Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 0‘Help!... Yes, perhaps I did want to help him.... I don’t re-
member.’
‘You don’t remember? Then you didn’t quite know what
you were doing?’
‘Not at all. I remember everything — every detail. I
jumped down to look at him, and wiped his face with my
handkerchief.’
‘We have seen your handkerchief. Did you hope to re-
store him to consciousness?’
‘I don’t know whether I hoped it. I simply wanted to make
sure whether he was alive or not.’
‘Ah! You wanted to be sure? Well, what then?’
‘I’m not a doctor. I couldn’t decide. I ran away thinking
I’d killed him. And now he’s recovered.’
‘Excellent,’ commented the prosecutor. ‘Thank you.
That’s all I wanted. Kindly proceed.’
Alas! it never entered Mitya’s head to tell them, though
he remembered it, that he had jumped back from pity, and
standing over the prostrate figure had even uttered some
words of regret: ‘You’ve come to grief, old man — there’s no
help for it. Well, there you must lie.’
The prosecutor could only draw one conclusion: that the
man had jumped back ‘at such a moment and in such ex-
citement simply with the object of ascertaining whether the
only witness of his crime were dead; that he must there-
fore have been a man of great strength, coolness, decision,
and foresight even at such a moment,’... and so on. The pros-
ecutor was satisfied: ‘I’ve provoked the nervous fellow by
‘trifles’ and he has said more than he meant With painful