The Brothers Karamazov

Chapter 10: “He Said That!”

Once inside, Alyosha told Ivan Fyodorovich that a little more than an hour ago Maria Kondratievna came running to his place and announced that Smerdyakov had taken his own life. “So I went into his room to clear away the samovar, and he was hanging from a nail in the wall.” To Alyosha’s question of whether she had reported it to the proper authorities, she replied that she had not reported to anyone, but “rushed straight to you first, and was running all the way.” She looked crazy, Alyosha went on, and was shaking all over like a leaf. When Alyosha ran back with her to the cottage, he found Smerdyakov still hanging. There was a note on the table: “I exterminate my life by my own will and liking, so as not to blame anybody.” Alyosha left the note on the table and went straight to the police commissioner, to whom he reported everything, “and from there straight to you,” Alyosha concluded, looking intently into Ivan’s face. All the while he was talking, he had not taken his eyes off him, as if very much struck by something in the expression of his face.

“Brother,” he cried suddenly, “you must be terribly ill! You look and it’s as if you don’t understand what I’m saying.”

“It’s good that you’ve come,” Ivan said, thoughtfully, as it were, seeming not to have heard Alyosha’s exclamation. “I knew he had hanged himself.”

“From whom?”

“I don’t know from whom. But I knew. Did I know? Yes, he told me. He was just telling me.”

Ivan stood in the middle of the room and spoke still with the same thoughtfulness, looking at the ground.

“Who is he?” Alyosha asked, automatically looking around.

“He slipped away.”

Ivan raised his head and smiled gently:

“He got frightened of you, of you, a dove. You’re a ‘pure cherub.’ Dmitri calls you a cherub. A cherub ... The thundering shout of the seraphim’s rapture! What is a seraph? Maybe a whole constellation. And maybe that whole constellation is just some chemical molecule ... Is there a constellation of the Lion and Sun, do you know?”

“Sit down, brother!” Alyosha said in alarm. “For God’s sake, sit down on the sofa. You’re raving, lean on the pillow, there. Want a wet towel for your head? Wouldn’t it make you feel better?”

“Give me that towel on the chair, I just threw it there.”

“It’s not there. Don’t worry, I know where it is—here,” said Alyosha, finding the clean, still folded and unused towel in the other corner of the room, near Ivan’s dressing table. Ivan looked strangely at the towel; his memory seemed to come back to him all at once.

“Wait,” he rose a little from the sofa, “just before, an hour ago, I took this towel from there and wetted it. I put it to my head, and then threw it down here ... how can it be dry? I don’t have another.”

“You put the towel to your head?” Alyosha asked.

“Yes, and I paced the room, an hour ago ... Why are the candles so burned down? What time is it?”

“Nearly twelve.” “No, no, no!” Ivan suddenly cried out, “it was not a dream! He was here, sitting here, on that sofa. As you were knocking on the window, I threw a glass at him ... this one ... Wait, I was asleep before, but this dream isn’t a dream. It’s happened before. I sometimes have dreams now, Alyosha ... yet they’re not dreams, but reality: I walk, talk, and see ... yet I’m asleep. But he was sitting here, he came, he was there on that sofa ... He’s terribly stupid, Alyosha, terribly stupid,” Ivan suddenly laughed and began pacing the room.

“Who is stupid? Who are you talking about, brother?” Alyosha asked again, sorrowfully.

“The devil! He’s taken to visiting me. He’s been here twice, even almost three times. He taunted me, saying I’m angry that he’s simply a devil and not Satan, with scorched wings, with thunder and lightning. But he’s not Satan, he’s lying. He’s an impostor. He’s simply a devil, a rotten little devil. He goes to the public baths. Undress him and you’re sure to find a tail, long and smooth as a Great Dane’s, a good three feet long, brown ... Alyosha, you’re chilly, you were out in the snow, do you want some tea? What? It’s cold? Shall I tell them to make some hot? C’est à ne pas mettre un chien dehors ...”

Alyosha ran quickly to the sink, wetted the towel, persuaded Ivan to sit down again, and put the wet towel around his head. He sat down beside him.

“What were you saying earlier about Liza?” Ivan began again. (He was becoming very talkative.) “I like Liza. I said something nasty to you about her. I was lying, I like her ... I’m afraid for Katya tomorrow, afraid most of all. For the future. She’ll drop me tomorrow and trample me under her feet. She thinks I’m destroying Mitya out of jealousy over her! Yes, that’s what she thinks! But no, it won’t be! Tomorrow the cross, but not the gallows. No, I won’t hang myself. Do you know, I’d never be able to take my own life, Alyosha! Is it out of baseness, or what? I’m not a coward. Out of thirst for life! How did I know Smerdyakov had hanged himself? But it was he who told me...”

“And you’re firmly convinced that someone was sitting here?” Alyosha asked.

“On that sofa in the corner. You’d have chased him away. And you did chase him away: he disappeared as soon as you came. I love your face, Alyosha. Did you know that I love your face? And he—is me, Alyosha, me myself. All that’s low, all that’s mean and contemptible in me! Yes, I’m a ‘romantic,’ he noticed it ... though it’s a slander. He’s terribly stupid, but he makes use of it. He’s cunning, cunning as an animal, he knew how to infuriate me. He kept taunting me with believing in him and got me to listen to him that way. He hoodwinked me, like a boy. By the way, he told me a great deal that’s true about myself. I would never have said it to myself. You know, Alyosha, you know,” Ivan added, terribly seriously, and as if confidentially, “I would much prefer that he were really he and not I!”

“He has worn you out,” Alyosha said, looking at his brother with compassion.

“He taunted me! And cleverly, you know, very cleverly: ‘Conscience! What is conscience? I make it up myself. Why do I suffer then? Out of habit. Out of universal human habit over seven thousand years. So let us get out of the habit, and we shall be gods! ‘ He said that, he said that!”

“And not you, not you!” Alyosha cried irrepressibly, looking brightly at his brother. “So never mind him, drop him, and forget about him! Let him take with him all that you curse now and never come back!”

“Yes, but he’s evil! He laughed at me. He was impudent, Alyosha,” Ivan said with a shudder of offense. “He slandered me, slandered me greatly. He lied about me to my face. ‘Oh, you are going to perform a virtuous deed, you will announce that you killed your father, that the lackey killed your father at your suggestion ... !’”

“Brother,” Alyosha interrupted, “restrain yourself: you did not kill him. It’s not true!”

“He says it, he, and he knows it: ‘You are going to perform a virtuous deed, but you don’t even believe in virtue—that’s what makes you angry and torments you, that’s why you’re so vindictive.’ He said it to me about myself, and he knows what he’s saying ...”

“You are saying it, not him!” Alyosha exclaimed ruefully, “and you’re saying it because you’re sick, delirious, tormenting yourself!”

“No, he knows what he’s saying. You’re going out of pride, he says, you’ll stand up and say: ‘I killed him, and you, why are you all shrinking in horror, you’re lying! I despise your opinion, I despise your horror! ‘ He said that about me, and suddenly he said: And, you know, you want them to praise you: he’s a criminal, a murderer, but what magnanimous feelings he has, he wanted to save his brother and so he confessed!’ Now that is a lie, Alyosha!” Ivan suddenly cried, flashing his eyes. “I don’t want the stinking rabble to praise me. He lied about that, Alyosha, he lied, I swear to you! I threw a glass at him for that, and it smashed on his ugly snout.”

“Brother, calm yourself, stop!” Alyosha pleaded.

