第217章

it was just at that fatal moment in my life when I...well, in fact, when I'd just come to love another, her, she's sitting down below now, Grushenka.I carried her off here to Mokroe then, and wasted here in two days half that damned three thousand, but the other half I kept on me.Well, I've kept that other half, that fifteen hundred, like a locket round my neck, but yesterday I undid it, and spent it.What's left of it, eight hundred roubles, is in your hands now, Nikolay Parfenovitch.That's the change out of the fifteen hundred I had yesterday.""Excuse me.How's that? Why, when you were here a month ago you spent three thousand, not fifteen hundred, everybody knows that.""Who knows it? Who counted the money? Did I let anyone count it?""Why, you told everyone yourself that you'd spent exactly three thousand.""It's true, I did.I told the whole town so, and the whole town said so.And here, at Mokroe, too, everyone reckoned it was three thousand.Yet I didn't spend three thousand, but fifteen hundred.

And the other fifteen hundred I sewed into a little bag.That's how it was, gentlemen.That's where I got that money yesterday....""This is almost miraculous," murmured Nikolay Parfenovitch.

"Allow me to inquire," observed the prosecutor at last, "have you informed anyone whatever of this circumstance before; I mean that you had fifteen hundred left about you a month ago?""I told no one."

"That's strange.Do you mean absolutely no one?""Absolutely no one.No one and nobody."

"What was your reason for this reticence? What was your motive for making such a secret of it? To be more precise: You have told us at last your secret, in your words, so 'disgraceful,' though in reality- that is, of course, comparatively speaking- this action, that is, the appropriation of three thousand roubles belonging to someone else, and, of course, only for a time is, in my view at least, only an act of the greatest recklessness and not so disgraceful, when one takes into consideration your character....Even admitting that it was an action in the highest degree discreditable, still, discreditable is not 'disgraceful.'...Many people have already guessed, during this last month, about the three thousand of Katerina Ivanovna's that you have spent, and I heard the legend myself, apart from your confession....Mihail Makarovitch, for instance, had heard it, too, so that indeed, it was scarcely a legend, but the gossip of the whole town.There are indications, too, if I am not mistaken, that you confessed this yourself to someone, I mean that the money was Katerina Ivanovna's, and so, it's extremely surprising to me that hitherto, that is, up to the present moment, you have made such an extraordinary secret of the fifteen hundred you say you put by, apparently connecting a feeling of positive horror with that secret....It's not easy to believe that it could cost you such distress to confess such a secret....You cried out, just now, that Siberia would be better than confessing it..."The prosecutor ceased speaking.He was provoked.He did not conceal his vexation, which was almost anger, and gave vent to all his accumulated spleen, disconnectedly and incoherently, without choosing words.

"It's not the fifteen hundred that's the disgrace, but that Iput it apart from the rest of the three thousand," said Mitya firmly.

"Why?" smiled the prosecutor irritably."What is there disgraceful, to your thinking, in your having set aside half of the three thousand you had discreditably, if you prefer, 'disgracefully,' appropriated? Your taking the three thousand is more important than what you did with it.And by the way, why did you do that- why did you set apart that half, for what purpose, for what object did you do it? Can you explain that to us?""Oh, gentlemen, the purpose is the whole point!" cried Mitya."Iput it aside because I was vile, that is, because I was calculating, and to be calculating in such a case is vile...and that vileness has been going on a whole month.""It's incomprehensible."

"I wonder at you.But I'll make it clearer.Perhaps it really is incomprehensible.You see, attend to what I say.I appropriate three thousand entrusted to my honour; I spend it on a spree, say I spend it all, and next morning I go to her and say, 'Katya, I've done wrong, I've squandered your three thousand'; well, is that right? No, it's not right- it's dishonest and cowardly; I'm a beast, with no more self-control than a beast, that's so, isn't it? But still I'm not a thief? Not a downright thief, you'll admit! I squandered it, but Ididn't steal it.Now a second, rather more favourable alternative: