VIII. Delirium

What began was almost an orgy, a feast for the whole world. Grushenka was the first to shout for wine: “I want to drink, I want to get quite drunk, like before, remember, Mitya, remember how we first got acquainted here that time!” Mitya himself was as if in delirium and had a presentiment of “his happiness.” Grushenka, however, kept driving him away from her incessantly: “Go on, enjoy yourself, tell them to dance, tell everyone to make merry, ‘dance, cottage, dance, stove,’ like that time, like that time!” she went on exclaiming. She was terribly excited. And Mitya rushed off to give orders. The chorus gathered in the next room. The room where they had sat until now was cramped besides, and was divided in two by a calico curtain, behind which, again, stood an enormous bed with a plump feather mattress and the same calico pillows piled up in a heap. And besides, in all four of the “clean” rooms of this house there were beds everywhere. Grushenka settled herself right in the doorway; Mitya brought her an armchair here: she had sat exactly like this “that time,” too, on the day of their first spree here, and watched the chorus and the dancing from this spot. The girls who gathered were all the same ones as then; the little Yids with their fiddles and zithers had come too, and at last the long-awaited cart drawn by a troika, with the wines and provisions, had arrived as well. Mitya bustled about. Outsiders came into the room to look too, peasant men and women who had already been asleep but had woken up and scented an unheard-of treat, as a month before. Mitya greeted and embraced acquaintances, recalled faces, uncorked bottles, and poured for everyone, whoever came along. It was only the girls who had a great eye for the champagne; the peasant men liked the rum and cognac better, and especially the hot punch. Mitya ordered chocolate to be made for all the girls, and three samovars to be kept going and boiling all night for tea and punch for anyone who came in: whoever wanted, let him help himself. In a word, something disorderly and absurd began, but Mitya was, as it were, in his native element, and the more absurd everything became, the more his spirits rose. Had some peasant asked him for money at those moments, he would at once have pulled out his whole wad and begun handing it out right and left without counting. That is probably why, to look after Mitya, the innkeeper, Trifon Borisych, kept darting around him almost without leaving his side; he had quite given up, it seems, the idea of going to bed that night, though he drank little (he partook of only one little glass of punch) and kept a sharp watch, in his own way, over Mitya’s interests. At the right moments he would stop him kindly and obsequiously and talk him round, would not let him treat the peasants, as he had “that time,” to “cigarettes and Rhenish wine” and, God forbid, to money, and was very indignant that the girls were drinking liqueur and eating candy: “Nothing but lousiness, Mitri Fyodorovich,” he would say, “I’d give every one of them a kick with my knee, and order them to count it an honor besides—that’s the kind they are!” Mitya remembered Andrei once more and ordered punch to be sent out to him. “I hurt him earlier,” he kept repeating in a weakened and tender voice. Kalganov had not wanted to drink at first, and he did not like the girls’ chorus much at the beginning either, but after drinking another two glasses of champagne he grew terribly merry, strode through the rooms, laughed, and praised everything and everyone, both the songs and the music. Maximov, blissful and tipsy, did not leave his side. Grushenka, who was beginning to get tipsy too, kept pointing Kalganov out to Mitya: “What a sweet little thing he is, what a wonderful boy!” And Mitya ran in rapture to kiss Kalganov and Maximov. Oh, he had a presentiment of much; she had not yet said anything of the kind to him, and was even evidently putting off saying it on purpose, only now and then glancing at him with a kind but ardent little eye. At last she suddenly seized him tightly by the hand and pulled him to her with force. She was sitting at the time in the armchair by the door.

“How you came in just now, eh? How you came in!… I was so frightened. So you wanted to give me up to him, eh? Did you really want to?”

“I didn’t want to ruin your happiness!” Mitya babbled to her in bliss. But she did not even need his answer.

“Well, go on… enjoy yourself,” she drove him away again. “And don’t cry, I’ll call you again.”

And he would run off, and she would start listening to the songs again and watching the dancing, following him with her eyes wherever he was, but a quarter of an hour later she would call him over again, and again he would come running.

“Well, sit down beside me now, tell me how you heard about me yesterday, that I’d come here; who was the first one you heard it from?”

