On Mitya's left side, in the place where Maximov had been sitting at the beginning of the evening, the prosecutor was now seated, and on Mitya's right hand, where Grushenka had been, was a rosy-cheeked young man in a sort of shabby hunting-jacket, with ink and paper before him.
This was the secretary of the investigating lawyer, who had brought him with him.
The police captain was now standing by the window at the other end of the room, beside Kalganov, who was sitting there.
"Drink some water," said the investigating lawyer softly, for the tenth time.
"I have drunk it, gentlemen, I have... but come gentlemen, crush me, punish me, decide my fate!" cried Mitya, staring with terribly fixed wide-open eyes at the investigating lawyer.
"So you positively declare that you are not guilty of the death of your father, Fyodor Pavlovitch?" asked the investigating lawyer, softly but insistently.
"I am not guilty.
I am guilty of the blood of another old man, but not of my father's.
And I weep for it!
I killed, I killed the old man and knocked him down.... But it's hard to have to answer for that murder with another, a terrible murder of which I am not guilty....It's a terrible accusation, gentlemen, a knockdown blow.
But who has killed my father, who has killed him?
Who can have killed him if I didn't?
It's marvellous, extraordinary, impossible."
"Yes, who can have killed him?" the investigating lawyer was beginning, but Ippolit Kirillovitch, the prosecutor, glancing at him, addressed Mitya.
"You need not worry yourself about the old servant, Grigory Vasilyevitch.
He is alive, he has recovered, and in spite of the terrible blows inflicted, according to his own and your evidence, by you, there seems no doubt that he will live, so the doctor says, at least."
"Alive?
He's alive?" cried Mitya, flinging up his hands.
His face beamed. "Lord, I thank Thee for the miracle Thou has wrought for me, a sinner and evildoer.
That's an answer to my prayer. I've been praying all night." And he crossed himself three times.
He was almost breathless.
"So from this Grigory we have received such important evidence concerning you, that-" The prosecutor would have continued, but Mitya suddenly jumped up from his chair.
"One minute, gentlemen, for God's sake, one minute; I will run to her-"
"Excuse me, at this moment it's quite impossible," Nikolay Parfenovitch almost shrieked. He, too, leapt to his feet.
Mitya was seized by the men with the metal plates, but he sat down of his own accord....
"Gentlemen, what a pity!
I wanted to see her for one minute only; I wanted to tell her that it has been washed away, it has gone, that blood that was weighing on my heart all night, and that I am not a murderer now!
Gentlemen, she is my betrothed!" he said ecstatically and reverently, looking round at them all. "Oh, thank you, gentlemen!
Oh, in one minute you have given me new life, new heart!...
That old man used to carry me in his arms, gentlemen. He used to wash me in the tub when I was a baby three years old, abandoned by everyone, he was like a father to me!..."
"And so you-" the investigating lawyer began.
"Allow me, gentlemen, allow me one minute more," interposed Mitya, putting his elbows on the table and covering his face with his hands. "Let me have a moment to think, let me breathe, gentlemen.
All this is horribly upsetting, horribly. A man is not a drum, gentlemen!"
"Drink a little more water," murmured Nikolay Parfenovitch.
Mitya took his hands from his face and laughed.
His eyes were confident. He seemed completely transformed in a moment.
His whole bearing was changed; he was once more the equal of these men, with all of whom he was acquainted, as though they had all met the day before, when nothing had happened, at some social gathering.
We may note in passing that, on his first arrival, Mitya had been made very welcome at the police captain's, but later, during the last month especially, Mitya had hardly called at all, and when the police captain met him, in the street, for instance, Mitya noticed that he frowned and only bowed out of politeness.
His acquaintance with the prosecutor was less intimate, though he sometimes paid his wife, a nervous and fanciful lady, visits of politeness, without quite knowing why, and she always received him graciously and had, for some reason, taken an interest in him up to the last.
He had not had time to get to know the investigating lawyer, though he had met him and talked to him twice, each time about the fair sex.
"You're a most skilful lawyer, I see, Nikolay Parfenovitch," cried Mitya, laughing gaily, "but I can help you now.
Oh, gentlemen, I feel like a new man, and don't be offended at my addressing you so simply and directly.
I'm rather drunk, too, I'll tell you that frankly.
I believe I've had the honour and pleasure of meeting you, Nikolay Parfenovitch, at my kinsman Miusov's. Gentlemen, gentlemen, I don't pretend to be on equal terms with you. I understand, of course, in what character I am sitting before you.
Oh, of course, there's a horrible suspicion... hanging over me... if Grigory has given evidence.... A horrible suspicion!
It's awful, awful, I understand that!
But to business, gentlemen, I am ready, and we will make an end of it in one moment; for, listen, listen, gentlemen!
Since I know I'm innocent, we can put an end to it in a minute.
Can't we?
Can't we?"