“No, he knows how to torment, he’s cruel,” Ivan went on, not listening. “All along I had a presentiment of what he came for. ‘Suppose you were to go out of pride,’ he said, ‘but still there would also be the hope that Smerdyakov would be convicted and sent to hard labor, that Mitya would be cleared, and you would be condemned only morally’ (and then he laughed, do you hear! ), ‘and some would even praise you. But now Smerdyakov is dead, he’s hanged himself—so who’s going to believe just you alone there in court? But you’ll go, you’ll go, you’ll still go, you’ve made up your mind to go. But, in that case, what are you going for? ‘ I’m afraid, Alyosha, I can’t bear such questions! Who dares ask me such questions!”

“Brother,” Alyosha interrupted, sinking with fear, but still as if hoping to bring Ivan to reason, “how could he have talked of Smerdyakov’s death with you before I came, if no one even knew of it yet, and there was no time for anyone to find out?”

“He talked of it,” Ivan said firmly, not admitting any doubt. “He talked only of that, if you like. ‘And one could understand it,’ he said, ‘if you believed in virtue: let them not believe me, I’m going for the sake of principle. But you are a little pig, like Fyodor Pavlovich, and what is virtue to you? Why drag yourself there if your sacrifice serves no purpose? Because you yourself don’t know why you’re going! Oh, you’d give a lot to know why you’re going! And do you think you’ve really decided? No, you haven’t decided yet. You’ll sit all night trying to decide whether to go or not. But you will go all the same, and you know you will go, you know yourself that no matter how much you try to decide it, the decision no longer depends on you. You will go because you don’t dare not to. Why you don’t dare—you can guess for yourself, there’s a riddle for you!’ He got up and left. You came and he left. He called me a coward, Alyosha! Le mot de l’énigme is that I’m a coward!’^[329] ‘It’s not for such eagles to soar above the earth! ‘ He added that, he added that! And Smerdyakov said the same thing. He must be killed! Katya despises me, I’ve seen that already for a month, and Liza will also begin to despise me! ‘You’re going in order to be praised’—that’s a beastly lie! And you, too, despise me, Alyosha. Now I’ll start hating you again. I hate the monster, too, I hate the monster! I don’t want to save the monster, let him rot at hard labor! He’s singing a hymn! Oh, tomorrow I’ll go, stand before them, and spit in all their faces!”

He jumped up in a frenzy, threw off the towel, and began pacing the room again. Alyosha recalled what he had just said: “It’s as if I’m awake in my sleep ... I walk, talk, and see, yet I’m asleep.” That was precisely what seemed to be happening now. Alyosha stayed with him. The thought flashed in him to run and fetch a doctor, but he was afraid to leave his brother alone: there was no one to entrust him to. At last Ivan began gradually to lose all consciousness. He went on talking, talked incessantly, but now quite incoherently. He even enunciated his words poorly, and suddenly he staggered badly on his feet. But Alyosha managed to support him. Ivan allowed himself to be taken to bed. Alyosha somehow undressed him and laid him down. He sat over him for two hours more. The sick man lay fast asleep, without moving, breathing softly and evenly. Alyosha took a pillow and lay down on the sofa without undressing. As he was falling asleep he prayed for Mitya and Ivan. He was beginning to understand Ivan’s illness: “The torments of a proud decision, a deep conscience!” God, in whom he did not believe, and his truth were overcoming his heart, which still did not want to submit. “Yes,” it passed through Alyosha’s head, which was already lying on the pillow, “yes, with Smerdyakov dead, no one will believe Ivan’s testimony; but he will go and testify!” Alyosha smiled gently: “God will win!” he thought. “He will either rise into the light of truth, or ... perish in hatred, taking revenge on himself and everyone for having served something he does not believe in,” Alyosha added bitterly, and again prayed for Ivan.

BOOK XII: A JUDICIAL ERROR

Chapter 1: The Fatal Day

The day after the events just described, at ten o’clock in the morning, our district court opened its session and the trial of Dmitri Karamazov began.

I will say beforehand, and say emphatically, that I am far from considering myself capable of recounting all that took place in court, not only with the proper fullness, but even in the proper order. I keep thinking that if one were to recall everything and explain everything as one ought, it would fill a whole book, even quite a large one. Therefore let no one grumble if I tell only that which struck me personally and which I have especially remembered. I may have taken secondary things for the most important, and even overlooked the most prominent and necessary features ... But anyway I see that it is better not to apologize. I shall do what I can, and my readers will see for themselves that I have done all I could.

And, first of all, before we enter the courtroom, I will mention something that especially surprised me that day. By the way, as it turned out later, it surprised not only me but everyone else as well. That is: everyone knew that this case interested a great many people, that everyone was burning with impatience for the trial to begin, that for the whole two months past there had been a great deal of discussion, supposition, exclamation, anticipation among our local society. Everyone also knew that the case had been publicized all over Russia, but even so they never imagined that it had shaken all and sundry to such a burning, such an intense degree, not only among us but everywhere, as became clear at the trial that day. By that day visitors had come to us not only from the provincial capital but from several other Russian cities, and lastly from Moscow and Petersburg. Lawyers came, several noble persons even came, and ladies as well. All the tickets were snapped up. For the most respected and noble of the men visitors, certain quite unusual seats were even reserved behind the table at which the judges sat: a whole row of chairs appeared there, occupied by various dignitaries—a thing never permitted before. There turned out to be an especially large number of ladies—our own and visitors—I would say even not less than half the entire public. The lawyers alone, who arrived from all over, turned out to be so numerous that no one knew where to put them, since the tickets had all been given out, begged, besought long ago. I myself saw a partition being temporarily and hastily set up at the end of the courtroom, behind the podium, where all these arriving lawyers were admitted, and they even considered themselves lucky to be able at least to stand there, because in order to make room, the chairs were removed from behind this partition, and the whole accumulated crowd stood through the whole “case” in a closely packed lump, shoulder to shoulder. Some of the ladies, especially among the visitors, appeared in the gallery of the courtroom extremely dressed up, but the majority of the ladies were not even thinking about dresses. Hysterical, greedy, almost morbid curiosity could be read on their faces. One of the most characteristic peculiarities of this whole society gathered in the courtroom, which must be pointed out, was that, as was later established by many observations, almost all the ladies, at least the great majority of them, favored Mitya and his acquittal. Mainly, perhaps, because an idea had been formed of him as a conqueror of women’s hearts. It was known that two women rivals were to appear. One of them— that is, Katerina Ivanovna—especially interested everyone; a great many remarkable things were told about her, astonishing tales were told of her passion for Mitya despite his crime. Special mention was made of her pride (she paid visits to almost no one in our town), her “aristocratic connections.” It was said that she intended to ask the government for permission to accompany the criminal into penal servitude and to marry him somewhere in the mines, underground. Awaited with no less excitement was the appearance in court of Grushenka, Katerina Ivanovna’s rival. The meeting before the judges of two rivals—the proud, aristocratic girl, and the “hetaera”—was awaited with painful curiosity. Grushenka, by the way, was better known to our ladies than Katerina Ivanovna. Our ladies had seen her, “the destroyer of Fyodor Pavlovich and his unfortunate son,” even before, and were all, almost as one, surprised that father and son could both fall in love to such an extent with such a “most common and even quite plain Russian tradeswoman.” In short, there was much talk. I know positively that in our town itself several serious family quarrels even took place on account of Mitya. Many ladies quarreled hotly with their husbands owing to a difference of opinion about this whole terrible affair, and naturally, after that, all the husbands of these ladies arrived in court feeling not only ill disposed towards the defendant but even resentful of him. And generally it can be stated positively that the entire male contingent, as opposed to the ladies, was aroused against the defendant. One saw stern, scowling faces, some even quite angry, and not a few of them. It was also true that Mitya had managed to insult many of them personally during his stay in our town. Of course, some of the visitors were even almost merry and quite indifferent to Mitya’s fate in itself, although, again, not to the case under consideration; everyone was concerned with its outcome, and the majority of the men decidedly wished to see the criminal punished, except perhaps for the lawyers, who cared not about the moral aspect of the case, but only, so to speak, about its contemporary legal aspect. Everyone was excited by the coming of the famous Fetyukovich. His talent was known everywhere, and this was not the first time he had come to the provinces to defend a celebrated criminal case. And after his defense such cases always became famous all over Russia and were remembered for a long time. There were several anecdotes going around concerning both our prosecutor and the presiding judge. It was said that our prosecutor trembled at the thought of meeting Fetyukovich, that they were old enemies from way back in Petersburg, from the beginning of their careers, that our vain Ippolit Kirillovich, who ever since Petersburg had always thought himself injured by someone, because his talents were not properly appreciated, had been resurrected in spirit by the Karamazov case and even dreamed of resurrecting his flagging career through it, and that his only fear was Fetyukovich. But the opinions concerning his trembling before Fetyukovich were not altogether just. Our prosecutor was not one of those characters who lose heart in the face of danger; he was, on the contrary, of the sort whose vanity grows and takes wing precisely in pace with the growing danger. And generally it must be noted that our prosecutor was too ardent and morbidly susceptible. He would put his whole soul into some case and conduct it as if his whole fate and his whole fortune depended on the outcome. In the legal world this gave rise to some laughter, for our prosecutor even achieved a certain renown precisely by this quality, if not everywhere, at least more widely than one might have supposed in view of his modest position in our court. The laughter was aimed especially at his passion for psychology. In my opinion they were all mistaken: as a man and as a character, our prosecutor seems to me to have been much more serious than many people supposed. But from his very first steps this ailing man was simply unable to show himself to advantage, either at the beginning of his career or afterwards for the rest of his life.

