The Brothers Karamazov (84 page)

I must note here briefly that Fyodor Karamazov was found to be dead, his skull fractured with some object. It could not, however, be ascertained what the object was, although it was most likely the same object with which Gregory had been struck later. And that object was found soon after they had heard Gregory’s testimony. Gregory, who was given all possible medical help, managed, although in a very weak and halting voice, to give a quite coherent account of how he had been struck. They searched all along the garden fence with lanterns and finally found the brass pestle lying quite conspicuously on the gravel path. There was no particular disorder in Mr. Karamazov’s room. But behind the screen, by his bed, they found a large, thick envelope on the floor of the sort used for business purposes. It bore the inscription, “To my darling Grushenka, this present of three thousand rubles—if she comes to me,” and under it were the words “to my little chick,” apparently added later by Mr. Karamazov. The envelope, which had been closed with three large, red wax seals, had been torn open and was empty—the money was gone. The narrow pink ribbon that had been tied around the envelope was found on the floor. One point in Perkhotin’s account particularly impressed both the prosecutor and the examining magistrate, and that was his insistence that Dmitry Karamazov would shoot himself at dawn, that Dmitry had made up his mind, had told Perkhotin about it, had loaded his pistol in his presence, had written a note that he had put in his pocket; and when Perkhotin, still refusing to believe that Dmitry would really shoot himself, had said that he would get help to prevent him from going through with it, Dmitry Karamazov had grinned and replied that it would be too late by then.

Consequently, their course of action was obvious: they had to hurry to Mokroye and get hold of the murderer before he really carried out his plan to shoot himself.

“It’s all pretty straightforward,” the prosecutor repeated excitedly; “that’s exactly the way a desperate man of that type thinks: ‘I’ll kill myself tomorrow, but before I die I’ll have a wild time.’ ”

And when Perkhotin described the way Dmitry had bought wine and food in the store, the prosecutor became even more excited:

“Don’t you remember the fellow who killed that merchant Olsufiev? He robbed him of fifteen hundred rubles and then went straight to have his hair curled and, without even bothering to hide the money, practically carrying it around in his hand, just like this one, went off to a brothel.”

They were delayed, however, by the investigation in the Karamazov house, the search, and the other formalities. It all took time and so, two hours before starting out themselves, they sent ahead to Mokroye the rural police officer, Mavriky Shmertsov, who had come to town that morning to draw his salary. Once in Mokroye, Shmertsov was to keep a constant watch on the criminal without, however, arousing suspicion, and also to prepare witnesses, police, etc., before the arrival of the competent authorities. And this is exactly what Shmertsov did; he kept his mission a secret from everyone except his old acquaintance Trifon Plastunov, whom he took partly into his confidence. It was just after Trifon had learned about all this that he met Mitya in the darkness, going back into the house from the balcony, and that Mitya noticed that something had changed both in Trifon’s attitude and in the way he spoke. Neither Mitya nor anyone else knew then that they were being watched. And long before that, Trifon had taken the case with the pistols and hidden it in a safe place.

It was only at about 5 a.m., shortly before dawn, that the authorities arrived. The police inspector, the prosecutor, the examining magistrate, and their assistants arrived in two carriages drawn by teams of three horses. The district medical officer had stayed in Mr. Karamazov’s house. His reason for staying was to perform the autopsy on the victim, which had been arranged for the following morning. But what interested him most was the condition of the sick servant Smerdyakov. “Absolutely amazingly long epileptic seizures, recurring constantly for forty-eight hours! This is definitely a matter for scientific investigation,” Dr. Varvinsky declared excitedly to his colleagues, who laughingly congratulated him on his discovery. Later, the prosecutor and the examining magistrate remembered clearly that the doctor had declared very definitely that Smerdyakov would not live until morning.

And now, after this long but, I believe, indispensable digression, we shall resume our story at the point where we interrupted it in the last book.

Chapter 3: From Ordeal To Ordeal: The First Ordeal

AND SO Mitya sat staring wildly at the people around him without taking in what they were saying. Then suddenly he stood up, flung up his arms dramatically, and shouted: “Not guilty! Not of that blood! No, I am not guilty of my father’s murder . . . I thought of killing him, but I didn’t do it . . . No, it wasn’t me!”