And Mitya would begin to tell everything, incoherently, in no order, ardently, but he told it strangely, all the same, often frowning suddenly and breaking off.

“What are you frowning for?” she would ask.

“Nothing… I left a sick man there. If only he gets well, if only I knew he’d get well, I’d give ten years of my life right now!”

“Well, God be with him, if he’s sick. So did you really mean to shoot yourself tomorrow, you silly thing, and what for? I love reckless ones like you, I do,” she babbled to him, her tongue a little heavy. “So you’d go to any lengths for me? Eh? And did you really, you little fool, really mean to shoot yourself tomorrow! No, wait a while, tomorrow maybe I’ll tell you one little word… I won’t tell it today, but tomorrow. And you’d like it today? No, I don’t want to today… Well, go on, go on now, enjoy yourself.”

Once, however, she called him over as if in perplexity, and with concern.

“Why are you sad? I can see you’re sad… No, I can see it,” she added, peering sharply into his eyes. “Though you’re kissing the peasants there and shouting, I can see something. No, you enjoy yourself, I’m merry, and you be merry too… I love someone here, guess who?… Ai, look: my boy’s fallen asleep, he’s gotten tipsy, the poor dear.”

She was speaking of Kalganov: he really had gotten tipsy and had fallen asleep for a moment, sitting on the sofa. And it was not only from drink that he had fallen asleep; he had suddenly for some reason become sad, or, as he put it, “bored.” He had also been greatly disheartened toward the end by the girls’ songs, which, gradually, as the drinking went on, were beginning to turn into something altogether too smutty and unbridled. And their dances too: two girls dressed up as bears, and Stepanida, a lively girl with a stick in her hand, playing the bear leader, began “showing” them. “Livelier, Marya,” she shouted, “or you’ll get the stick!” The bears at last tumbled to the floor in a way that was quite indecent, to the loud guffaws of the audience of peasant men and women, who had packed in beyond all measure. “Well, let them, well, let them,” Grushenka said sententiously, with a blissful look on her face, “once in a while a day comes along for them to have some fun, so shouldn’t people enjoy themselves?” Kalganov, though, looked as if he had gotten himself dirty on something. “It’s all swinishness, all this folksiness,” he remarked, walking away. “These are their spring games, when they keep watch over the sun all through the summer night.” But what he especially disliked was one “new” little song with a lively dance tune, sung about how a gentleman came riding along and tried the girls out:

The gentleman tried the girls out:
Will the girls love him or not?

But the girls decided that one could not love a gentleman:

The gentleman will beat me hard,
And I won’t go loving him.

Then a Gypsy came riding along (it was pronounced tsýgan), and he too:

The Gypsy tried the girls out:
Will the girls love him or not?

But the Gypsy could not be loved either:

The Gypsy will go stealing,
And I will go grieving.

And many more people rode by like this and tried the girls out, even a soldier:

The soldier tried the girls out:
Will the girls love him or not?

But the soldier was rejected with contempt:

The soldier will carry his knapsack,
And I behind him…

Here followed the most unprintable couplet, sung quite openly and producing a furor among the listening audience. At last the business ended with a merchant:

The little merchant tried the girls out:
Will the girls love him or not?

And it turned out that they loved him very much, because, so to speak,

The little merchant will go trading,
And I will go queening.

Kalganov even got angry:

“That song’s brand-new, from yesterday,” he remarked aloud, “and who makes these up for them! All that’s missing is for a railwayman or a Yid to ride by and try the girls out: they’d have won them all.” And, almost offended, he declared then and there that he was bored, sat down on the sofa, and suddenly dozed off. His pretty little face had grown somewhat pale and had fallen back against the cushion of the sofa.

“Look how pretty he is,” Grushenka was saying, leading Mitya up to him. “I was combing his little head earlier; his hair is just like flax, and thick…”

And bending over him tenderly, she kissed his forehead. Kalganov opened his eyes in an instant, looked at her, raised himself, and with the most worried look asked: where was Maximov?

“So that’s who he wants,” laughed Grushenka. “Oh, sit with me a minute. Mitya, run and fetch his Maximov.”

