The Brothers Karamazov

“Yes, the servant Smerdyakov, and heaven, too. Write that down about heaven, too; it’s worth writing down. And you’ll have need of God yourselves.”

Of course, they began writing it down, but while they were writing, the prosecutor, as if stumbling quite unexpectedly onto a new thought, suddenly said:

“But if Smerdyakov also knew about these signals, and you radically deny all accusations of your father’s death, then was it not he who, having given the agreed signal, got your father to unlock the door for him, and then ... committed the crime?”

Mitya gave him a deeply mocking and at the same time terribly hateful look. He stared at him long and silently, until the prosecutor began blinking his eyes.

“Caught the fox again!” Mitya spoke finally. “Pinched the rascal by the tail, heh, heh! I see right through you, prosecutor! You thought I’d jump up at once, snatch your prompting, and shout at the top of my lungs: ‘Aie, it’s Smerdyakov, he’s the murderer! ‘ Admit that’s what you thought, admit it, and then I’ll go on.”

But the prosecutor admitted nothing. He was silent and waited.

“You’re mistaken, I will not shout against Smerdyakov!” said Mitya.

“And you do not even suspect him at all?”

“Do you suspect him? “

“He is one of our suspects.”

Mitya planted his eyes on the floor.

“Joking aside,” he said gloomily, “listen: from the very beginning, almost from the moment when I ran out to you from behind the curtains tonight, this thought already flashed through me: ‘Smerdyakov! ‘ All the while I was sitting here at the table, shouting that I was not guilty of blood, I kept thinking: ‘Smerdyakov!’ And Smerdyakov would not let go of my soul. Finally, just now I suddenly had the same thought: ‘Smerdyakov,’ but only for a second; immediately, right next to it, came the thought: ‘No, not Smerdyakov! ‘ It’s not his doing, gentlemen.”

“In that case, do you suspect yet another person?” Nikolai Parfenovich asked guardedly.

“I don’t know who or what person, the hand of heaven or Satan, but. . not Smerdyakov!” Mitya snapped out resolutely.

“But why do you maintain so firmly and with such insistence that he is not the one?”

“From conviction. From impression. Because Smerdyakov is a man of the most abject nature and a coward. Not just a coward, but a conjunction of all cowardice in the world taken together, walking on two legs. He was born of a chicken. Every time he talked with me, he trembled for fear I might kill him, though I never even raised my hand. He fell at my feet and wept, he kissed these very boots of mine, literally, begging me not to ‘scare’ him. ‘Scare,’ do you hear?—what sort of word is that? And I even gave him presents. He’s a sickly, epileptic, feebleminded chicken, who could be thrashed by an eight-year-old boy. What sort of a character is that? No, not Smerdyakov, gentlemen—and he doesn’t care about money either, he never would take my presents ... Anyway,why would he kill the old man? You see he may be his son, his natural son, do you know that?”

“We have heard that legend. But after all, you, too, are your father’s son, and yet you told everyone you wanted to kill him.”

“A rock through my own window! And a low one, a nasty one! I’m not afraid. Oh, gentlemen, how mean of you to say that to my face! Mean, because I myself said it to you. I not only wanted to kill him, but I could well have killed him, and I voluntarily heaped it upon myself that I almost killed him! But I didn’t kill him, my guardian angel saved me—that’s what you haven’t taken into consideration ... And that is what makes it mean, mean! Because I didn’t kill him, I didn’t, I didn’t! Do you hear, prosecutor: I didn’t!”

He almost choked. Not once during the whole investigation had he been so agitated.

“And what has he told you, gentlemen—Smerdyakov, I mean?” he suddenly concluded, after a silence. “May I ask you that?”

“You may ask us anything,” the prosecutor replied with a cold and stern look, “anything concerning the factual side of the case, and it is our duty, I repeat, to satisfy your every question. We found the servant Smerdyakov, about whom you inquire, lying unconscious in his bed with a very severe attack of the falling sickness, which had recurred perhaps ten times in succession. The doctor who was with us examined the sick man and told us he might not even live till morning.”

“Well, in that case the devil killed my father!” suddenly escaped from Mitya, as if even up to that minute he had been asking himself: “Smerdyakov, or not Smerdyakov?”

“We shall return to this fact again,” Nikolai Parfenovich resolved, “and now wouldn’t you like to go on with your evidence?”