was undressed he felt somehow guilty in their presence, and was almost ready to believe himself that he was inferior to them, and that now they had a perfect right to despise him.
“When all are undressed, one is somehow not ashamed, but when one’s the only one undressed and everybody is looking, it’s degrading,” he kept repeating to himself, again and again.
“It’s like a dream, I’ve sometimes dreamed of being in such degrading positions.”
It was a misery to him to take off his socks. They were very dirty, and so were his underclothes, and now everyone could see it. And what was worse, he disliked his feet. All his life he had thought both his big toes hideous. He particularly loathed the coarse, flat, crooked nail on the right one, and now they would all see it.
Feeling intolerably ashamed made him, at once and intentionally, rougher. He pulled off his shirt, himself.
“Would you like to look anywhere else if you’re not ashamed to?”
“No, there’s no need to, at present.”
“Well, am I to stay naked like this?” he added savagely.
“Yes, that can’t be helped for the time. … Kindly sit down here for a while. You can wrap yourself in a quilt from the bed, and I … I’ll see to all this.”
All the things were shown to the witnesses. The report of the search was drawn up, and at last Nikolay Parfenovitch went out, and the clothes were carried out after him. Ippolit Kirillovitch went out, too. Mitya was left alone with the peasants, who stood in silence, never taking their eyes off him. Mitya wrapped himself up in the quilt. He felt cold. His bare feet stuck out, and he couldn’t