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-