 Section 87 of the Brothers Kamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Translated by Constance Garnet. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Bruce Peary. Book XII. CHAPTER VIII. A TREATUS ON SMERGIKOV To begin with, what was the source of this suspicion? Ipolit Karylovich began. The first person who cried out that Smergikov had committed the murder was the prisoner himself at the moment of his arrest, yet from that time to this he had not brought forward a single fact to confirm the charge nor the faintest suggestion of a fact. The charge is confirmed by three persons only—the two brothers of the prisoner and Madame Stetlov. The elder of these brothers expressed his suspicions only to-day, when he was undoubtedly suffering from brain fever. But we know that for the last two months he has completely shared our conviction of his brother's guilt and did not attempt to combat that idea, but of that later. The younger brother has admitted that he has not the slightest fact to support his notion of Smergikov's guilt, and has only been led to that conclusion from the prisoner's own words and the expression of his face. Yes, that astounding piece of evidence has been brought forward twice to-day by him. But Ernst Jettlov was even more astounding. What the prisoner tells you you must believe he is not a man to tell a lie. That is all the evidence against Smergikov produced by these three persons, who were all deeply concerned in a prisoner's fate. And yet the theory of Smergikov's guilt has been noise-the-boat, has been and is still maintained. Is it credible? Is it conceivable? Here Ipalit Kurilevich thought it necessary to describe the personality of Smergikov, who had cut short his life in a fit of insanity. He depicted him as a man of weak intellect, with a smattering of education, who had been thrown off his balance by philosophical ideas above his level and certain modern theories of duty, which he learnt in practice from the reckless life of his master, who was also perhaps his father, Fyodor Pavlovich, and, theoretically, from various strange philosophical conversations with his master's elder son, Yvon Fyodorovich, who readily indulged in this diversion, probably feeling dull or wishing to amuse himself at the valet's expense. He spoke to me himself of his spiritual condition during the last few days at his father's house, Ipalit Kurilevich explained, but others, too, have borne witness to it, the prisoner himself, his brother, and the servant Grigori, that is, all who knew him well. Moreover, Smergikov, whose health was shaken by his attacks of epilepsy, had not the courage of a chicken. He fell at my feet and kissed them, the prisoner himself has told us, before he realized how damaging such a statement was to himself. He is an epileptic chicken, he declared about him in his characteristic language, and the prisoner chose him for his confidant, we have his own word for it, and he frightened him into consenting at last to act as a spy for him. In that capacity he deceived his master, revealing to the prisoner the existence of the envelope with the notes in it and the signals by means of which he could get into the house. How could he help telling him, indeed? He would have killed me, I could see that he would have killed me, he said at the inquiry, trembling and shaking even before us, though his tormentor was by that time arrested, and could do him no harm. He suspected me at every instant, in fear and trembling I hastened to tell him every secret to pacify him, that he might see that I had not deceived him and let me off alive. Those are his own words, I wrote them down and I remember them. When he began shouting at me I would fall on my knees. He was naturally very honest and enjoyed the complete confidence of his master, ever since he had restored him some money he had lost. So it may be supposed that the poor fellow suffered pangs of remorse at having deceived his master, whom he loved as his benefactor. Persons severely afflicted with epilepsy are, so the most skillful doctors tell us, always prone to continual and morbid self-reproach. They worry over their wickedness, they are tormented by pangs of conscience often entirely without cause, they exaggerate and often invent all sorts of faults and crimes, and here we have a man of that type who had really been driven to wrongdoing by terror and intimidation. He had, besides, a strong presentiment that something terrible would be the outcome of the situation that was developing before his eyes. When Yvon Fyodorovich was leaving for Moscow just before the catastrophe, Smirnikov besought him to remain, though he was too timid to tell him plainly what he feared. He confined himself to hints, but his hints were not understood. It must be observed that he looked on Yvon Fyodorovich as a protector, whose presence in the house was a guarantee that no harm would come to pass. For the phrase in Dmitry Karamazov's drunken letter, I shall kill the old man if only Yvon goes away. So Yvon Fyodorovich's presence seemed to everyone a guarantee of peace and order in the house. But he went away, and within an hour of his young master's departure Smirnikov was taken with an epileptic fit. But that's perfectly intelligible. Here I must mention that Smirnikov, oppressed by terror and despair of a sort, had felt during those last few days that one of the fits from which he had suffered before at moments of strain might be coming upon him again. The day and hour of such an attack cannot, of course, be foreseen, but every epileptic can feel beforehand that he is likely to have one. So the doctors tell us. And so, as soon as Yvon Fyodorovich had driven out of the yard, Smirnikov, depressed by his lonely and unprotected position, went to the cellar. He went down the stairs wondering if he would have a fit or not, and what if it were to come upon him at once. And that very apprehension, that very wonder, brought on the spasm in his throat that always precedes such attacks, and he fell unconscious into the cellar. And in this perfectly natural occurrence, people try to detect a suspicion, a hint that he was shamming an attack, on purpose. But if it were on purpose, the question arises at once. What was his motive? What was he reckoning on? What was he aiming at? I say nothing about medicine. Science I am told may go astray. The doctors were not able to discriminate between the counterfeit and the real. That may be so, but answer me one question. What motive had he for such a counterfeit? Could he, had he been plotting the murder, have desired to attract the attention of the household by having a fit just before? We see, gentlemen of the jury, on the night of the murder there were five persons in Fyodor Pavlovitch's. Fyodor Pavlovitch himself, but he did not kill himself, that's evident. Then his servant, Grigory, but he was almost killed himself. The third person was Grigory's wife, Marfa Ignachivna, but it would be simply shameful to imagine her murdering her master. Two persons are left, the prisoner and Smerjakov. But if we are to believe the prisoner's statement that he is not the murderer, then Smerjakov must have been, for there is no other alternative, no one else can be found. That is what accounts for the artful, astounding accusation against the unhappy idiot who committed suicide yesterday. Had a shadow of suspicion rested on any one else, had there been any sixth person, I am persuaded that even the prisoner would have been ashamed to accuse Smerjakov and would have accused that sixth person, for to charge Smerjakov with that murder is perfectly absurd. Gentlemen, let us lay aside psychology, let us lay aside medicine, let us even lay aside logic, let us turn only to the facts and see what the facts tell us. If Smerjakov killed him, how did he do it? Alone or with the assistance of the prisoner? Let us consider the first alternative, that he did it alone. If he had killed him it must have been with some object, for some advantage to himself, but not having a shadow of the motive that the prisoner had for the murder, hatred, jealousy, and so on, Smerjakov could only have murdered him for the sake of gain, in order to appropriate the three thousand rubles he had seen his master put in the envelope. And yet he tells another person, and a person most closely interested, that is, the prisoner, everything about the money and the signals, where the envelope lay, what was written on it, what it was tied up with, and above all told him of those signals by which he could enter the house. Did he do this simply to betray himself, or to invite to the same enterprise one who would be anxious to get that envelope for himself? Yes, I shall be told, but he betrayed it from fear. But how do you explain this? A man who could conceive such an audacious savage act and carry it out, tells facts which are known to no one else in the world, and which, if he held his tongue, no one would ever have guessed. No, however cowardly he might be, if he had plotted such a crime nothing would have induced him to tell anyone about the envelope and the signals, for that was as good as betraying himself beforehand. He would have invented something, he would have told some lie if he had been forced to give information, but he would have been silent about that. For, on the other hand, if he had said nothing about the money, but had committed the murder and stolen the money, no one in the world could have charged him with murder for the sake of robbery, since no one but he had seen the money, no one but he knew of its existence in the house. Even if he had been accused of the murder it could only have been thought that he had committed it from some other motive. But since no one had observed any such motive in him beforehand, and everyone saw, on the contrary, that his master was fond of him and honoured him with his confidence, he would, of course, have been the last to be suspected. People would have suspected first the man who had a motive, a man who had himself declared he had such motives, who had made no secret of it, they would, in fact, have suspected the son of the murdered man, Dmitry Fyodorovich. Had Smarjakov killed and robbed him, and the son being accused of it, that would, of course, have suited Smarjakov. Yet are we to believe that, though plotting the murder, he told that son, Dmitry, about the money, the envelope, and the signals? Is that logical? Is that clear? When the day of the murder planned by Smarjakov came we have him falling downstairs in a feigned fit, with what object? In the first place that Grigory, who had been intending to take his medicine, might put it off and remain on guard, seeing there was no one to look after the house. And in the second place, I suppose, that his master, seeing that there was no one to guard him and in terror of a visit from his son, might redouble his vigilance and precaution. And most of all, I suppose, that he, Smarjakov, disabled by the fit, might be carried from the kitchen where he always slept, apart from all the rest, and where he could go in and out as he liked, to Grigory's room at the other end of the lodge where he was always put, shut off by a screen three paces from their own bed. This was the immemorial custom established by his master and the kind-hearted Martha Ignatyevna whenever he had a fit. There, lying behind the screen, he would most likely, to keep up the sham, have begun groaning, and so keeping them awake