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But we shall return to that later.” After touching upon what had come out in the proceedings concerning the financial relations of father and son, and arguing again and again that it was utterly impossible, from the facts known, to determine which was in the wrong, Ippolit Kirillovitch passed to the evidence of the medical experts in reference to Mitya’s fixed idea about the three thousand owing him.
“Ivan doesn’t talk to me of Mitya’s case,” he said slowly. “He’s said very little to me these last two months. And whenever I go to see him, he seems vexed at my coming, so I’ve not been to him for the last three weeks. H’m!... if he was there a week ago ... there certainly has been a change in Mitya this week.”
In reply to the prosecutor’s question what grounds he had for asserting that Fyodor Pavlovitch had wronged his son in their money relations, Grigory, to the surprise of every one, had no proof at all to bring forward, but he still persisted that the arrangement with the son was “unfair,” and that he ought “to have paid him several thousand roubles more.” I must note, by the way, that the prosecutor asked this question whether Fyodor Pavlovitch had really kept back part of Mitya’s inheritance with marked persistence of all the witnesses who could be asked it, not excepting Alyosha and Ivan, but he obtained no exact information from any one; all alleged that it was so, but were unable to bring forward any distinct proof.
Katerina Ivanovna’s “returns” to Mitya, that is, her brief but violent revulsions of feeling in his favor, drove Ivan to perfect frenzy. Strange to say, until that last scene described above, when Alyosha came from Mitya to Katerina Ivanovna, Ivan had never once, during that month, heard her express a doubt of Mitya’s guilt, in spite of those “returns” that were so hateful to him.
On his return from seeing him, he was very mournful and dispirited; he suddenly began to feel that he was anxious for Mitya’s escape, not only to heal that sore place by sacrificing thirty thousand, but for another reason. “Is it because I am as much a murderer at heart?” he asked himself. Something very deep down seemed burning and rankling in his soul.
He positively disliked him; at most, felt sometimes a compassion for him, and even that was mixed with great contempt, almost repugnance. Mitya’s whole personality, even his appearance, was extremely unattractive to him. Ivan looked with indignation on Katerina Ivanovna’s love for his brother.
But he described minutely Mitya’s exploits in the “Metropolis,” all his compromising doings and sayings, and told the story of Captain Snegiryov’s “wisp of tow.” But even Rakitin could say nothing positive about Mitya’s inheritance, and confined himself to contemptuous generalities.
“I’ll just have a liqueur.... Have you any chocolates?” “Yes, there’s a heap of them on the table there. Choose one, my dear soul!” “I like one with vanilla ... for old people. He he!” “No, brother, we’ve none of that special sort.” “I say,” the old man bent down to whisper in Mitya’s ear. “That girl there, little Marya, he he! How would it be if you were to help me make friends with her?”
“Dmitri Fyodorovitch, dear sir, we see you once more!” “Stay, Trifon Borissovitch,” began Mitya, “first and foremost, where is she?” “Agrafena Alexandrovna?” The inn-keeper understood at once, looking sharply into Mitya’s face. “She’s here, too ...” “With whom? With whom?” “Some strangers. One is an official gentleman, a Pole, to judge from his speech.
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.
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