第177章

But suddenly, as gently and mildly as a gentle and affectionate child, he began speaking to Fenya as though he had utterly forgotten how he had scared and hurt her just now.He fell to questioning Fenya with an extreme preciseness, astonishing in his position, and though the girl looked wildly at his blood-stained hands, she, too, with wonderful readiness and rapidity, answered every question as though eager to put the whole truth and nothing but the truth before him.Little by little, even with a sort of enjoyment, she began explaining every detail, not wanting to torment him, but, as it were, eager to be of the utmost service to him.She described the whole of that day, in great detail, the visit of Rakitin and Alyosha, how she, Fenya, had stood on the watch, how the mistress had set off, and how she had called out of the window to Alyosha to give him, Mitya, her greetings, and to tell him "to remember for ever how she had loved him for an hour."Hearing of the message, Mitya suddenly smiled, and there was a flush of colour on his pale cheeks.At the same moment Fenya said to him, not a bit afraid now to be inquisitive:

"Look at your hands, Dmitri Fyodorovitch.They're all over blood!

"Yes," answered Mitya mechanically.He looked carelessly at his hands and at once forgot them and Fenya's question.

He sank into silence again.Twenty minutes had passed since he had run in.His first horror was over, but evidently some new fixed determination had taken possession of him.He suddenly stood up, smiling dreamily.

"What has happened to you, sir?" said Fenya, pointing to his hands again.She spoke compassionately, as though she felt very near to him now in his grief.Mitya looked at his hands again.

"That's blood, Fenya," he said, looking at her with a strange expression."That's human blood, and my God! why was it shed? But...

Fenya...there's a fence here" (he looked at her as though setting her a riddle), "a high fence, and terrible to look at.But at dawn to-morrow, when the sun rises, Mitya will leap over that fence....You don't understand what fence, Fenya, and, never mind....You'll hear to-morrow and understand...and now, good-bye.I won't stand in her way.I'll step aside, I know how to step aside.Live, my joy....You loved me for an hour, remember Mityenka Karamazov so for ever....

She always used to call me Mityenka, do you remember?"And with those words he went suddenly out of the kitchen.Fenya was almost more frightened at this sudden departure than she had been when he ran in and attacked her.

Just ten minutes later Dmitri went in to Pyotr Ilyitch Perhotin, the young official with whom he had pawned his pistols.It was by now half-past eight, and Pyotr Ilyitch had finished his evening tea, and had just put his coat on again to go to the Metropolis to play billiards.Mitya caught him coming out.

Seeing him with his face all smeared with blood, the young man uttered a cry of surprise.

"Good heavens! What is the matter?"

"I've come for my pistols," said Mitya, "and brought you the money.And thanks very much.I'm in a hurry, Pyotr Ilyitch, please make haste."Pyotr Ilyitch grew more and more surprised; he suddenly caught sight of a bundle of banknotes in Mitya's hand, and what was more, he had walked in holding the notes as no one walks in and no one carries money: he had them in his right hand, and held them outstretched as if to show them.Perhotin's servant-boy, who met Mitya in the passage, said afterwards that he walked into the passage in the same way, with the money outstretched in his hand, so he must have been carrying them like that even in the streets.They were all rainbow-coloured hundred-rouble notes, and the fingers holding them were covered with blood.

When Pyotr Ilyitch was questioned later on as to the sum of money, he said that it was difficult to judge at a glance, but that it might have been two thousand, or perhaps three, but it was a big, "fat" bundle."Dmitri Fyodorovitch," so he testified afterwards, "seemed unlike himself, too; not drunk, but, as it were, exalted, lost to everything, but at the same time, as it were, absorbed, as though pondering and searching for something and unable to come to a decision.He was in great haste, answered abruptly and very strangely, and at moments seemed not at all dejected but quite cheerful.""But what is the matter with you? What's wrong?" cried Pyotr Ilyitch, looking wildly at his guest."How is it that you're all covered with blood? Have you had a fall? Look at yourself!"He took him by the elbow and led him to the glass.

Seeing his blood-stained face, Mitya started and scowled wrathfully.

"Damnation! That's the last straw," he muttered angrily, hurriedly changing the notes from his right hand to the left, and impulsively jerked the handkerchief out of his pocket.But the handkerchief turned out to be soaked with blood, too (it was the handkerchief he had used to wipe Grigory's face).There was scarcely a white spot on it, and it had not merely begun to dry, but had stiffened into a crumpled ball and could not be pulled apart.Mitya threw it angrily on the floor.

"Oh, damn it!" he said."Haven't you a rag of some sort...to wipe my face?""So you're only stained, not wounded? You'd better wash," said Pyotr Ilyitch."Here's a wash-stand.I'll pour you out some water.""A wash-stand? That's all right...but where am I to put this?"With the strangest perplexity he indicated his bundle of hundred-rouble notes, looking inquiringly at Pyotr Ilyitch as though it were for him to decide what he, Mitya, was to do with his own money.

"In your pocket, or on the table here.They won't be lost.""In my pocket? Yes, in my pocket.All right....But, I say, that's all nonsense," he cried, as though suddenly coming out of his absorption."Look here, let's first settle that business of the pistols.Give them back to me.Here's your money...because I am in great need of them...and I haven't a minute, a minute to spare."And taking the topmost note from the bundle he held it out to Pyotr Ilyitch.