The Brothers Karamazov (91 page)

“I dare say it isn’t very nice. I understand perfectly well, and I don’t wish to argue the point,” the prosecutor answered with great restraint. “But I would like to pass over, for the time being, all this about the subtle differences in the acts of scoundrels and get back to the point. And the point is that you still have not answered our earlier question, namely, why did you divide the money in half, then proceed to squander one half and put the other half aside? Specifically, what was your purpose in hiding the fifteen hundred rubles? I’m afraid I must insist that you answer this question, Mr. Karamazov.”

“Why, of course!” Mitya cried, slapping his forehead as if suddenly remembering something. “I don’t know why I’ve been wasting your time like this. I should have explained to you the most important thing first, for then you would have understood at once that it is the motive that determines the degree of disgrace. You see, my father kept trying to persuade Grushenka to come and live with him and I was terribly jealous, for I imagined then that she was hesitating over whom to choose—him or me. And so I thought to myself, ‘What if she gets tired of making me miserable and says to me: “You’re the one I love, and I want you to take me away to the other end of the world.” What would I do, then, with forty kopeks as my entire fortune?’ I didn’t understand her at all then: I thought she wouldn’t come with me unless I had some money, that she would never accept me penniless. And so, on the sly, I counted off half the three thousand and cold-bloodedly picked up a needle and sewed it up in the rag myself; it was only after I had it safely tucked away that I went off to squander the other fifteen hundred on that spree. Well, that’s something really unspeakably low—do you understand that now?”

The prosecutor laughed aloud. The examining magistrate followed suit.

“I think it was, if anything, more reasonable and less unethical on your part to abstain from throwing away every single kopek of the money,” Nelyudov said with a chuckle. “I really don’t see what is so especially bad about it.”

“Why, the fact that I stole it, that’s what! Good God, I’m completely appalled at your lack of understanding! Every day, every hour, I went about with the fifteen hundred rubles dangling from my chest. I kept repeating to myself, ‘I’m a thief, I’m a thief!’ And that’s why I had all those brawls in taverns during that month. That’s the real reason I gave my father that beating—it was all because I felt I was a thief. I didn’t even dare tell my brother Alyosha about the fifteen hundred rubles, so horrible did it feel to be a crook and a thief! But I want you to know that all the time I was carrying that money on me, I kept saying to myself, ‘No, Dmitry Karamazov, you may still prove that you’re not really a thief!’ And why? Precisely because all I had to do was to go and see Katya the next day and give her back the fifteen hundred rubles. And it was only yesterday, on my way to Perkhotin’s, that I decided to tear the money from around my neck. I hadn’t dared to until then, but then I did it and became an out-and-out irredeemable thief, a man dishonored for the rest of his life. In tearing open that rag, I tore up my hope, for now I would never be able to go to Katya and say to her, “I’m not a thief. I’m just an irresponsible scoundrel.’ Now, do you understand? Do you?”

“And what made you decide to take that money yesterday? Why precisely yesterday evening?” Nelyudov asked.

“What a question! Obviously because I had sentenced myself to die at five the following morning. I didn’t think it would make much difference at that point whether I died a thief or a man of honor. But then it turned out that it did make a difference! I want you to believe me, gentlemen, that what tormented me most that night was not the thought that I had killed poor old Gregory and that I faced the danger of being sent to Siberia at the very moment when I’d found that my love was requited and heaven had opened up to me! Oh, all that, of course, made me feel wretched, but not as terrible as the horrible realization that I had spent the money and was, therefore, now irredeemably a thief! Oh, gentlemen, I swear to you, I have learned so much about life during this night! And I have also learned that it is not only impossible to live a crook, it is also impossible to die one. No, gentlemen, a man must die honorable.”

Mitya was pale. He looked as if he were at the end of his tether, completely spent, although he was still in a state of great agitation.