It turned out that Maximov had not left the girls at all, only now and then running off to pour himself a little liqueur; and he had drunk two cups of chocolate. His little face had flushed red, and his nose had turned crimson, his eyes had grown moist and sweet. He ran up and announced that he wanted to dance the sabotière now, “to one little tune.”

“Why, when I was little they taught me all these well-bred society dances, sir…”

“Well, go on, go on with him, Mitya, and I’ll watch from here how he dances there.”

“No, I’ll go too, I’ll go and watch too,” exclaimed Kalganov, in the most naive way declining Grushenka’s offer to sit with her. And they all went to watch. Maximov really did dance his dance, but apart from Mitya he produced no particular delight in almost anyone. The whole dance consisted of some sort of hops with the feet twisted out to the sides, soles up, and with every jump Maximov slapped the sole with his palm. Kalganov did not like it at all, but Mitya even kissed the dancer.

“Well, thank you, you’re tired, maybe; what are you looking over here for: do you want a candy, eh? Maybe you’d like a little roll-up?”

“A cigarette, sir.”

“Wouldn’t you like a drink?”

“I’ve been having a little liqueur, sir… And you haven’t got any little chocolate candies, sir?”

“Why, there’s a whole cartload on the table, pick whichever you like, you dove of a soul!”

“No, sir, I’d like the kind, sir, with vanilla… for old men, sir… Hee-hee!”

“No, brother, there aren’t any of that special kind.”

“Listen!” the little old man suddenly bent to Mitya’s very ear. “That girl there, sir, little Marya, sir, hee-hee, how might I, if it were possible, make her acquaintance, by your kindness…”

“Look what you’ve taken into your head! No, brother, nothing doing.”

“But I don’t do anyone any harm, sir,” Maximov whispered dejectedly.

“Well, all right, all right. Here, brother, they only sing and dance; but, then, the devil! wait… Eat for now, eat, drink, and be merry. Don’t you need money?”

“Later, maybe, sir,” Maximov smiled.

“All right, all right…”

Mitya’s head was burning. He went out through the entryway onto the wooden upper gallery that ran around part of the whole building on the inside, facing the yard. The fresh air revived him. He stood alone, in the dark, in a corner, and suddenly seized his head with both hands. His scattered thoughts suddenly came together, his sensations merged into one, and everything gave light. A terrible, dreadful light! “If I’m to shoot myself, then when if not now?” swept through his mind. “Go and get the pistol, bring it here, and right in this very dirty and dark corner, end it.” For almost a minute he stood undecided. Earlier, as he flew here, behind him stood disgrace, the theft he had committed, accomplished already, and that blood, blood!… But then it had been easier, oh, easier! For then everything had already been ended: he had lost her, given her up, she was lost to him, had vanished—oh, the sentence had been easier for him then; at least it had seemed inevitable, necessary, for why stay on in the world? But now! Was it now what it had been then? Now at least one phantom, one monster, had been done away with: this “first one” of hers, her indisputable, fatal man, had vanished without a trace. The terrible phantom had suddenly turned into something so small, so comic; it had been carried by hand into the bedroom and locked in. It would never come back. She was ashamed, and from her eyes he could see clearly now whom she loved. Well, now was the time to live, and… and it was impossible to live, impossible, oh, damnation! “God, bring the man struck down by the fence back to life! Let this terrible cup pass from me! You have worked miracles, Lord, for sinners just like me! What then, what then if the old man is alive? Oh, then I’ll wipe out the shame of the rest of my disgrace, I’ll return the stolen money, I’ll give it back, I’ll get it from under the ground… No traces of disgrace will remain, except in my heart forever! But no, no, oh, impossible, fainthearted dreams! Oh, damnation!”

But all the same something like a ray of bright hope gleamed for him in the darkness. He tore himself from the spot and rushed back into the rooms—to her, to her again, to his queen forever! “Is it possible that one hour, one minute of her love is not worth all the rest of life, even in the torments of disgrace?” This wild question seized his heart. “To her, to her alone, to see her, to listen to her, and think of nothing, forget everything, even if only for this night, for an hour, for an instant!” Right before the entrance to the entryway, still on the gallery, he ran into the innkeeper, Trifon Borisych. The man struck him as somehow gloomy and worried and, it seems, was coming to look for him.