As for our presiding judge, one can simply say of him that he was an educated and humane man, with a practical knowledge of his task, and with the most modern ideas. He was rather vain, but not overly concerned with his career. His chief goal in life was to be a progressive man. He had a fortune and connections besides. He took, as it turned out later, a rather passionate view of the Karamazov case, but only in a general sense. He was concerned with the phenomenon, its classification, seeing it as a product of our social principles, as characteristic of the Russian element, and so on and so forth. But his attitude towards the personal character of the case, its tragedy, as well as towards the persons of the participants, beginning with the defendant, was rather indifferent and abstract, as, by the way, it perhaps ought to have been.

Long before the appearance of the judges, the courtroom was already packed. Our courtroom is the best hall in town, vast, lofty, resonant. To the right of the judges, who were placed on a sort of raised platform, a table and two rows of chairs were prepared for the jury. To the left was the place for the defendant and his attorney. In the center of the hall, close to the judges, stood a table with the “material evidence.” On it lay Fyodor Pavlovich’s bloodstained white silk dressing gown, the fatal brass pestle with which the supposed murder had been committed, Mitya’s shirt with its bloodstained sleeve, his frock coat with bloodstains in the area of the pocket into which he had put his bloodsoaked handkerchief, that same handkerchief all stiff with blood and now quite yellow, the pistol Mitya had loaded at Perkhotin’s in order to kill himself and that had been taken from him on the sly by Trifon Borisovich in Mokroye, the inscribed envelope that had contained the three thousand prepared for Grushenka, and the narrow pink ribbon that had been tied around it, and many other objects I no longer remember. At a certain distance farther back in the hall began the seats for the public, but in front of the balustrade stood several chairs for those witnesses who would remain in the courtroom after giving their evidence. At ten o’clock the members of the court appeared, consisting of the presiding judge, a second judge, and an honorary justice of the peace. Of course, the prosecutor also appeared at once. The presiding judge was a stocky, thick-set man, of less than average height, with a hemorrhoidal face, about fifty years old, his gray-streaked hair cut short, wearing a red ribbon—I do not remember of what order. To me, and not only to me but to everyone, the prosecutor looked somehow too pale, with an almost green face, which for some reason seemed suddenly to have grown very thin, perhaps overnight, since I had seen him just two days before looking quite himself. The presiding judge began by asking the marshal if all the jurors were present ... I see, however, that I can no longer go on in this way, if only because there were many things I did not catch, others that I neglected to go into, still others that I forgot to remember, and, moreover, as I have said above, if I were to recall everything that was said and done, I literally would not have time or space. I know only that neither side—that is, neither the defense attorney nor the prosecutor—objected to very many of the jurors. But I do remember who the twelve jurors consisted of: four of our officials, two merchants, and six local peasants and tradesmen. In our society, I remember, long before the trial, the question was asked with some surprise, especially by the ladies: “Can it be that the fatal decision in such a subtle, complex, and psychological case is to be turned over to a bunch of officials, and even to peasants?” and “What will some ordinary official make of it, not to mention a peasant?” Indeed, all four of the officials who got on the jury were minor persons of low rank, gray-haired old men—only one of them was a little younger—scarcely known in our society, vegetating on meager salaries, with old wives, no doubt, whom they could not present anywhere, and each with a heap of children, perhaps even going barefoot; who at most found diversion in a little game of cards somewhere in their off hours, and who most assuredly had never read a single book. The two merchants, though of grave appearance, were somehow strangely silent and immobile; one of them was clean-shaven and dressed in German fashion; the other had a little gray beard and wore some medal around his neck on a red ribbon. There is nothing much to say about the tradesmen and peasants. Our Skotoprigonyevsk tradesmen are almost peasants themselves, they even handle the plow. Two of them were also in German dress, and perhaps for that reason looked dirtier and more unseemly than the other four. So that indeed the thought might well enter one’s head, as it entered mine, for example, as soon as I took a look at them: “What can such people possibly grasp of such a case?” Nevertheless their faces made a certain strangely imposing and almost threatening impression; they were stern and frowning.

Finally the presiding judge announced the hearing of the case of the murder of the retired titular councillor Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov—I do not quite remember how he put it then. The marshal was told to bring in the defendant, and so Mitya appeared. A hush came over the courtroom, one could have heard a fly buzz. I do not know about the others, but on me Mitya’s looks made a most unpleasant impression. Above all, he appeared a terrible dandy, in a fresh new frock coat. I learned later that he had specially ordered himself a frock coat for that day from Moscow, from his former tailor, who had his measurements. He was wearing new black kid gloves and an elegant shirt. He walked in with his yard-long strides, looking straight and almost stiffly ahead of him, and took his seat with a most intrepid air. Right away, at once, the defense attorney, the famous Fetyukovich, also appeared, and a sort of subdued hum, as it were, swept through the courtroom. He was a tall, dry man, with long, thin legs, extremely long, pale, thin fingers, a clean-shaven face, modestly combed, rather short hair, and thin lips twisted now and then into something halfway between mockery and a smile. He looked about forty. His face would even have been pleasant had it not been for his eyes, which, in themselves small and inexpressive, were set so unusually close together that they were separated only by the thin bone of his thin, long-drawn nose. In short, his physiognomy had something sharply birdlike about it, which was striking. He was dressed in a frock coat and a white tie. I remember the presiding judge’s first questions to Mitya—that is, about his name, social position, and so forth. Mitya answered sharply, but somehow in an unexpectedly loud voice, so that the judge even shook his head and looked at him almost in surprise. Then the list of persons called for questioning in court—that is, of witnesses and experts—was read. It was a long list; four of the witnesses were not present: Miusov, who was then already in Paris, but whose testimony had been taken during the preliminary investigation; Madame Khokhlakov and the landowner Maximov, for reasons of health; and Smerdyakov, on account of his sudden death, for which a police certificate was presented. The news about Smerdyakov caused a great stir and murmuring in the courtroom. Of course, many of the public knew nothing as yet about the sudden episode of his suicide. But most striking was Mitya’s sudden outburst: as soon as the report on Smerdyakov was made, he exclaimed from his seat so that the whole courtroom could hear:

“The dog died like a dog!”

