So he told them how Samsonov had made a fool of him two
days before. (He had completely realized by now that he had been fooled.)
The sale of his watch for six roubles to obtain money for the journey was
something new to the lawyers. They were at once greatly interested, and
even, to Mitya's intense indignation, thought it necessary to write the
fact down as a secondary confirmation of the circumstance that he had
hardly a farthing in his pocket at the time. Little by little Mitya began
to grow surly. Then, after describing his journey to see Lyagavy, the
night spent in the stifling hut, and so on, he came to his return to the
town. Here he began, without being particularly urged, to give a minute
account of the agonies of jealousy he endured on Grushenka's account.
He was heard with silent attention. They inquired particularly into the
circumstance of his having a place of ambush in Marya Kondratyevna's house
at the back of Fyodor Pavlovitch's garden to keep watch on Grushenka, and
of Smerdyakov's bringing him information. They laid particular stress on
this, and noted it down. Of his jealousy he spoke warmly and at length,
and though inwardly ashamed at exposing his most intimate feelings to
"public ignominy," so to speak, he evidently overcame his shame in order
to tell the truth. The frigid severity, with which the investigating
lawyer, and still more the prosecutor, stared intently at him as he told
his story, disconcerted him at last considerably.
"That boy, Nikolay Parfenovitch, to whom I was talking nonsense about
women only a few days ago, and that sickly prosecutor are not worth my
telling this to," he reflected mournfully. "It's ignominious. 'Be patient,
humble, hold thy peace.' " He wound up his reflections with that line. But
he pulled himself together to go on again. When he came to telling of his
visit to Madame Hohlakov, he regained his spirits and even wished to tell
a little anecdote of that lady which had nothing to do with the case. But
the investigating lawyer stopped him, and civilly suggested that he should
pass on to "more essential matters." At last, when he described his
despair and told them how, when he left Madame Hohlakov's, he thought that
he'd "get three thousand if he had to murder some one to do it," they
stopped him again and noted down that he had "meant to murder some one."
Mitya let them write it without protest. At last he reached the point in
his story when he learned that Grush
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