“What’s up, Borisych, weren’t you looking for me?”

“No, sir, not for you,” the innkeeper seemed suddenly taken aback. “Why should I look for you? But you… where were you, sir?”

“Why are you so glum? You’re not angry, are you? Wait, you’ll go to bed soon… What time is it?”

“Why, it must be three o’clock. Must be, even, going on four.”

“We’ll finish, we’ll finish.”

“Not at all, it’s nothing, sir. Even as long as you please, sir…”

“What’s the matter with him?” Mitya thought in passing, and ran into the room where the girls were dancing. But she was not there. Nor was she in the blue room; only Kalganov was dozing on the sofa. Mitya looked behind the curtains—she was there. She was sitting in the corner on a trunk and, leaning with her arms and head against the bed that stood beside it, was weeping bitterly, holding herself back with all her might and stifling her voice so as not to be heard. On seeing Mitya, she beckoned him to her and, when he ran up, gripped him tight by the hand.

“Mitya, Mitya, I did love him, you know!” she began in a whisper. “I loved him so, all five years, all, all this time! Was it him I loved, or only my own spite? No, him! Oh, him! I’m lying when I say I loved only my spite and not him! Mitya, I was only seventeen then, he was so kind to me then, so merry, he sang songs to me… Or else he only seemed so then to me, a fool, a little girl… And now, Lord, it isn’t the same man, it isn’t him at all. And it isn’t his face, not him at all. I didn’t even know him by his face. I was driving here with Timofei and kept thinking, I kept thinking the whole way: ‘How will I meet him, what will I say, how will we look at each other?…’ My whole soul was sinking, and then here he poured slops over me as if out of a tub. He talks like a schoolmaster: everything so learned, so important, he greeted me so importantly, I was just at a loss. No way to get a word in. At first I thought he was ashamed in front of that long Pole of his. I sit and look at them and think: why don’t I know how to talk to him at all now? You know, it was his wife that spoiled him, the one he left me for that time and married… It was she who remade him there. Mitya, what a shame it is! Oh, I’m ashamed, Mitya, ashamed, oh, ashamed for my whole life! Cursed, cursed be those five years, cursed!” And she dissolved in tears again, but did not let go of Mitya’s hand, held on to it tight.

“Mitya, darling, wait, don’t go away, I want to tell you one little word,” she whispered, and suddenly raised her face to him. “Listen, you tell me, whom do I love? I love one man here. Which man is it? That’s what you tell me.” A smile lit up her face, swollen with tears; her eyes shone in the half dark. “A certain falcon came in earlier, and my heart just sank in me. ‘You fool, that’s the one you love,’ my heart whispered to me right away. You came in and lit everything up. ‘But what is he afraid of?’ I think. And you were afraid, you know, quite afraid, you couldn’t speak. It isn’t them he’s afraid of, I think—as if you could be frightened of anyone! It’s me he’s afraid of, I think, only me. Why, Fenya told you, you little fool, how I shouted to Alyosha through the window that I’d loved Mitenka for one little hour, and now I was going to love… another. Mitya, Mitya, how could I, a fool, think I loved another after you! Do you forgive me, Mitya? Do you forgive me or not? Do you love me? Do you love me?”

She jumped up and seized him by the shoulders with both hands. Mitya, speechless with rapture, looked into her eyes, at her face, at her smile, and all at once, holding her tight, began kissing her.

“And will you forgive me for tormenting you? It was out of spite, you know, that I tormented all of you. It was out of spite, on purpose, that I drove that wretched old man out of his mind… Remember how you were drinking at my place once and broke a glass? I remembered that, and today I broke a glass too, I drank to ‘my vile heart.’ Mitya, falcon, why aren’t you kissing me? One kiss and he pulled away, he looks, he listens… What’s there to listen to me for! Kiss me, kiss me harder, like that. If it’s love, then let it be love! I’ll be your slave now, your slave for my whole life! It’s sweet to be a slave!… Kiss me! Beat me, torment me, do something to me… Oh, and I really do need to be tormented… Stop! Wait, later, I don’t want it like this…” she suddenly pushed him away. “Go away, Mitka, I’ll go and drink some wine now, I want to be drunk, I’ll go and dance drunk now, I want to, I want to!”

