Page 768 - the-brothers-karamazov

town the morning before to get his pay. He was instructed
to avoid raising the alarm when he reached Mokroe, but to
keep constant watch over the ‘criminal’ till the arrival of
the proper authorities, to procure also witnesses for the ar-
rest, police constables, and so on. Mavriky Mavrikyevitch
did as he was told, preserving his incognito, and giving
no one but his old acquaintance, Trifon Borissovitch, the
slightest hint of his secret business. He had spoken to him
just before Mitya met the landlord in the balcony, looking
for him in the dark, and noticed at once a change in Trifon
Borissovitch’s face and voice. So neither Mitya nor anyone
else knew that he was being watched. The box with the pis-
tols had been carried off by Trifon Borissovitch and put in
a suitable place. Only after four o’clock, almost at sunrise,
all the officials, the police captain, the prosecutor, the in-
vestigating lawyer, drove up in two carriages, each drawn
by three horses. The doctor remained at Fyodor Pavlov-
itch’s to make a post-mortem next day on the body. But he
was particularly interested in the condition of the servant,
Smerdyakov.
‘Such violent and protracted epileptic fits, recurring con-
tinually for twenty-four hours, are rarely to be met with, and
are of interest to science,’ he declared enthusiastically to his
companions, and as they left they laughingly congratulated
him on his find. The prosecutor and the investigating lawyer
distinctly remembered the doctor’s saying that Smerdyakov
could not outlive the night.
After these long, but I think necessary explanations, we
will return to that moment of our tale at which we broke