The Brothers Karamazov

“Ours,” Nikolai Parfenovich repeated, “well, and what is yours?”

Mitya lowered his eyes and was silent for a long time.

“My version, gentlemen, my version is this,” he began softly. “Whether it was someone’s tears, or God heard my mother’s prayers, or a bright spirit kissed me at that moment, I don’t know—but the devil was overcome. I dashed away from the window and ran to the fence. . . Father got frightened. He caught sight of me then for the first time, cried out, and jumped back from the window—I remember that very well. And I ran through the garden to the fence ... it was here that Grigory caught up with me, when I was already sitting on the fence ...”

At this point he finally raised his eyes to his listeners. They seemed to be looking at him with completely untroubled attention. A sort of twinge of indignation went through Mitya’s soul.

“But I see right now you’re laughing at me, gentlemen!” he suddenly interrupted.

“Why would you draw such a conclusion?” Nikolai Parfenovich remarked.

“You don’t believe a word of it, that’s why! I quite understand that I’ve come to the main point: the old man is now lying there with his head smashed in, and I—having tragically described how I wanted to kill him and how I already snatched out the pestle—I suddenly run away from the window ... A poem! In verse! Take the good man’s word for it! Ha, ha! You are scoffers, gentlemen!”

And he swung his whole body around on the chair so hard that the chair creaked.

“And did you notice,” the prosecutor began suddenly, as if paying no attention to Mitya’s excitement, “did you notice, when you ran away from the window, whether the door to the garden, at the other end of the house, was open or not?”

“No, it was not open.”

“It was not?”

“On the contrary, it was shut. Who could have opened it? Bah, the door— wait!” he suddenly seemed to collect himself and all but jumped up. “Did you find the door open?”

“Open.”

“But who could have opened it, if you didn’t open it yourselves?” Mitya was suddenly terribly surprised.

“The door was open, and your father’s murderer undoubtedly went in through that door and, having committed the murder, went out through the same door,” the prosecutor spoke slowly and distinctly, as though hammering out each word. “It is perfectly clear to us. The murder obviously took place , in the room, and not through the window, which is positively clear from the investigation carried out, from the position of the body, and everything else. There can be no doubt of that circumstance.”

Mitya was terribly astounded.

“But that’s impossible, gentlemen!” he cried out, completely at a loss. “I ... I didn’t go in . . .I tell you positively, with exactness, that the door was shut all the while I was in the garden and when I ran out of the garden. I just stood outside the window and saw him in the window, and that’s all, that’s all ... I remember it down to the last moment. And even if I didn’t remember, I know it anyway, because the signals were known only to me and Smerdyakov, and to him, the dead man, and without the signals he wouldn’t have opened the door to anyone in the world.”

“Signals? What kind of signals?” the prosecutor said with greedy, almost hysterical curiosity, and instantly lost all his reserved demeanor. He asked as if creeping up timidly. He scented an important fact, still unknown to him, and at once felt great fear that Mitya might not be willing to reveal it fully.

“So you didn’t even know?” Mitya winked at him, smiling mockingly and spitefully. “And what if I won’t tell you? Who will you find out from then? Only the dead man knew about the signals, and me, and Smerdyakov, that’s all, and heaven knew, too, but it won’t tell you. And it’s a curious little fact, one could build devil knows what on it, ha, ha! Take comfort, gentlemen, I’ll reveal it to you. You’ve got foolishness in your minds. You don’t know with whom you’re dealing! You’re dealing with a suspect who gives evidence against himself, who gives evidence that does him harm! Yes, sirs, for I am a knight of honor and you are not!”

The prosecutor swallowed all these pills; he was simply trembling with impatience to know about the new fact. Mitya gave them a precise and extensive account of everything to do with the signals invented by Fyodor Pavlovich for Smerdyakov, told them precisely what each knock on the window meant, even knocked out the signals on the table, and when asked by Nikolai Parfenovich whether it meant that he, Mitya, when he knocked on the old man’s window, had used precisely the signal meaning “Grushenka has come,” answered exactly that, yes, he had used precisely the signal meaning “Grushenka has come.”

“There you are, now build your tower!” Mitya broke off, and again turned away from them in contempt.

“And only your deceased parent, you, and the servant Smerdyakov knew about these signals? And no one else?” Nikolai Parfenovich inquired once again.