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murder him; you see, my guardian angel saved me — that’s
what you’ve not taken into account. And that’s why it’s so
base of you. For I didn’t kill him, I didn’t kill him! Do you
hear, I did not kill him.’
He was almost choking. He had not been so moved be-
fore during the whole interrogation.
‘And what has he told you, gentlemen — Smerdyakov,
I mean?’ he added suddenly, after a pause. ‘May I ask that
question?’
‘You may ask any question,’ the prosecutor replied with
frigid severity, ‘any question relating to the facts of the
case, and we are, I repeat, bound to answer every inquiry
you make. We found the servant Smerdyakov, concerning
whom you inquire, lying unconscious in his bed, in an epi-
leptic fit of extreme severity, that had recurred, possibly, ten
times. The doctor who was with us told us, after seeing him,
that he may possibly not outlive the night.’
‘Well, if that’s so, the devil must have killed him,’ broke
suddenly from Mitya, as though until that moment had
been asking himself: ‘Was it Smerdyakov or not?’
‘We will come back to this later,’ Nikolay Parfenovitch
decided. ‘Now wouldn’t you like to continue your state-
ment?’
Mitya asked for a rest. His request was courteous-
ly granted. After resting, he went on with his story. But
he was evidently depressed. He was exhausted, mortified,
and morally shaken. To make things worse the prosecu-
tor exasperated him, as though intentionally, by vexatious
interruptions about ‘trifling points.’ Scarcely had Mitya de-