 CHAPTER VII. An Historical Survey. The medical experts have striven to convince us that the prisoner is out of his mind, and in fact a maniac. I maintain that he is in his right mind, and that if he had not been, he would have behaved more cleverly. As for his being a maniac, that I would agree with, but only in one point, that is his fixed idea about the three thousand. Yet I think one might find a much simpler cause than his tendency to insanity. For my part, I agree thoroughly with the young doctor who maintained that the prisoner's mental faculties have always been normal, and that he has only been irritable and exasperated. The object of the prisoner's continual and violent anger was not the sum itself. There was a special motive at the bottom of it. That motive is jealousy. Here, Ipolit Kirilovich described at length the prisoner's fatal passion for Grushenka. He began from the moment when the prisoner went to the young person's lodgings to beat her. I use his own expression, the prosecutor explained, but instead of beating her he remained there at her feet. That was the beginning of the passion. At the same time the prisoner's father was captivated by the same young person, a strange and fatal coincidence, for they both lost their hearts to her simultaneously, though both had known her before. And she inspired in both of them the most violent, characteristically Karamazov passion. We have her own confession. I was laughing at both of them. Yes, the sudden desire to make a jest of them came over her, and she conquered both of them at once. The old man, who worshipped money, at once set aside three thousand rubles as a reward for one visit from her. But soon after that he would have been happy to lay his property and his name at her feet if only she would become his lawful wife. We have good evidence of this. As for the prisoner, the tragedy of his fate is evident. It is before us. But such was the young person's game. The enchantress gave the unhappy young man no hope until the last moment when he knelt before her, stretching out hands that were already stained with the blood of his father and rival. It was in that position that he was arrested. Send me to Siberia with him. I have brought him to this. I am most to blame. The woman herself cried out in genuine remorse at the moment of his arrest. The talented young man, to whom I have referred already, Mr. Rakitin, characterized this heroine in brief and impressive terms. She was disillusioned early in life, deceived and ruined by a betrothed who seduced and abandoned her. She was left in poverty, cursed by her respectable family, and taken under the protection of a wealthy old man, whom she still, however, considers as her benefactor. There was perhaps much that was good in her young heart, but it wasn't bittered too early. She became prudent and saved money. She grew sarcastic and resentful against society. After the sketch of her character, it may well be understood that she might laugh at both of them simply from mischief, from malice. After a month of hopeless love and moral degradation, during which he betrayed his betrothed and appropriated money entrusted to his honor, the prisoner was driven almost to frenzy, almost to madness by continual jealousy, and of whom his father, and the worst of it was that the crazy old man was alluring and enticing the object of his affection by means of that very three thousand rubles which the son looked upon as his own property, part of his inheritance from his mother, of which his father was cheating him. Yes, I admit it was hard to bear. It might well drive a man to madness. It was not the money, but the fact that this money was used with such revolting cynicism to ruin his happiness. Then the prosecutor went on to describe how the idea of murdering his father had entered the prisoner's hand and illustrated his theory with facts. At first he only talked about it in taverns. He was talking about it all that month. Ah, he likes being always surrounded with company, and he likes to tell his companions everything, even his most diabolical and dangerous ideas. He likes to share every thought with others and expect for some reason that those he confides in will meet him with perfect sympathy, enter into all his troubles and anxieties, take his part and not oppose him in anything. If not, he flies into a rage and smashes up everything in the tavern. Then followed the anecdote about Captain Snigiryev. Those who heard the prisoner began to think at last that he might mean more than threats, and that such a frenzy might turn threats into actions. Here the prosecutor described the meeting of the family at the monastery, the conversations with Alyosha, and the horrible scene of violence when the prisoner had rushed into his father's house just after dinner. I cannot positively assert, the prosecutor continued, that the prisoner fully intended to murder his father before that incident. Yet the idea had several times presented itself to him, and he had deliberated on it. For that we have facts, witnesses, and his own words. I confessed gentlemen of the jury, he added, that till to-day I have been uncertain whether to attribute to the prisoner conscious premeditation. I was firmly convinced that he had pictured the fatal moment beforehand, but had only pictured it, contemplating it, as a possibility. He had not definitely considered when and how he might commit the crime. But I was only uncertain till to-day, till that fatal document was presented to the court just now. You yourselves heard that young lady's exclamation. It's the plan, the program of the murder. That is how she defined that miserable drunken letter of the unhappy prisoner. And in fact, from that letter, we see that the whole fact of the murder was premeditated. It was written to this before, and so we know now for a fact that forty-eight hours before the perpetration of this terrible design, the prisoner swore that if he could not get money next day, he would murder his father in order to take the envelope with the notes from under his pillow, as soon as Ivan had left. As soon as Ivan had gone away, you heard that, so he had thought everything out, waiting every circumstance, and he carried it all out just as he had written it. The proof of premeditation is conclusive. The crime must have been committed for the sake of the money. That is stated