“We will continue,” interposed Nikolay Parfenovitch. “So what was it that impelled you to this sentiment of hatred? You have asserted in public, I believe, that it was based upon jealousy?”
“Well, yes, jealousy. And not only jealousy.”
“Disputes about money?”
“Yes, about money, too.”
“There was a dispute about three thousand roubles, I think, which you claimed as part of your inheritance?”
“Three thousand! More, more,” cried Mitya hotly; “more than six thousand, more than ten, perhaps. I told everyone so, shouted it at them. But I made up my mind to let it go at three thousand. I was desperately in need of that three thousand … so the bundle of notes for three thousand that I knew he kept under his pillow, ready for Grushenka, I considered as simply stolen from me. Yes, gentlemen, I looked upon it as mine, as my own property. …”
The prosecutor looked significantly at the investigating lawyer, and had time to wink at him on the sly.
“We will return to that subject later,” said the lawyer promptly. “You will allow us to note that point and write it down; that you looked upon that money as your own property?”
“Write it down, by all means. I know that’s another fact that tells against me, but I’m not afraid of facts and I tell them against myself. Do you hear? Do you know, gentlemen, you take me for a different sort of man from what I am,” he added, suddenly gloomy and dejected. “You have to deal with a man of honor, a man of the highest honor; above all—don’t lose sight of it—a man who’s done a lot of nasty things, but has always been, and still is, honorable at bottom, in his inner being. I don’t know