第176章

Mitya jumped back into the garden and bent over the fallen man.In Mitya's hands was a brass pestle, and he flung it mechanically in the grass.The pestle fell two paces from Grigory, not in the grass but on the path, in a most conspicuous place.For some seconds he examined the prostrate figure before him.The old man's head was covered with blood.Mitya put out his hand and began feeling it.He remembered afterwards clearly that he had been awfully anxious to make sure whether he had broken the old man's skull, or simply stunned him with the pestle.But the blood was flowing horribly; and in a moment Mitya's fingers were drenched with the hot stream.He remembered taking out of his pocket the clean white handkerchief with which he had provided himself for his visit to Madame Hohlakov, and putting it to the old man's head, senselessly trying to wipe the blood from his face and temples.But the handkerchief was instantly soaked with blood.

"Good heavens! What am I doing it for?" thought Mitya, suddenly pulling himself together."If I have broken his skull, how can Ifind out now? And what difference does it make now?" he added, hopelessly."If I've killed him, I've killed him....You've come to grief, old man, so there you must lie!" he said aloud.And suddenly turning to the fence, he vaulted over it into the lane and fell to running- the handkerchief soaked with blood he held, crushed up in his right fist, and as he ran he thrust it into the back pocket of his coat.He ran headlong, and the few passers-by who met him in the dark, in the streets, remembered afterwards that they had met a man running that night.He flew back again to the widow Morozov's house.

Immediately after he had left it that evening, Fenya had rushed to the chief porter, Nazar Ivanovitch, and besought him, for Christ's sake, "not to let the captain in again to-day or to-morrow." Nazar Ivanovitch promised, but went upstairs to his mistress who had suddenly sent for him, and meeting his nephew, a boy of twenty, who had recently come from the country, on the way up told him to take his place, but forgot to mention "the captain." Mitya, running up to the gate, knocked.The lad instantly recognised him, for Mitya had more than once tipped him.Opening the gate at once, he let him in, and hastened to inform him with a good-humoured smile that "Agrafena Alexandrovna is not at home now, you know.""Where is she then, Prohor?" asked Mitya, stopping short.

"She set off this evening, some two hours ago, with Timofey, to Mokroe.""What for?" cried Mitya.

"That I can't say.To see some officer.Someone invited her and horses were sent to fetch her."Mitya left him, and ran like a madman to Fenya.

Chapter 5

A Sudden ResolutionSHE was sitting in the kitchen with her grandmother; they were both just going to bed.Relying on Nazar Ivanovitch, they had not locked themselves in.Mitya ran in, pounced on Fenya and seized her by the throat.

"Speak at once! Where is she? With whom is she now, at Mokroe?" he roared furiously.

Both the women squealed.

"Aie! I'll tell you.Aie! Dmitri Fyodorovitch, darling, I'll tell you everything directly, I won't hide anything," gabbled Fenya, frightened to death; "she's gone to Mokroe, to her officer.""What officer?" roared Mitya.

"To her officer, the same one she used to know, the one who threw her over five years ago," cackled Fenya, as fast as she could speak.

Mitya withdrew the hands with which he was squeezing her throat.

He stood facing her, pale as death, unable to utter a word, but his eyes showed that he realised it all, all, from the first word, and guessed the whole position.Poor Fenya was not in a condition at that moment to observe whether he understood or not.She remained sitting on the trunk as she had been when he ran into the room, trembling all over, holding her hands out before her as though trying to defend herself.She seemed to have grown rigid in that position.Her wide-opened, scared eyes were fixed immovably upon him.And to make matters worse, both his hands were smeared with blood.On the way, as he ran, he must have touched his forehead with them, wiping off the perspiration, so that on his forehead and his right cheek were bloodstained patches.Fenya was on the verge of hysterics.The old cook had jumped up and was staring at him like a mad woman, almost unconscious with terror.

Mitya stood for a moment, then mechanically sank on to a chair next to Fenya.He sat, not reflecting but, as it were, terror-stricken, benumbed.Yet everything was clear as day: that officer, he knew about him, he knew everything perfectly, he had known it from Grushenka herself, had known that a letter had come from him a month before.So that for a month, for a whole month, this had been going on, a secret from him, till the very arrival of this new man, and he had never thought of him! But how could he, how could he not have thought of him? Why was it he had forgotten this officer, like that, forgotten him as soon as he heard of him? That was the question that faced him like some monstrous thing.And he looked at this monstrous thing with horror, growing cold with horror.