I remember how his attorney dashed over to him and how the judge addressed him, threatening to take stern measures if such an outburst were repeated. Abruptly, nodding his head, but with no show of repentance, Mitya repeated several times in a low voice to his attorney:

“I won’t, I won’t! It just came out! Not again!”

And of course this brief episode did not stand him in favor with the jurors or the public. His character was already showing and speaking for itself. And it was under this impression that the accusation was read by the clerk of the court.

It was rather brief, but thorough. Only the chiefest reasons were stated why so and so had been brought to court, why he should stand trial, and so on. Nevertheless it made a strong impression on me. The clerk read clearly, sonorously, distinctly. The whole tragedy seemed to unfold again before everyone, vivid, concentrated, lit by a fatal, inexorable light. I remember how, right after the reading, the prosecutor loudly and imposingly asked Mitya:

“Defendant, how do you plead, guilty or not guilty?”

Mitya suddenly rose from his seat:

“I plead guilty to drunkenness and depravity,” he exclaimed, again in some unexpected, almost frenzied voice, “to idleness and debauchery. I intended to become an honest man ever after, precisely at the moment when fate cut me down! But of the death of the old man, my enemy and my father—I am not guilty! Of robbing him—no, no, not guilty, and I could not be guilty: Dmitri Karamazov is a scoundrel, but not a thief!”

Having cried this out, he sat down in his seat, visibly trembling all over. The presiding judge again addressed him with a brief but edifying admonition that he should answer only what he was asked, and not get into irrelevant and frenzied exclamations. Then he ordered the examination to begin. All the witnesses were brought in to take the oath. It was then that I saw them all together. Incidentally, the defendant’s brothers were permitted to testify without the oath. After being admonished by the priest and the presiding judge, the witnesses were led away and seated as far apart from one another as possible. Then they were called up one by one.

Chapter 2: Dangerous Witnesses

I do not know whether the witnesses for the prosecution and the defense were somehow divided into groups by the judge, or in precisely what order they were supposed to be called. All that must have been so. I know only that the witnesses for the prosecution were called first. I repeat, I do not intend to describe all the cross-examinations step by step. Besides, my description would also end up as partly superfluous, because, when the closing debate began, the whole course and meaning of all the evidence given and heard was brought, as it were, to a fine point, shown in a bright and characteristic light, in the speeches of the prosecutor and the defense attorney, and these two remarkable speeches I did write down in full, at least some parts of them, and will recount them in due time, as well as one extraordinary and quite unexpected episode that broke out all of a sudden, even before the closing debate, and undoubtedly influenced the dread and fatal outcome of the trial. I will note only that from the very first moments of the trial a certain peculiar characteristic of this “case” stood out clearly and was noticed by everyone— namely, the remarkable strength of the prosecution as compared with the means available to the defense. Everyone realized this at the first moment when, in this dread courtroom, the facts were focused and began falling together, and all the horror and blood began gradually to emerge. It perhaps became clear to everyone from the very outset that this was not a controversial case at all, that there were no doubts here, that essentially there was no need for any debate, that the debate would take place only for the sake of form, and that the criminal was guilty, clearly guilty, utterly guilty. I even think that the ladies, one and all, who yearned with such impatience for the acquittal of an interesting defendant, were at the same time fully convinced of his complete guilt. Moreover, I believe they would even have been upset if his guilt were not unquestionable, for in that case there would be no great effect at the denouement when the criminal was acquitted. And that he would be acquitted, all the ladies, strangely enough, remained utterly convinced almost to the very last moment: “He is guilty, but he will be acquitted because of humaneness, because of the new ideas, because of the new feelings that are going around nowadays,” and so on and so forth. This was what brought them running there with such impatience. The men were mostly interested in the struggle between the prosecutor and the renowned Fetyukovich. Everyone was wondering and asking himself what even a talent like Fetyukovich’s could do with such a lost case, not worth the candle—and therefore followed his deeds step by step with strained attention. But to the very end, to his very last speech, Fetyukovich remained an enigma to everyone. Experienced people suspected that he had a system, that he already had something worked out, that he had an aim in view, but it was almost impossible to guess what it was. His confidence and self-assurance, however, stared everyone in the face. Furthermore, everyone immediately noticed with pleasure that during his brief stay with us, in perhaps only three days’ time, he had managed to become surprisingly well acquainted with the case, and had “mastered it in the finest detail. “ Afterwards people delighted in telling, for example, how he had been able to “take down” all the witnesses for the prosecution, to throw them off as much as possible, and, above all, to cast a slight taint on their moral reputations, thereby, of course, casting a slight taint on their evidence. It was supposed, however, that at the most he was doing it for sport, so to speak, for the sake of a certain juridical brilliance, in order to omit none of the conventional strategies of defense: for everyone was convinced that he could achieve no great and ultimate advantage by all these “slight taints,” and that he probably knew it better than anyone, holding ready some idea of his own, some still hidden weapon of defense that he would suddenly reveal when the time came. But meanwhile, aware of his strength, he was frisking and playing, as it were. Thus, for example, during the questioning of Grigory Vasiliev, Fyodor Pavlovich’s former valet, who had given the most fundamental evidence about “the door open to the garden,” the defense attorney simply fastened upon him when it came his turn to ask questions. It should be noted that Grigory Vasilievich stood up in the courtroom not in the least embarrassed either by the grandeur of the court or by the presence of the huge audience listening to him, and appeared calm and all but majestic. He gave his testimony with as much assurance as if he had been talking alone with his Marfa Ignatievna, only perhaps more respectfully. It was impossible to throw him off. The prosecutor first questioned him at length about all the details of the Karamazov family. The family picture was vividly exposed to view. One could hear, one could see that the witness was a simple-hearted and impartial man. With all his deep respect for the memory of his former master, he still declared, for example, that he had been unjust to Mitya and “didn’t bring the children up right. Lice would have eaten the little boy but for me,” he added, telling of Mitya’s childhood. “And it wasn’t good for the father to do his son wrong over his mother’s family estate.” To the prosecutor’s question as to what grounds he had for asserting that Fyodor Pavlovich had done his son wrong in their settlement, Grigory Vasilievich, to everyone’s surprise, did not offer any solid facts at all, yet he stood by his statement that the settlement with the son was “unfair” and that there were certainly “several thousands left owing to him.” I will note in passing that the prosecutor later posed this question of whether Fyodor Pavlovich had indeed paid Mitya something less than he owed him with special insistence to all the witnesses to whom he could pose it, not excepting Alyosha and Ivan Fyodorovich, but got no precise information from any of them; everyone confirmed the fact, yet no one could offer even the slightest clear proof. After Grigory described the scene at the table when Dmitri Fyodorovich had burst in and beaten his father, threatening to come back and kill him—a gloomy impression swept over the courtroom, the more so as the old servant spoke calmly, without unnecessary words, in his own peculiar language, and it came out as terribly eloquent. He observed that he was not angry at Mitya for hitting him in the face and knocking him down, and that he had forgiven him long ago. Of the late Smerdyakov he expressed the opinion, crossing himself, that he had been a capable fellow but stupid and oppressed by illness, and that, above all, he was a godless man, and had learned his god-lessness from Fyodor Pavlovich and his elder son. But Smerdyakov’s honesty he confirmed almost ardently, and told then and there how Smerdyakov, ages ago, had found the money his master had dropped, and instead of keeping it had brought it to his master, who “gave him a gold piece” as a reward, and thereafter began trusting him in all things. The open door to the garden he confirmed with stubborn insistence. However, he was questioned so much that I cannot even recall it all. Finally the questioning passed to the defense attorney, and he, first of all, began asking about the envelope in which Fyodor Pavlovich “supposedly” hid three thousand roubles for “a certain person.” “Did you see it yourself—you, a man closely attendant on your master for so many years?” Grigory answered that he had not seen it and had never heard of such money from anyone, “until now when everyone started talking.”This question about the envelope, Fetyukovich, for his part, posed to every witness he could put it to, with the same insistence as the prosecutor asked his question about the division of the estate, and also received just one answer from them all, that no one had seen the envelope, though a great many had heard of it. Everyone noticed the defense attorney’s insistence on this question from the very beginning.

