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was a mistake, like me alone, me alone!... Gentlemen, my
head aches...’ His brows contracted with pain. ‘You see, gen-
tlemen, I couldn’t bear the look of him, there was something
in him ignoble, impudent, trampling on everything sacred,
something sneering and irreverent, loathsome, loathsome.
But now that he’s dead, I feel differently.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I don’t feel differently, but I wish I hadn’t hated him so.’
‘You feel penitent?’
‘No, not penitent, don’t write that. I’m not much good
myself; I’m not very beautiful, so I had no right to consider
him repulsive. That’s what I mean. Write that down, if you
like.’
Saying this Mitya became very mournful. He had grown
more and more gloomy as the inquiry continued.
At that moment another unexpected scene followed.
Though Grushenka had been removed, she had not been
taken far away, only into the room next but one from the
blue room, in which the examination was proceeding. It
was a little room with one window, next beyond the large
room in which they had danced and feasted so lavishly. She
was sitting there with no one by her but Maximov, who was
terribly depressed, terribly scared, and clung to her side, as
though for security. At their door stood one of the peasants
with a metal plate on his breast. Grushenka was crying, and
suddenly her grief was too much for her, she jumped up,
flung up her arms and, with a loud wail of sorrow, rushed
out of the room to him, to her Mitya, and so unexpectedly
that they had not time to stop her. Mitya, hearing her cry,

The Brothers Karamazov