clearly. That is written and signed. The prisoner does not deny his signature. I shall be told he was drunk when he wrote it. But that does not diminish the value of the letter. Quite the contrary. He wrote when drunk what he had planned went sober. Had he not planned it went sober, he would not have written it when drunk. I shall be asked, then why did he talk about it in taverns? A man who premeditates such a crime is silent and keeps it to himself. Yes, but he talked about it before he had formed a plan, when he had only the desire, only the impulse to it. Afterward, he talked less about it. On the evening he wrote that letter at the metropolis tavern, contrary to his custom. He was silent, though he had been drinking. He did not play billiards. He sat in a corner, talked to no one. He did indeed turn a shopman out of his seat but that was done almost unconsciously because he could never enter the tavern without making a disturbance. It is true that after he had taken the final decision he must have felt apprehensive that he had talked too much about his design beforehand and that this might lead to his arrest and prosecution afterwards. But there was nothing for it. He could not take his words back. But his luck had served him before. It would serve him again. He believed in his star, you know. I must confess, too, that he did a great deal to avoid the fatal catastrophe. Tomorrow I shall try and borrow the money from everyone, as he writes in his peculiar language. And if they won't give it to me, there will be bloodshed. Here, Ipolit Kirilovich passed to a detailed description of all Mitya's efforts to borrow the money. He described his visit to Samsonov, his journey to Liagavi, harassed and jeered at, hungry after selling his watch to pay for the journey. Though he tells us he had fifteen hundred rubles on him, a likely story. Tortured by jealousy at having left the subject of his affections in the town, suspecting that she would go to Fyodor Pavlovich in his absence, he returned at last to the town to find to his joy that she had not been near his father. He accompanied her himself to her protector. Strange to say, he doesn't seem to have been jealous of Samsonov, which is psychologically interesting. Then he hastens back to his ambush in the back gardens, and then learns that Smerdiakov is in a fit, that the other servant is ill. The coast is clear, and he knows the signals. What a temptation! Still, he resists it. He goes off to a lady who has for some time been residing in the town, and who is highly esteemed among us, Madame Hochlakov. That lady who had long watched his career with compassion, gave him the most judicious advice, to give up his dissipated life, his unseemly love affair, the waste of his youth and vigor in Pothouse debauchery, and to set off to Siberia to the gold mines. That would be an outlet for your turbulent energies, your romantic character, your thirst for adventure. After describing the result of this conversation, and the moment when the prisoner learned that Khrushanka had not remained at Samsonov's, the sudden frenzy of the luckless man worn out with jealousy and nervous exhaustion, at the thought that she had deceived him, and was now with his father, Ipolit Kerirovich concluded, by dwelling upon the fatal influence of chance. Had the maid told him that her mistress was at Mokro with her former lover, nothing would have happened. But she lost her head. She could only swear and protest her ignorance, and if the prisoner did not kill her on the spot, it was only because he flew in pursuit of his false mistress. But note, frantic as it was, he took with him a brass pestle. Why that? Why not some other weapon? But since he had been contemplating his plan and preparing himself for it for a whole month, he would snatch up anything like a weapon that caught his eye. He had realized for a month's past that any object of the kind would serve as a weapon, so he instantly, without hesitation, recognized that it would serve his purpose. So it was by no means unconsciously, by no means involuntarily, that he snatched up that fatal pestle. And then we find him in his father's garden. The coast is clear. There are no witnesses, darkness and jealousy. The suspicion that she was there with him with his rival in his arms, perhaps laughing at him at that moment, took his breath away. And it was not mere suspicion. The deception was open, obvious. She must be there, in that lighted room. She must be behind the screen. And the unhappy man would have his belief that he stole up to the window, peeped respectfully in, and discreetly withdrew, for fear something terrible and immoral should happen. And he tries to persuade us of that, us, who understand his character, who know his state of mind at that moment, and he knew the signals by which he could at once enter the house. At this point, Ipolit Kirilovich broke off to discuss exhaustively the suspected connection of Smyat Diakov with the murder. He did this very circumstantially, and everyone realized that, although he professed to despise that suspicion, he thought the subject of great importance. CHAPTER VIII. THE BREADER'S CARAMASOV. BOOK 12, CHAPTER VIII. A TREATIES ON SMYAT DIAKOV. To begin with, what was the source of this suspicion? Ipolit Kirilovich began. The first person who cried out that Smyat Diakov 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 Svyatlov. The elder of these brothers expressed his suspicions only today, 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 young brother has admitted that he has not the slightest fact to support his notion of Smyat Diakov'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 today by him. Madame Svyatlov 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 Smyat Diakov produced by these three persons, who are all deeply concerned in the prisoner's fate. And yet the story of Smyat Diakov's guilt has been noised about, has been, and is still maintained. Is it credible? Is it conceivable? Here a Politke-Rylovitch thought it necessary to describe the personality of Smyat Diakov, who had cut short his life in a fit of insanity. He depicted him as a man of weak intellect. With his maturing 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 Pavlovitch, and theoretically, from various strange philosophical conversations with his master's eldest son, Ivan Fyodorovich, who