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that I’d killed the old servant, and that I was in danger of
Siberia just when my love was being rewarded, and Heaven
was open to me again. Oh, that did torture me, but not in
the same way; not so much as the damned consciousness
that I had torn that damned money off my breast at last and
spent it, and had become a downright thief! Oh, gentlemen,
I tell you again, with a bleeding heart, I have learnt a great
deal this night. I have learnt that it’s not only impossible
to live a scoundrel, but impossible to die a scoundrel.... No,
gentlemen, one must die honest..’
Mitya was pale. His face had a haggard and exhausted
look, in spite of his being intensely excited.
‘I am beginning to understand you, Dmitri Fyodorovitch,’
the prosecutor said slowly, a soft and almost compassionate
tone. ‘But all this, if you’ll excuse my saying so, is a matter
of nerves, in my opinion... your overwrought nerves, that’s
what it is. And why, for instance, should you not have saved
yourself such misery for almost a month, by going and re-
turning that fifteen hundred to the lady who had entrusted
it to you? And why could you not have explained things to
her, and in view of your position, which you describe as be-
ing so awful, why could you not have had recourse to the
plan which would so naturally have occurred to one’s mind,
that is, after honourably confessing your errors to her, why
could you not have asked her to lend you the sum need-
ed for your expenses, which, with her generous heart, she
would certainly not have refused you in your distress, es-
pecially if it had been with some guarantee, or even on the
security you offered to the merchant Samsonov, and to Ma-