Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com
wash me in the tub when I was a baby three years old, aban-
doned by everyone, he was like a father to me!..’
‘And so you-’ the investigating lawyer began.
‘Allow me, gentlemen, allow me one minute more,’ inter-
posed Mitya, putting his elbows on the table and covering
his face with his hands. ‘Let me have a moment to think, let
me breathe, gentlemen. All this is horribly upsetting, hor-
ribly. A man is not a drum, gentlemen!’
‘Drink a little more water,’ murmured Nikolay Parfeno-
vitch. Mitya took his hands from his face and laughed. His
eyes were confident. He seemed completely transformed in
a moment. His whole bearing was changed; he was once
more the equal of these men, with all of whom he was ac-
quainted, as though they had all met the day before, when
nothing had happened, at some social gathering. We may
note in passing that, on his first arrival, Mitya had been
made very welcome at the police captain’s, but later, dur-
ing the last month especially, Mitya had hardly called at
all, and when the police captain met him, in the street, for
instance, Mitya noticed that he frowned and only bowed
out of politeness. His acquaintance with the prosecutor was
less intimate, though he sometimes paid his wife, a nervous
and fanciful lady, visits of politeness, without quite know-
ing why, and she always received him graciously and had,
for some reason, taken an interest in him up to the last. He
had not had time to get to know the investigating lawyer,
though he had met him and talked to him twice, each time
about the fair sex.
‘You’re a most skilful lawyer, I see, Nikolay Parfenovitch,’