And he sank down and, covering his face with both hands, burst into sobs. But they were happy tears. He collected himself at once. The old commissioner was very pleased, and so the jurists seemed to be, too: they felt that the interrogation was now entering a new phase. Having sent the commissioner off, Mitya became quite cheerful.

“Well, gentlemen, now I am yours, yours completely. And ... if only it weren’t for all these small details, we would come to an understanding at once. Again I’m talking about small details. I’m yours, gentlemen, but, I swear, we must have mutual trust—you in me, and I in you—otherwise we’ll never finish. I’m saying it for your sake. To business, gentlemen, to business, and above all don’t go digging around in my soul so much, don’t torment it with trifles, but keep to the point, to the facts, and I’ll satisfy you at once. Devil take the small details!”

So Mitya exclaimed. The interrogation began again.

Chapter 4: The Second Torment

“You would not believe how encouraged we are, Dmitri Fyodorovich, by this readiness of yours ... ,” Nikolai Parfenovich started saying, with an animated look and with visible pleasure shining in his big, protruding, pale gray, and, by the way, extremely myopic eyes, from which he had just removed his spectacles a moment before. “And you have made a very just observation concerning our mutual confidentiality, without which it is sometimes even impossible to proceed in matters of such importance, in the case and sense that the suspected person indeed wishes, hopes, and is able to vindicate himself. For our part, we shall do everything possible, and you have already been able to see how we are conducting this case ... Do you approve, Ippolit Kirillovich?” he suddenly turned to the prosecutor.

“Oh, indubitably,” the prosecutor approved, though somewhat drily compared with Nikolai Parfenovich’s outburst.

I will note once and for all that the newly arrived Nikolai Parfenovich, from the very beginning of his career among us, felt a marked respect for our Ippolit Kirillovich, the prosecutor, and became almost heart-to-heart friends with him. He was almost the only man who believed without reservation in the remarkable psychological and oratorical talents of our “passed-over” Ippolit Kirillovich, and also fully believed that he had indeed been passed over. He had heard of him while still in Petersburg. And in turn the young Nikolai Parfenovich happened to be the only man in the whole world whom our “passed-over” prosecutor came sincerely to love. On the way there they had had time to set up a few things and make arrangements for the impending case, and now, at the table, the sharp little mind of Nikolai Parfenovich caught on the wing and understood every indication, every movement in the face of his older colleague, from half a word, a look, a wink of the eye.

“Gentlemen, give me leave to tell my own story and do not interrupt me with trifles, and I will lay it all out for you in no time,” Mitya was seething.

“Excellent, sir. Thank you. But before we go on to hear your account, allow me simply to mention one more little fact, of great interest for us, namely, the ten roubles you borrowed yesterday, at around five o’clock, by pawning your pistols to your friend Pyotr Ilyich Perkhotin.”

“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.”