第214章

"Excuse me," cried Nikolay Parfenovitch, suddenly, noticing that the right cuff of Mitya's shirt was turned in, and covered with blood, "excuse me, what's that, blood?""Yes," Mitya jerked out.

"That is, what blood?...and why is the cuff turned in?"Mitya told him how he had got the sleeve stained with blood looking after Grigory, and had turned it inside when he was washing his hands at Perhotin's.

"You must take off your shirt, too.That's very important as material evidence."Mitya flushed red and flew into a rage.

"What, am I to stay naked?" he shouted.

"Don't disturb yourself.We will arrange something.And meanwhile take off your socks.""You're not joking? Is that really necessary?"Mitya's eyes flashed.

"We are in no mood for joking," answered Nikolay Parfenovitch sternly.

"Well, if I must-" muttered Mitya, and sitting down on the bed, he took off his socks.He felt unbearably awkward.All were clothed, while he was naked, and strange to say, when he was undressed he felt somehow guilty in their presence, and was almost ready to believe himself that he was inferior to them, and that now they had a perfect right to despise him.

"When all are undressed, one is somehow not ashamed, but when one's the only one undressed and everybody is looking, it's degrading," he kept repeating to himself, again and again."It's like a dream; I've sometimes dreamed of being in such degrading positions." It was a misery to him to take off his socks.They were very dirty, and so were his underclothes, and now everyone could see it.And what was worse, he disliked his feet.All his life he had thought both his big toes hideous.He particularly loathed the coarse, flat, crooked nail on the right one, and now they would all see it.

Feeling intolerably ashamed made him, at once and intentionally, rougher.He pulled off his shirt, himself.

"Would you like to look anywhere else if you're not ashamed to?""No, there's no need to, at present."

"Well, am I to stay naked like this?" he added savagely.

"Yes, that can't be helped for the time....Kindly sit down here for a while.You can wrap yourself in a quilt from the bed, and I...

I'll see to all this."

All the things were shown to the witnesses.The report of the search was drawn up, and at last Nikolay Parfenovitch went out, and the clothes were carried out after him.Ippolit Kirillovitch went out, too.Mitya was left alone with the peasants, who stood in silence, never taking their eyes off him.Mitya wrapped himself up in the quilt.He felt cold.His bare feet stuck out, and he couldn't pull the quilt over so as to cover them.Nikolay Parfenovitch seemed to be gone a long time, "an insufferable time.""He thinks of me as a puppy," thought Mitya, gnashing his teeth.

"That rotten prosecutor has gone, too, contemptuous no doubt, it disgusts him to see me naked!"Mitya imagined, however, that his clothes would be examined and returned to him.But what was his indignation when Nikolay Parfenovitch came back with quite different clothes, brought in behind him by a peasant.

"Here are clothes for you," he observed airily, seeming well satisfied with the success of his mission."Mr.Kalganov has kindly provided these for this unusual emergency, as well as a clean shirt.

Luckily he had them all in his trunk.You can keep your own socks and underclothes."Mitya flew into a passion.

"I won't have other people's clothes!" he shouted menacingly, "give me my own!""It's impossible!"

"Give me my own.Damn Kalganov and his clothes, too!"It was a long time before they could persuade him.But they succeeded somehow in quieting him down.They impressed upon him that his clothes, being stained with blood, must be "included with the other material evidence," and that they "had not even the right to let him have them now...taking into consideration the possible outcome of the case." Mitya at last understood this.He subsided into gloomy silence and hurriedly dressed himself.He merely observed, as he put them on, that the clothes were much better than his old ones, and that he disliked "gaining by the change." The coat was, besides, "ridiculously tight.Am I to be dressed up like a fool...for your amusement?"They urged upon him again that he was exaggerating, that Kalganov was only a little taller, so that only the trousers might be a little too long.But the coat turned out to be really tight in the shoulders.

"Damn it all! I can hardly button it," Mitya grumbled."Be so good as to tell Mr.Kalganov from me that I didn't ask for his clothes, and it's not my doing that they've dressed me up like a clown.""He understands that, and is sorry...I mean, not sorry to lend you his clothes, but sorry about all this business," mumbled Nikolay Parfenovitch.

"Confound his sorrow! Well, where now? Am I to go on sitting here?"He was asked to go back to the "other room." Mitya went in, scowling with anger, and trying to avoid looking at anyone.Dressed in another man's clothes he felt himself disgraced, even in the eyes of the peasants, and of Trifon Borissovitch, whose face appeared, for some reason, in the doorway, and vanished immediately."He's come to look at me dressed up," thought Mitya.He sat down on the same chair as before.He had an absurd nightmarish feeling, as though he were out of his mind.

"Well, what now? Are you going to flog me? That's all that's left for you," he said, clenching his teeth and addressing the prosecutor.He would not turn to Nikolay Parfenovitch, as though he disdained to speak to him.

"He looked too closely at my socks, and turned them inside out on purpose to show everyone how dirty they were- the scoundrel!""Well, now we must proceed to the examination of witnesses,"observed Nikolay Parfenovitch, as though in reply to Mitya's question.

"Yes," said the prosecutor thoughtfully, as though reflecting on something.