“What’s the matter? I was joking,” cried Mitya. “Damn it all! They are all like that,” he turned to Alyosha, nodding towards Rakitin’s hurriedly retreating figure. “He was sitting here, laughing and cheerful, and all at once he boils up like that. He didn’t even nod to you. Have you broken with him completely? Why are you so late? I’ve not been simply waiting, but thirsting for you the whole morning. But never mind. We’ll make up for it now.”
“Why does he come here so often? Surely you are not such great friends?” asked Alyosha. He, too, nodded at the door through which Rakitin had disappeared.
“Great friends with Rakitin? No, not as much as that. Is it likely—a pig like that? He considers I am … a blackguard. They can’t understand a joke either, that’s the worst of such people. They never understand a joke, and their souls are dry, dry and flat; they remind me of prison walls when I was first brought here. But he is a clever fellow, very clever. Well, Alexey, it’s all over with me now.”
He sat down on the bench and made Alyosha sit down beside him.
“Yes, the trial’s tomorrow. Are you so hopeless, brother?” Alyosha said, with an apprehensive feeling.
“What are you talking about?” said Mitya, looking at him rather uncertainly. “Oh, you mean the trial! Damn it all! Till now we’ve been talking of things that don’t matter, about this trial, but I haven’t said a word to you about the chief thing. Yes, the trial is tomorrow; but it wasn’t the trial I meant, when I said it was all over with me. Why do you look at me so critically?”
“What do you mean, Mitya?”
“Ideas, ideas, that’s all! Ethics! What is ethics?”
“Ethics?” asked Alyosha, wondering.