“Why?” smiled the prosecutor irritably. “What is there disgraceful, to your thinking, in your having set aside half of the three thousand you had discreditably, if you prefer, ‘disgracefully,’ appropriated? Your taking the three thousand is more important than what you did with it. And by the way, why did you do that—why did you set apart that half, for what purpose, for what object did you do it? Can you explain that to us?”
“Oh, gentlemen, the purpose is the whole point!” cried Mitya. “I put it aside because I was vile, that is, because I was calculating, and to be calculating in such a case is vile … and that vileness has been going on a whole month.”
“It’s incomprehensible.”
“I wonder at you. But I’ll make it clearer. Perhaps it really is incomprehensible. You see, attend to what I say. I appropriate three thousand entrusted to my honor, I spend it on a spree, say I spend it all, and next morning I go to her and say, ‘Katya, I’ve done wrong, I’ve squandered your three thousand,’ well, is that right? No, it’s not right—it’s dishonest and cowardly, I’m a beast, with no more self-control than a beast, that’s so,