“You wanted to. Would you consent to explain what motives precisely led you to such a sentiment of hatred for your parent?”
“What is there to explain, gentlemen?” Mitya shrugged his shoulders sullenly, looking down. “I have never concealed my feelings. All the town knows about it—everyone knows in the tavern. Only lately I declared them in Father Zossima’s cell. … And the very same day, in the evening I beat my father. I nearly killed him, and I swore I’d come again and kill him, before witnesses. … Oh, a thousand witnesses! I’ve been shouting it aloud for the last month, anyone can tell you that! … The fact stares you in the face, it speaks for itself, it cries aloud, but feelings, gentlemen, feelings are another matter. You see, gentlemen”—Mitya frowned—“it seems to me that about feelings you’ve no right to question me. I know that you are bound by your office, I quite understand that, but that’s my affair, my private, intimate affair, yet … since I haven’t concealed my feelings in the past … in the tavern, for instance, I’ve talked to everyone, so … so I won’t make a secret of it now. You see, I understand, gentlemen, that there are terrible facts against me in this business. I told everyone that I’d kill him, and now, all of a sudden, he’s been killed. So it must have been me! Ha ha! I can make allowances for you, gentlemen, I can quite make allowances. I’m struck all of a heap myself, for who can have murdered him, if not I? That’s what it comes to, isn’t it? If not I, who can it be, who? Gentlemen, I want to know, I insist on knowing!” he exclaimed suddenly. “Where was he murdered? How was he murdered? How, and with what? Tell me,” he asked quickly, looking at the two lawyers.
“We found him in his study, lying on his back on the floor, with his head battered in,” said the prosecutor.
“That’s horrible!” Mitya shuddered and, putting his elbows on the table, hid his face in his right hand.