“Now, with your kind permission, I should like to ask you a question,” Fetyukovich said suddenly and quite unexpectedly. “What were the ingredients of that balm, or, so to speak, that infusion, with which you rubbed your suffering lower back, in hopes thereby of being cured, that evening before going to bed, as we know from the preliminary investigation?”

Grigory looked dumbly at the questioner and, after a short silence, muttered:

“There was sage in it.”

“Just sage? You don’t recall anything else?”

“There was plantain, too.”

“And pepper, perhaps?” Fetyukovich inquired further.

“And pepper.”

“And so on. And all steeped in vodka?”

“In spirits.”

A slight laugh flitted through the courtroom.

“So, in spirits no less. After rubbing your back, you drank the rest of the bottle with a certain pious prayer, known only to your wife, is that so?”

“I drank it.”

“Approximately how much did you drink? Just approximately. A shot-glass or two?”

“About a tumbler.”

“About a tumbler no less. Maybe even a tumbler and a half?”

Grigory fell silent. He seemed to have understood something.

“About a tumbler and a half of pure spirits—not bad at all, wouldn’t you say? Enough to see ‘the doors of heaven open,’^[330] not to mention the door to the garden?”

Grigory remained silent. Again a slight laugh went through the courtroom. The judge stirred.

“Do you know for certain,” Fetyukovich was biting deeper and deeper, “whether you were awake or not at the moment when you saw the door to the garden open?”

“I was standing on my feet. “

“That’s no proof that you were awake.” (More and more laughter in the courtroom.) “Could you, for instance, have answered at that moment if someone had asked you something—say, for instance, what year it is?”

“That I don’t know.” “And what year of the present era, what year of our Lord is it—do you know?”

Grigory stood looking bewildered, staring straight at his tormentor. It seemed strange indeed that he apparently did not know what year it was.

“But perhaps you do know how many fingers you have on your hand?”

“I am a subordinate man,” Grigory suddenly said, loudly and distinctly. “If the authorities see fit to deride me, then I must endure it.”

Fetyukovich was a little taken aback, as it were, but the presiding judge also intervened with a didactic reminder to the defense attorney that he ought to ask more appropriate questions. Fetyukovich, having listened, bowed with dignity, and announced that he had no further questions. Of course, both the public and the jury might be left with a small worm of doubt as to the testimony of a man for whom it was possible to “see the doors of heaven” in a certain state of medical treatment, and who, besides, did not know what year of our Lord it was; so that the attorney had nonetheless achieved his goal. But before Grigory stepped down another episode took place. The judge, addressing the defendant, asked whether he had anything to say concerning the present testimony.

“Except for the door, it’s all true as he said,” Mitya cried loudly. “For combing the lice out of my hair, I thank him; for forgiving me my blows, I thank him; the old man has been honest all his life, and was as faithful to my father as seven hundred poodles.”

“Watch your words, defendant,” the judge said sternly.

“I am not a poodle,” Grigory also grumbled.

“Then I am, I am a poodle!” cried Mitya. “If he’s offended, I take it upon myself and ask his forgiveness: I was a beast and cruel to him! I was cruel to Aesop, too.”

“What Aesop?” the judge again picked up sternly.

“That Pierrot ... my father, Fyodor Pavlovich.”

The presiding judge repeated once again to Mitya, imposingly and most sternly now, that he should watch his words more carefully.

“You are harming yourself in the opinion of your judges.”

In just the same rather clever way the defense attorney handled the questioning of the witness Rakitin. I will note that Rakitin was one of the most important witnesses and was undoubtedly valued by the prosecutor. It turned out that he knew everything, knew surprisingly much, had really been everywhere, seen everything, spoken with everyone, knew in the most detailed way the biography of Fyodor Pavlovich and of all the Karamazovs. True, he, too, had heard of the envelope with the three thousand only from Mitya himself. On the other hand, he described in detail Mitya’s deeds in the “Metropolis” tavern, all his compromising words and gestures, and told the story of Captain Snegiryov’s “whiskbroom.” Concerning the particular point, whether Fyodor Pavlovich still owed Mitya anything after the settling of the estate, even Rakitin himself could indicate nothing specific and got off merely with commonplaces of a contemptuous nature: “Who could say which of them was to blame or calculate who owed what to whom, with all that muddled Karamazovism, in which no one could either define or understand himself?” The whole tragedy of the crime on trial he portrayed as resulting from the ingrained habits of serfdom and a Russia immersed in disorder and suffering from a lack of proper institutions. In short, he was allowed to speak out on certain matters. It was starting with this trial that Mr. Rakitin first declared himself and gained notice; the prosecutor knew that the witness was preparing an article for a magazine about the present crime, and in his closing statement (as we shall see below) he quoted several thoughts from this article, indicating that he was already familiar with it. The picture portrayed by the witness was a gloomy and fatal one, and greatly strengthened “the prosecution.” Generally, Rakitin’s presentation captivated the public by its independence of thought and the remarkable nobility of its flight. Two or three spontaneous bursts of applause were even heard—namely, at those passages where mention was made of serfdom and of Russia suffering from disorder. But Rakitin, being still a young man, made a little slip, which was at once superbly exploited by the defense attorney. Answering certain questions about Grushenka, he got carried away by his success, which he was certainly already aware of, and by the height of nobility to which he had soared, and allowed himself to refer to Agrafena Alexandrovna somewhat contemptuously as “the merchant Samsonov’s kept woman.” He would have given much afterwards to take that little phrase back, for it was picked up at once by Fetyukovich. And it was all because Rakitin simply never expected that he could have familiarized himself, in so short a time, with such intimate details of the case.

“Allow me to inquire,” the defense attorney began, with a most amiable and even respectful smile, when it came his turn to ask questions, “whether you are not, indeed, the same Mr. Rakitin whose pamphlet The Life of the Elder, Father Zosima, Fallen Asleep in God, published by the diocesan authorities, full of profound and religious thoughts, and with an excellent and pious dedication to His Grace, I have recently had the great pleasure of reading?”

“I didn’t write it for publication ... they published it afterwards,” Rakitin mumbled, as if suddenly taken aback by something, and almost ashamed.

“Oh, but that’s wonderful! A thinker like you can, and even must, have a very broad attitude towards all social phenomena. Through the patronage of His Grace, your most useful pamphlet was distributed and has been relatively beneficial ... But what I mainly wanted to inquire about was this: you have just stated that you are a quite close acquaintance of Miss Svetlov?” (Nota bene: Grushenka’s last name turned out to be “Svetlov.” I learned it for the first time only that day, in the course of the trial. )

“I cannot answer for all my acquaintances ... I am a young man ... and who can answer for everyone he meets?” Rakitin simply blushed all over.

“I understand, I understand only too well!” exclaimed Fetyukovich, as if embarrassed himself, and as if hastening to apologize. “You, like anyone else, might be interested for your own part in the acquaintance of a young and beautiful woman who readily received the flower of local youth, but ... I simply wanted to inquire: it is known to us that about two months ago Miss Svetlov was extremely eager to make the acquaintance of the youngest Karamazov, Alexei Fyodorovich, and just for bringing him to her, and precisely in the monastery attire he was then wearing, she promised you twenty-five roubles, to be handed over as soon as you brought him. And that, as we know, took place precisely on the evening of the day that ended in the tragic catastrophe that has led to the present trial. You brought Alexei Karamazov to Miss Svetlov, but ... did you get the twenty-five-rouble reward from her—that is what I wanted to hear from you.”

