The Brothers Karamazov

“I pawned them, gentlemen, I pawned them for ten roubles, that’s all. What of it? As soon as I got back to town from my trip, I pawned them at once.”

“Got back? So you left town?”

“I did, gentlemen, I went thirty miles out of town, didn’t you know that?”

The prosecutor and Nikolai Parfenovich exchanged glances.

“Suppose you begin your story with a systematic description of your whole day yesterday, starting from the morning? Let us know, for example, why you left town, and precisely when you went and came back ... and all these facts ...”

“But you should have asked me that from the very beginning,” Mitya laughed loudly, “and, if you please, I should start not from yesterday but from the day before yesterday, from that morning; then you’ll understand where, how, and why I went or drove. The day before yesterday, gentlemen, I went to a local merchant, Samsonov, to borrow three thousand roubles from him on the best security—a sudden itch, gentlemen, a sudden itch...”

“Allow me to interrupt you,” the prosecutor interjected politely, “why did you so suddenly need precisely that amount, that is, three thousand roubles? “

“Eh, gentlemen, why pick on such little things: how, when, and why, and precisely this much money and not that much, and all that claptrap ... if you keep on, it’ll take you three volumes and an epilogue to cram it all in.”

All this Mitya said with the good-natured but impatient familiarity of a man who wishes to tell the whole truth and is full of the best intentions.

“Gentlemen,” he caught himself, as it were, “don’t murmur against me for my bristliness. I ask you again: believe once more that I feel the utmost respect and fully understand the situation. And don’t think that I’m drunk. I’ve sobered up now. And it would be no hindrance if I were drunk, because:

Sober and wise, he’s stupid, Drunk and stupid, he’s wise.

That’s how I am. Ha, ha! I see, by the way, that it’s not proper for me to be cracking jokes with you yet—that is, before we’ve explained everything. Allow me to keep my dignity. I quite understand the present difference: I’m still sitting before you as a criminal, and, therefore, unequal to you in the highest degree, and your duty is to watch me: you really can’t pat me on the back for Grigory, one certainly can’t go breaking old men’s heads with impunity, you’ll probably try me and lock me up for, what, six months or a year in the penitentiary for that, or, I don’t know, whatever the sentence would be—but without loss of rights, it will be without loss of rights, won’t it, prosecutor? And so, gentlemen, I quite understand this difference ... But you must also agree that you could confuse even God himself with such questions: where I stepped, how I stepped, when I stepped, what I stepped in? I’ll get confused that way, and you’ll pick up every dropped stitch and write it down at once, and what will come of it? Nothing will come of it! And finally, since I’ve already begun telling my tale, I’ll finish it now, and you, gentlemen, being most noble and highly educated, will forgive me. I’ll end precisely with a request: you, gentlemen, must unlearn this official method of interrogation, I mean, first you begin, say, with something measly and insignificant: how did you get up, what did you eat, how did you spit, and ‘having lulled the criminal’s attention,’ you suddenly catch him with a stunning question: ‘Whom did you kill, whom did you rob?’ Ha, ha! That’s your official method, that’s your rule, that’s what all your cleverness is based on! You can lull peasants with your cleverness, but not me. I understand the system, I was in the service myself, ha, ha, ha! You’re not angry, are you, gentlemen? You’ll forgive my boldness?” he cried, looking at them with almost surprising good-naturedness. “Mitka Karamazov said it, so it’s excusable, because what would be inexcusable in an intelligent man is excusable in Mitka! Ha, ha!”

Nikolai Parfenovich listened and laughed, too. The prosecutor, though he did not laugh, was studying Mitya intently, without taking his eyes off him, as if not wishing to miss the least word, the least movement, the least twitch of the least little line on his face.

“Incidentally, that is how we began with you from the beginning,” Nikolai Parfenovich replied, still laughing, “not confusing you with questions about how you got up in the morning and what you ate, but beginning even from what is all too essential.”

“I understand, I understood and appreciated it, and I appreciate still more your present kindness to me, which is unprecedented, worthy of the noblest souls. We are three noble men come together here, and let everything with us be on the footing of mutual trust between educated and worldly men, bound by nobility and honor. In any case, allow me to look upon you as my best friends in this moment of my life, in this moment when my honor is humiliated! That’s no offense to you, is it, gentlemen?”