The Brothers Karamazov

There began something quite unexpected and astonishing for Mitya. He could not at all have supposed, even a moment before, that anyone could treat him, Mitya Karamazov, like that! Above all there was something humiliating in it, and something “haughty and contemptuous towards him” on their part. To take off his coat would be nothing, but they asked him to undress further. And they did not merely ask, but, in fact, they ordered; he understood it perfectly. Out of pride and contempt he submitted completely, without a word. Along with Nikolai Parfenovich, the prosecutor also went behind the curtains, and there were several peasants as well, “for strength, of course,” thought Mitya, “and maybe for something else.”

“What, must I take my shirt off, too?” he asked sharply, but Nikolai Parfenovich did not answer: together with the prosecutor, he was absorbed in examining the coat, the trousers, the waistcoat, and the cap, and one could see that they were both very interested in examining them. “They don’t stand on any ceremony,” flashed through Mitya’s mind, “they don’t even observe the necessary politeness.”

“I’m asking you for the second time: must I take my shirt off or not?” he said even more sharply and irritably.

“Don’t worry, we’ll let you know,” Nikolai Parfenovich replied somehow even overbearingly. At least it seemed so to Mitya.

Meanwhile between the district attorney and the prosecutor a solicitous debate was going on in half whispers. Huge spots of blood, dry, stiff, and not softened very much yet, were found on the coat, especially on the left flap at the back. Also on the trousers. Furthermore, Nikolai Parfenovich, with his own hands, in the presence of witnesses, felt along the collar, cuffs, and all the seams of the coat and trousers with his fingers, evidently looking for something—money, of course. Above all, they did not conceal from Mitya the suspicion that he could and would have sewn money into his clothes. “As if they really were dealing with a thief, not an officer,” Mitya growled to himself. And they were telling each other their thoughts in his presence, with a frankness that verged on strangeness. For example, the clerk, who also ended up behind the curtains, fussing about and assisting, drew Nikolai Parfenovich’s attention to the cap, which was also felt over: “Do you remember Gridenko the scrivener, sir,” he remarked, “who came in the summer to pick up the wages for the whole office, and announced when he got back that he had lost the money while drunk—and where did they find it? In this same piping, in his cap, sir—the hundred-rouble bills were rolled up and sewn into the piping.” The fact about Gridenko was remembered very well by both the district attorney and the prosecutor, and therefore Mitya’s cap, too, was set aside, and it was decided that all of that would have to be seriously reexamined later, and all the clothes as well.

“I beg your pardon,” Nikolai Parfenovich suddenly cried, noticing the tucked-under right cuff of Mitya’s right shirt sleeve, all stained with blood, “I beg your pardon, sir—is that blood?”

“Blood,” snapped Mitya.

“That is, whose blood, sir ... and why is it tucked under?”

Mitya told him how he had stained the cuff fussing over Grigory, and how he had tucked it under when he washed his hands at Perkhotin’s.

“We shall have to take your shirt, too, it’s very important ... as material evidence.” Mitya flushed and became furious.

“What, am I to stay naked?” he cried.

“Don’t worry ... We’ll do something about it ... and meanwhile may I also trouble you to take off your socks?” “You must be joking! Is it really so necessary?” Mitya flashed his eyes.

“This is no time for joking,” Nikolai Parfenovich parried sternly.

“Well, if you need it ... I ... ,” Mitya muttered, and having sat down on the bed, he began taking his socks off. He felt unbearably awkward: everyone else was dressed, and he was undressed, and—strangely—undressed, he himself seemed to feel guilty before them, and, above all, he was almost ready to agree that he had indeed suddenly become lower than all of them, and that they now had every right to despise him. “If everyone is undressed, it’s not shameful, but when only one is undressed and the others are all looking—it’s a disgrace!” flashed again and again through his mind. “It’s like a dream, I’ve dreamed of being disgraced like this.” But to take his socks off was even painful for him: they were not very clean, nor were his underclothes, and now everyone could see it. And above all he did not like his own feet; all his life for some reason he had found both his big toes ugly, especially the right one with its crude, flat toenail, somehow curved under, and now they would all see it. This unbearable shame suddenly made him, deliberately now, even more rude. He tore his shirt off.

“Would you like to look anywhere else, if you’re not ashamed to?”

“No, sir, not just now.”

“So, what, am I to stay naked like this?” he added fiercely.