“It was a joke ... I don’t see why it should interest you. I took it for a joke ... so as to give it back later ...”

“You did take it, then. But you have not given it back yet ... or have you?”

“It’s nothing ... ,” Rakitin muttered, “I cannot answer such questions ... Of course I’ll give it back.”

The presiding judge intervened, but the defense attorney announced that he had finished questioning Mr. Rakitin. Mr. Rakitin left the stage somewhat besmirched. The impression of the lofty nobility of his speech was indeed spoiled, and Fetyukovich, following him with his eyes, seemed to be saying, intending it for the public: “So, there goes one of your noble accusers!” I remember that this, too, did not go by without an episode on Mitya’s part: infuriated by the tone in which Rakitin referred to Grushenka, he suddenly cried out from his place: “Bernard!” And when, after all the questioning of Rakitin was over, the presiding judge addressed the defendant, asking him if he had any observations to make, Mitya shouted in a booming voice:

“He kept hitting me for loans, even in prison! A despicable Bernard and careerist, and he doesn’t believe in God, he hoodwinked His Grace!”

Mitya, of course, was again brought to reason for the violence of his language, but that was the end of Mr. Rakitin. There was no luck with Captain Snegiryov’s testimony either, but for an entirely different cause. He presented himself to the court all tattered, in dirty clothes, dirty boots, and, despite all precautions and preliminary “expertise,” suddenly turned out to be quite drunk. Asked about the insult he had received from Mitya, he suddenly refused to answer.

“God be with him, sir. Ilyushechka told me not to. God will repay me there, sir.”

“Who told you not to speak? Who are you referring to?”

“Ilyushechka, my little son. ‘Papa, papa, how he humiliated you! ‘ He said it by our stone. Now he’s dying, sir ...”

The captain suddenly burst into sobs and threw himself at the judge’s feet. He was quickly taken out amid the laughter of the public. The effect prepared by the prosecutor did not come off at all.

The defense attorney continued using every possible means, and surprised people more and more by his familiarity with the smallest details of the case. Thus, for example, the testimony of Trifon Borisovich was on its way to producing a rather strong impression, and one certainly highly unfavorable to Mitya. He calculated precisely, almost on his fingers, that during his first visit to Mokroye about a month before the catastrophe, Mitya could not have spent less than three thousand, or “maybe just a tiny bit less. Think how much he threw to the gypsy girls alone! ‘To fling kopecks down the street’—no, sir, he gave our lousy peasants twenty-five roubles at least, he wouldn’t give less than that. And how much was simply stolen from him then, sir! Whoever stole certainly didn’t sign for it; try catching a thief, when he himself was just throwing it around for nothing! Our people are robbers, they’re not worried about their souls. And the girls, our village girls, what he spent on them! People have got rich since then, that’s what, sir, and before there was just poverty.” In short, he recalled each expense and worked it all out precisely, as on an abacus. Thus the supposition that only fifteen hundred had been spent, and the rest set aside in the amulet, became unthinkable. “I myself saw it, I saw three thousand to a kopeck in his hands, contemplated it with my own eyes, who knows about money if not me, sir!” Trifon Borisovich kept exclaiming, doing his best to please “authority. “ But when the defense attorney began his cross-examination, instead of actually trying to refute the testimony, he suddenly started talking about how the coachman Timofei and another peasant named Akim, during that first spree in Mokroye a month before the arrest, had picked up a hundred roubles that Mitya had dropped on the floor in his drunken state, and turned the money over to Trifon Borisovich, for which he gave them each a rouble. “Well, and did you then return the hundred roubles to Mr. Karamazov, or not?” Trifon Borisovich tried in every way to dodge the question, but after the peasants themselves testified, he was forced to admit to the found hundred roubles, adding only that he had at once religiously returned and restored everything to Dmitri Fyodorovich “in all honesty, and that he simply wasn’t able to recall it himself, having been quite drunk at that time, sir.” But since he had nonetheless denied finding the hundred roubles before the peasant witnesses were called, his testimony about returning the money to the drunken Mitya was naturally called very much in question. And so one of the most dangerous witnesses brought forward by the prosecution again left under suspicion and with his reputation rather besmirched. The same thing happened with the Poles: the two of them appeared looking proud and independent. They loudly testified, first, that they had both “served the Crown” and that “Pan Mitya” had offered them three thousand, to buy their honor, and they themselves had seen a great deal of money in his hands. Pan Mussyalovich introduced a terrible quantity of Polish words into his phrases, and, seeing that this only raised him in the eyes of the judge and the prosecutor, finally let his spirit soar and in the end started speaking entirely in Polish. But Fetyukovich caught them, too, in his snares: no matter how Trifon Borisovich, who was called up again, tried to hedge, he still had to confess that Pan Vrublevsky had switched the innkeeper’s deck of cards for one of his own, and that Pan Mussyalovich had cheated while keeping the bank. This was also confirmed by Kalganov when his turn came to testify, and the two pans withdrew somewhat covered in shame, even amid public laughter.

Exactly the same thing happened with almost all the most dangerous witnesses. Fetyukovich succeeded in morally tainting each one of them and letting them go with their noses somewhat out of joint. Amateurs and lawyers were filled with admiration, and only wondered, again, what great and ultimate purpose all this could serve, for, I repeat, everyone felt that the accusation, which was growing and becoming ever more tragic, was irrefutable. But they waited, seeing by the assurance of “the great magician” that he himself was calm: “such a man” would not have come from Petersburg for nothing, nor was he such as to go back with nothing.

Chapter 3: Medical Expertise and One Pound of Nuts

Medical expertise was not much help to the defendant either. And Fetyukovich himself seemed not to be counting on it very much, as turned out later to be the case. Basically, it was introduced solely at the insistence of Katerina Ivanovna, who had purposely invited a famous doctor from Moscow. The defense, of course, could not lose anything by it, and at best might even gain something. What came of it, however, was partly even comic, as it were, owing to some disagreement among the doctors. The experts called were: the famous visiting doctor, then our own Dr. Herzenstube, and finally the young Dr. Varvinsky. The latter two were also called as regular witnesses by the prosecution. The first to give expert testimony was Dr. Herzenstube. He was an old man of seventy, gray-haired and bald, of medium height and sturdy build. Everyone in our town valued and respected him very much. He was a conscientious doctor, an excellent and pious man, some sort of Herrnhuter or “Moravian brother”^[331]—I am not sure which. He had been with us for a very long time and behaved with the greatest dignity. He was kind and philanthropic, treated poor patients and peasants for nothing, visited their hovels and cottages himself, and left them money for medications, yet for all that he was stubborn as a mule. Once an idea had lodged itself in his head, it was impossible to shake it out of him. Incidentally, almost everyone in town knew by then that the famous visiting doctor, in the two or three days since his arrival, had allowed himself several extremely insulting comments with respect to Dr. Herzenstube’s abilities. The thing was that, though the Moscow doctor charged no less than twenty-five roubles for a visit, some people in our town still rejoiced at the occasion of his coming, and, not sparing the money, rushed to him for advice. Previously all these sick people had, of course, been treated by Herzenstube, and now the famous doctor went around criticizing his treatment with extreme sharpness. In the end, coming to a sick person, he would ask straight off: “Well, who’s been mucking about with you—Herzenstube? Heh, heh!” Dr. Herzenstube, of course, found out about all this. And so all three doctors appeared, one after the other, to be questioned. Dr. Herzenstube declared directly that “the mental abnormality of the defendant is self-evident.” Then, having offered his considerations, which I omit here, he added that this abnormality could be perceived above all, not only in many of the defendant’s former actions, but also now, even this very minute, and when asked to explain how it could be perceived now, this very minute, the old doctor, with all his simple-hearted directness, pointed out that the defendant, on entering the courtroom, “had, considering the circumstances, a remarkable and strange look, marched along like a soldier, and kept his eyes fixed straight in front of him, whereas it would have been more correct for him to look to the left where, among the public, the ladies were sitting, since he was a great admirer of the fair sex and ought to have thought very much about what the ladies would now be saying of him,” the dear old man concluded in his peculiar language. It should be added that he spoke Russian readily and copiously, but somehow each of his phrases came out in German fashion, which, however, never embarrassed him, for all his life he had the weakness of considering his spoken Russian exemplary, “even better than with the Russians,” and he was even very fond of quoting Russian proverbs, each time maintaining that Russian proverbs were the best and most expressive proverbs in the world. I will note, also, that in conversation, perhaps from some sort of absentmindedness, he often forgot the most ordinary words, which he knew perfectly well, but which for some reason suddenly slipped his mind. The same thing happened, incidentally, when he spoke German, and he would always start waving his hand in front of his face, as if seeking to catch the lost word, and no one could make him go on with what he was saying before the lost word was found. His observation that the defendant ought to have looked at the ladies as he came in drew some playful whispers from the public. All our ladies loved our dear old doctor very much, and also knew that he, a lifelong bachelor, a chaste and pious man, looked upon women as exalted and ideal beings. His unexpected observation therefore struck everyone as terribly strange.