She tore herself away from him, out from behind the curtains. Mitya came out after her like a drunk man. “Let it be, then, let it be, whatever happens now—I’d give the whole world for one minute,” flashed through his head. Grushenka really did drink another glass of champagne at a gulp and suddenly got very tipsy. She settled into the armchair, in her old place, with a blissful smile. Her cheeks were blazing, her lips burned, her sparkling eyes had gone languid; her passionate look beckoned. Even Kalganov seemed to feel something bite at his heart, and he went up to her.

“And did you hear me kiss you just now, while you were asleep?” she babbled to him. “I’m drunk now, that’s what… And aren’t you drunk? And why isn’t Mitya drinking? Why aren’t you drinking, Mitya? I’ve had a drink, and you’re not drinking…”

“I’m drunk! I’m drunk as it is… drunk on you, and now I want to be drunk on wine too.” He drank another glass and—this seemed strange to himself—it was only from this last glass that he got drunk, suddenly got drunk, whereas until then he had been sober all along; he remembered that himself. From that moment everything began spinning around him, as in delirium. He walked about, laughed, talked to everyone, and all this as if no longer aware of himself. Only one fixed and burning feeling made itself known in him every minute, “like a hot coal in my soul,” he recalled afterward. He would go up to her, sit beside her, look at her, listen to her… She, though, had become terribly talkative; she called everyone over to her, would suddenly beckon some girl from the chorus to her; the girl would come up, and she would either kiss her and let her go, or sometimes make the sign of the cross over her. One minute more and she might burst into tears. She was also greatly amused by the “wretched old man,” as she called Maximov. He kept running up every minute to kiss her little hands “and every little finger,” and at the end he danced one more dance to an old little song, which he sang himself as well. He danced with particular ardor to the refrain:

Little piggy oink-oink, oink-oink,
Little heifer moo-moo, moo-moo,
Little duckling quack-quack, quack-quack,
Little goosey honk-honk, honk-honk.
Little hen went strutting through the entry,
Turu-ru, ru-ru, was what she said,
Ai, ai, was what she said!

“Give him something, Mitya,” Grushenka was saying, “make him a present, he’s poor, you know. Ah, the poor, the injured!… You know, Mitya, I’m going to go into a convent. No, really, someday I will. Alyosha said words to me today for my whole life… Yes… But today let’s dance. Tomorrow to the convent, but today let’s dance. I want to be naughty, good people, and what of it, God will forgive. If I were God, I’d forgive all people: ‘My dear little sinners, from this day on I forgive you all.’ And I’ll go and ask forgiveness: ‘Forgive a foolish woman, good people, that’s what.’ I’m a beast, that’s what. But I want to pray. I gave away an onion. A wicked woman like me, and she wants to pray! Mitya, let them dance, don’t stop them. All people in the world are good, every one of them. It’s good in the world. Even though we’re nasty, it’s good in the world. We’re nasty and good, both nasty and good… No, tell me, I’ll ask you, all of you come here, and I’ll ask; all of you tell me this: why am I so good? I am good, you know, I’m very good… Well, so then: why am I so good?” So Grushenka babbled, getting tipsier and tipsier, and at last she announced outright that she wanted to dance herself, right now. She got up from the armchair and staggered. “Mitya, no more wine for me; if I ask for it, don’t give it. Wine gives no peace. And everything’s spinning, the stove too, everything’s spinning. I want to dance. Let everyone watch how I dance… how well and how beautifully I dance…”

The intention was serious: she took a little white cambric handkerchief out of her pocket and took it by the corner in her right little hand, to wave it in the dance. Mitya bustled about; the girls fell quiet, getting ready to strike up a dance song in chorus at the first sign. Maximov, learning that Grushenka wanted to dance herself, squealed with rapture and started hopping about in front of her, singing:

Little legs so thin, little sides that ring,
Little tail a curlicue.

