Page 790 - the-brothers-karamazov

jealousy he endured on Grushenka’s account.
He was heard with silent attention. They inquired par-
ticularly into the circumstance of his having a place of
ambush in Marya Kondratyevna’s house at the back of Fy-
odor Pavlovitch’s garden to keep watch on Grushenka, and
of Smerdyakov’s bringing him information. They laid par-
ticular stress on this, and noted it down. Of his jealousy he
spoke warmly and at length, and though inwardly ashamed
at exposing his most intimate feelings to ‘public ignominy,’
so to speak, he evidently overcame his shame in order to tell
the truth. The frigid severity with which the investigating
lawyer, and still more the prosecutor, stared intently at him
as he told his story, disconcerted him at last considerably.
‘That boy, Nikolay Parfenovitch, to whom I was talk-
ing nonsense about women only a few days ago, and that
sickly prosecutor are not worth my telling this to,’ he re-
flected mournfully. ‘It’s ignominious. ‘Be patient, humble,
hold thy peace.’’ He wound up his reflections with that
line. But he pulled himself together to go on again. When
he came to telling of his visit to Madame Hohlakov, he re-
gained his spirits and even wished to tell a little anecdote
of that lady which had nothing to do with the case. But the
investigating lawyer stopped him, and civilly suggested that
he should pass on to ‘more essential matters.’ At last, when
he described his despair and told them how, when he left
Madame Hohlakov’s, he thought that he’d ‘get three thou-
sand if he had to murder someone to do it,’ they stopped
him again and noted down that he had ‘meant to murder
someone.’ Mitya let them write it without protest. At last he