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looking, it’s degrading,’ he kept repeating to himself, again
and again. ‘It’s like a dream; I’ve sometimes dreamed of be-
ing in such degrading positions.’ It was a misery to him to
take off his socks. They were very dirty, and so were his un-
derclothes, and now everyone could see it. And what was
worse, he disliked his feet. All his life he had thought both
his big toes hideous. He particularly loathed the coarse, flat,
crooked nail on the right one, and now they would all see it.
Feeling intolerably ashamed made him, at once and inten-
tionally, rougher. He pulled off his shirt, himself.
‘Would you like to look anywhere else if you’re not
ashamed to?’
‘No, there’s no need to, at present.’
‘Well, am I to stay naked like this?’ he added savagely.
‘Yes, that can’t be helped for the time.... Kindly sit down
here for a while. You can wrap yourself in a quilt from the
bed, and I... I’ll see to all this.’
All the things were shown to the witnesses. The report
of the search was drawn up, and at last Nikolay Parfeno-
vitch went out, and the clothes were carried out after him.
Ippolit Kirillovitch went out, too. Mitya was left alone with
the peasants, who stood in silence, never taking their eyes
off him. Mitya wrapped himself up in the quilt. He felt cold.
His bare feet stuck out, and he couldn’t pull the quilt over so
as to cover them. Nikolay Parfenovitch seemed to be gone a
long time, ‘an insufferable time.’
‘He thinks of me as a puppy,’ thought Mitya, gnashing
his teeth. ‘That rotten prosecutor has gone, too, contemptu-
ous no doubt, it disgusts him to see me naked!’