riddly indulged in this diversion, probably feeling dull or wishing to amuse himself at the valid's expense. He spoke to me himself of his spiritual condition during the last few days at his father's house, he Politke-Rylovitch explained. But others too have borne witness to it. The prisoner himself, his brother, and the servant Grigory, that is, all who knew him well. Moreover, Smyat Diakov, whose health was shaken by his attacks of epilepsy, had not the courage of a chicken. He fell at my feet and kissed him, the prisoner himself has told us, before he realised 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 confident. We have to take 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 in 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 remembered 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 Ivan Fiodorovich was leaving for Moscow just before the catastrophe, Smerdiakov besought him to remain, though he was too timid to tell him plainly what he feared. He could find himself to hints, but his hints were not understood. It must be observed that he looked on Ivan Fiodorovich as a protector, whose presence in the house was a guarantee that no harm would come to pass. Remember the phrase in Dimitri Karamazov's drunken letter. I shall kill the old man if only Ivan goes away. So Ivan Fiodorovich'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, Smerdiakov was taken with an epileptic fit. But that's perfectly intelligible. Here I must mention that Smerdiakov, oppressed by terror and despair of his sword, had felt during those last few days that one of the fits from which he had suffered before at its 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 this. And so, as soon as Ivan Fiodorovich had driven out of the yard, Smerdiakov, depressed by his lonely and unprotected position, went to the cellar. He went down the stairs, wondering if he could 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 tried to detect his suspicion, a hint that he was shaming 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? You see, gentlemen of the jury, on the night of the murder, there were five persons in Fyodor Pavlovich himself. But he did not kill himself, that's evident. Then his servant, Grigory, but he was almost kill himself. The third person was Grigory's wife, Marfa Ignatievna. But it would be simply shameful to imagine her murdering her master. Two persons are left, the prisoner and Smyrdiakov. But if we are to believe the prisoner's statement that he is not the murderer, then Smyrdiakov 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 anyone else, had there been any sixth person? I am persuaded that even the prisoner would have been ashamed to accuse Smyrdiakov, and would have accused that sixth person. For to charge Smyrdiakov 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 Smyrdiakov 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 merger, hatred, jealousy and so on, Smyrdiakov 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 the 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 not known to no one else in the world, and which if he held his tongue no one else would 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 that the son of the murdered man, Dmitry Fyodorovich, had Mert Diakov killed and robbed him, and the son been accused of it. That would of course have suited Mert Diakov. Yet are we to believe that so 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 plans by Mert Diakov came, we have him falling downstairs in a faint fit. But 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 is Mert Diakov, 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 memorial custom established by his master, and the kind-hearted Barva Ignacevna, 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 shamed illness on purpose, but 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, he had gone away with the money, making a noise, most likely, and waking people. Mert Diakov got up, I am 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 incredibly 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 Mertiakov got up, went in, and murdered his master and stole the money. I won't press the point that Mertiakov 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 the retreat, leaving Mertiakov his booty. Gentlemen of the jury, I put this question to you in earnest. When was the moment when Mertiakov 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 is a limit to these flights of fancy. Quite so, some astute people would tell me. But what if they were in agreement? What if they murdered him together, and shared the money? What then? Away the 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 griggery. 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 Smyrtyakov's part, but only of passive acquiescence. Perhaps Smyrtyakov was intimidated and agreed not to prevent the murder. And foreseeing that he would be blamed for letting his master be murdered, without screaming for help or resisting, he might 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 Smyrtyakov'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 Smyrtyakov is only a passive accomplice, and not even an accomplice, but merely a quest against his will through terror. But what do we say? As soon as he is arrested, the prisoner instantly throws all the blame on Smyrtyakov, 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 began 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, and so he might well have reckoned that if he were punished it would be far less severely than the real murderer. And in that case he would have been certain to make a confession. Yet he has not done so. Smyrtyakov 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, Smyrtyakov at the inquiry volunteered the statement that it was not 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. That his conscience led him to suicide, but not to avowing his guilt. And what followed? Notes for three thousand rubles were brought into the courts 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 Smerdiakov 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 Smerdiakov must have given back the money and hanged himself yesterday from remorse, and only yesterday he confessed his guilt to Ivan Karamazov as the letter informs us. If it were not so indeed, why should Ivan 