For some seconds Mitya stood as though thunderstruck.

“Gentlemen, it’s Smerdyakov!” he shouted suddenly, at the top of his voice. “It’s he who’s murdered him! He’s robbed him! No one else knew where the old man hid the envelope. It’s Smerdyakov, that’s clear, now!”

“But you, too, knew of the envelope and that it was under the pillow.”

“I never knew it. I’ve never seen it. This is the first time I’ve looked at it. I’d only heard of it from Smerdyakov.… He was the only one who knew where the old man kept it hidden, I didn’t know …” Mitya was completely breathless.

“But you told us yourself that the envelope was under your deceased father’s pillow. You especially stated that it was under the pillow, so you must have known it.”

“We’ve got it written down,” confirmed Nikolay Parfenovitch.

“Nonsense! It’s absurd! I’d no idea it was under the pillow. And perhaps it wasn’t under the pillow at all.… It was just a chance guess that it was under the pillow. What does Smerdyakov say? Have you asked him where it was? What does Smerdyakov say? that’s the chief point.… And I went out of my way to tell lies against myself.… I told you without thinking that it was under the pillow, and now you … Oh, you know how one says the wrong thing, without meaning it. No one knew but Smerdyakov, only Smerdyakov, and no one else.… He didn’t even tell me where it was! But it’s his doing, his doing; there’s no doubt about it, he murdered him, that’s as clear as daylight now,” Mitya exclaimed more and more frantically, repeating himself incoherently, and growing more and more exasperated and excited. “You must understand that, and arrest him at once. … He must have killed him while I was running away and while Grigory was unconscious, that’s clear now. … He gave the signal and father opened to him … for no one but he knew the signal, and without the signal father would never have opened the door. …”

“But you’re again forgetting the circumstances,” the prosecutor observed, still speaking with the same restraint, though with a note of triumph, “that there was no need to give the signal if the door already stood open when you were there, while you were in the garden …”

“The door, the door,” muttered Mitya, and he stared speechless at the prosecutor. He sank back helpless in his chair. All were silent.

“Yes, the door! … It’s a nightmare! God is against me!” he exclaimed, staring before him in complete stupefaction.

“Come, you see,” the prosecutor went on with dignity, “and you can judge for yourself, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. On the one hand we have the evidence of the open door from which you ran out, a fact which overwhelms you and us. On the other side your incomprehensible, persistent, and, so to speak, obdurate silence with regard to the source from which you obtained the money which was so suddenly seen in your hands, when only three hours earlier, on your own showing, you pledged your pistols for the sake of ten roubles! In view of all these facts, judge for yourself. What are we to believe, and what can we depend upon? And don’t accuse us of being ‘frigid, cynical, scoffing people,’ who are incapable of believing in the generous impulses of your heart. … Try to enter into our position …”

Mitya was indescribably agitated. He turned pale.

“Very well!” he exclaimed suddenly, “I will tell you my secret. I’ll tell you where I got the money! … I’ll reveal my shame, that I may not have to blame myself or you hereafter.”