all night, as Grigory and his wife testified, and all this we are to believe, that he might more conveniently get up and murder his master. But I shall be told that he shammed illness on purpose, that he might not be suspected, and that he told the prisoner of the money and the signals to tempt him to commit the murder, and when he had murdered him and had gone away with the money, making a noise most likely and waking people, Smarjakov got up, am I to believe, and went in, what for, to murder his master a second time, and carry off the money that had already been stolen? Gentlemen, are you laughing? I am ashamed to put forward such suggestions. But incredible as it seems, that's just what the prisoner alleges. When he had left the house, had knocked Grigory down and raised an alarm, he tells us Smarjakov got up, went in, and murdered his master and stole the money. I won't press the point that Smarjakov could hardly have reckoned on this beforehand, and have foreseen that the furious and exasperated son would simply come to peep in respectfully, though he knew the signals, and beat a retreat, leaving Smarjakov his booty. Gentlemen of the jury, I put this question to you in earnest. When was the moment when Smarjakov could have committed his crime? Name that moment, or you can't accuse him. But perhaps the fit was a real one. The sick man suddenly recovered, heard a shout, and went out. Well, what then? He looked about him and said, Why not go and kill the master? And how did he know what had happened since he had been lying unconscious till that moment? But there's a limit to these flights of fancy. Quite so, some astute people will tell me. But what if they were in agreement? What if they murdered him together and shared the money? What then? A weighty question, truly, and the facts to confirm it are astounding. One commits the murder and takes all the trouble, while his accomplice lies on one side, shaming a fit, apparently to arouse suspicion in everyone, alarm in his master, and alarm in Grigori. It would be interesting to know what motives could have induced the two accomplices to form such an insane plan. But perhaps it was not a case of active complicity on Smarjakov's part, but only of passive acquiescence. Perhaps Smarjakov was intimidated and agreed not to prevent the murder, and for seeing that he would be blamed for letting his master be murdered without screaming for help or resisting, he may have obtained permission from Dmitry Karamazov to get out of the way by shaming a fit. You may murder him as you like, it's nothing to me. But as this attack of Smarjakov's was bound to throw the household into confusion, Dmitry Karamazov could never have agreed to such a plan. I will waive that point, however. Supposing that he did agree, it would still follow that Dmitry Karamazov is the murderer and the instigator, and Smarjakov is only a passive accomplice, and not even an accomplice, but merely acquiesced against his will through terror. But what do we see? As soon as he is arrested the prisoner instantly throws all the blame on Smarjakov, not accusing him of being his accomplice, but of being himself the murderer. He did it alone, he says. He murdered and robbed him. It was the work of his hands. Strange sort of accomplices who begin to accuse one another at once, and think of the risk for Karamazov. After committing the murder while his accomplice lay in bed, he throws the blame on the invalid, who might well have resented it and in self-preservation might well have confessed the truth. For he might well have seen that the court would at once judge how far he was responsible, so he might well have reckoned that if he were punished it would be far less severely than the real murderer. But in that case he would have been certain to make a confession, yet he has not done so. Smarjakov never hinted at their complicity, though the actual murderer persisted in accusing him and declaring that he had committed the crime alone. What's more, Smarjakov at the inquiry volunteered the statement that it was he who had told the prisoner of the envelope of notes and of the signals, and that, but for him, he would have known nothing about them. If he had really been a guilty accomplice, would he so readily have made this statement at the inquiry? On the contrary, he would have tried to conceal it, to distort the facts or minimize them. But he was far from distorting or minimizing them. No one but an innocent man, who had no fear of being charged with complicity, could have acted as he did. And in a fit of melancholy arising from his disease and this catastrophe, he hanged himself yesterday. He left a note, written in his peculiar language, I destroy myself of my own will and inclination so as to throw no blame on anyone. What would it have cost him to add, I am the murderer, not Karamazov, but that he did not add? Did his conscience lead him to suicide and not, to avowing his guilt? And what followed? Notes for three thousand rubles were brought into the court just now, and we were told that they were the same that lay in the envelope now on the table before us, and that the witness had received them from Smarjakov the day before. But I need not recall the painful scene, though I will make one or two comments, selecting such trivial ones as might not be obvious at first sight to everyone, and so may be overlooked. In the first place, Smarjakov must have given back the money and hanged himself yesterday from remorse, and only yesterday he confessed his guilt to Ivan Karamazov as the latter informs us. If it were not so, indeed, why should Yvon Fyodorovich have kept silence till now? And so, if he has confessed, then why, I ask again, did he not avow the whole truth in the last letter he left behind, knowing that the innocent prisoner had to face this terrible ordeal the next day? The money alone is no proof of that. A week ago, quite by chance, the fact came to the knowledge of myself and two other persons in this court that Yvon Fyodorovich had sent two five percent coupons of five thousand each, that is, ten thousand in all, to the chief town of the province to be changed. I only mention this to point out that anyone may have money, and that it can't be proved that these notes are the same as were in Fyodor Pavlovich's envelope. Ivan Karamazov, after receiving yesterday a communication of such importance from the real murderer, did not stir. Why didn't he report it at once? Why did he put it all off till morning? I think I have a right to conjecture why. His health had been giving way for a week past. He had admitted to a doctor and to his most intimate friends that he was suffering from hallucinations and seeing phantoms of the dead. He was on the eve of the attack of brain fever, by which he has been stricken down to-day. In this condition he suddenly heard of Smirjakov's death and at once reflected, the man is dead. I can throw the blame on him and save my brother. I have money. I will take a roll of notes and say that Smirjakov gave them me before his death. You will say that was dishonorable. It's dishonorable to slander even the dead and even to save the brother. True, but what if he slandered him unconsciously? What if, finally unhinged by the sudden news of the valet's death, he imagined it really was so? You saw the recent scene. You have seen the witness's condition. He was standing up and was speaking, but where was his mind? Then followed the document, the prisoner's letter written two days before the crime and containing a complete program of the murder. Why, then, are we looking for any other program? The crime was committed precisely according to this program and by no other than the writer of it. Yes, gentlemen of the jury, it went off without a hitch. He did not run respectfully and timidly away from his father's window, though he was firmly convinced that the object of his affections was with him. No, that is absurd and unlikely. He went in and murdered him. Most likely he killed him in anger, burning with resentment as soon as he looked on his hated rival. But having killed him, probably with one blow of the brass pestle, and having convinced himself after careful search that she was not there, he did not, however, forget to put his hand under the pillow and take out the envelope, the torn cover of which lies now on the table before us. I mention this fact that you may note one, to my thinking, very characteristic circumstance. Had he been an experienced murderer, and had he committed the murder for the sake of gain only, would he have left the torn envelope on the floor, as it was found, beside the corpse? Had it been Smirjakov, for instance, murdering his master to rob him, he would have simply carried away the envelope with him, without troubling himself to open it over his victim's corpse, for he would have known for certain that the notes were in the envelope, they had been put in and sealed up in his presence, and had he taken the envelope with him, no one would ever have known of the robbery. I ask you, gentlemen, would Smirjakov have behaved in that way? Would he have left the envelope on the floor? No, this was the action of a frantic murderer, a murderer who was not a thief and had never stolen before that day, who snatched the notes from under the pillow, not like a thief stealing them, but as though seizing his own property from the thief who had stolen it, for that was the idea which had become almost an insane obsession in Dmitry Karamazov in regard to that money, and pouncing upon the envelope which he had never seen before, he tore it open to make sure whether the money was in it, and ran away with the money in his pocket, even forgetting to consider that he had left an astounding piece of evidence against himself in that torn envelope on the floor. All because it was Karamazov, not Smirjakov. He didn't think, he didn't reflect, and how should he? He ran away. He heard behind him the servant cry out, the old man caught him, stopped him, and was felled to the ground by the brass pestle. The prisoner, moved by Pity, leapt down to look at him. Would you believe it? He tells us that he leapt down out of Pity, out of compassion, to see whether he could do anything for him. Was that a moment to show compassion? No, he jumped down simply to make certain whether the only witness of his crime were dead or alive. Any other feeling, any other motive, would be unnatural. Note that he took trouble over Grigori, wiped his head with his handkerchief, and, convincing himself he was dead, he ran to the house of his mistress, dazed, and covered with blood. How was it he never thought that he was covered with blood, and would be at once detected? But the prisoner himself assures us that he did not even notice that he was covered with blood. That may be believed. That is very possible. That always happens at such moments with criminals. On one point they will show diabolical cunning, while another will escape them altogether. But he was thinking at that moment of one thing only. Where was she? He wanted to find out at once where she was, so he ran to her lodging, and learned an unexpected and astounding piece of news. She had gone off to Makro to meet her first lover. CHAPTER IX The Galloping Troika, the End of the Prosecutor's Speech Hippolyt Kirilevich had chosen the historical method of exposition beloved by all nervous orators, who find in its limitation a check on their own eager rhetoric. At this moment