gentlemen, my

head aches..." His brows contracted with pain. "You see, gentlemen,

I couldn't bear the look of him, there was something in him ignoble,

impudent, trampling on everything sacred, something sneering and

irreverent, loathsome, loathsome. But now that he's dead, I feel

differently."

    "How do you mean?"

    "I don't feel differently, but I wish I hadn't hated him so."

    "You feel penitent?"

    "No, not penitent, don't write that. I'm not much good myself; I'm

not very beautiful, so I had no right to consider him repulsive.

That's what I mean. Write that down, if you like."

    Saying this Mitya became very mournful. He had grown more and more

gloomy as the inquiry continued.

    At that moment another unexpected scene followed. Though Grushenka

had been removed, she had not been taken far away, only into the

room next but one from the blue room, in which the examination was

proceeding. It was a little room with one window, next beyond the

large room in which they had danced and feasted so lavishly. She was

sitting there with no one by her but Maximov, who was terribly

depressed, terribly scared, and clung to her side, as though for

security. At their door stood one of the peasants with a metal plate

on his breast. Grushenka was crying, and suddenly her grief was too

much for her, she jumped up, flung up her arms and, with a loud wail

of sorrow, rushed out of the room to him, to her Mitya, and so

unexpectedly that they had not time to stop her. Mitya, hearing her

cry, trembled, jumped up, and with a yell rushed impetuously to meet

her, not knowing what he was doing. But they were not allowed to

come together, though they saw one another. He was seized by the arms.

He struggled, and tried to tear himself away. It took three or four

men to hold him. She was seized too, and he saw her stretching out her

arms to him, crying aloud as they carried her away. When the scene was

over, he came to himself again, sitting in the same place as before,

opposite the investigating lawyer, and crying out to them:

    "What do you want with her? Why do you torment her? She's done

nothing, nothing!

    The lawyers tried to soothe him. About ten minutes passed like

this. At last Mihail Makarovitch, who had been absent, came

hurriedly into the room, and said in a loud and excited voice to the

prosecutor:

    "She's been removed, she's downstairs. Will you allow me to say

one word to this unhappy man, gentlemen? In your presence,

gentlemen, in your presence."

    "By all means, Mihail Makarovitch," answered the investigating

lawyer. "In the present case we have nothing against it."

    "Listen, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, my dear fellow," began the police

captain, and there was a look of warm, almost fatherly, feeling for

the luckless prisoner on his excited face. "I took your Agrafena

Alexandrovna downstairs myself, and confided her to the care of the

landlord's daughters, and that old fellow Maximov is with her all

the time. And I soothed her, do you hear? I soothed and calmed her.

I impressed on her that you have to clear yourself, so she mustn't

hinder you, must not depress you, or you may lose your head and say

the wrong thing in your evidence. In fact, I talked to her and she

understood. She's a sensible girl, my boy, a good-hearted girl, she

would have kissed my old hands, begging help for you. She sent me

herself, to tell you not to worry about her. And I must go, my dear

fellow, I must go and tell her that you are calm and comforted about

her. And so you must be calm, do you understand? I was unfair to

her; she is a Christian soul, gentlemen, yes, I tell you, she's a

gentle soul, and not to blame for anything. So what am I to tell

her, Dmitri Fyodorovitch? Will you sit quiet or not?"

    The good-natured police captain said a great deal that was

irregular, but Grushenka's suffering, a fellow creature's suffering,

touched his good-natured heart, and tears stood in his eyes. Mitya

jumped up and rushed towards him.

    "Forgive me, gentlemen, oh, allow me, allow me!" he cried. "You've

the heart of an angel, an angel, Mihail Makarovitch, I thank you for

her. I will, I will be calm, cheerful, in fact. Tell her, in the

kindness of your heart, that I am cheerful, quite cheerful, that I

shall be laughing in a minute, knowing that she has a guardian angel

like you. I shall have done with all this directly, and as soon as I'm

free, I'll be with her, she'll see, let her wait. Gentlemen," he said,

turning to the two lawyers, now I'll open my whole soul to you; I'll

pour out everything. We'll finish this off directly, finish it off

gaily. We shall laugh at it in the end, shan't we? But gentlemen, that

woman is the queen of my heart. Oh, let me tell you that. That one

thing I'll tell you now.... I see I'm with honourable men. She is my

light, she is my holy one, and if only you knew! Did you hear her cry,

'I'll go to death with you'? And what have I, a penniless beggar, done

for her? Why such love for me? How can a clumsy, ugly brute like me,

with my ugly face, deserve such love, that she is ready to go to exile

with me? And how she fell down at your feet for my sake, just

now!... and yet she's proud and has done nothing! How can I help

adoring her, how can I help crying out and rushing to her as I did

just now? Gentlemen, forgive me! But now, now I am comforted."

    And he sank back in his chair and, covering his face with his

hands, burst into tears. But they were happy tears. He recovered

himself instantly. The old police captain seemed much pleased, and the

lawyers also. They felt that the examination was passing into a new

phase. When the police captain went out, Mitya was positively gay.

    "Now, gentlemen, I am at your disposal, entirely at your disposal.

And if it were not for all these trivial details, we should understand

one another in a minute. I'm at those details again. I'm at your

disposal, gentlemen, but I declare that we must have mutual

confidence, you in me and I in you, or there'll be no end to it. I

speak in your interests. To business, gentlemen, to business, and

don't rummage in my soul; don't tease me with trifles, but only ask me

about facts and what matters, and I will satisfy you at once. And damn

the details!"

    So spoke Mitya. The interrogation began again.