But Grushenka waved her handkerchief at him and drove him off:

“Sh-sh! Mitya, why aren’t they coming? Let everyone come… to watch. Call those ones too, the locked-up ones… Why did you lock them in? Tell them I’m dancing, let them watch me dance too…”

Mitya went up to the locked door with a drunken swagger and began pounding on the panowie’s door with his fist.

“Hey, you… Podvysotskys! Come out, she wants to dance, she’s calling you.”

“Łajdak!” one of the panowie shouted in reply.

“And you’re a sub-łajdak! A petty little scoundrelet, that’s what you are.”

“You ought to stop jeering at Poland,” Kalganov remarked sententiously; he too had gotten more tipsy than he could manage.

“Quiet, boy! If I called him a scoundrel, that doesn’t mean I called all Poland a scoundrel. One łajdak doesn’t make up Poland. Quiet, pretty boy, eat a candy.”

“Ah, what people! As if they weren’t human. Why won’t they make peace?” said Grushenka, and went out to dance. The chorus struck up: “Oh, you entryway, my entryway.” Grushenka threw back her little head, half opened her little lips, smiled, waved her handkerchief, and suddenly, swaying violently on the spot, stopped in the middle of the room in perplexity.

“I’m weak…” she said in a sort of exhausted voice. “Forgive me, I’m weak, I can’t… I’m sorry…”

She bowed to the chorus, then began bowing to all four sides in turn:

“I’m sorry… Forgive me…”

“The little lady’s had a drop, she’s had a drop, the pretty little lady,” voices rang out.

“The lady has had a drink, sir,” Maximov explained to the girls, tittering.

“Mitya, take me away… take me, Mitya,” Grushenka said helplessly. Mitya rushed to her, caught her up in his arms, and ran with his precious prize behind the curtains. “Well, now I’ll go,” thought Kalganov, and, going out of the blue room, he closed both halves of the door behind him. But the feast in the main room thundered on and kept going, and thundered louder still. Mitya laid Grushenka on the bed and pressed his lips to hers in a kiss.

“Don’t touch me…” she babbled to him in a pleading voice. “Don’t touch me, while I’m not yours… I said I’m yours, but don’t you touch me… spare me… With those ones here, next to those ones, I can’t. He’s here. It’s vile here…”

“I obey! I wouldn’t think of it… I revere you!…” Mitya muttered. “Yes, it’s vile here, oh, contemptible.” And without letting her out of his arms, he sank to the floor beside the bed, onto his knees.

“I know, even though you’re a beast, you’re noble,” Grushenka brought out heavily. “It has to be honest… from now on it’ll be honest… and we have to be honest too, we have to be good too, not beasts, but good… Carry me off, carry me far away, do you hear… I don’t want to be here, I want it far away, far away…”

“Oh yes, yes, without fail!” Mitya pressed her in his arms. “I’ll take you away, we’ll fly away… Oh, I’d give my whole life right now for one year, only to know about that blood!”

“What blood?” Grushenka repeated in perplexity.

“Nothing!” Mitya ground out through his teeth. “Grusha, you want it to be honest, but I’m a thief. I stole money from Katka… Disgrace, disgrace!”

“From Katka? From the young lady, you mean? No, you didn’t steal it. Give it back to her, take it from me… What are you shouting for? Now everything of mine is yours. What’s money to us? We’ll squander it on sprees anyway… People like us are sure to squander it. But better we go and plow the land, you and I. I want to scrape the earth with these very hands. We have to work, do you hear? Alyosha told me to. I won’t be a kept woman to you, I’ll be true to you, I’ll be your slave, I’ll work for you. We’ll pay a call on the young lady, and the two of us will bow down to her, so she’ll forgive us, and we’ll go away. And if she doesn’t forgive, we’ll go away all the same. And you take her the money, and love me… And don’t love her. Don’t love her anymore. And if you do love her, I’ll strangle her… I’ll put out both her eyes with a needle…”

“I love you, you alone, I’ll love you in Siberia…”

“Why Siberia? Well, what of it, Siberia too, if you like, it’s all the same… we’ll work… there’s snow in Siberia… I love driving over the snow… and there has to be a little bell… Do you hear, a little bell is ringing… Where is that little bell ringing? Somebody’s coming… there, it’s stopped ringing.”