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. A week ago quite by chance, the fact came to the knowledge of myself and two other persons in this court that Ivan 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 striking down to-day. In this condition he suddenly heard of Smertyakov'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 Smertyakov gave them to me before his death. You could say that was dishonorable. It's dishonorable to slander even the dead and even to save a brother. True. But what if he slandered him unconsciously? What if finally unhinged by the sudden laws 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 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 locked on his hated rival, but having killed him, probably with one blow of the brass pistol, 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, a 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 Smerdiakov, 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, or 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, what Smerdiakov 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 regards to that money, and pouncing upon the envelope which he had never seen before 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 Smerdiakov. He didn't think, he didn't reflect, and how should he? He ran away, he heard behind him the servants cry out. The old man caught him, stopped him, and was spelled 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 Gregory, 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 learnt an unexpected, an astounding piece of news. She had gone off to Makro to meet her first lover, and of Chapter 8 of Book 12, recording by J. C. Guan, Montreal, March 2009. CHAPTER 9. THE GALLOPING THROYKA. THE END OF THE PROSECUTOR'S SPEECH. Karamazov 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 Grushenka'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 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 evidences an irresistible desire for justice, a respect for women, 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, dear to him than his own soul, incomparable comparison with that former lover who had returned penitent with new love to the woman he had once betrayed with honorable 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 Perotin 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 the 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 women I adore, and her new found happiness. And then, on the spot, at her feet, I shall dash out my brains before her, and punish myself. She will remember Mitya Karamazov sometimes. She will see how Mitya loved her. She will feel for Mitya. 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's something. It's conscience, gentlemen of the jury. It's judgment. It's terrible torments. The pistol will settle everything. The pistol is the only way out. But beyond. I don't know what the Karamazov wandered at that moment, what lies beyond. What the Karamazov could, like Hamlet, wonder what lies beyond. No, gentlemen of the jury. They have their Hamlets. But we still have our Karamazovs. Here, Ipolit Kerilovich drew a minute picture of Mitya's preparations, the scene at Verhotin'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 Mokro, and there to finish his romance. But what was awaiting the luckless man? Almost from the first minute at Mokro, he saw that his invincible rival was perhaps by no means so invincible, that the toast to their new found happiness was not desired, and would not be acceptable. But you know the facts, gentleman of jittery, from the preliminary inquiry. Karamazov's triumph over his rival was complete, and his soul passed into quite a new phase, perhaps 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, and its salvation from despair. For I cannot imagine the horror and moral suffering of Karamazov when he learned that she loved him, that for his sake she had rejected her first lover, that she was summoning him, Metia, 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 the point of importance for the light and 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 rivals, 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 enslaved 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, pass 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 some 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 caroosed there, for two days together already. He knew the old big house with all its passage and old buildings. 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 harked his money and soon it's 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 had 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 head and 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 man coming to arrest him. He hadn't time to prepare any line of defense in his mind. He was caught on the wares 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, it 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 exclamation he hastened to explain by declaring that he was responsible for the death of the servant Grigory 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 uttered with such premature haste, if not I? The animal cunning, the naivete, the caramel-sorven patience 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 hastened to admit. He was in a hurry, in a terrible hurry. But still I am not guilty. It is not I murdered him. He conceded to us that he wanted to murder him. As though to say, you can say 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 crudelous. At that point one of the lawyers asked him, as it were incidentally, the most simple question. Wasn't it Smerdiakov killed him? Then, as we expected, he was horribly angry at our having anticipated him and caught him on the wares, before he had time to pave the way to choose and snatch the moment when it would be most natural to bringing Smerdiakov's name. He rushed at once to the other extreme, as he always does, and began to assure us that Smerdiakov 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 Smerdiakov. 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 Smerdiakov than you. You remember that yourselves. But now I am convinced. He killed him. He must have done. And for the present, he falls black upon a gloomy and irritable denial. In patience, an anger prompted him, however, to the most inept and incredible explanation of how he looked into his father's window, and how respectfully he was true. 