The Brothers Karamazov‘Why, that I stole it, that’s what it amounts to! Oh, God,
you horrify me by not understanding! Every day that I had
that fifteen hundred sewn up round my neck, every day and
every hour I said to myself, ‘You’re a thief! you’re a thief!’
Yes, that’s why I’ve been so savage all this month, that’s why
I fought in the tavern, that’s why I attacked my father, it was
because I felt I was a thief. I couldn’t make up my mind;
I didn’t dare even to tell Alyosha, my brother, about that
fifteen hundred: I felt I was such a scoundrel and such a
pickpocket. But, do you know, while I carried it I said to
myself at the same time every hour: ‘No, Dmitri Fyodoro-
vitch, you may yet not be a thief.’ Why? Because I might go
next day and pay back that fifteen hundred to Katya. And
only yesterday I made up my mind to tear my amulet off
my neck, on my way from Fenya’s to Perhotin. I hadn’t been
able till that moment to bring myself to it. And it was only
when I tore it off that I became a downright thief, a thief
and a dishonest man for the rest of my life. Why? Because,
with that I destroyed, too, my dream of going to Katya and
saying, ‘I’m a scoundrel, but not a thief! Do you understand
now? Do you understand?’
‘What was it made you decide to do it yesterday?’ Nikolay
Parfenovitch interrupted.
‘Why? It’s absurd to ask. Because I had condemned
myself to die at five o’clock this morning, here, at dawn. I
thought it made no difference whether I died a thief or a
man of honour. But I see it’s not so, it turns out that it does
make a difference. Believe me, gentlemen, what has tor-
tured me most during this night has not been the thought