in his speech he went off into a dissertation on Grushenko's first lover, and brought forward several interesting thoughts on this theme. Karamazov, who had been frantically jealous of everyone, collapsed, so to speak, and effaced himself at once before this first lover. What makes it all the little more strange is that he seems to have hardly thought of this formidable rival. But he had looked upon him as a remote danger, and Karamazov always lives in the present. Possibly he regarded him as a fiction. But his wounded heart grasped instantly that the woman had been concealing this new rival and deceiving him because he was anything but a fiction to her, because he was the one hope of her life. Grasping this instantly he resigned himself. Gentlemen of the jury, I cannot help dwelling on this unexpected trait in the prisoner's character. He suddenly evinces an irresistible desire for justice, a respect for woman and a recognition of her right to love, and all this at the very moment when he had stained his hands with his father's blood for her sake. It is true that the blood he had shed was already crying out for vengeance, for after having ruined his soul and his life in this world he was forced to ask himself at that same instant what he was and what he could be now to her, to that being, dearer to him than his own soul, in comparison with that former lover who had returned penitent, with new love, to the woman he had once betrayed, with honourable offers, with the promise of a reformed and happy life, and he, luckless man, what could he give her now, what could he offer her? Karamazov felt all this, knew that always were barred to him by his crime and that he was a criminal under sentence and not a man with life before him. This thought crushed him, and so he instantly flew to one frantic plan which, to a man of Karamazov's character, must have appeared the one inevitable way out of his terrible position. That way out was suicide. He ran for the pistols he had left in pledge with his friend Perhotin, and on the way, as he ran, he pulled out of his pocket the money, for the sake of which he had stained his hands with his father's gore. Oh, now he needed money more than ever. Karamazov would die, Karamazov would shoot himself, and it should be remembered. To be sure he was a poet, and had burnt the candle at both ends all his life. To her, to her, and there, oh there, I will give a feast to the whole world, such as never was before, that will be remembered and talked of long after. In the midst of shouts of wild merriment, reckless gypsy songs and dances, I shall raise the glass and drink to the woman I adore, and her newfound happiness. And then, on the spot, at her feet, I shall dash out my brains before her and punish myself. She will remember, Misha Karamazov, sometimes. She will see how Misha loved her. She will feel for Misha. Here we see, in excess, a love of effect, a romantic despair and sentimentality, and the wild recklessness of the Karamazovs. Yes, but there is something else, gentlemen of the jury, something that cries out in the soul, throbs incessantly in the mind, and poisons the heart unto death. That something is conscience, gentlemen of the jury, its judgment, its terrible torments. The pistol will settle everything. The pistol is the only way out. But beyond. I don't know whether Karamazov wondered, at that moment, what lies beyond, and whether Karamazov could, like Hamlet, wonder what lies beyond. No, gentlemen of the jury, they have their Hamlets, but we still have our Karamazovs. Here Ipalit Karilevich drew a minute picture of Misha's preparations, the scene at Perhotin's, at the shop, with the drivers. He quoted numerous words and actions confirmed by witnesses, and the picture made a terrible impression on the audience. The guilt of this harassed and desperate man stood out clear and convincing when the facts were brought together. What need had he of precaution? Two or three times he almost confessed, hinted at it, all but spoke out. Then followed the evidence given by witnesses. He even cried out to the peasant who drove him, Do you know you are driving a murderer? But it was impossible for him to speak out. He had to get to Makro and there to finish his romance. But what was awaiting the luckless man? Almost from the first minute at Makro, he saw that his invincible rival was perhaps by no means so invincible, that the toast to their newfound happiness was not desired and would not be acceptable. But you know the facts, gentlemen of the jury, from the preliminary inquiry. Karamazov's triumph over his rival was complete, and his soul passed into quite a new phase, the most terrible phase through which his soul has passed, or will pass. One may say with certainty, gentlemen of the jury, the prosecutor continued, that outraged nature and the criminal heart bring their own vengeance more completely than any earthly justice. What's more, justice and punishment on earth positively alleviate the punishment of nature, and are indeed essential to the soul of the criminal at such moments as its salvation from despair. For I cannot imagine the horror and moral suffering of Karamazov when he learnt that she loved him, that for his sake she had rejected her first lover, that she was summoning him, Mitcha, to a new life, that she was promising him happiness, and when? When everything was over for him, and nothing was possible. By the way, I will note in parenthesis a point of importance for the light it throws on the prisoner's position at the moment. This woman, this love of his, had been till the last moment, till the very instant of his arrest, a being unattainable, passionately desired by him but unattainable. Yet why did he not shoot himself then? Why did he relinquish his design and even forget where his pistol was? It was just that passionate desire for love and the hope of satisfying it that restrained him. Throughout their revels he kept close to his adored mistress, who was at the banquet with him, and was more charming and fascinating to him than ever. He did not leave her side, abasing himself in his homage before her. His passion might well, for a moment, stifle not only the fear of arrest, but even the torments of conscience. For a moment, oh, only for a moment. I can picture the state of mind of the criminal hopelessly ensleeved by these influences. First, the influence of drink, of noise and excitement, of the thud of the dance and the scream of the song, and of her flushed with wine, singing and dancing and laughing to him. Secondly, the hope in the background that the fatal end might still be far off, that not till next morning at least they would come and take him. So he had a few hours, and that's much, very much. In a few hours one can think of many things. I imagine that he felt something like what criminals feel when they are being taken to the scaffold. They have another long, long street to pass down, and at walking pace, past thousands of people. Then there will be a turning into another street, and only at the end of that street, the dread place of execution. I fancy that at the beginning of the journey, the condemned man sitting on his shameful cart, must feel that he has infinite life still before him. The houses recede, the cart moves on. Oh, that's nothing. It's still far to the turning into the second street, and he still looks boldly to right and to left at those thousands of callously curious people with their eyes fixed on him, and he still fancies that he is just such a man as they. But now the turning comes to the next street. Oh, that's nothing, nothing. There's still a whole street before him, and however many houses have been passed, he will still think there are many left. And so to the very end, to the very scaffold. This, I imagine, is how it was with Karamazov then. They've not had time yet, he must have thought. I may still find some way out. Oh, there's still time to make some plan of defense. And now, now, she is so fascinating. His soul was full of confusion and dread, but he managed, however, to put aside half his money and hide it somewhere. I cannot otherwise explain the disappearance of quite half of the three thousand he had just taken from his father's pillow. He had been in Makro more than once before. He had caroused there for two days together already. He knew the old big house with all its passages and outbuildings. I imagine that part of the money was hidden in that house not long before the arrest, in some crevice under some floor, in some corner under the roof. With what object, I shall be asked. Why, the catastrophe may take place at once, of course. He hadn't yet considered how to meet it. He hadn't the time. His head was throbbing, and his heart was with her. But money, money was indispensable in any case. With money a man is always a man. Perhaps such foresight at such a moment may strike you as unnatural? But he assures us himself that a month before at a critical and exciting moment he had halved his money and sewn it up in a little bag. And though that was not true, as we shall prove directly, it shows the idea was a familiar one to Karamazov. He had contemplated it. What's more, when he declared at the inquiry that he had put fifteen hundred rubles in a bag, which never existed, he may have invented that little bag on the inspiration of the moment because he had two hours before divided his money and hidden half of it at Mokro till morning in case of emergency, simply not to have it on himself. Two extremes, gentlemen of the jury, remember that Karamazov can contemplate two extremes and both at once. We have looked in the house, but we haven't found the money. It may still be there, or it may have disappeared next day and be in the prisoner's hands now. In any case, he was at her side, on his knees before her, she was lying on the bed, he had his hands stretched out to her, and he had so entirely forgotten everything that he did not even hear the men coming to arrest him. He hadn't time to prepare any line of defence in his mind. He was caught unawares and confronted with his judges, the arbiters of his destiny. Gentlemen of the jury, there are moments in the execution of our duties when it is terrible for us to face a man, terrible on his account too. The moments of contemplating that animal fear, when the criminal sees that all is lost, but still struggles, still means to struggle. The moments when every instinct of self-preservation rises up in him at once, and he looks at you with questioning and suffering eyes, studies you, your face, your thoughts, uncertain on which side you will strike, and his distracted mind frames thousands of plans in an instant, but he is still afraid to speak, afraid of giving himself away. This purgatory of the spirit, this animal thirst for self-preservation, these humiliating moments of the human soul, are awful, and sometimes arouse horror and compassion for the criminal, even in the lawyer. And this was what we all witnessed then. At first he was thunderstruck, and in his terror dropped some very compromising phrases. Blood, I've deserved it. But he quickly restrained himself. He had not prepared what he was to say, what answer he was to make. He had nothing but a bare denial ready. I am not guilty of my father's death. That was his fence for the moment, and behind it he hoped to throw up a barricade of some sort. His first compromising exclamations he hastened to explain, by declaring that he was