11 The Brothers Karamazov
his father?’
‘I don’t remember what I felt at the time,’ answered
Grushenka. ‘Everyone was crying out that he had killed his
father, and I felt that it was my fault, that it was on my ac-
count he had murdered him. But when he said he wasn’t
guilty, I believed him at once, and I believe him now and
always shall believe him. He is not the man to tell a lie.’
Fetyukovitch began his cross-examination. I remember
that among other things he asked about Rakitin and the
twenty-five roubles ‘you paid him for bringing Alexey Fy-
odorovitch Karamazov to see you.’
‘There was nothing strange about his taking the money,’
sneered Grushenka, with angry contempt. ‘He was always
coming to me for money: he used to get thirty roubles a
month at least out of me, chiefly for luxuries: he had enough
to keep him without my help.’
‘What led you to be so liberal to Mr. Rakitin?’ Fetyuko-
vitch asked, in spite of an uneasy movement on the part of
the President.
‘Why, he is my cousin. His mother was my mother’s sis-
ter. But he’s always besought me not to tell anyone here of it,
he is so dreadfully ashamed of me.’
This fact was a complete surprise to everyone; no one in
the town nor in the monastery, not even Mitya, knew of it.
I was told that Rakitin turned purple with shame where he
sat. Grushenka had somehow heard before she came into
the court that he had given evidence against Mitya, and so
she was angry. The whole effect on the public, of Rakitin’s
speech, of his noble sentiments, of his attacks upon serfdom