0 The Brothers Karamazov
reached the point in his story when he learned that Grush-
enka had deceived him and had returned from Samsonov’s
as soon as he left her there, though she had said that she
would stay there till midnight.
‘If I didn’t kill Fenya then, gentlemen, it was only be-
cause I hadn’t time,’ broke from him suddenly at that point
in his story. That, too, was carefully written down. Mitya
waited gloomily, and was beginning to tell how he ran into
his father’s garden when the investigating lawyer suddenly
stopped him, and opening the big portfolio that lay on the
sofa beside him he brought out the brass pestle.
‘Do you recognise this object?’ he asked, showing it to
Mitya.
‘Oh, yes,’ he laughed gloomily. ‘Of course, I recognise it.
Let me have a look at it.... Damn it, never mind!’
‘You have forgotten to mention it,’ observed the investi-
gating lawyer.
‘Hang it all, I shouldn’t have concealed it from you. Do
you suppose I could have managed without it? It simply es-
caped my memory.’
‘Be so good as to tell us precisely how you came to arm
yourself with it.’
‘Certainly I will be so good, gentlemen.’
And Mitya described how he took the pestle and ran.
‘But what object had you in view in arming yourself with
such a weapon?’
‘What object? No object. I just picked it up and ran off.’
‘What for, if you had no object?’
Mitya’s wrath flared up. He looked intently at ‘the boy’