Helplessly she closed her eyes and suddenly seemed to fall asleep for a minute. A little bell really had been ringing somewhere in the distance, and suddenly it stopped ringing. Mitya laid his head on her breast. He did not notice when the little bell stopped ringing, but neither did he notice how suddenly the songs had stopped too, and in place of the songs and the drunken din a dead silence, as it were suddenly, reigned through the whole house. Grushenka opened her eyes.

“What’s that, was I asleep? Yes… the little bell… I was asleep and had a dream: as if I were driving, over the snow… the little bell is ringing, and I’m dozing. With a dear man, with you, it seems, I’m driving. And far, far away… I was hugging you and kissing you, pressing close to you, as if I were cold, and the snow is sparkling… You know, when the snow sparkles at night and the moon is looking down, and it’s as if I weren’t on earth at all… I woke up, and my dear one is beside me, how good it is…”

“Beside you,” Mitya muttered, kissing her dress, her breast, her hands. And suddenly something strange seemed to him: it seemed to him that she was looking straight ahead of her, but not at him, not into his face, but over his head, intently and strangely motionless. Surprise suddenly showed in her face, almost fright.

“Mitya, who is that looking in at us from over there?” she suddenly whispered. Mitya turned around and saw that someone really had parted the curtain and was, as it were, peering at them. And not just one person, it seemed. He jumped up and quickly stepped toward the one who was looking.

“Here, come out here to us, if you please,” a voice said to him, not loudly, but firmly and insistently.

Mitya stepped out from behind the curtain and stood motionless. The whole room was full of people, but not the ones from before; quite new ones. An instant chill ran down his spine, and he shuddered. He recognized all these people in an instant. That tall and portly old man there, in an overcoat and a peaked cap with a cockade, that was the district police chief, Mikhail Makarych. And that “consumptive,” neat dandy, “always in such polished boots,” that was the assistant prosecutor. “He has a chronometer worth four hundred rubles, he showed it.” And that young one, the little one, in spectacles… Mitya had only forgotten his surname, but he knew him too, he had seen him: that was the investigator, the court investigator, “from the School of Jurisprudence,” who had come recently. And this one here, the rural police officer, Mavriky Mavrikich, him he certainly knew, he was an acquaintance. Well, and those with the badges, what were they here for? And two more of some kind, peasants… And there in the doorway, Kalganov and Trifon Borisych…

“Gentlemen… What is this, gentlemen?” Mitya was about to say, but suddenly, as though beside himself, as though not by his own will, he exclaimed loudly, at the top of his voice:

“I un-der-stand!”

The young man in spectacles suddenly stepped forward and, coming up to Mitya, began, though with dignity, a little hurriedly, as it were:

“We have for you… in a word, I will ask you to come here, over here, to the sofa… There exists an urgent necessity of having an explanation with you.”

“The old man!” Mitya cried out in a frenzy. “The old man and his blood!… I un-der-stand!”

And he sat down, as if his legs had been cut from under him, almost fell, onto a chair that stood nearby.

“You understand? You’ve understood! Parricide and monster, the blood of your old father cries out after you!” the old district police chief suddenly roared, stepping up to Mitya. He was beside himself, had turned crimson, and was shaking all over.

“But this is impossible!” cried the little young man. “Mikhail Makarych, Mikhail Makarych! This is not right, not right, sir!… I ask to be allowed to speak alone… I could never have expected such an episode from you…”

“But this is delirium, gentlemen, delirium!” the district police chief kept exclaiming. “Look at him: at night, drunk, with a dissolute wench, and in his father’s blood… Delirium! Delirium!”

“I beg you with all my might, my dear Mikhail Makarych, this time to restrain your feelings,” the assistant prosecutor started whispering rapidly to the old man, “otherwise I shall be compelled to take…”

But the little investigator did not let him finish; he turned to Mitya and pronounced firmly, loudly, and gravely:

“Mr. Karamazov, retired lieutenant, I must inform you that you are accused of the murder of your father, Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov, which took place this night…”

He said something more besides, and the prosecutor too seemed to put something in, but Mitya, though he was listening, no longer understood them. He was looking around at them all with a wild gaze…