responsible for the death of the servant Grigori only. Of that bloodshed I am guilty. But who has killed my father, gentlemen? Who has killed him? Who can have killed him if not I? Do you hear? He asked us that. Us, who had come to ask him that question. Do you hear that phrase uttered with such premature haste? If not I. The animal cunning, the naivete, the Karamazov impatience of it. I didn't kill him, and you mustn't think I did. I wanted to kill him, gentlemen. I wanted to kill him, he hastens to admit. He was in a hurry, in a terrible hurry. But still I am not guilty, it is not I murdered him. He concedes to us that he wanted to murder him, as though to say, you can see for yourselves how truthful I am, so you'll believe all the sooner that I didn't murder him. Oh, in such cases the criminal is often amazingly shallow and credulous. At that point one of the lawyers asked him, as it were incidentally the most simple question, wasn't it Smirjakov killed him? Then, as we expected, he was horribly angry at our having anticipated him and caught him unawares, before he had time to pave the way to choose and snatch the moment when it would be most natural to bring in Smirjakov's name. He rushed it once to the other extreme, as he always does, and began to assure us that Smirjakov could not have killed him, was not capable of it. But don't believe him, that was only his cunning. He didn't really give up the idea of Smirjakov. On the contrary, he meant to bring him forward again, for indeed he had no one else to bring forward, but he would do that later, because for the moment that line was spoiled for him. He would bring him forward, perhaps next day, or even a few days later, choosing an opportunity to cry out to us. You know I was more skeptical about Smirjakov than you, you remember that yourselves, but now I am convinced he killed him, he must have done. And for the present he falls back upon a gloomy and irritable denial. Impatience and anger prompted him, however, to the most inept and incredible explanation of how he looked into his father's window, and how he respectfully withdrew. The worst of it was that he was unaware of the position of affairs of the evidence given by Grigori. We proceeded to search him. The search angered, but encouraged him. The whole three thousand had not been found on him, only half of it, and no doubt only at that moment of angry silence the fiction of the little bag first occurred to him. No doubt he was conscious himself of the improbability of the story and strove painfully to make it sound more likely, to weave it into a romance that would sound plausible. In such cases the first duty, the chief task of the investigating lawyers, is to prevent the criminal being prepared to pounce upon him unexpectedly so that he may blurt out his cherished ideas in all their simplicity, improbability, and inconsistency. The criminal can only be made to speak by the sudden and apparently incidental communication of some new fact, of some circumstance of great importance in the case of which he had no previous idea and could not have foreseen. We had such a fact in readiness that was Grigori's evidence about the open door through which the prisoner had run out. He had completely forgotten about that door and had not even suspected that Grigori could have seen it. The effect of it was amazing. He leapt up and shouted to us, then Smirjakov murdered him. It was Smirjakov. And so betrayed the basis of the defense he was keeping back, and betrayed it in its most improbable shape, for Smirjakov could only have committed the murder after he had knocked Grigori down and run away. When we told him that Grigori saw the door was open before he fell down, and had heard Smirjakov behind the screen as he came out of his bedroom, Karamazov was positively crushed. My esteemed and witty colleague Nikolai Parfenovich told me afterwards that he was almost moved to tears at the sight of him. And to improve matters the prisoner hastened to tell us about the much-talked-of little bag. So be it, you shall hear this romance. Gentlemen of the jury, I have told you already why I consider this romance not only an absurdity but the most improbable invention that could have been brought forward in the circumstances. If one tried for a bet to invent the most unlikely story, one could hardly find anything more incredible. The worst of such stories is that the triumphant romancers can always be put to confusion and crushed by the very details in which real life is so rich and which these unhappy and involuntary storytellers neglect as insignificant trifles. Oh, they have no thought to spare for such details, their minds are concentrated on their grand invention as a whole, and fancy any one daring to pull them up for a trifle, but that's how they are caught. The prisoner was asked the question, where did you get the stuff for your little bag and who made it for you? I made it myself. And where did you get the linen? The prisoner was positively offended, he thought it almost insulting to ask him such a trivial question, and would you believe that his resentment was genuine? But they are all like that. I tore it off my shirt. Then we shall find that shirt among your linen to-morrow, with a piece torn off. And only fancy gentlemen of the jury, if we really had found that torn shirt, and how could we have failed to find it in his chest of drawers or trunk, that would have been a fact, a material fact in support of his statement. But he was incapable of that reflection. I don't remember. It may not have been off my shirt. I sewed it up in one of my landlady's caps. What sort of a cap? It was an old cotton rag of hers lying about. And do you remember that clearly? No, I don't. And he was angry, very angry, and yet imagine not remembering it. At the most terrible moments of a man's life, for instance when he is being led to execution, he remembers just such trifles. He will forget anything but some green roof that has flashed past him on the road, or a jack-daw on a cross, that he will remember. He concealed the making of that little bag from his household. He must have remembered his humiliating fear that some one might come in and find him needle in hand, how at the slightest sound he slipped behind the screen, there is a screen in his lodgings. But, gentlemen of the jury, why do I tell you all this, all these details, trifles, cried Ipelit Kurilevich suddenly. Just because the prisoner still persists in these absurdities to this moment. He has not explained anything since that fatal night two months ago. He has not added one actual illuminating fact to his former fantastic statements. All those are trivialities. You must believe it on my honour. Oh, we are glad to believe it. We are eager to believe it, even if only on his word of honour. Are we jackals thirsting for human blood? Show us a single fact in the prisoner's favour, and we shall rejoice. But let it be a substantial real fact, and not a conclusion drawn from the prisoner's expression by his own brother, or that when he beat himself on the breast he must have meant to point to the little bag in the darkness too. We shall rejoice at the new fact. We shall be the first to repudiate our charge. We shall hasten to repudiate it. But now justice cries out, and we persist. We cannot repudiate anything. Ipelit Kurilevich passed to his final parloration. He looked as though he was in a fever. He spoke of the blood that cried for vengeance, the blood of the father murdered by his son, with the base motive of robbery. He pointed to the tragic and glaring consistency of the facts. And whatever you may hear from the talented and celebrated counsel for the defense, Ipelit Kurilevich could not resist adding. Whatever eloquent and touching appeals may be made to your sensibilities, remember that at this moment you are in a temple of justice. Remember that you are the champions of our justice, the champions of our holy Russia, of her principles, her family, everything that she holds sacred. Yes, you represent Russia here at this moment, and your verdict will be heard not in this hall only, but will re-echo throughout the whole of Russia, and all Russia will hear you, as her champions and her judges, and she will be encouraged or disheartened by your verdict. Do not disappoint Russia and her expectations. Our fatal troika dashes on in her headlong flight, perhaps to destruction, and in all Russia for long past men have stretched out imploring hands and called a halt to its furious, reckless course. And if other nations stand aside from that troika, that may be not from respect, as the poet would fain believe, but simply from horror, from horror perhaps from disgust, and well it is that they stand aside, but maybe they will cease one day to do so, and will form a firm wall confronting the hurrying apparition, and will check the frenzied rush of our lawlessness for the sake of their own safety, enlightenment, and civilisation. Already we have heard voices of alarm from Europe. They already begin to sound. Do not tempt them. Do not heap up their growing hatred by a sentence justifying the murder of a father by his son. Though Ipolit Korilevich was genuinely moved, he wound up his speech with this rhetorical appeal, and the effect produced by him was extraordinary. When he had finished his speech he went out hurriedly and, as I have mentioned before, almost fainted in the adjoining room. There was no applause in the court, but serious persons were pleased. The ladies were not so well satisfied, though even they were pleased with his eloquence, especially as they had no apprehensions as to the upshot of the trial, and had full trust in Fechikovich. He will speak at last, and of course carry all before him. Everyone looked at Mitcher. He sat silent through the whole of the prosecutor's speech, clenching his teeth, with his hands clasped and his head bowed. Only from time to time he raised his head and listened, especially when Grushanka was spoken of. When the prosecutor mentioned Raketan's opinion of her, a smile of contempt and anger passed over his face, and he murmured, rather audibly, the Bernards. When Ipolit Korilevich described how he had questioned and tortured him at Macro, Mitcher raised his head and listened with intense curiosity. At one point he seemed about to jump up and cry out, but controlled himself and only shrugged his shoulders, disdainfully. People talked afterwards of the end of the speech, of the prosecutor's feet in examining the prisoner at Macro, and jeered at Ipolit Korilevich. The man could not resist boasting of his cleverness, they said. The court was adjourned but only for a short interval, a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes at most. There was a hum of conversation and exclamations in the audience. I remember some of them. A weighty speech, a gentleman in one group observed gravely. He brought in too much psychology, said another voice. But it was all true, the absolute truth. Yes, he is first rate at it. He summed it all up. Yes, he summed us up too, chimed in another voice. Do you remember at the beginning of this speech making out we were all like Fyodor Pavlivich? And at the end too, but that was all rot. And obscure too. He was a little too much carried away. It's unjust, it's unjust. No, it was smartly done anyway. He's had long to wait, but he's had his say. What will the council for the defence say? In another group I heard. He had no