“I am beginning to understand you now, Mr. Karamazov,” the prosecutor drawled, in a soft, almost sympathetic tone, “but if you don’t mind my saying so, I believe your nerves had snapped under the strain and that you were in a state of nervous disorder. Otherwise, for instance, you could have put an end to that terrible torment, which lasted almost a month, by returning the fifteen hundred rubles to the person who had entrusted you with the money, and then, having explained to her the terrible situation you were in, as you described it to us, you could have done the most natural thing, that would occur to anyone—namely, after having acknowledged your mistake, to ask her to lend you that same sum. And I would say it is most unlikely that a person of her generosity, seeing your great distress, would have turned you down. Besides, you could have given her an IOU or, even better, offered her the same security as you offered Mr. Samsonov and Mrs. Khokhlakov. You still consider that security good, don’t you?”

Mitya suddenly turned red.

“Do you really consider me that low then! I cannot believe you mean it!” he said in tremendous indignation, looking straight into the prosecutor’s eyes as if unable to believe that he had heard him right.

“I assure you I am absolutely serious . . . I don’t even see what surprises you so much,” the prosecutor said, looking at Mitya with equal surprise.

“But that would be unspeakably low! Don’t you realize how you are tormenting me! All right, I will now reveal my bottomless baseness to you. But it will make you feel uneasy when you see to what depth of infamy a man’s feelings can drag him. I want you to know, prosecutor, that I thought myself of the scheme you have just suggested to me. Yes, I thought of it during that terrible month: I was about to go and see Katya, tell her about my betrayal and beg her for some money to take care of the expenses that betrayal would incur (yes, I said 
beg
, do you hear me?), so that I could run away with her hated rival, a woman who had mortally offended her. You must really be out of your mind, prosecutor, if you think I could have gone through with that!”

“Out of my mind or not, I admit that in the heat of the argument I failed to make allowances for jealousy between women, if there actually can have been jealousy in this case, as you contend. Yes, I suppose you have a point there . . .”

The prosecutor snorted.

“But it would have been such a filthy, disgusting thing to do,” Mitya shouted fiercely, slamming his fist down on the table. “It would have been a stinking infamy beyond all imagining . . . And you know, she would most certainly have given me the money. She would have given it to me just to avenge herself, to show me how much she despised me, for she is also a creature of hell, a woman whose hatred is terrible! But I would have taken the money. I would have, I would have, and then . . . then all my life . . . oh, God! Please forgive me for screaming this way, gentlemen; it is because I considered this possibility just recently, only two days ago, the night when I was trying to bring the dead drunk Hound back to life, and then again yesterday throughout the evening. Yes, I remember, until, until . . .”

“Until what?” Nelyudov prompted him curiously, but Mitya did not hear him.

“I have made a terrible confession,” he concluded grimly. “Please appreciate that. And it is not enough to appreciate it—you must value it, for if you don’t, if you just take it for granted without understanding what it has meant to me to admit all this to you, then, gentlemen, it will show that you have not the slightest respect for me, and I will die of shame at having confessed to people like you. Oh, I will shoot myself! Why, I can see, I can already see that you don’t believe me! What? You want that written down too?” he shouted in horror.

“Only what you just said now,” Nelyudov said, looking at him in surprise. “So then, until the very last moment you were still thinking of going to see Miss Verkhovtsev and asking her to lend you that sum, is that right? I assure you that this is an extremely important point, Mr. Karamazov, and it is especially important for you, particularly for you.”

“Have mercy, gentlemen! Please don’t write it down! Please, not that! I have torn my soul in half before you and now you are poking your fingers into both halves . . . God, God, what are they doing to me!”

In despair, he buried his face in his hands.

“Please don’t get so excited, Mr. Karamazov,” the prosecutor said. “Everything that has been written down will be read back to you and if you don’t agree with anything, we will make the necessary changes . . . But now I would like to ask you a certain question, and this is the third time I am asking it: Are you really absolutely certain that no one, not a single person, had ever heard of the money you had sewed up in that rag and were carrying around your neck? That is really very hard to believe.”

“No one, no one at all. I’ve already told you that! Ah, you haven’t understood me! Leave me alone, then.”