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 thousands had not been found in 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 stove 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 pound 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 an apparent 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 Smerdiakov murdered him. It was Smerdiakov. And so, betrayed the basis of the defense he was keeping back, and betrayed it in its most improbable shape. For Smerdiakov 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 Smerdiakov 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 romances 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 anyone 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 it? 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 tomorrow, 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 sort it up in one of my landlady's caps. What sort of 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 yet. At the most terrible moment 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 jock-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 someone 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 Ipolit Kirilovich 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 honor. Oh, we are glad to believe it. We are eager to believe it, even if only on his word of honor. Are we jackals thirsting for human blood? Show us a single fact in the prisoner's favor, and we shall rejoice. But let it be 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 bent 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. Ipolit Kirilovich passed to his final peroration. He looked as though he was in a fever, and 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, Ipolit Kirilovich 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, of 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 cause. And if other nations stand aside from that Troika, that may be, not from respect, as the poet would faint believe, but simply from horror, from horror, perhaps from disgust. And well it is that they stand aside, but maybe they will seize one day to do so. And we'll form a firm wall confronting the hurrying apparition, and we'll check the frenzied rush of our lawlessness, for the sake of their own safety, enlightenment, and civilisation. Again 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 Ipolitikirovich 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 Fetyukovich. He will speak at last, and of course carry all before him. Everyone looked at Mitya. 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 Grushenko was spoken of. When the prosecutor mentioned Rakitin's opinion of her, a smile of contempt and anger passed over his face, and he murmured, rather audibly, the burnards. When Ipolit Kelylovich described how he had questioned and tortured him at Mokro, Mitya 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 Mokro, and jeered at Ipolit Kelylovich. 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 wady 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 his speech, making out we were all like Fyodor Pavlovich? 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. Ha, ha. What will the consul for the defense 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 Metia? In a third group, what lady is that, the fat one, with the lornette sitting at the end? She's a general's wife, divorced, I know her. That's why she has the lornette. She is not good for much. Oh, no. She's a pecan't little woman. Two places beyond her there is a little fair woman. She is prettier. They caught him smartly at Muckrow, didn't they? Eh? Oh, 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. And it 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's afraid of them. Yes. And he is afraid of the lawyer, too. Yes. What will Fetchukovic say? Whatever he says, he won't get round our presence. 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 the 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 these barbarous people. We thought it 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, which 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. Fetchukovic mounted the Tribune. End of Chapter 9 of Book 12. Recording by J. C. Guan, Montreux, April 2009. Book 12, Chapter 10 of The Brothers Karamasov. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by J. C. Guan. The Brothers Karamasov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Translated by Constance Garnet. Book 12, Chapter 10. The Speech for the Defence. 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 pesos, or emotional freezes. 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 realised at once that the speaker might suddenly rise to genuine pesos and pierce the heart with untold power. His language was perhaps more irregular than Ipolit Kirilovich'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. That was 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 pesos. 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 practised in Petersburg, he had more than once visited the 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 pre-possessed 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 parts, but at least it's sincere. What I have in mind is this. There is an overwhelming chain of evidence against the prisoner, and that's the same time, not one fact, that will stand to 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, as 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. Sofityukovitch 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. Enby, 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 Mitya 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. Mitya's visits, however, had not been frequent. Nevertheless, I venture to suggest, Fitchukovich continued, that in spite of this independence mind and just character, my opponents may have formed a mistaken prejudice against my unfortunate client. Oh, that is so natural. The unfortunate man has only two 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 peculiarly renowned 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 my comparison. I can't suppose development, 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 and tore old Gregory 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 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 