business to make a thrust at the Petersburg man like that, appealing to your sensibilities. Do you remember? Yes, that was awkward of him. He was in too great a hurry. He is a nervous man. We laugh, but what must the prisoner be feeling? Yes, what must it be for Mitcha? In a third group. What lady is that, the fat one with the larnette, sitting at the end? She is a general's wife, divorced, I know her. That's why she has the larnette. She is not good for much. Oh no, she is a pecan't little woman. Two places beyond her there is a little fair woman. She is prettier. They caught him smartly at Mock Row, didn't they? It was smart enough. We've heard it before. How often he has told the story at people's houses. And he couldn't resist doing it now. That's vanity. He is a man with a grievance. Yes, and quick to take offense. There was too much rhetoric. Such long sentences. Yes, he tries to alarm us. He kept trying to alarm us. Do you remember about the Troika? Something about they have hamlets, but we have, so far, only Karamazovs? That was cleverly said. That was to propitiate the liberals. He is afraid of them. Yes, and he is afraid of the lawyer, too. Yes, what will Fechikovic say? Whatever he says, he won't get round our peasants. Don't you think so? A fourth group. What he said about the Troika was good, that piece about the other nations. And that was true what he said about other nations not standing it. What do you mean? Why, in the English parliament, a member got up last week and, speaking about the nihilists, asked the ministry whether it was not high time to intervene, to educate this barbarous people. Ipalit was thinking of him. I know he was. He was talking about that last week. Not an easy job. Not an easy job? Why not? Why, we'd shut up Kronstadt and not let them have any corn. Where would they get it? In America, they get it from America now. Nonsense. But the bell rang. All rushed to their places. Fechikovic mounted the Tribune. End of Section 88 Section 89 of the Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Translated by Constance Garnet. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Bruce Peary. Book 12, Chapter 10. The Speech for the Defense. An argument that cuts both ways. All was hushed as the first words of the famous orator rang out. The eyes of the audience were fastened upon him. He began very simply and directly, with an air of conviction, but not the slightest trace of conceit. He made no attempt at eloquence, at pathos, or emotional phrases. He was like a man speaking in a circle of intimate and sympathetic friends. His voice was a fine one, sonorous and sympathetic, and there was something genuine and simple in the very sound of it. But everyone realized at once that the speaker might suddenly rise to genuine pathos and pierce the heart with untold power. His language was perhaps more irregular than Epilite Kurilevich's, but he spoke without long phrases, and indeed with more precision. One thing did not please the ladies. He kept bending forward, especially at the beginning of his speech, not exactly bowing, but as though he were about to dart at his listeners, bending his long spine in half as though there were a spring in the middle that enabled him to bend almost at right angles. At the beginning of his speech he spoke rather disconnectedly, without system, one may say, dealing with facts separately, though at the end these facts formed a whole. His speech might be divided into two parts, the first consisting of criticism in refutation of the charge, sometimes malicious and sarcastic, but in the second half he suddenly changed his tone and even his manner and at once rose to pathos. The audience seemed on the lookout for it and quivered with enthusiasm. He went straight to the point and began by saying that although he practiced in Petersburg he had more than once visited provincial towns to defend prisoners of whose innocence he had a conviction or at least a preconceived idea. That is what has happened to me in the present case, he explained. From the very first accounts in the newspapers I was struck by something which strongly prepossessed me in the prisoner's favour. What interested me most was a fact which often occurs in legal practice, but rarely I think in such an extreme and peculiar form as in the present case. I ought to formulate that peculiarity only at the end of my speech, but I will do so at the very beginning, for it is my weakness to go to work directly, not keeping my effects in reserve and economising my material. That may be imprudent on my part, but at least it's sincere. What I have in my mind is this. There is an overwhelming chain of evidence against the prisoner, and at the same time not one fact that will stand criticism if it is examined separately. As I followed the case more closely in the papers my idea was more and more confirmed, and I suddenly received from the prisoner's relatives a request to undertake his defence. I at once hurried here, and here I became completely convinced. It was to break down this terrible chain of facts, and to show that each piece of evidence, taken separately, was unproved and fantastic that I undertook the case. So Fetchakovich began. Gentlemen of the jury, he suddenly protested, I am new to this district. I have no preconceived ideas. The prisoner, a man of turbulent and unbridled temper, has not insulted me, but he has insulted perhaps hundreds of persons in this town, and so prejudiced many people against him beforehand. Of course I recognise that the moral sentiment of local society is justly excited against him. The prisoner is of turbulent and violent temper, yet he was received in society here. He was even welcome in the family of my talented friend, the prosecutor. N.B., at these words there were two or three laughs in the audience, quickly suppressed, but noticed by all. All of us knew that the prosecutor received Mitcha against his will, solely because he had somehow interested his wife, a lady of the highest virtue and moral worth, but fanciful, capricious, and fond of opposing her husband, especially in trifles. Mitcha's visits, however, had not been frequent. Nevertheless I venture to suggest, Fetchakovich continued, that in spite of his independent mind and just character, my opponent may have formed a mistaken prejudice against my unfortunate client. Oh, that is so natural! The unfortunate man has only too well deserved such prejudice. Outraged morality and still more outraged taste is often relentless. We have, in the talented prosecutor's speech, heard a stern analysis of the prisoner's character and conduct, and his severe critical attitude to the case was evident. And, what's more, he went into psychological subtleties, into which he could not have entered if he had the least conscious and malicious prejudice against the prisoner. But there are things which are even worse, even more fatal in such cases than the most malicious and consciously unfair attitude. It is worse if we are carried away by the artistic instinct, by the desire to create, so to speak, a romance, especially if God has endowed us with psychological insight. Before I started on my way here, I was warned in Petersburg and was myself aware that I should find here a talented opponent whose psychological insight and subtlety had gained him peculiar renown in legal circles of recent years. But profound as psychology is, it's a knife that cuts both ways. Laughter among the public. You will, of course, forgive me my comparison. I can't boast of eloquence, but I will take as an example any point in the prosecutor's speech. The prisoner, running away in the garden in the dark, climbed over the fence, was seized by the servant and knocked him down with a brass pestle. Then he jumped back into the garden and spent five minutes over the man trying to discover whether he had killed him or not. And the prosecutor refuses to believe the prisoner's statement that he ran to old Grigori out of pity. No, he says, such sensibility is impossible at such a moment. That's unnatural. He ran to find out whether the only witness of his crime was dead or alive, and so showed that he had committed the murder, since he would not have run back for any other reason. Here you have psychology. But let us take the same method and apply it to the case the other way round, and our result will be no less probable. The murderer, we are told, leapt down to find out, as a precaution, whether the witness was alive or not. Yet he had left in his murdered father's study, as the prosecutor himself argues, an amazing piece of evidence in the shape of a torn envelope, with an inscription that there had been three thousand rubles in it. If he had carried that envelope away with him, no one in the world would have known of that envelope and of the notes in it, and that the money had been stolen by the prisoner. Those are the prosecutor's own words. So, on one side, you see a complete absence of precaution, a man who has lost his head and run away in a fright, leaving that clue on the floor. And two minutes later, when he has killed another man, we are entitled to assume the most heartless and calculating foresight in him. But even admitting this was so, it is a psychological subtlety, I suppose, that discerns that under certain circumstances I become as bloodthirsty and keen-sighted as a Caucasian eagle, while at the next I am as timid and blind as a mole. But if I am so bloodthirsty and cruelly calculating that when I kill a man I only run back to find out whether he is alive to witness against me, why should I spend five minutes looking after my victim at the risk of encountering other witnesses? Why soak my handkerchief, wiping the blood off his head so that it may be evidence against me later? If he were so cold-hearted and calculating, why not hit the servant on the head again and again with the same pestle, so as to kill him outright and relieve himself of all anxiety about the witness? Again, though he ran to see whether the witness was alive, he left another witness on the path, that brass pestle which he had taken from the two women, and which they could always recognize afterwards as theirs and prove that he had taken it from them. And it is not as though he had forgotten it on the path, dropped it through carelessness or haste. No, he had flung away his weapon, for it was found fifteen paces from where Grigory lay. Why did he do so? Just because he was grieved at having killed a man, an old servant, and he flung away the pestle with the curse as a murderous weapon? That's how it must have been, what other reason could he have had for throwing it so far? And if he was capable of feeling grief and pity at having killed a man, it shows that he was innocent of his father's murder. Had he murdered him, he would never have run to another victim out of pity, then he would have felt differently. His thoughts would have been centered on self-preservation. He would have had none to spare for pity, that is beyond doubt. On the contrary, he would have broken his skull instead of spending five minutes looking after him. There was room for pity and good feeling just because his conscience had been clear till then. Here we have a different psychology. I have purposely resorted to this method, gentlemen of the jury, to show that you can prove anything by it. It all depends on who makes use of it. Psychology lures even most serious people into romancing and quite unconsciously. I