The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky [children's books read aloud TXT] 📗

a scoundrel, but not a thief, you may say what you

like, not a thief!”

 

“I admit that there is a certain distinction,” said the

prosecutor, with a cold smile. “But it’s strange that you see such a

vital difference.”

 

“Yes, I see a vital difference. Every man may be a scoundrel,

and perhaps every man is a scoundrel, but not everyone can be a thief;

it takes an arch-scoundrel to be that. Oh, of course, I don’t know how

to make these fine distinctions… but a thief is lower than a

scoundrel, that’s my conviction. Listen, I carry the money about me

a whole month; I may make up my mind to give it back to-morrow, and

I’m a scoundrel no longer; but I cannot make up my mind, you see,

though I’m making up my mind every day, and every day spurring

myself on to do it, and yet for a whole month I can’t bring myself

to it, you see. Is that right to your thinking, is that right?”

 

“Certainly, that’s not right; that I can quite understand, and

that I don’t dispute,” answered the prosecutor with reserve. “And

let us give up all discussion of these subtleties and distinctions,

and, if you will be so kind, get back to the point. And the point

is, that you have still not told us, although we’ve asked you, why, in

the first place, you halved the money, squandering one half and hiding

the other? For what purpose exactly did you hide it, what did you mean

to do with that fifteen hundred? I insist upon that question, Dmitri

Fyodorovitch.”

 

“Yes, of course!” cried Mitya, striking himself on the forehead;

“forgive me, I’m worrying you, and am not explaining the chief

point, or you’d understand in a minute, for it’s just the motive of it

that’s the disgrace! You see, it was all to do with the old man, my

dead father. He was always pestering Agrafena and I was jealous; I

thought then that she was hesitating between me and him. So I kept

thinking everyday, suppose she were to make up her mind all of a

sudden, suppose she were to leave off tormenting me, and were suddenly

to say to me, ‘I love you, not him; take me to the other end of the

world.’ And I’d only forty copecks; how could I take her away, what

could I do? Why, I’d be lost. You see, I didn’t know her then, I

didn’t understand her, I thought she wanted money, and that she

wouldn’t forgive my poverty. And so I fiendishly counted out the

half of that three thousand, sewed it up, calculating on it, sewed

it up before I was drunk, and after I had sewn it up, I went off to

get drunk on the rest. Yes, that was base. Do you understand now?”

 

Both the lawyers laughed aloud.

 

“I should have called it sensible and moral on your part not to

have squandered it all,” chuckled Nikolay Parfenovitch, “for after all

what does it amount to?”

 

“Why, that I stole it, that’s what it amounts to! Oh, God, you

horrify me by not understanding! Every day that I had that fifteen

hundred sewn up round my neck, every day and every hour I said to

myself, ‘You’re a thief! you’re a thief!’ Yes, that’s why I’ve been so

savage all this month, that’s why I fought in the tavern, that’s why I

attacked my father, it was because I felt I was a thief. I couldn’t

make up my mind; I didn’t dare even to tell Alyosha, my brother, about

that fifteen hundred: I felt I was such a scoundrel and such a

pickpocket. But, do you know, while I carried it I said to myself at

the same time every hour: ‘No, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, you may yet not be

a thief.’ Why? Because I might go next day and pay back that fifteen

hundred to Katya. And only yesterday I made up my mind to tear my

amulet off my neck, on my way from Fenya’s to Perhotin. I hadn’t

been able till that moment to bring myself to it. And it was only when

I tore it off that I became a downright thief, a thief and a dishonest

man for the rest of my life. Why? Because, with that I destroyed, too,

my dream of going to Katya and saying, ‘I’m a scoundrel, but not a

thief! Do you understand now? Do you understand?”

 

“What was it made you decide to do it yesterday?” Nikolay

Parfenovitch interrupted.

 

“Why? It’s absurd to ask. Because I had condemned myself to die at

five o’clock this morning, here, at dawn. I thought it made no

difference whether I died a thief or a man of honour. But I see it’s

not so, it turns out that it does make a difference. Believe me,

gentlemen, what has tortured me most during this night has not been

the thought that I’d killed the old servant, and that I was in

danger of Siberia just when my love was being rewarded, and Heaven was

open to me again. Oh, that did torture me, but not in the same way;

not so much as the damned consciousness that I had torn that damned

money off my breast at last and spent it, and had become a downright

thief! Oh, gentlemen, I tell you again, with a bleeding heart, I

have learnt a great deal this night. I have learnt that it’s not

only impossible to live a scoundrel, but impossible to die a

scoundrel…. No, gentlemen, one must die honest…”

 

Mitya was pale. His face had a haggard and exhausted look, in

spite of his being intensely excited.

