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Chapter 8

The Evidences of the

Witnesses. The Babe

T

HE examination of the witnesses began. But we will

not continue our story in such detail as before. And so

we will not dwell on how Nikolay Parfenovitch impressed

on every witness called that he must give his evidence in

accordance with truth and conscience, and that he would

afterwards have to repeat his evidence on oath, how every

witness was called upon to sign the protocol of his evidence,

and so on. We will only note that the point principally in-

sisted upon in the examination was the question of the

three thousand roubles; that is, was the sum spent here, at

Mokroe, by Mitya on the first occasion, a month before,

three thousand or fifteen hundred? And again had he spent

three thousand or fifteen hundred yesterday? Alas, all the

evidence given by everyone turned out to be against Mitya.

There was not one in his favour, and some witnesses intro-

duced new, almost crushing facts, in contradiction of his,

Mitya’s, story.

The first witness examined was Trifon Borissovitch. He