“Misha ... here’s your Misha come! Misha, come here, my boy, drink this glass to Phœbus, the golden‐haired, of to‐morrow morn....”
“What are you giving it him for?” cried Pyotr Ilyitch, irritably.
“Yes, yes, yes, let me! I want to!”
“E—ech!”
Misha emptied the glass, bowed, and ran out.
“He’ll remember it afterwards,” Mitya remarked. “Woman, I love woman! What is woman? The queen of creation! My heart is sad, my heart is sad, Pyotr Ilyitch. Do you remember Hamlet? ‘I am very sorry, good Horatio! Alas, poor Yorick!’ Perhaps that’s me, Yorick? Yes, I’m Yorick now, and a skull afterwards.”
Pyotr Ilyitch listened in silence. Mitya, too, was silent for a while.
“What dog’s that you’ve got here?” he asked the shopman, casually, noticing a pretty little lap‐dog with dark eyes, sitting in the corner.
“It belongs to Varvara Alexyevna, the mistress,” answered the clerk. “She brought it and forgot it here. It must be taken back to her.”
“I saw one like it ... in the regiment ...” murmured Mitya dreamily, “only that one had its hind leg broken.... By the way, Pyotr Ilyitch, I wanted to ask you: have you ever stolen anything in your life?”