remained in the pockets of the Poles.
Then old Maximov was summoned. He came in timidly, approached with little steps, looking very dishevelled and depressed. He had, all this time, taken refuge below with Grushenka, sitting dumbly beside her, and 'now and then he'd begin blubbering over her and wiping his eyes with a blue check handkerchief,' as Mihail Makarovitch described afterwards. So that she herself began trying to pacify and comfort him. The old man at once confessed that he had done wrong, that he had borrowed 'ten roubles in my poverty,' from Dmitri Fyodorovitch, and that he was ready to pay it back. To Nikolay Parfenovitch's direct question, had he noticed how much money Dmitri Fyodorovitch held in his hand, as he must have been able to see the sum better than anyone when he took the note from him, Maximov, in the most positive manner, declared that there was twenty thousand.
'Have you ever seen so much as twenty thousand before, then?' inquired Nikolay Parfenovitch, with a smile.
'To be sure I have, not twenty, but seven, when my wife mortgaged my little property. She'd only let me look at it from a distance, boasting of it to me. It was a very thick bundle, all rainbow-coloured notes. And Dmitri Fyodorovitch's were all rainbow-coloured...'
He was not kept long. At last it was Grushenka's turn. Nikolay Parfenovitch was obviously apprehensive of the effect her appearance might have on Mitya, and he muttered a few words of admonition to him, but Mitya bowed his head in silence, giving him to understand 'that he would not make a scene.' Mihail Makarovitch himself led Grushenka in. She entered with a stern and gloomy face, that looked almost composed, and sat down quietly on the chair offered her by Nikolay Parfenovitch. She was very pale, she seemed to be cold, and wrapped herself closely in her magnificent black shawl. She was suffering from a slight feverish chill--the first symptom of the long illness which followed that night. Her grave air, her direct earnest look and quiet manner made a very favourable impression on everyone. Nikolay Parfenovitch was even a little bit 'fascinated.' He admitted himself, when talking about it afterwards, that only then had he seen 'how handsome the woman was,' for, though he had seen her several times he had always looked upon her as something of a 'provincial hetaira.' 'She has the manners of the best society,' he said enthusiastically, gossiping about her in a circle of ladies. But this was received with positive indignation by the ladies, who immediately called him a 'naughty man,' to his great satisfaction.
As she entered the room, Grushenka only glanced for an instant at Mitya, who looked at her uneasily. But her face reassured him at once. After the first inevitable inquiries and warnings, Nikolay Parfenovitch asked her, hesitating a little, but preserving the most courteous manner, on what terms she was with the retired lieutenant, Dmitri Fyodorovitch Karamazov. To this Grushenka firmly and quietly replied:
'He was an acquaintance. He came to see me as an acquaintance during the last month.' To further inquisitive questions she answered plainly and with complete frankness, that, though 'at times' she had thought him attractive, she had not loved him, but had won his heart as well as his old father's 'in my nasty spite,' that she had seen that Mitya was very jealous of Fyodor Pavlovitch and everyone else; but that had only amused her. She had never meant to go to Fyodor Pavlovitch, she had simply been laughing at him. 'I had no thoughts for either of them all this last month. I was expecting another man who had wronged me. But I think,' she said in conclusion, 'that there's no need for you to inquire about that, nor for me to answer you, for that's my own affair.'
Nikolay Parfenovitch immediately acted upon this hint. He again dismissed the 'romantic' aspect of the case and passed to the serious one, that is, to the question of most importance, concerning the three thousand roubles. Grushenka confirmed the statement that three thousand roubles had certainly been spent on the first carousal at Mokroe, and, though she had not counted the money herself, she had heard that it was three thousand from Dmitri Fyodorovitch's own lips.
'Did he tell you that alone, or before someone else, or did you only hear him speak of it to others in your presence?' the prosecutor inquired immediately.
To which Grushenka replied that she had heard him say so before other people, and had heard him say so when they were alone.
'Did he say it to you alone once, or several times?' inquired the prosecutor, and learned that he had told Grushenka so several times.
Ippolit Kirillovitch was very well satisfied with this piece of evidence. Further examination elicited that Grushenka knew, too, where that money had come from, and that Dmitri Fyodorovitch had got it from Katerina Ivanovna.
'And did you never, once, hear that the money spent a month ago was not three thousand, but less, and that Dmitri Fyodorovitch had saved half that sum for his own use?'
'No, I never heard that,' answered Grushenka.
It was explained further that Mitya had, on the contrary, often told her that he hadn't a farthing.
'He was always expecting to get some from his father,' said Grushenka in conclusion.
'Did he never say before you... casually, or in a moment of irritation,' Nikolay Parfenovitch put in suddenly, 'that he intended to make an attempt on his father's life?'
'Ach, he did say so,' sighed Grushenka.
'Once or several times?'
'He mentioned it several times, always in anger.'
'And did you believe he would do it?'
'No, I never believed it,' she answered firmly. 'I had faith in his noble heart.'
'Gentlemen, allow me,' cried Mitya suddenly, 'allow me to say one word to Agrafena Alexandrovna, in your presence.'
'You can speak,' Nikolay Parfenovitch assented.
'Agrafena Alexandrovna!' Mitya got up from his chair, 'have faith in God and in me. I am not guilty of my father's murder!'
Having uttered these words Mitya sat down again on his chair. Grushenka stood up and crossed herself devoutly before the ikon.
'Thanks be to Thee, O Lord,' she said, in a voice thrilled with emotion, and still standing, she turned to Nikolay Parfenovitch and added:
'As he has spoken now, believe it! I know him. He'll say anything as a joke or from obstinacy, but he'll never deceive you against his conscience. He's telling the whole truth, you may believe it.'
'Thanks, Agrafena Alexandrovna, you've given me fresh courage,' Mitya responded in a quivering voice.
As to the money spent the previous day, she declared that she did not know what sum it was, but had heard him tell several people that he had three thousand with him. And to the question where he got the money, she said that he had told her that he had 'stolen' it from Katerina Ivanovna, and that she had replied to that that he hadn't stolen it, and that he must pay the money back next day. On the prosecutor's asking her emphatically whether the money he said he had stolen from Katerina Ivanovna was what he had spent yesterday, or what he had squandered here a month ago, she declared that he meant the money spent a month ago, and that that was how she understood him.
Grushenka was at last released, and Nikolay Parfenovitch informed her impulsively that she might at once return to the town and that if he could be of any assistance to her, with horses for example, or if she would care for an escort, he... would be-
'I thank you sincerely,' said Grushenka, bowing to him, 'I'm going with this old gentleman; I am driving him back to town with me, and meanwhile, if you'll allow me, I'll wait below to hear what you decide about Dmitri Fyodorovitch.'
She went out. Mitya was calm, and even looked more cheerful, but only for a moment. He felt more and more oppressed by a strange physical weakness. His eyes were closing with fatigue. The examination of the witnesses was, at last, over. They procceded to a revision of the protocol. Mitya got up, moved from his chair to the corner by the curtain, lay down on a large chest covered with a rug, and instantly fell asleep.
He had a strange dream, utterly out of keeping with the place and the time.
He was driving somewhere in the steppes, where he had been stationed long ago, and a peasant was driving him in a cart with a pair of horses, through snow and sleet. He was cold, it was early in November, and the snow was falling in big wet flakes, melting as soon as it touched the earth. And the peasant drove him smartly, he had a fair, long beard. He was not an old man, somewhere about fifty, and he had on a grey peasant's smock. Not far off was a village, he could see the black huts, and half the huts were burnt down, there were only the charred beams sticking up. And as they drove in, there were peasant women drawn up along the road, a lot of women, a whole