Gregory 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 a curse as a madras 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 grieved and petty 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 call 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. Sound 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. End of Chapter 10 of Book 12. Recording by J. C. Guan, Montreal, May 2009. Book 12, Chapter 11 of The Brothers Karamazov. Recording by J. C. Guan, The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by Constance Garnet. Book 12, Chapter 11. There was no money. There was no robbery. There was one point that struck everyone in Fetyukovich's speech. He flatly denied the existence of the fatal 3,000 rubles, and consequently the possibility of there having been stolen. Gentlemen of the jury, he began, every new and un-prejudiced 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, 3,000 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, Smerdiakov. He had spoken of it to the prisoner and his brother, Ivan Fyodorovich, before the catastrophe. Madame Svietlov, too, had been told of it. But not one of these three persons had actually seen the notes. No one, but Smerdiakov, had seen them. Here the question arises. If it's true that they did exist, and that Smerdiakov 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 Smerdiakov's story the notes were kept under the mattress. The prisoner must have pulled them out, and yet the bed was absolutely un-rumpled. 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 persecutor declare of himself, of himself observe, that's but for that envelope. But, for it's 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 persecutor's own admission, the sole proof on which the charge of rubbry rests. Otherwise no one would have known of the rubbry, 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, Smerdiakov 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 Smerdiakov, and he told me that he had seen the notes two days before the catastrophe. Then why not imagine that Ortfjordor Pavlovich, locked up alone in inpatient and historical expectation of the object of his adoration, may have wired 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-colored notes in the 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. Lesson, 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 sword could have taken place, the charge of robbery falls to the ground. If there was no money, there was no test 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 I shall be asked what became of the money if Fjodor Pavlovic 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, 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's necessary to announce the fact to Smerdiakov 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 proofs 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 his small business as a costumonger, went in broad daylight into a money-changer's shop with an ax, 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 in 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 under criminal. This was followed by a fallen 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's servants to Pyrrhotens without going home, and that he had been nowhere. So he had been all the time in the company, and therefore could not have divided the three thousands 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 Mokro. Why not in the dungeons of the castle at Udolfo, gentlemen? Isn't this opposition 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 have it so, gentlemen of the jury, nothing can be more probable than that statement, and more consistent with the temperance 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 pre-throated, could not, we are told, have set aside half and sewn it up, but would, even if he had done so, have un-picked 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 what 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 were witnesses that he spent on one day all that three thousand given him by his pre-throated a month before that 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 Katerina 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 proclaimed just now? The first statement made by the young lady on the subject was different, perfectly different. In the other 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, in his own words, touch on that story. So be it. I will not touch on it either, but we'll 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 poorly. Have we not 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. Though 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 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 Yodov Pavlovich. Then he must have money to take her away. That was more important than carousing. Could the Karamazov fail to understand it? That an 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 Yodov 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 Yodov Pavlovich doesn't give the money, he thought, I shall be put in a position of a thief before Katerina Ivanovna. And then the idea presented to him that he would go to Katerina 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 twofold 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 honor? Yes, he has a sense of honor, 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 torment reach a climax, and those same two questions torture his favorite brain more and more. If I repay Katerina Ivanovna, where can I find the means to go off with Guru Shankar? If he behaved wildly, drank and made disturbances in the taverns in the cause of that month, it was perhaps because he was wretched and strained beyond his powers of endurance. 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 a 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 to 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 could not use that means, that he wouldn't have the character, that he wouldn't have the willpower 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 Udolfo? 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 Smerdiakov 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 too still, but 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. Eman 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? End of Chapter 11 of Book 12, read by J. C. Guarn, Montreal, May 2009.