The Brothers Karamazov
Chapter 5
The Third Ordeal
T
HOUGH Mitya spoke sullenly, it was evident that he
was trying more than ever not to forget or miss a single
detail of his story. He told them how he had leapt over the
fence into his father’s garden; how he had gone up to the
window; told them all that had passed under the window.
Clearly, precisely, distinctly, he described the feelings that
troubled him during those moments in the garden when
he longed so terribly to know whether Grushenka was with
his father or not. But, strange to say, both the lawyers lis-
tened now with a sort of awful reserve, looked coldly at him,
asked few questions. Mitya could gather nothing from their
faces.
‘They’re angry and offended,’ he thought. ‘Well, bother
them!’
When he described how he made up his mind at last to
make the ‘signal’ to his father that Grushenka had come,
so that he should open the window, the lawyers paid no at-
tention to the word ‘signal,’ as though they entirely failed
to grasp the meaning of the word in this connection: so
much so, that Mitya noticed it. Coming at last to the mo-