Mitya had hardly finished when Grushenka rushed out from behind the curtain and threw herself at Inspector Makarov’s feet.

“It’s me, it’s me, it’s all my fault!” she cried in a heart-rending wail, wringing her hands, as tears filled her eyes. “It was because of me that he killed! . . . I drove him to it by tormenting and baiting him. And the poor dead man—I made him suffer too. Just out of spite, I did it to him! I am the really guilty one. I am the first to blame for everything!”

“Right, you are all that! You are the guiltiest of all, you vicious, depraved whore; it’s you who’s the chief criminal!” the inspector screamed, shaking his fist at her.

But the others quickly interfered and the prosecutor even threw his arms around Makarov’s body as if to block his movements.

“This is absolutely intolerable, inspector,” he said. “You’re really making things difficult for us . . . It’s quite impossible to conduct the investigation under these conditions . . .” The prosecutor could hardly breathe, he was so indignant.

“Something must be done to stop this,” Examining Magistrate Nelyudov cried heatedly; “otherwise we just cannot go on!”

“We must be tried together!” Grushenka, who was still kneeling, kept screaming frantically. “Punish us together. I must follow him to the gallows if you send him there!”

“Grusha, my life, my flesh and blood, my only joy!” Mitya knelt beside her on the floor, put his arms around her, and held her tight. “Don’t believe her,” he shouted to the others. “She had nothing to do with it. There is no blood on her conscience!”

Later, he vaguely recollected several men tearing her from him by force and leading her away . . . He remembered sitting at a table. Men with brass badges sat on either side of him and stood behind him. Across the table from him, Nikolai Nelyudov, the examining magistrate, was trying to convince him to take a sip from a glass of water that stood on the table next to him. “It will refresh and relax you a little,” he was insisting very politely. “And please don’t worry. Don’t be afraid.” Mitya also remembered later that he became very interested in Magistrate Nelyudov’s large rings—one with an amethyst and the other with a bright yellow, transparent stone that had a wonderful sparkle to it. Thinking of it later, he found it very surprising that he should have been so fascinated by these rings and that, throughout all the grim hours of questioning, he was never able to tear his eyes from those shiny objects that were so completely irrelevant in the whole situation.

On Mitya’s left—in the place occupied earlier that evening by Maximov—the prosecutor now sat; on Mitya’s right—Grushenka’s former place—was a ruddy-cheeked young man in a rather worn hunting jacket with a pad of paper and a pot of ink in front of him. He turned out to be a clerk whom Nelyudov had brought with him from town. Inspector Makarov stood by a window at the opposite end of the room, next to Kalganov who was sitting there on a chair.

“Please take a sip,” Magistrate Nelyudov said softly for the tenth time.

“All right, I will, I will . . . But what are you waiting for? Go ahead, crush me, punish me, decide what will happen to me,” Mitya said, looking at Nelyudov with fixed, strangely dilated eyes.

“So you definitely assert that you are not guilty of the death of your father?” Nelyudov asked with gentle insistence.

“No, I am not guilty of it! I have the blood of another man on my conscience, but not my father’s blood. Yes, and I am sorry I killed that man—I struck him . . . he fell . . . I killed him. But it is too much to answer for that murder by the other one, that terrible murder, of which I am not guilty . . . It is an awful thing you are accusing me of, it’s a terrible blow! But who, then, can have killed father? Who killed him, since I didn’t do it? That’s a mystery . . . It’s absurd, impossible!”

“That’s just it—who could have killed him?” said the assistant prosecutor (whom we shall call just the prosecutor for short), exchanging glances with the examining magistrate. “But let me reassure you—you have no need to worry about the old servant. Old Gregory is alive. He recovered from the terrible blow which, according to his deposition, you inflicted on him, a fact that has now been confirmed by your own statement. In fact, if we are to take the doctor’s word, his life is no longer in danger.”

“So he is alive, alive!” Mitya shouted happily, waving his hands, his face beaming with joy. “I thank you, I thank you, O God, for the great miracle You have wrought in answer to the prayers of a miserable sinner! Yes, yes, yes, God has answered my prayer, for I have been praying all through the night!” Dmitry crossed himself three times. He was breathless.

