The Art of Interrogation — The Brothers Karamazov

The second ordeal shows how friendliness can be a blade. Nikolay Parfenovitch praises Mitya's readiness to answer; Ippolit Kirillovitch watches in cold silence, catching every twitch. Mitya asks for mutual confidence, then attacks the regulation method of petty questions about breakfast and spitting that unsettle a man before the great one lands.

He tells his story from Samsonov's trick and the watch sold for the journey, through jealousy, the ambush in Marya Kondratyevna's garden, Smerdyakov's reports, and Madame Hohlakov's door, refusing to name the creditor for his debt of honor while every slip goes into the record, including that he once said he would murder someone for three thousand. When the lawyers produce the pestle, his patience snaps: he dictates a sarcastic confession to the secretary, compares them to hunters in a nightmare, and quotes his verse about holding his peace.

They press the ten roubles pledged at Perhotin's, the forty-verst trip, and why he needed exactly three thousand. He senses the vital point approaching, tries to keep dignity on the footing of educated men, and flares when he feels they treat him like a peasant to be stunned after trivial questions. The chapter ends with him wounded but still talking, on the path toward the money secret he will not yet tell.