am speaking of the abuse of psychology, gentlemen. Sounds of approval and laughter at the expense of the prosecutor were again audible in the court. I will not repeat the speech in detail. I will only quote some passages from it, some leading points. CHAPTER 11 There was no money, there was no robbery. There was one point that struck everyone in Fechikovitch's speech. He flatly denied the existence of the fatal three thousand rubles and, consequently, the possibility of their having been stolen. Gentlemen of the jury, he began. Every new and unprejudiced observer must be struck by a characteristic peculiarity in the present case, namely the charge of robbery and the complete impossibility of proving that there was anything to be stolen. We are told that money was stolen, three thousand rubles, but whether those rubles ever existed nobody knows. Consider how have we heard of that sum and who has seen the notes. The only person who saw them and stated that they had been put in the envelope was the servant Smerchikov. He had spoken of it to the prisoner and his brother Ivan Fyodorovich before the catastrophe. Madam Svetlov too had been told of it. But not one of these three persons had actually seen the notes. No one but Smerchikov had seen them. Here the question arises, if it's true that they did exist and that Smerchikov had seen them, when did he see them for the last time? What if his master had taken the notes from under his bed and put them back in his cash box without telling him? Note that, according to Smerchikov's story, the notes were kept under the mattress. The prisoner must have pulled them out, and yet the bed was absolutely unrumpled. That is carefully recorded in the protocol. How could the prisoner have found the notes without disturbing the bed? How could he have helped soiling with his blood-stained hands, the fine and spotless linen with which the bed had been purposely made? But I shall be asked, what about the envelope on the floor? Yes, it's worth saying a word or two about that envelope. I was somewhat surprised, just now, to hear the highly talented prosecutor declare of himself, of himself observe, that but for that envelope, but for its being left on the floor, no one in the world would have known of the existence of that envelope and the notes in it, and therefore of the prisoners having stolen it. And so that torn scrap of paper is, by the prosecutor's own admission, the sole proof on which the charge of robbery rests, otherwise no one would have known of the robbery, nor perhaps even of the money. But is the mere fact that that scrap of paper was lying on the floor a proof that there was money in it and that that money had been stolen? Yet it will be objected, Smerchikov had seen the money in the envelope. But when, when had he seen it for the last time, I ask you that. I talked to Smerchikov, and he told me that he had seen the notes two days before the catastrophe. Then why not imagine that Old Fyodor Pavlovitch, locked up alone in impatient and hysterical expectation of the object of his adoration, might have wild away the time by breaking open the envelope and taking out the notes. What's the use of the envelope, he may have asked himself. She won't believe the notes are there, but when I show her the thirty rainbow-coloured notes in one roll it will make more impression, you may be sure, it will make her mouth water. And so he tears open the envelope, takes out the money, and flings the envelope on the floor, conscious of being the owner and untroubled by any fears of leaving evidence. Listen, gentlemen, could anything be more likely than this theory and such an action? Why is it out of the question? But if anything of the sort could have taken place, the charge of robbery falls to the ground. If there was no money, there was no theft of it. If the envelope on the floor may be taken as evidence that there had been money in it, why may I not maintain the opposite that the envelope was on the floor because the money had been taken from it by its owner? But, shall be asked, what became of the money if Fyodor Pavlovitch took it out of the envelope since it was not found when the police searched the house? In the first place part of the money was found in the cash box, and secondly he might have taken it out that morning or the evening before to make some other use of it, to give or send it away. He may have changed his idea, his plan of action completely, without thinking it necessary to announce the fact to Smerjakov beforehand. And if there is the barest possibility of such an explanation, how can the prisoner be so positively accused of having committed murder for the sake of robbery and of having actually carried out that robbery? This is encroaching on the domain of romance. If it is maintained that something has been stolen, the thing must be produced, or at least its existence must be proved beyond doubt. Yet no one had ever seen these notes. Not long ago in Petersburg a young man of eighteen, hardly more than a boy, who carried on a small business as a costumonger, went in broad daylight into a money-changers shop with an axe and with extraordinary typical audacity killed the master of the shop and carried off fifteen hundred rubles. Five hours later he was arrested, and, except fifteen rubles he had already managed to spend, the whole sum was found on him. Moreover, the shopman on his return to the shop after the murder informed the police not only of the exact sum stolen, but even of the notes and gold coins of which that sum was made up, and those very notes and coins were found on the criminal. This was followed by a full and genuine confession on the part of the murderer. That's what I call evidence, gentlemen of the jury. In that case I know, I see, I touch the money and cannot deny its existence. Is it the same in the present case? And yet it is a question of life and death. Yes, I shall be told, but he was carousing that night, squandering money, he was shown to have had fifteen hundred rubles. Where did he get the money? But the very fact that only fifteen hundred could be found, and the other half of the sum could nowhere be discovered, shows that that money was not the same, and had never been in any envelope. By strict calculation of time it was proved at the preliminary inquiry that the prisoner ran straight from those women servants to Perhotin's without going home, and that he had been nowhere. So he had been all the time in company, and therefore could not have divided the three thousand in half and hidden half in the town. It's just this consideration that has led the prosecutor to assume that the money is hidden in some crevice at Macron. Why not in the dungeons of the castle of Udalfo, gentlemen? Isn't this supposition really too fantastic and too romantic? And observe, if that supposition breaks down, the whole charge of robbery is scattered to the winds. For in that case what could have become of the other fifteen hundred rubles? By what miracle could they have disappeared, since it's proved the prisoner went nowhere else? And we are ready to ruin a man's life with such tales. I shall be told that he could not explain where he got the fifteen hundred that he had, and everyone knew that he was without money before that night. Who knew it, pray? The prisoner has made a clear and unflinching statement of the source of that money, and if you will have it so, gentlemen of the jury, nothing can be more probable than that statement, and more consistent with the temper and spirit of the prisoner. The prosecutor is charmed with his own romance. A man of weak will, who had brought himself to take the three thousand so insultingly offered by his betrothed, could not, we are told, have set aside half and sewn it up, but would, even if he had done so, have unpicked it every two days, and taken out a hundred, and so would have spent it all in a month. All this, you will remember, was put forward in a tone that brooked no contradiction. But what if the thing happened quite differently? What if you've been weaving a romance, and about quite a different kind of man? That's just it, you have invented quite a different man. I shall be told, perhaps, there are witnesses that he spent on one day all that three thousand given him by his betrothed a month before the catastrophe, so he could not have divided the sum in half. But who are these witnesses? The value of their evidence has been shown in court already. Besides, in another man's hand a crust always seems larger, and no one of these witnesses counted that money, they all judged simply at sight, and the witness Maximov has testified that the prisoner had twenty thousand in his hand. You see, gentlemen of the jury, psychology is a two-edged weapon. Let me turn the other edge now, and see what comes of it. A month before the catastrophe the prisoner was entrusted by Katarina Ivanovna with three thousand rubles to send off by post. But the question is, is it true that they were entrusted to him in such an insulting and degrading way as was proclaimed just now? The first statement made by the young lady on the subject was different, perfectly different. In the second statement we heard only cries of resentment and revenge, cries of long concealed hatred, and the very fact that the witness gave her first evidence incorrectly gives us a right to conclude that her second piece of evidence may have been incorrect also. The prosecutor will not, dare not, his own words, touch on that story. So be it. I will not touch on it either, but will only venture to observe that if a lofty and high-principled person, such as that highly respected young lady unquestionably is, if such a person, I say, allows herself suddenly in court to contradict her first statement with the obvious motive of ruining the prisoner, it is clear that this evidence has been given not impartially, not coolly. Have not we the right to assume that a revengeful woman might have exaggerated much? Yes, she may well have exaggerated in particular the insult and humiliation of her offering him the money. No, it was offered in such a way that it was possible to take it, especially for a man so easygoing as the prisoner, above all as he expected to receive, shortly from his father, the three thousand rubles that he reckoned was owing to him. It was unreflecting of him, but it was just his irresponsible want of reflection that made him so confident that his father would give him the money, that he would get it, and so could always dispatch the money entrusted to him and repay the debt. But the prosecutor refuses to allow that he could the same day have set aside half the money and sewn it up in a little bag. That's not his character, he tells us, he couldn't have had such feelings. But yet he talked himself of the broad Karamazov nature, he cried out about the two extremes which a Karamazov can contemplate at once. Karamazov is just such a two-sided nature, fluctuating between two extremes, that even when moved by the most violent craving for riotous gaiety, he can pull himself up, if something strikes him, on the other side. And on the other side is love, that new love which had flamed up in his heart, and for that love he needed money, oh, far more than for carousing with his mistress. If she were to say to him, I am yours, I won't have Piotr Pavlovich, then he must have money to take her away. That was more important than carousing. Could a Karamazov fail to understand