Book XI

desperate haste, since he’d know for certain the notes must be in the envelope? No, if the robber had been someone like me, he’d simply have put the envelope straight in his pocket and got away with it as fast as he could. But it’d be quite different with Dmitri Fyodorovitch. He only knew about the envelope by hearsay; he had never seen it, and if he’d found it, for instance, under the mattress, he’d have torn it open as quickly as possible to make sure the notes were in it. And he’d have thrown the envelope down, without having time to think that it would be evidence against him. Because he was not an habitual thief and had never directly stolen anything before, for he is a gentleman born, and if he did bring himself to steal, it would not be regular stealing, but simply taking what was his own, for he’d told the whole town he meant to before, and had even bragged aloud before everyone that he’d go and take his property from Fyodor Pavlovitch. I didn’t say that openly to the prosecutor when I was being examined, but quite the contrary, I brought him to it by a hint, as though I didn’t see it myself, and as though he’d thought of it himself and I hadn’t prompted him; so that Mr. Prosecutor’s mouth positively watered at my suggestion.”