The Moscow doctor, questioned in his turn, sharply and emphatically confirmed that he considered the defendant’s mental condition abnormal, “even in the highest degree.” He spoke at length and cleverly about “mania” and the “fit of passion,” and concluded from all the assembled data that the defendant, before his arrest, as much as several days before, was undoubtedly suffering from a morbid fit of passion, and if he did commit the crime, even consciously, it was also almost involuntarily, being totally unable to fight the morbid moral fixation that possessed him. But, besides this fit of passion, the doctor also detected a mania that, in his words, promised to lead straight to complete insanity. (N.B. The words are my own; the doctor expressed himself in a very learned and special language.) “All his actions are contrary to common sense and logic,” he continued. “I am not talking about what I did not see—that is, the crime itself and this whole catastrophe—but even the day before yesterday, during a conversation with me, he had an inexplicable, fixed look in his eyes. Unexpected laughter, when it was quite uncalled for. Incomprehensible, constant irritation; strange words: ‘Bernard’ and ‘ethics,’ and others that were uncalled for.” But the doctor especially detected this mania in the defendant’s inability even to speak of the three thousand roubles, of which he considered himself cheated, without extraordinary irritation, whereas he could recall and speak of all his other failures and offenses rather lightly. Finally, according to inquiries, it had been the same even before as well; each time the three thousand came up, he would fly almost into some sort of frenzy, and yet people said of him that he was disinterested and ungrasping. “And concerning the opinion of my learned colleague,” the Moscow doctor added ironically, concluding his speech, “that the defendant, on entering the courtroom, ought to have been looking at the ladies and not straight in front of him, I shall only say that, apart from the playfulness of such a conclusion, it is, besides, also radically erroneous; for though I fully agree that the defendant, on entering the courtroom where his fate is to be decided, ought not to have looked so fixedly in front of him, and that this indeed can be considered a sign of his abnormal psychological condition at that moment, yet at the same time I assert that he ought not to have been looking to the left, at the ladies, but, on the contrary, precisely to the right, seeking out his defense attorney, in whose help all his hopes lie, and on whose defense his entire fate now depends.” The doctor expressed his opinion decisively and emphatically. But the disagreement of the two learned experts became especially comical in light of the unexpected conclusion of Dr. Varvinsky, who was the last to be questioned. In his opinion the defendant, now as well as before, was in a perfectly normal condition, and although, before his arrest, he must have been in a very nervous and extremely excited state, this could have been owing to a number of quite obvious reasons: jealousy, wrath, continual drunkenness, and so on. But this nervous condition would not in itself imply any special “fit of passion” such as had just been discussed. As to which way the defendant ought to have been looking, to the left or to the right, on entering the courtroom, “in his humble opinion” the defendant, on entering the courtroom, ought to have looked straight in front of him, as in fact he did, because in front of him were sitting the presiding judge and the members of the court, on whom his entire fate now depended, “so that, by looking straight in front of him, he thereby precisely proved his perfectly normal state of mind at the present moment,” the young doctor somewhat heatedly concluded his “humble” testimony.

“Bravo, leech!” Mitya cried from his place. “Precisely right!”

Mitya, of course, was cut short, but the young doctor’s opinion had the most decisive influence both on the court and on the public, for, as it turned out later, everyone agreed with him. However, Dr. Herzenstube, when questioned as a witness, suddenly served quite unexpectedly in Mitya’s favor. As an old-timer in town who had long known the Karamazov family, he furnished some evidence that was quite interesting for “the prosecution,” but suddenly, as if he had just realized something, he added:

“And yet the poor young man might have had an incomparably better lot, for he was of good heart both in childhood and after childhood, for this I know. But the Russian proverb says: ‘It is good when someone has one head, but when an intelligent man comes to visit, it is better still, for then there will be two heads and not just one . . .’”

“Two heads are better than one,” the prosecutor prompted impatiently, being long familiar with the old man’s habit of speaking in a slow, drawn-out fashion, without being embarrassed by the impression he produced or by the fact that he was making everyone wait for him, but, on the contrary, prizing all the more his potato-thick and always happily self-satisfied German wit. And the dear old man loved to be witty.

“Oh, y-yes, that’s what I am saying,” he picked up stubbornly, “two heads are much better than one head. But no one came to him with another head, and he even sent his own head for ... How do you say, where did he send it? This word—where he sent his head—I’ve forgotten,” he went on waving his hand in front of his eyes, “ah, yes, spazieren.”

“For a walk?”

“Yes, for a walk, that’s what I am saying. So his head went for a walk and came to some deep place where it lost itself. And yet he was a grateful and sensitive young man, oh, I remember him still as such a tiny boy, left alone in his father’s backyard, where he was running in the dirt without any shoes and just one button on his little britches.”

A certain note of sensitivity and emotion was suddenly heard in the honest old man’s voice. Fetyukovich fairly started, as if anticipating something, and instantly hung on to it.

“Oh, yes, I myself was a young man then ... I was ... well, yes, I was then forty-five years old, and had just come here. And I felt pity for the boy then, and I asked myself: why shouldn’t I buy him a pound of ... well, yes, a pound of what? I forget what it’s called ... a pound of what children like so much, what is it—well, what is it ... ?” the doctor again waved his hand. “It grows on a tree, they gather it and give it to everyone...”

“Apples?”

“Oh, n-n-no! A pound, a pound—apples come in dozens, not pounds ... no, there are many of them, and they are all small, you put them in the mouth and cr-r-rack . . .!”

“Nuts?”

“Well, yes, nuts, that is what I am saying,” the doctor confirmed in the calmest way, as if he had not even been searching for the word, “and I brought the boy a pound of nuts, because no one had ever yet brought the boy a pound of nuts, and I held up my finger and said to him: ‘Boy! Gott der Vater,’ and he laughed and said, ‘Gott der Vater.’ ‘Gott der Sohn.’ Again he laughed and said, ‘Gott der Sohn.’ ‘Gott der heilige Geist.’ Then he laughed again and said as well as he could, ‘Gott der heilige Geist.’^[332] And I left. Two days later I was passing by and he called out to me himself: ‘Hey, uncle, Gott der Vater, Gott der Sohn,’ only he forgot ‘Gott der heilige Geist,’ but I reminded him, and again I felt great pity for him. But he was taken away, and I did not see him anymore. And now after twenty-three years have gone by, I am sitting one morning in my study, and my head is already gray, and suddenly a blossoming young man comes in, whom I would never have recognized, but he held up his finger and said, laughing: ‘Gott der Water, Gott der Sohn, und Gott der heilige Geist! I’ve just arrived, and have come to thank you for that pound of nuts; for no one bought me a pound of nuts before; you are the only one who ever bought me a pound of nuts.’ And then I remembered my happy youth, and a poor boy in the yard without any shoes, and my heart turned over, and I said: ‘You are a grateful young man, for all your life you have remembered that pound of nuts I brought you in your childhood.’ And I embraced him and blessed him. And I wept. He was laughing, but he also wept ... for a Russian quite often laughs when he ought to weep. But he wept, too, I saw it. And now, alas...!”

