Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 1My heart is sad, my heart is sad, Pyotr Ilyitch. Do you re-
member Hamlet? ‘I am very sorry, good Horatio! Alas, poor
Yorick!’ Perhaps that’s me, Yorick? Yes, I’m Yorick now, and
a skull afterwards.’
Pyotr Ilyitch listened in silence. Mitya, too, was silent for
a while.
‘What dog’s that you’ve got here?’ he asked the shopman,
casually, noticing a pretty little lap-dog with dark eyes, sit-
ting in the corner.
‘It belongs to Varvara Alexyevna, the mistress,’ answered
the clerk. ‘She brought it and forgot it here. It must be taken
back to her.’
‘I saw one like it... in the regiment... ‘ murmured Mitya
dreamily, ‘only that one had its hind leg broken.... By the
way, Pyotr Ilyitch, I wanted to ask you: have you ever stolen
anything in your life?’
‘What a question!’
‘Oh, I didn’t mean anything. From somebody’s pocket,
you know. I don’t mean government money, everyone steals
that, and no doubt you do, too..’
‘You go to the devil.’
‘I’m talking of other people’s money. Stealing straight out
of a pocket? Out of a purse, eh?’
‘I stole twenty copecks from my mother when I was nine
years old. I took it off the table on the sly, and held it tight
in my hand.’
‘Well, and what happened?’
‘Oh, nothing. I kept it three days, then I felt ashamed,
confessed, and gave it back.’