11 The Brothers Karamazov
But Fetyukovitch began his cross-examination. On his
asking Alyosha when it was that the prisoner had told him
of his hatred for his father and that he might kill him, and
whether he had heard it, for instance, at their last meeting
before the catastrophe, Alyosha started as he answered, as
though only just recollecting and understanding some-
thing.
‘I remember one circumstance now which I’d quite for-
gotten myself. It wasn’t clear to me at the time, but now-.’
And, obviously only now for the first time struck by an
idea, he recounted eagerly how, at his last interview with
Mitya that evening under the tree, on the road to the mon-
astery, Mitya had struck himself on the breast, ‘the upper
part of the breast,’ and had repeated several times that he
had a means of regaining his honour, that that means was
here, here on his breast. ‘I thought, when he struck himself
on the breast, he meant that it was in his heart,’ Alyosha
continued, ‘that he might find in his heart strength to save
himself from some awful disgrace which was awaiting him
and which he did not dare confess even to me. I must con-
fess I did think at the time that he was speaking of our father,
and that the disgrace he was shuddering at was the thought
of going to our father and doing some violence to him. Yet
it was just then that he pointed to something on his breast,
so that I remember the idea struck me at the time that the
heart is not on that part of the breast, but below, and that
he struck himself much too high, just below the neck, and
kept pointing to that place. My idea seemed silly to me at
the time, but he was perhaps pointing then to that little bag