Page 667 - the-brothers-karamazov

ly 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 search-
ing 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,

The Brothers Karamazov