it? That anxiety was just what he was suffering from. What is there improbable in his laying aside that money and concealing it in case of emergency? But time passed, and Piotr Pavlovich did not give the prisoner the expected three thousand. On the contrary, the latter heard that he meant to use this sum to seduce the woman he, the prisoner, loved. If Piotr Pavlovich doesn't give the money, he thought, I shall be put in the position of the thief before Katarina Ivanovna. And then the idea presented itself to him that he would go to Katarina Ivanovna, lay before her the fifteen hundred rubles he still carried round his neck, and say, I am a scoundrel, but not a thief. So here we have already a two-fold reason why he should guard that sum of money as the apple of his eye, why he shouldn't unpick the little bag and spend it a hundred at a time. Why should you deny the prisoner a sense of honour? Yes, he has a sense of honour, granted that it's misplaced, granted it's often mistaken, yet it exists, and amounts to a passion, and he has proved that. But now the affair becomes even more complex, his jealous torments reach a climax, and those same two questions torture his fevered brain more and more. If I repay Katarina Ivanovna, where can I find the means to go off with Krushankar? If he behaved wildly, drank, and made disturbances in the taverns in the course of that month, it was perhaps because he was wretched and strained beyond his powers of insurance. These two questions became so acute that they drove him, at last, to despair. He sent his younger brother to beg for the last time for the three thousand rubles, but without waiting for our reply burst in himself and ended by beating the old man in the presence of witnesses. After that he had no prospect of getting it from anyone, his father would not give it him after that beating. The same evening he struck himself on the breast, just on the upper part of the breast where the little bag was, and swore to his brother that he had the means of not being a scoundrel, but that still he would remain a scoundrel, for he foresaw that he would not use that means, that he wouldn't have the character, that he wouldn't have the will-power to do it. Why, why does the prosecutor refuse to believe the evidence of Alexei Karamazov, given so genuinely and sincerely, so spontaneously and convincingly, and why, on the contrary, does he force me to believe in money hidden in a crevice in the dungeons of the castle of Udalfo? The same evening after his talk with his brother, the prisoner wrote that fatal letter, and that letter is the chief, the most stupendous proof of the prisoner having committed robbery. I shall beg from everyone, and if I don't get it I shall murder my father and shall take the envelope with the pink ribbon on it from under his mattress as soon as Ivan has gone. A full programme of the murder, we are told, so it must have been he. It has all been done as he wrote, cries the prosecutor. But in the first place, it's the letter of a drunken man, and written in great irritation. Secondly, he writes of the envelope from what he has heard from Smerchikov again, for he has not seen the envelope himself, and thirdly, he wrote it, indeed, but how can you prove that he did it? Did the prisoner take the envelope from under the pillow? Did he find the money? Did that money exist, indeed? And was it to get money that the prisoner ran off, if you remember? He ran off post-haste, not to steal, but to find out where she was, the woman who had crushed him. He was not running to carry out a programme, to carry out what he had written, that is, not for an act of premeditated robbery, but he ran, suddenly, spontaneously, in a jealous fury. Yes, I shall be told, but when he got there and murdered him, he seized the money, too. But did he murder him after all? The charge of robbery I repudiate with indignation. A man cannot be accused of robbery if it's impossible to state accurately what he has stolen. That's an axiom. But did he murder him without robbery? Did he murder him at all? Is that proved? Isn't that, too, a romance? Allow me, gentlemen of the jury, to remind you that a man's life is at stake, and that you must be careful. We have heard the prosecutor himself admit that until today he hesitated to accuse the prisoner of a full and conscious premeditation of the crime. He hesitated till he saw that fatal drunken letter which was produced in court today. All was done as written. But, I repeat again, he was running to her, to seek her, solely to find out where she was. That's a fact that can't be disputed. Had she been at home, he would not have run away, but would have remained at her side, and so would not have done what he promised in the letter. He ran unexpectedly and accidentally, and by that time very likely he did not even remember his drunken letter. He snatched up the pestle, they say, and you will remember how a whole edifice of psychology was built on that pestle, why he was bound to look at that pestle as a weapon, to snatch it up, and so on and so on. A very commonplace idea occurs to me at this point. What if that pestle had not been in sight, had not been lying on the shelf from which it was snatched by the prisoner, but had been put away in a cupboard? It would not have caught the prisoner's eye, and he would have run away without a weapon, with empty hands, and then he would certainly not have killed anyone. How, then, can I look upon the pestle as a proof of premeditation? Yes, but he talked in the taverns of murdering his father, and two days before, on the evening when he wrote his drunken letter, he was quiet and only quarreled with a shopman in the tavern, because a Karamazov could not help quarrelling forsooth. But my answer to that is, that if he was planning such a murder in accordance with his letter, he certainly would not have quarreled even with a shopman, and probably would not have gone into the tavern at all, because a person plotting such a crime seeks quiet and retirement, seeks to efface himself, to avoid being seen and heard, and that not from calculation, but from instinct. Gentlemen of the jury, the psychological method is a two-edged weapon, and we, too, can use it. As for all this shouting in taverns throughout the month, don't we often hear children or drunkards coming out of taverns shout, I'll kill you, but they don't murder any one. And that fatal letter, isn't that simply drunken irritability, too? Isn't that simply the shout of the brawler outside the tavern, I'll kill you, I'll kill the lot of you? Why not? Why could it not be that? What reason have we to call that letter fatal, rather than absurd? Because his father has been found murdered, because a witness saw the prisoner running out of the garden with the weapon in his hand, and was knocked down by him. Therefore, we are told, everything was done as he had planned in writing, and the letter was not absurd but fatal. Now, thank God, we've come to the real point. Since he was in the garden, he must have murdered him. In those few words, since he was, then he must, lies the whole case for the prosecution. He was there, so he must have. And what if there is no must about it, even if he was there? Oh, I admit that the chain of evidence, the coincidences, are really suggestive, but examine all these facts separately, regardless of their connection. Why, for instance, does the prosecution refuse to admit the truth of the prisoner's statement that he ran away from his father's window? Remember the sarcasms in which the prosecutor indulged at the expense of the respectful and pious sentiments which suddenly came over the murderer? But what if there were something of the sort, a feeling of religious awe, if not of filial respect? My mother must have been praying for me at that moment. Were the prisoner's words at the preliminary inquiry, and so he ran away as soon as he convinced himself that Madame Svetlov was not in his father's house? But he could not convince himself by looking through the window, the prosecutor objects. But why couldn't he? Why? The window opened at the signals given by the prisoner. Some word might have been uttered by Fyodor Pavlovich, some exclamation which showed the prisoner that she was not there. Why should we assume everything as we imagine it, as we make up our minds to imagine it? A thousand things may happen in reality which elude the subtlest imagination. Yes, but Grigori saw the door open, and so the prisoner certainly was in the house, therefore he killed him. Now, about that door, gentlemen of the jury, observe that we have only the statement of one witness as to that door, and he was at the time in such a condition that, but supposing the door was open, supposing the prisoner has lied in denying it from an instinct of self-defense natural in his position, supposing he did go into the house? Well, what then? How does it follow that because he was there he committed the murder? He might have dashed in, run through the rooms, might have pushed his father away, might have struck him, but as soon as he had made sure Madame Svetlov was not there, he may have run away rejoicing that she was not there and that he had not killed his father, and it was perhaps just because he had escaped from the temptation to kill his father, because he had a clear conscience and was rejoicing it not having killed him, that he was capable of a pure feeling, the feeling of pity and compassion, and leapt off the fence a minute later to the assistance of Grigori after he had, in his excitement, knocked him down. With terrible eloquence the prosecutor has described to us the dreadful state of the prisoner's mind at Macron when love again lay before him, calling him to new life, while love was impossible for him because he had his father's bloodstained corpse behind him and beyond that corpse retribution. And yet the prosecutor allowed him love, which he explained, according to his method, talking about his drunken condition, about a criminal being taken to execution, about it being still far off, and so on and so on, but again I ask, Mr. Prosecutor, have you not invented a new personality? Is the prisoner so coarse and heartless as to be able to think at that moment of love and of dodges to escape punishment if his hands were really stained with his father's blood? No, no, no. As soon as it was made plain to him that she loved him and called him to her side, promising him new happiness, oh, then I protest he must have felt the impulse to suicide doubled, trebled, and must have killed himself if he had his father's murder on his conscience. Oh, no, he would not have forgotten where his pistols lay. I know the prisoner, the savage, stony, heartlessness ascribed to him by the prosecutor, is inconsistent with his character. He would have killed himself, that's certain. He did not kill himself just because his mother's prayers had saved him, and he was innocent of his father's blood. He was troubled, he was grieving that night at Macro only about old Grigori, and praying to God that the old man would recover, that his blow had not been fatal, and that he would not have to suffer for it. Why not accept such an interpretation of the facts? What trustworthy proof have we that the prisoner is lying? But we shall be told at once again, there is his father's corpse. If he ran away without murdering him, who did murder him? Here I repeat, you have the whole logic of the prosecution. Who murdered