“Good. Now it was from this same Gregory that we received very important evidence concerning you . . .” the prosecutor started, but Mitya interrupted him, leaping up from his chair.

“Just a second, gentlemen, please allow me—I must run over to see her for one second, please . . .”

“Wait! What do you think you’re doing!” Nelyudov cried shrilly, also leaping to his feet, while the men with the brass badges grabbed Mitya. But Mitya sat down of his own accord.

“What’s the matter? I just wanted to see her for a second—just to tell her that the blood that I thought was splattered all over me has been washed off now, that I am not a murderer! I have the right to tell her that, gentlemen—she is my future wife!” he said ecstatically, looking around him. “Oh, I am so grateful to you anyway, gentlemen. You have brought me back to life, made a new man of me in one second! Why, old Gregory used to carry me in his arms when I was little. He used to bathe me in a tub when I was three, and no one else cared what happened to me . . . He was a real father to me!”

“And so you . . .” Nelyudov began again.

“Excuse me, one more minute,” Mitya interrupted him again, putting his elbows on the table and covering his head with his hands, “give me a second to recover, to regain my senses; all this has been such a shock, such a shock. A man is not a drum, after all, gentlemen!”

“I think you should take another sip of water,” Nelyudov said.

Mitya took his hands away from his face and laughed. He looked gay and his entire countenance had changed. He was now a man sitting among his peers. All these people were his acquaintances and he felt just as he would have if they had all gathered on some social occasion the day before, before anything had happened. It should be noted here that, when he had first come to town, Mitya had been received very cordially at Inspector Makarov’s house, but that later, particularly during the past month, he had practically stopped going there and recently, when they had met in the street, the inspector had barely acknowledged Mitya’s greetings—enough not to be outright rude, but that was all, and this fact Mitya had noticed. He was even less closely acquainted with the prosecutor, although he had occasionally called on his wife, a temperamental, moody lady with whom he had had very proper chats on those occasions. Mitya would have been unable to explain why he had bothered to go there, but she always received him very warmly and somehow took an interest in him up to the very last. As to Examining Magistrate Nelyudov, they had not really had enough time to get properly acquainted, although they had met a few times and even chatted on a couple of occasions, the fair sex being the topic of conversation both times.

“I can see what a skillful investigator you are, Mr. Nelyudov,” Mitya said with a relaxed laugh; “still, I think I’ll help you and make things even easier for you. You know, gentlemen, I feel like a man risen from the dead, so I beg you not to be offended if I address you informally. Besides, I admit I’ve had quite a bit to drink. I believe I had the pleasure, Mr. Nelyudov, of meeting you in the house of a relative of mine, Mr. Miusov . . . Oh, don’t worry, gentlemen, I make no claim to be treated as an equal under these circumstances. I understand my present position. If Gregory has made accusations against me, I fully appreciate the fact that I am suspected of that horrible crime! It is horrible, revolting—I am fully aware of the horror of it . . . But now let us get down to business, gentlemen. I am ready, and now we can get it over with very quickly because—listen to me—since I now know that I’m not guilty, we can certainly finish it up in a few minutes, can’t we? Am I right?”

Mitya spoke quickly, nervously, effusively, as if taking it absolutely for granted that he was among well-wishers and friends.

“So we can note down, for now, that you absolutely deny the accusation,” Nelyudov said and, turning to the clerk, directed him what to write down.

“Write it down? Why do you have to write anything down? But if that’s what you want, please, gentlemen, you have my whole-hearted consent . . . But wait, you’d better put it down this way: write that he is guilty of disorderly conduct, guilty of violently attacking and badly hurting a poor old man. Yes, and on top of that, deep down in my heart, I am also guilty of . . . But you mustn’t write that,” he said, looking at the clerk. “That is my private life, gentlemen, and cannot be any of your concern, I mean what goes on deep down inside me . . . But I am not guilty of killing my father, no! The whole idea is absurd, completely absurd! I’ll prove it to you! You’ll see at once how wrong you were! You’ll laugh at your former suspicions, gentlemen!”