in the noose. The woman
screeched her hardest; people ran in. 'So that's what you are up to!'
'Take me,' he says, 'to such-and-such a police officer; I'll confess
everything.' Well, they took him to that police station--that is
here--with a suitable escort. So they asked him this and that, how old
he is, 'twenty-two,' and so on. At the question, 'When you were working
with Dmitri, didn't you see anyone on the staircase at such-and-such a
time?'--answer: 'To be sure folks may have gone up and down, but I did
not notice them.' 'And didn't you hear anything, any noise, and so on?'
'We heard nothing special.' 'And did you hear, Nikolay, that on the same
day Widow So-and-so and her sister were murdered and robbed?' 'I
never knew a thing about it. The first I heard of it was from Afanasy
Pavlovitch the day before yesterday.' 'And where did you find the
ear-rings?' 'I found them on the pavement.' 'Why didn't you go to work
with Dmitri the other day?' 'Because I was drinking.' 'And where were
you drinking?' 'Oh, in such-and-such a place.' 'Why did you run away
from Dushkin's?' 'Because I was awfully frightened.' 'What were
you frightened of?' 'That I should be accused.' 'How could you be
frightened, if you felt free from guilt?' Now, Zossimov, you may not
believe me, that question was put literally in those words. I know it
for a fact, it was repeated to me exactly! What do you say to that?"

"Well, anyway, there's the evidence."

"I am not talking of the evidence now, I am talking about that question,
of their own idea of themselves. Well, so they squeezed and squeezed
him and he confessed: 'I did not find it in the street, but in the flat
where I was painting with Dmitri.' 'And how was that?' 'Why, Dmitri and
I were painting there all day, and we were just getting ready to go, and
Dmitri took a brush and painted my face, and he ran off and I after him.
I ran after him, shouting my hardest, and at the bottom of the stairs I
ran right against the porter and some gentlemen--and how many gentlemen
were there I don't remember. And the porter swore at me, and the other
porter swore, too, and the porter's wife came out, and swore at us, too;
and a gentleman came into the entry with a lady, and he swore at us,
too, for Dmitri and I lay right across the way. I got hold of Dmitri's
hair and knocked him down and began beating him. And Dmitri, too, caught
me by the hair and began beating me. But we did it all not for temper
but in a fri