him if not he? There's no one to put in his place. Gentlemen of the jury, is that really so? Is it positively actually true that there is no one else at all? We've heard the prosecutor count on his fingers all the persons who were in that house that night. They were five in number. Three of them, I agree, could not have been responsible. The murdered man himself, old Grigori, and his wife. There are left, then, the prisoner and Smerjikov, and the prosecutor dramatically exclaims that the prisoner pointed to Smerjikov because he had no one else to fix on. That had there been a sixth person, even a phantom of a sixth person, he would have abandoned the charge against Smerjikov at once, in shame, and have accused that other. But, gentlemen of the jury, why may I not draw the very opposite conclusion? There are two persons, the prisoner and Smerjikov. Why can I not say that you accuse my client simply because you have no one else to accuse, and you have no one else only because you have determined to exclude Smerjikov from all suspicion? It's true, indeed, Smerjikov is accused only by the prisoner, his two brothers, and madame Svetlov, but there are others who accuse him. There are vague rumours of a question, of a suspicion, an obscure report, a feeling of expectation. Finally, we have the evidence of a combination of facts, very suggestive, though I admit inconclusive. In the first place, we have, precisely on the day of the catastrophe, that fit, for the genuineness of which the prosecutor, for some reason, has felt obliged to make a careful defence. Then Smerjikov's sudden suicide on the eve of the trial. Then the equally startling evidence given in court today by the elder of the prisoner's brothers, who had believed in his guilt, but has today produced a bundle of notes and proclaimed Smerjikov as the murderer. Oh, I fully share the courts and the prosecutor's conviction that Yvon Karamazov is suffering from brain fever, that his statement may really be a desperate effort, planned in delirium, to save his brother by throwing the guilt on the dead man. But again, Smerjikov's name is pronounced. Again, there is a suggestion of mystery. There is something unexplained, incomplete, and perhaps it may one day be explained, but we won't go into that now, of that later. The court has resolved to go on with the trial, but meantime I might make a few remarks about the character sketch of Smerjikov, drawn with subtlety and talent by the prosecutor. But while I admire his talent, I cannot agree with him. I have visited Smerjikov, I have seen him and talked to him, and he made a very different impression on me. He was weak in health, it is true, but in character, in spirit, he was by no means the weak man the prosecutor has made him out to be. I found in him no trace of the timidity on which the prosecutor so insisted. There was no simplicity about him, either. I found in him, on the contrary, an extreme mistrustfulness concealed under a mask of naivete, and an intelligence of considerable range. The prosecutor was too simple in taking him for weak-minded. He made a very definite impression on me. I left him with the conviction that he was a distinctly spiteful creature, excessively ambitious, vindictive, and intensely envious. I made some inquiries. He resented his parentage, was ashamed of it, and would clench his teeth when he remembered that he was the son of stinking Lisaveta. He was disrespectful to the servant Grigore and his wife, who had cared for him in his childhood. He cursed and jeered at Russia. He dreamed of going to France and becoming a Frenchman. He used often to say that he hadn't the means to do so. I fancy he loved no one but himself, and had a strangely high opinion of himself. His conception of culture was limited to good clothes, clean shirt fronts, and polished boots. Believing himself to be the illegitimate son of Fyodor Pavlovich, there is evidence of this. He might well have resented his position, compared with that of his master's legitimate sons. They had everything, he nothing. They had all the rights, they had the inheritance, while he was only the cook. He told me himself that he had helped Fyodor Pavlovich to put the notes in the envelope, the destination of that sum, a sum which would have made his career, must have been hateful to him. Moreover, he saw three thousand rubles in new rainbow-coloured notes. I asked him about that on purpose. Oh, beware of showing an ambitious and envious man a large sum of money at once. And it was the first time he had seen so much money in the hands of one man. The sight of the rainbow-coloured notes may have made a morbid impression on his imagination, but with no immediate results. The talented prosecutor, with extraordinary subtlety, sketched for us all the arguments for and against the hypothesis of Smerdikov's guilt, and asked us in particular what motive he had in feigning a fit. But he may not have been feigning at all. The fit may have happened quite naturally, but it may have passed off quite naturally, and the sick man may have recovered, not completely perhaps, but still regaining consciousness, as happens with epileptics. The prosecutor asks at what moment could Smerdikov have committed the murder. But it is very easy to point out that moment. He might have waked up from deep sleep, for he was only asleep. An epileptic fit is always followed by a deep sleep, at that moment, when the old Grigori shouted at the top of his voice, Parasite. That shout in the dark and stillness may have waked Smerdikov, whose sleep may have been less sound at the moment. He might naturally have waked up an hour before. Getting out of bed, he goes almost unconsciously and with no definite motive towards the sound to see what's the matter. His head is still clouded with his attack, his faculties are half asleep, but once in the garden he walks to the lighted windows and he hears terrible news from his master, who would be, of course, glad to see him. His mind sets to work at once. He hears all the details from his frightened master, and gradually in his disordered brain there shapes itself an idea, terrible, but seductive and irresistibly logical, to kill the old man, take the three thousand, and throw all the blame onto his young master. A terrible lust of money, of booty, might seize upon him as he realized his security from detection. Oh, these sudden and irresistible impulses come so often when there is a favorable opportunity, and especially with murderers who have had no idea of committing a murder beforehand. And Smerdikov may have gone in and carried out his plan. With what weapon? Why, with any stone picked up in the garden. But what for? With what object? Why, the three thousand, which means a career for him. Oh, I am not contradicting myself. The money may have existed, and perhaps Smerdikov alone knew where to find it, where his master kept it. And the covering of the money? The torn envelope on the floor? Just now when the prosecutor was explaining his subtle theory that only an inexperienced thief like Karamazov would have left the envelope on the floor, and not one like Smerdikov who would have avoided leaving a piece of evidence against himself, I thought, as I listened, that I was hearing something very familiar. And would you believe it, I have heard that I have heard that very argument, that very conjecture of how Karamazov would have behaved precisely two days before, from Smerdikov himself. What's more, it struck me at the time. I fancied that there was an artificial simplicity about him, that he was in a hurry to suggest this idea to me, that I might fancy it was my own. He insinuated it, as it were. Did he not insinuate the same idea at the inquiry, and suggest it to the talented prosecutor? I shall be asked, what about the old woman, Grigori's wife? She heard the sick man moaning close by all night. Yes, she heard it, but that evidence is extremely unreliable. I knew a lady who complained bitterly that she had been kept awake all night by a dog in the yard. Yet the poor beast, it appeared, had only yelped once or twice in the night. And that's natural. If anyone is asleep and hears a groan, he wakes up, annoyed at being waked, but instantly falls asleep again. Two hours later, again a groan, he wakes up, and falls asleep again, and the same thing again two hours later, three times altogether in the night. Next morning the sleeper wakes up and complains that someone has been groaning all night, and keeping him awake. And it is bound to seem so to him, the intervals of two hours of sleep he does not remember. He only remembers the moments of waking, so he feels he has been waked up all night. But why, why, asks the prosecutor, did Natsmerdekov confess in his last letter? Why did his conscience prompt him to one step and not to both? But, excuse me, conscience implies penitence, and the suicide may not have felt penitence, but only despair. Despair and penitence are two very different things. Despair may be vindictive and irreconcilable, and the suicide laying his hands on himself may well have felt redoubled hatred for those whom he had envied all his life. Gentlemen of the jury, beware of a miscarriage of justice. What is there unlikely in all I have put before you just now? Find the error in my reasoning, find the impossibility, the absurdity, and if there is but a shade of possibility, but a shade of probability in my propositions, do not condemn him. And is there only a shade? I swear by all that is sacred, I fully believe in the explanation of the murder I have just put forward. What troubles me and makes me indignant is that of all the mass of facts heaped up by the prosecution against the prisoner, there is not a single one certain and irrefutable. And yet the unhappy man is to be ruined by the accumulation of these facts. Yes, the accumulated effect is awful, the blood, the blood dripping from his fingers, the blood-stained shirt, the dark night resounding with the shout-parasite, and the old man falling with a broken head, and then the mass of phrases, statements, gestures, shouts—oh, this has so much influence it can so bias the mind. But, gentlemen of the jury, can it bias your minds? Remember, you have been given absolute power to bind and to loose, but the greater the power, the more terrible its responsibility. I do not draw back one iota from what I have said just now, but suppose, for one moment, I agreed with the prosecution that my luckless client had stained his hands with his father's blood—this is only hypothesis, I repeat, I never for one instant doubt of his innocence. But, so be it, I assume that my client is guilty of parasite. Even so, hear what I have to say. I have it in my heart to say something more to you, for I feel that there must be a great conflict in your hearts and minds. Forgive my referring to your hearts and minds, gentlemen of the jury, but I want to be truthful and sincere to the end. Let us all be sincere. At this point the speech was interrupted by rather loud applause. The last words, indeed, were pronounced with a note of such sincerity that everyone felt that he really might have something to say, and that what he was about to say would be of the greatest consequence. But the president, hearing the applause, in a loud voice threatened to clear the court if such an incident were repeated. Every sound was hushed, and Fechakovich began, in a voice full of feeling, quite unlike the tone he had used hitherto.