“By all means. Write down that I won’t say, that I won’t. Write that I should think it dishonorable to say. Ech! you can write it; you’ve nothing else to do with your time.”
“Allow me to caution you, sir, and to remind you once more, if you are unaware of it,” the prosecutor began, with a peculiar and stern impressiveness, “that you have a perfect right not to answer the questions put to you now, and we on our side have no right to extort an answer from you, if you decline to give it for one reason or another. That is entirely a matter for your personal decision. But it is our duty, on the other hand, in such cases as the present, to explain and set before you the degree of injury you will be doing yourself by refusing to give this or that piece of evidence. After which I will beg you to continue.”
“Gentlemen, I’m not angry … I …” Mitya muttered in a rather disconcerted tone. “Well, gentlemen, you see, that Samsonov to whom I went then …”
We will, of course, not reproduce his account of what is known to the reader already. Mitya was impatiently anxious not to omit the slightest detail. At the same time he was in a