“But it was not with his fist,” cried Alyosha; “he pointed with his fingers and pointed here, very high up.... How could I have so completely forgotten it till this moment?”
The President asked Mitya what he had to say to the last witness’s evidence. Mitya confirmed it, saying that he had been pointing to the fifteen hundred roubles which were on his breast, just below the neck, and that that was, of course, the disgrace, “A disgrace I cannot deny, the most shameful act of my whole life,” cried Mitya. “I might have repaid it and didn’t repay it. I preferred to remain a thief in her eyes rather than give it back. And the most shameful part of it was that I knew beforehand I shouldn’t give it back! You are right, Alyosha! Thanks, Alyosha!”
So Alyosha’s cross‐examination ended. What was important and striking about it was that one fact at least had been found, and even though this were only one tiny bit of evidence, a mere hint at evidence, it did go some little way towards proving that the bag had existed and had contained fifteen hundred roubles and that the prisoner had not been lying at the preliminary inquiry when he alleged at Mokroe that those fifteen hundred roubles were “his own.” Alyosha was glad. With a flushed face he moved away to the seat assigned to him. He kept repeating to himself: “How was it I forgot? How could I have forgotten it? And what made it come back to me now?”
Katerina Ivanovna was called to the witness‐box. As she entered something extraordinary happened in the court. The ladies clutched their lorgnettes and opera‐glasses. There was a stir among the men: some stood up to get a better view. Everybody alleged afterwards that Mitya had turned “white as a sheet” on her entrance. All in black, she advanced modestly, almost timidly. It was impossible to tell from her face that she was agitated; but there was a resolute gleam in her dark and gloomy eyes. I may remark that many people mentioned that she looked particularly handsome at that moment. She spoke softly but clearly, so that she was heard all over the court. She expressed herself with composure, or at least tried to appear composed. The President began his examination discreetly and very respectfully, as though afraid to touch on “certain chords,” and showing consideration for her great unhappiness. But in answer to one of the first questions Katerina Ivanovna replied firmly that she had been formerly betrothed to the prisoner, “until he left me of his own accord...” she added quietly. When they asked her about the three thousand she had entrusted to Mitya to post to her relations, she said firmly, “I didn’t give him the money simply to send it off. I felt at the time that he was in great need of money.... I gave him the three thousand on the understanding that he should post it within the month if he cared to. There was no need for him to worry himself about that debt afterwards.”
I will not repeat all the questions asked her and all her answers in detail. I will only give the substance of her evidence.
“I was firmly convinced that he would send off that sum as soon as he got money from his father,” she went on. “I have never doubted his disinterestedness and his honesty ... his scrupulous honesty ... in money matters. He felt quite certain that he would receive the money from his father, and spoke to me several times about it. I knew he had a feud with his father and have always believed that he had been unfairly treated by his father. I don’t remember any threat uttered by him against his father. He certainly never uttered any such threat before me. If he had come to me at that time, I should have at once relieved his anxiety about that unlucky three thousand roubles, but he had given up coming to see me ... and I myself was put in such a position ... that I could not invite him.... And I had no right, indeed, to be exacting as to that money,” she added suddenly, and there was a ring of resolution in her voice. “I was once indebted to him for assistance in money for more than three thousand, and I took it, although I could not at that time foresee that I should ever be in a position to repay my debt.”
There was a note of defiance in her voice. It was then Fetyukovitch began his cross‐examination.
“Did that take place not here, but at the beginning of your acquaintance?” Fetyukovitch suggested cautiously, feeling his way, instantly scenting something favorable. I must mention in parenthesis that, though Fetyukovitch had been brought from Petersburg partly at the instance of Katerina Ivanovna herself, he knew nothing about the episode of the four thousand roubles given her by Mitya, and of her “bowing to the ground to him.” She concealed this from him and said nothing about it, and that was strange. It may be pretty certainly assumed that she herself did not know till the very last minute whether she would speak of that episode in the court, and waited for the inspiration of the moment.
No, I can never forget those moments. She began telling her story. She told everything, the whole episode that Mitya had told Alyosha, and her bowing to the ground, and her reason. She told about her father and her going to Mitya, and did not in one word, in a single hint, suggest that Mitya had himself, through her sister, proposed they should “send him Katerina Ivanovna” to fetch the money. She generously concealed that and was not ashamed to make it appear as though she had of her own impulse run to the young officer, relying on something ... to beg him for the money. It was something tremendous! I turned cold and trembled as I listened. The court was hushed, trying to catch each word. It was something unexampled. Even from such a self‐willed and contemptuously proud girl as she was, such an extremely frank avowal, such sacrifice, such self‐immolation, seemed incredible. And for what, for whom? To save the man who had deceived and insulted her and to help, in however small a degree, in saving him, by creating a strong impression in his favor. And, indeed, the figure of the young officer who, with a respectful bow to the innocent girl, handed her his last four thousand roubles—all he had in the world—was thrown into a very sympathetic and attractive light, but ... I had a painful misgiving at heart! I felt that calumny might come of it later (and it did, in fact, it did). It was repeated all over the town afterwards with spiteful laughter that the story was perhaps not quite complete—that is, in the statement that the officer had let the young lady depart “with nothing but a respectful bow.” It was hinted that something was here omitted.
“And even if nothing had been omitted, if this were the whole story,” the most highly respected of our ladies maintained, “even then it’s very doubtful whether it was creditable for a young girl to behave in that way, even for the sake of saving her father.”