第203章

"I am not guilty.I am guilty of the blood of another old man, but not of my father's.And I weep for it! I killed, I killed the old man and knocked him down....But it's hard to have to answer for that murder with another, a terrible murder of which I am not guilty....It's a terrible accusation, gentlemen, a knockdown blow.But who has killed my father, who has killed him? Who can have killed him if I didn't? It's marvellous, extraordinary, impossible.""Yes, who can have killed him?" the investigating lawyer was beginning, but Ippolit Kirillovitch, the prosecutor, glancing at him, addressed Mitya.

"You need not worry yourself about the old servant, Grigory Vasilyevitch.He is alive, he has recovered, and in spite of the terrible blows inflicted, according to his own and your evidence, by you, there seems no doubt that he will live, so the doctor says, at least.""Alive? He's alive?" cried Mitya, flinging up his hands.His face beamed."Lord, I thank Thee for the miracle Thou has wrought for me, a sinner and evildoer.That's an answer to my prayer.I've been praying all night." And he crossed himself three times.He was almost breathless.

"So from this Grigory we have received such important evidence concerning you, that-" The prosecutor would have continued, but Mitya suddenly jumped up from his chair.

"One minute, gentlemen, for God's sake, one minute; I will run to her-""Excuse me, at this moment it's quite impossible," Nikolay Parfenovitch almost shrieked.He, too, leapt to his feet.Mitya was seized by the men with the metal plates, but he sat down of his own accord....

"Gentlemen, what a pity! I wanted to see her for one minute only; I wanted to tell her that it has been washed away, it has gone, that blood that was weighing on my heart all night, and that Iam not a murderer now! Gentlemen, she is my betrothed!" he said ecstatically and reverently, looking round at them all."Oh, thank you, gentlemen! Oh, in one minute you have given me new life, new heart!...That old man used to carry me in his arms, gentlemen.He used to wash me in the tub when I was a baby three years old, abandoned by everyone, he was like a father to me!...""And so you-" the investigating lawyer began.

"Allow me, gentlemen, allow me one minute more," interposed Mitya, putting his elbows on the table and covering his face with his hands."Let me have a moment to think, let me breathe, gentlemen.

All this is horribly upsetting, horribly.A man is not a drum, gentlemen!""Drink a little more water," murmured Nikolay Parfenovitch.

Mitya took his hands from his face and laughed.His eyes were confident.He seemed completely transformed in a moment.His whole bearing was changed; he was once more the equal of these men, with all of whom he was acquainted, as though they had all met the day before, when nothing had happened, at some social gathering.We may note in passing that, on his first arrival, Mitya had been made very welcome at the police captain's, but later, during the last month especially, Mitya had hardly called at all, and when the police captain met him, in the street, for instance, Mitya noticed that he frowned and only bowed out of politeness.His acquaintance with the prosecutor was less intimate, though he sometimes paid his wife, a nervous and fanciful lady, visits of politeness, without quite knowing why, and she always received him graciously and had, for some reason, taken an interest in him up to the last.He had not had time to get to know the investigating lawyer, though he had met him and talked to him twice, each time about the fair sex.

"You're a most skilful lawyer, I see, Nikolay Parfenovitch," cried Mitya, laughing gaily, "but I can help you now.Oh, gentlemen, Ifeel like a new man, and don't be offended at my addressing you so simply and directly.I'm rather drunk, too, I'll tell you that frankly.I believe I've had the honour and pleasure of meeting you, Nikolay Parfenovitch, at my kinsman Miusov's.Gentlemen, gentlemen, I don't pretend to be on equal terms with you.I understand, of course, in what character I am sitting before you.Oh, of course, there's a horrible suspicion...hanging over me...if Grigory has given evidence....A horrible suspicion! It's awful, awful, Iunderstand that! But to business, gentlemen, I am ready, and we will make an end of it in one moment; for, listen, listen, gentlemen! Since I know I'm innocent, we can put an end to it in a minute.Can't we?

Can't we?"

Mitya spoke much and quickly, nervously and effusively, as though he positively took his listeners to be his best friends.

"So, for the present, we will write that you absolutely deny the charge brought against you," said Nikolay Parfenovitch, impressively, and bending down to the secretary he dictated to him in an undertone what to write.

"Write it down? You want to write that down? Well, write it; Iconsent, I give my full consent, gentlemen, only...do you see?...

Stay, stay, write this.Of disorderly conduct I am guilty, of violence on a poor old man I am guilty.And there is something else at the bottom of my heart, of which I am guilty, too but that you need not write down" (he turned suddenly to the secretary); "that's my personal life, gentlemen, that doesn't concern you, the bottom of my heart, that's to say....But of the murder of my old father I'm not guilty.

That's a wild idea.It's quite a wild idea!...I will prove you that and you'll be convinced directly....You will laugh, gentlemen.You'll laugh yourselves at your suspicion!...""Be calm, Dmitri Fyodorovitch," said the investigating lawyer evidently trying to allay Mitya's excitement by his own composure.