“Suit yourself. But this point will have to be cleared up eventually, and we have all the time in the world. In the meantime, however, consider this: we have perhaps several dozen witnesses to testify that you yourself went around telling people, even shouting from the roof-tops, that you’d gone through three thousand rubles on that spree, and it was always three thousand, never fifteen hundred. And even this time, when you suddenly appeared with money, you managed to tell many people that again you had three thousand rubles . . .”

“You have not dozens but hundreds of witnesses; I’d say two hundred people heard me say that, perhaps even a thousand!” Mitya cried.

“So you see, then, 
all
 bear witness to it. Doesn’t the word ‘all’ indicate anything to you?”

“Nothing. I lied and they all started repeating my lies.”

“But what need was there for you to do that, to lie like that as you put it?”

“Damned if I know. Perhaps it was just pleasant to brag, to say, ‘See all the money I threw away.’ Or perhaps I was trying to make myself forget about the money sewn up in that rag. Yes, I guess that was the reason. But hell, how many times have you asked me this same question? So I lied once and then didn’t want to admit I had lied. Why do you think people usually lie?”

“That is a very difficult question to answer,” the prosecutor said sternly. “But tell me this now: how large was that bundle with the bills in it that you had around your neck?”

“Not too big.”

“Can’t you give me a rough idea?”

“If you fold a hundred-ruble bill in two, it would be about that size.”

“Couldn’t you show us the scraps of the rag the money was wrapped in? You surely must have them somewhere . . .”

“What nonsense! I don’t know where they are now . . .”

“When did you take it off your neck? And where did you do it, since, according to your own statement, you didn’t go home?”

“After I’d left Fenya’s and was on my way to Perkhotin’s—that’s when I tore it off my neck.”

“In the dark?”

“I didn’t need a candle for that. I opened it with one finger and it took me about a second.”

“You did it in the street, without scissors?”

“Not in the street—on the square as a matter of fact; and I didn’t need scissors—it was an old rag. It tore easily.”

“What did you do with it?”

“With the rag? I just threw it away.”

“Whereabouts?”

“On the square, where I happened to be, of course! You don’t expect me to tell you the exact spot where I was when I threw away the torn rag, do you? Anyway, I don’t see how that could help you.”

“It is extremely important, Mr. Karamazov. It could be material evidence to back up your testimony. Can’t you see that? And who helped you sew the money up in the rag?”

“No one. I did it myself.”

“Do you know how to sew, then?”

“It didn’t take much skill. Anyway, a soldier has to know how to sew.”

“Where did you find the material? I mean the rag you sewed the money in?”

“You must be making fun of me! I can’t believe it!”

“I am not making fun of you at all. I have much more important things on my mind, Mr. Karamazov!”

“I really don’t remember where I got the rag. I guess I must have picked it up somewhere or other.”

“It’s something, it would seem, that you should remember.”

“I tell you, I don’t remember. I may have torn off a piece of my linen or something.”

“That could be very helpful to us. Tell me, is it possible that the piece of linen, perhaps an old shirt or something of that sort, from which you tore the rag is still somewhere in the room where you live? What material was the rag, linen or cotton?”

“Who the hell would pay attention to that! Wait . . . I don’t think I tore it off anything. I sewed the money up in my landlady’s mob-cap. I think it was made of calico . . .”

“Your landlady’s mob-cap?”

“Yes, I pinched it from her.”

“What do you mean, you pinched it?”

“You see, I pinched her mob-cap because I needed a rag . . . no, I think I needed it to wipe my pen. I helped myself to it because it was all torn and couldn’t possibly have been of any use to her. So after that, the torn cap was lying there in my room and when I wanted to tuck the fifteen hundred rubles away, I just sewed it up in that old calico thing that must have been laundered a thousand times.”

“And you now have a clear recollection of all that?”

“I don’t know how clear it is, but I think I sewed it up in that cap. But who the hell cares about that!”

“In that case, your landlady might remember missing the article in question, mightn’t she?”

“I don’t think she’d have missed the damned thing. It was an old rag, I tell you, a worthless old rag!”

“And where did you get the needle and thread from?”