I can't get Smerdyakov out of my head.
In fact, I, too, thought of Smerdyakov just now; but only for a second. Almost at once I thought,
'No, it's not Smerdyakov.'
It's not his doing, gentlemen."
"In that case is there anybody else you suspect?" Nikolay Parfenovitch inquired cautiously.
"I don't know anyone it could be, whether it's the hand of Heaven or of Satan, but... not Smerdyakov," Mitya jerked out with decision.
"But what makes you affirm so confidently and emphatically that it's not he?"
"From my conviction- my impression.
Because Smerdyakov is a man of the most abject character and a coward.
He's not a coward, he's the epitome of all the cowardice in the world walking on two legs.
He has the heart of a chicken.
When he talked to me, he was always trembling for fear I should kill him, though I never raised my hand against him.
He fell at my feet and blubbered; he has kissed these very boots, literally, beseeching me 'not to frighten him.'
Do you hear?
'Not to frighten him.' What a thing to say!
Why, I offered him money.
He's a puling chicken- sickly, epileptic, weak-minded- a child of eight could thrash him.
He has no character worth talking about.
It's not Smerdyakov, gentlemen. He doesn't care for money; he wouldn't take my presents. Besides, what motive had he for murdering the old man?
Why, he's very likely his son, you know- his natural son. Do you know that?"
"We have heard that legend.
But you are your father's son, too, you know; yet you yourself told everyone you meant to murder him."
"That's a thrust!
And a nasty, mean one, too!
I'm not afraid!
Oh, gentlemen, isn't it too base of you to say that to my face?
It's base, because I told you that myself.
I not only wanted to murder him, but I might have done it. And, what's more, I went out of my way to tell you of my own accord that I nearly murdered him.
But, you see, I didn't murder him; you see, my guardian angel saved me- that's what you've not taken into account. And that's why it's so base of you.
For I didn't kill him, I didn't kill him!
Do you hear, I did not kill him."
He was almost choking.
He had not been so moved before during the whole interrogation.
"And what has he told you, gentlemen- Smerdyakov, I mean?" he added suddenly, after a pause. "May I ask that question?"
"You may ask any question," the prosecutor replied with frigid severity, "any question relating to the facts of the case, and we are, I repeat, bound to answer every inquiry you make.
We found the servant Smerdyakov, concerning whom you inquire, lying unconscious in his bed, in an epileptic fit of extreme severity, that had recurred, possibly, ten times.
The doctor who was with us told us, after seeing him, that he may possibly not outlive the night."
"Well, if that's so, the devil must have killed him," broke suddenly from Mitya, as though until that moment had been asking himself:
"Was it Smerdyakov or not?"
"We will come back to this later," Nikolay Parfenovitch decided. "Now wouldn't you like to continue your statement?"
Mitya asked for a rest.
His request was courteously granted.
After resting, he went on with his story.
But he was evidently depressed.
He was exhausted, mortified, and morally shaken.
To make things worse the prosecutor exasperated him, as though intentionally, by vexatious interruptions about "trifling points."
Scarcely had Mitya described how, sitting on the wall, he had struck Grigory on the head with the pestle, while the old man had hold of his left leg, and how he then jumped down to look at him, when the prosecutor stopped him to ask him to describe exactly how he was sitting on the wall.
Mitya was surprised.
"Oh, I was sitting like this, astride, one leg on one side of the wall and one on the other."
"And the pestle?"