as clear as day: that officer, he knew about him, he knew
everything perfectly, he had known it from Grushenka herself, had known
that a letter had come from him a month before. So that for a month, for a
whole month, this had been going on, a secret from him, till the very
arrival of this new man, and he had never thought of him! But how could
he, how could he not have thought of him? Why was it he had forgotten this
officer, like that, forgotten him as soon as he heard of him? That was the
question that faced him like some monstrous thing. And he looked at this
monstrous thing with horror, growing cold with horror.

But suddenly, as gently and mildly as a gentle and affectionate child, he
began speaking to Fenya as though he had utterly forgotten how he had
scared and hurt her just now. He fell to questioning Fenya with an extreme
preciseness, astonishing in his position, and though the girl looked
wildly at his blood-stained hands, she, too, with wonderful readiness and
rapidity, answered every question as though eager to put the whole truth
and nothing but the truth before him. Little by little, even with a sort
of enjoyment, she began explaining every detail, not wanting to torment
him, but, as it were, eager to be of the utmost service to him. She
described the whole of that day, in great detail, the visit of Rakitin and
Alyosha, how she, Fenya, had stood on the watch, how the mistress had set
off, and how she had called out of the window to Alyosha to give him,
Mitya, her greetings, and to tell him "to remember for ever how she had
loved him for an hour."

Hearing of the message, Mitya suddenly smiled, and there was a flush of
color on his pale cheeks. At the same moment Fenya said to him, not a bit
afraid now to be inquisitive:

"Look at your hands, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. They're all over blood!"

"Yes," answered Mitya mechanically. He looked carelessly at his hands and
at once forgot them and Fenya's question.

He sank into silence again. Twenty minutes had passed since he had run in.
His first horror was over, but evidently some new fixed determination had
taken possession of him. He suddenly stood up, smiling dreamily.

"What has happened to you, sir?" said Fenya, pointing to his hands again.
She spoke compassionately, as though she felt very near to him now in his
grief. Mitya looked at his hands again.

"That's blood, Fenya," he said, looking at her with a strange expression.
"That's human blood, and my