'Well, you see, all bear witness to it. And the word all means something.'
'It means nothing. I talked rot, and everyone began repeating it.'
'But what need had you to ‘talk rot,’ as you call it?'
'The devil knows. From bravado perhaps... at having wasted so much money.... To try and forget that money I had sewn up, perhaps... yes, that was why... damn it... how often will you ask me that question? Well, I told a fib, and that was the end of it; once I'd said it, I didn't care to correct it. What does a man tell lies for sometimes?'
'That's very difficult to decide, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, what makes a man tell lies,' observed the prosecutor impressively. 'Tell me, though, was that ‘amulet,’ as you call it, on your neck, a big thing?'
'No, not big.'
'How big, for instance?'
'If you fold a hundred-rouble note in half, that would be the size.'
'You'd better show us the remains of it. You must have them somewhere.'
'Damnation, what nonsense! I don't know where they are.'
'But excuse me: where and when did you take it off your neck? According to your own evidence you didn't go home.'
'When I was going from Fenya's to Perhotin's, on the way I tore it off my neck and took out the money.'
'In the dark?'
'What should I want a light for? I did it with my fingers in one minute.'
'Without scissors, in the street?'
'In the market-place I think it was. Why scissors? It was an old rag. It was torn in a minute.'
'Where did you put it afterwards?'
'I dropped it there.'
'Where was it, exactly?'
'In the market-place, in the market-place! The devil knows whereabouts. What do you want to know for?'
'That's extremely important, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. It would be material evidence in your favour. How is it you don't understand that? Who helped you to sew it up a month ago?'
'No one helped me. I did it myself.'
'Can you sew?'
'A soldier has to know how to sew. No knowledge was needed to do that.'
'Where did you get the material, that is, the rag in which you sewed the money?'
'Are you laughing at me?'
'Not at all. And we are in no mood for laughing, Dmitri Fyodorovitch.'
'I don't know where I got the rag from--somewhere, I suppose.'
'I should have thought you couldn't have forgotten it?'
'Upon my word, I don't remember. I might have torn a bit off my linen.'
'That's very interesting. We might find in your lodgings to-morrow the shirt or whatever it is from which you tore the rag. What sort of rag was it, cloth or linen?'
'Goodness only knows what it was. Wait a bit... I believe I didn't tear it off anything. It was a bit of calico.... I believe I sewed it up in a cap of my landlady's.'
'In your landlady's cap?'
'Yes. I took it from her.'
'How did you get it?'
'You see, I remember once taking a cap for a rag, perhaps to wipe my pen on. I took it without asking, because it was a worthless rag. I tore it up, and I took the notes and sewed them up in it. I believe it was in that very rag I sewed them. An old piece of calico, washed a thousand times.'
'And you remember that for certain now?'
'I don't know whether for certain. I think it was in the cap. But, hang it, what does it matter?'
'In that case your landlady will remember that the thing was lost?'
'No, she won't, she didn't miss it. It was an old rag, I tell you, an old rag not worth a farthing.'
'And where did you get the needle and thread?'
'I'll stop now. I won't say any more. Enough of it!' said Mitya, losing his temper at last.
'It's strange that you should have so completely forgotten where you threw the pieces in the market- place.'
'Give orders for the market-place to be swept to-morrow, and perhaps you'll find it,' said Mitya sneering. 'Enough, gentlemen, enough!' he decided, in an exhausted voice. 'I see you don't believe me! Not for a moment! It's my fault, not yours. I ought not to have been so ready. Why, why did I degrade myself by confessing my secret to you? it's a joke to you. I see that from your eyes. You led me on to it, prosecutor! Sing a hymn of triumph if you can.... Damn you, you torturers!'
He bent his head, and hid his face in his hands. The lawyers were silent. A minute later he raised his head and looked at them almost vacantly. His face now expressed complete, hopeless despair, and he sat mute and passive as though hardly conscious of what was happening. In the meantime they had to finish what they were about. They had immediately to begin examining the witnesses. It was by now eight o'clock in the morning. The lights had been extinguished long ago. Mihail Makarovitch and Kalganov, who had been continually in and out of the room all the while the interrogation had been going on, had now both gone out again. The lawyers, too, looked very tired. It was a wretched morning, the whole sky was overcast, and the rain streamed down in bucketfuls. Mitya gazed blankly out of window.
'May I look out of window?' he asked Nikolay Parfenovitch, suddenly.
'Oh, as much as you like,' the latter replied.
Mitya got up and went to the window.... The rain lashed against its little greenish panes. He could see the muddy road just below the house, and farther away, in the rain and mist, a row of poor, black, dismal huts, looking even blacker and poorer in the rain. Mitya thought of 'Phoebus the golden-haired, and how he had meant to shoot himself at his first ray. 'Perhaps it would be even better on a morning like this,' he thought with a smile, and suddenly, flinging his hand downwards, he turned to his 'torturers.'
'Gentlemen,' he cried, 'I see that I am lost! But she? Tell me about her, I beseech you. Surely she need not be ruined with me? She's innocent, you know, she was out of her mind when she cried last night 'It's all my fault!’ She's done nothing, nothing! I've been grieving over her all night as I sat with you.... Can't you, won't you tell me what you are going to do with her now?'
'You can set your mind quite at rest on that score, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,' the prosecutor answered at once, with evident alacrity. 'We have, so far, no grounds for interfering with the lady in whom you are so interested. I trust that it may be the same in the later development of the case.... On the contrary, we'll do everything that lies in our power in that matter. Set your mind completely at rest.'
'Gentlemen, I thank you. I knew that you were honest, straightforward people in spite of everything. You've taken a load off my heart.... Well, what are we to do now? I'm ready.'
'Well, we ought to make haste. We must pass to examining the witnesses without delay. That must be done in your presence and therefore-'
'Shouldn't we have some tea first?' interposed Nikolay Parfenovitch, 'I think we've deserved it!'
They decided that if tea were ready downstairs (Mihail Makarovitch had, no doubt, gone down to get some) they would have a glass and then 'go on and on,' putting off their proper breakfast until a more favourable opportunity. Tea really was ready below, and was soon brought up. Mitya at first refused the glass that Nikolay Parfenovitch politely offered him, but afterwards he asked for it himself and drank it greedily. He looked surprisingly exhausted. It might have been supposed from his Herculean strength that one night of carousing, even accompanied by the most violent emotions, could have had little effect on him. But he felt that he could hardly hold his head up, and from time to time all the objects about him seemed heaving and dancing before his eyes. 'A little more and I shall begin raving,' he said to himself.
Chapter 8
The Evidences of the Witnesses. The Babe
THE examination of the witnesses began. But we will not continue our story in such detail as before. And so
