“You ought not to write that down about ‘disgrace.’ I only told you that in the goodness of my heart. I needn’t have told you. I made you a present of it, so to speak, and you pounce upon it at once. Oh, well, write—write what you like,” he concluded, with scornful disgust. “I’m not afraid of you and I can still hold up my head before you.”
“And can’t you tell us the nature of that disgrace?” Nikolay Parfenovitch hazarded.
The prosecutor frowned darkly.
“No, no, c’est fini, don’t trouble yourselves. It’s not worth while soiling one’s hands. I have soiled myself enough through you as it is. You’re not worth it—no one is ... Enough, gentlemen. I’m not going on.”
This was said too peremptorily. Nikolay Parfenovitch did not insist further, but from Ippolit Kirillovitch’s eyes he saw that he had not given up hope.
“Can you not, at least, tell us what sum you had in your hands when you went into Mr. Perhotin’s—how many roubles exactly?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“You spoke to Mr. Perhotin, I believe, of having received three thousand from Madame Hohlakov.”
“Perhaps I did. Enough, gentlemen. I won’t say how much I had.”
“Will you be so good then as to tell us how you came here and what you have done since you arrived?”