 

“I am beginning to understand you, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,” the

prosecutor said slowly, a soft and almost compassionate tone. “But all

this, if you’ll excuse my saying so, is a matter of nerves, in my

opinion… your overwrought nerves, that’s what it is. And why, for

instance, should you not have saved yourself such misery for almost

a month, by going and returning that fifteen hundred to the lady who

had entrusted it to you? And why could you not have explained things

to her, and in view of your position, which you describe as being so

awful, why could you not have had recourse to the plan which would

so naturally have occurred to one’s mind, that is, after honourably

confessing your errors to her, why could you not have asked her to

lend you the sum needed for your expenses, which, with her generous

heart, she would certainly not have refused you in your distress,

especially if it had been with some guarantee, or even on the security

you offered to the merchant Samsonov, and to Madame Hohlakov? I

suppose you still regard that security as of value?”

 

Mitya suddenly crimsoned.

 

“Surely you don’t think me such an out and out scoundrel as

that? You can’t be speaking in earnest?” he said, with indignation,

looking the prosecutor straight in the face, and seeming unable to

believe his ears.

 

“I assure you I’m in earnest… Why do you imagine I’m not

serious?” It was the prosecutor’s turn to be surprised.

 

“Oh, how base that would have been! Gentlemen, do you know, you

are torturing me! Let me tell you everything, so be it. I’ll confess

all my infernal wickedness, but to put you to shame, and you’ll be

surprised yourselves at the depth of ignominy to which a medley of

human passions can sink. You must know that I already had that plan

myself, that plan you spoke of, just now, prosecutor! Yes,

gentlemen, I, too, have had that thought in my mind all this current

month, so that I was on the point of deciding to go to Katya-I was

mean enough for that. But to go to her, to tell her of my treachery,

and for that very treachery, to carry it out, for the expenses of that

treachery, to beg for money from her, Katya (to beg, do you hear, to

beg), and go straight from her to run away with the other, the

rival, who hated and insulted her-to think of it! You must be mad,

prosecutor!”

 

“Mad I am not, but I did speak in haste, without thinking… of

that feminine jealousy… if there could be jealousy in this case,

as you assert… yes, perhaps there is something of the kind,” said

the prosecutor, smiling.

 

“But that would have been so infamous!” Mitya brought his fist

down on the table fiercely. “That would have been filthy beyond

everything! Yes, do you know that she might have given me that

money, yes, and she would have given it, too; she’d have been

certain to give it, to be revenged on me, she’d have given it to

satisfy her vengeance, to show her contempt for me, for hers is an

infernal nature, too, and she’s a woman of great wrath. I’d have taken

the money, too, oh, I should have taken it; I should have taken it,

and then, for the rest of my life… oh, God! Forgive me, gentlemen,

I’m making such an outcry because I’ve had that thought in my mind

so lately, only the day before yesterday, that night when I was having

all that bother with Lyagavy, and afterwards yesterday, all day

yesterday, I remember, till that happened…”

 

“Till what happened?” put in Nikolay Parfenovitch inquisitively,

but Mitya did not hear it.

 

“I have made you an awful confession,” Mitya said gloomily in

conclusion. “You must appreciate it, and what’s more, you must respect

it, for if not, if that leaves your souls untouched, then you’ve

simply no respect for me, gentlemen, I tell you that, and I shall

die of shame at having confessed it to men like you! Oh, I shall shoot

myself! Yes, I see, I see already that you don’t believe me. What, you

want to write that down, too?” he cried in dismay.

 

“Yes, what you said just now,” said Nikolay Parfenovitch,

looking at him surprise, “that is, that up to the last hour you were

still contemplating going to Katerina Ivanovna to beg that sum from

her…. I assure you, that’s a very important piece of evidence for

us, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, I mean for the whole case… and particularly

for you, particularly important for you.”

 

“Have mercy, gentlemen!” Mitya flung up his hands. “Don’t write

that, anyway; have some shame. Here I’ve torn my heart asunder

before you, and you seize the opportunity and are fingering the wounds

in both halves…. Oh, my God!”

 

In despair he hid his face in his hands.

 

“Don’t worry yourself so, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,” observed the

prosecutor, “everything that is written down will be read over to

you afterwards, and what you don’t agree to we’ll alter as you like.

But now I’ll ask you one little question for the second time. Has no

one, absolutely no one, heard from you of that money you sewed up?

That, I must tell you, is almost impossible to believe.”

 

“No one, no one, I told you so before, or you’ve not understood

anything! Let me alone!”

 

“Very well, this matter is bound to be explained, and there’s

plenty of time for it, but meantime, consider; we have perhaps a dozen

witnesses that you yourself spread it abroad, and even shouted

almost everywhere about the three thousand you’d spent here; three

thousand, not fifteen hundred. And now, too, when you got hold of

the money you had yesterday, you gave many people to understand that

you had brought three thousand with you.”

 

“You’ve got not dozens, but hundreds of witnesses, two hundred

witnesses, two hundred have heard it, thousands have heard it!”

cried Mitya.

 

“Well, you see,