“And I’m weeping now, too, German, I’m weeping now, too, you man of God!” Mitya suddenly cried from his place.

In any event, this little anecdote produced a certain favorable impression on the public. But the major effect in Mitya’s favor was produced by the testimony of Katerina Ivanovna, which I shall come to presently. And, generally, when the witnesses à décharge—that is, called by the defense—began to testify, fate seemed suddenly and even seriously to smile on Mitya and—what is most remarkable—to the surprise even of the defense itself. But before Katerina Ivanovna, Alyosha was questioned, and he suddenly recalled one fact that even looked like positive evidence against one most important point of the accusation.

Chapter 4: Fortune Smiles on Mitya

It came as a complete surprise even to Alyosha himself. He was called up without being under oath, and I remember that from the very first words of the examination all sides treated him with great gentleness and sympathy. One could see that his good fame had preceded him. Alyosha testified modestly and with reserve, but an ardent sympathy for his unfortunate brother kept obviously breaking through his testimony. In answer to one question, he outlined his brother’s character as that of a man who, if he was indeed violent and carried away by his passions, was also noble, proud, and magnanimous, ready even for any sacrifice if it was wanted of him. He admitted, however, that in recent days his brother had been in an unbearable situation because of his passion for Grushenka, because of the rivalry with his father. But he indignantly rejected even the suggestion that his brother could have killed with the purpose of robbery, though he confessed that in Mitya’s mind the three thousand roubles had turned almost into some sort of mania, that he regarded it as an inheritance left owing to him by his father, who had cheated him, and that, while he was a totally unmercenary man, he could not even begin speaking of that three thousand without rage and fury. Concerning the rivalry of the two “persons,” as the prosecutor put it—that is, Grushenka and Katya—he answered evasively, and even preferred once or twice not to answer at all.

“Did your brother tell you, at least, that he intended to kill his father?” the prosecutor asked. “You may choose not to answer if you find it necessary,” he added, “He never said it directly,” Alyosha replied.

“And how, then? Indirectly?” “He once spoke to me of his personal loathing for father, and of his fear that ... in an extreme moment ... in a moment of loathing ... he could, perhaps, even kill him.”

“And did you believe it when you heard it?”

“I am afraid to say I did. But I was always convinced that at the fatal moment some higher feeling would always save him, as it did indeed save him, because it was not he who killed my father,” Alyosha concluded firmly, in a loud voice, for all the courtroom to hear. The prosecutor gave a start, like a warhorse hearing the sound of trumpets.

“Rest assured that I fully believe in the complete sincerity of your conviction, and do not in the least connect it or assimilate it with love for your unfortunate brother. Your singular view of the whole tragic episode that took place in your family is already known to us from the preliminary investigation. I shall not conceal from you that it is original in the highest degree and contradicts all the other evidence obtained by the prosecution. And therefore at this point I must insist on asking you: what precisely were the facts that guided your thought and led you to a final conviction of your brother’s innocence and, on the contrary, of the guilt of a certain other person to whom you pointed directly in the preliminary investigation?”

“In the preliminary investigation I simply answered questions,” Alyosha said softly and calmly, “I did not come out and accuse Smerdyakov myself.”

“But still you pointed to him?”

“I pointed to him from what my brother Dmitri said. Even before the interrogation I was told of what happened at his arrest, and how he himself had then pointed to Smerdyakov. I believe completely that my brother is innocent. And if it was not he who killed father, then ...”

“Then it was Smerdyakov? But why Smerdyakov, precisely? And precisely why did you become so utterly convinced of your brother’s innocence?”

“I could not but believe my brother. I know he would not lie to me. I saw by his face that he was not lying to me.”

“Only by his face? That’s all the proof you have?”

“I have no other proof.”

“And concerning Smerdyakov’s guilt, you have not the slightest proof to base it on, apart from your brother’s words and the look on his face?”

“No, I do not have any other proof.”

At that the prosecutor had no more questions. Alyosha’s answers produced a most disappointing impression on the public. There had been some talk of Smerdyakov even before the trial, someone had heard something, someone had pointed to something, it was said that Alyosha had gathered some extraordinary proof in favor of his brother and of the lackey’s guilt, and now—nothing, no proof, except for certain moral convictions quite natural in him as the defendant’s brother.

But then Fetyukovich began his questioning. He asked precisely when it was that the defendant had told him, Alyosha, of his hatred for their father, and of being capable of killing him, whether he had said it, for example, at their last meeting before the catastrophe, and as Alyosha was answering, he suddenly seemed to jump, as if he had just then recalled and understood something:

“I now recall one circumstance I had quite forgotten; it was not at all clear to me then, but now ...”

And Alyosha excitedly recalled, obviously having just suddenly hit upon the idea himself, how during his last meeting with Mitya, in the evening, by the tree, on the road to the monastery, Mitya, hitting himself on the chest, “on the upper part of the chest,” repeated to him several times that he had a means of restoring his honor, and that this means was there, right there, on his chest ... “At the time I thought, when he hit himself on the chest, that he was speaking of his heart,” Alyosha went on, “that in his heart he might find the strength to escape some terrible disgrace that lay ahead of him, and that he did not dare confess even to me. I admit that right then I thought precisely that he was speaking of father, and that he was shuddering as if from shame at the thought of going to father and doing some violence to him, and yet precisely then he seemed to point at something on his chest, so that I remember precisely then some thought flashed through me that the heart isn’t in that part of the chest at all, but lower down, while he was hitting himself much higher, here, right under his neck, and indicating that place. My thought seemed stupid to me then, but perhaps precisely then he was pointing to that amulet with the fifteen hundred roubles sewn up in it. . .!”

“Precisely!” Mitya suddenly shouted from his place. “It’s true, Alyosha, true, I was pounding on it with my fist!”

Fetyukovich rushed to him in a flurry, begging him to calm down, and at the same time simply fastened on to Alyosha. Alyosha, carried away himself by his recollection, ardently voiced his supposition that the disgrace most likely lay precisely in the fact that, while he had these fifteen hundred roubles on him, which he could return to Katerina Ivanovna as half of what he owed her, he had nonetheless decided not to give her this half but to use it for something else—that is, to take Grushenka away, if she were willing . . .

“That’s it, that’s precisely it,” Alyosha kept exclaiming in sudden agitation, “my brother precisely kept exclaiming to me then that he could remove half, half of the disgrace from himself at once (several times he said half! ), but was so unfortunate in the weakness of his character that he would not do it ... he knew beforehand that he could not, that he was not strong enough to do it!”

“And you firmly, clearly remember that he hit himself precisely in that place on his chest?” Fetyukovich questioned him greedily.

“Clearly and firmly, because I precisely thought then: why is he hitting himself up there, when the heart is lower down, and the thought immediately struck me as stupid ... I remember that it struck me as stupid ... it flashed through my mind. That’s why I remembered it just now. And how could I have forgotten it all this time! He was pointing precisely to the amulet, showing that he had the means but that he would not return the fifteen hundred! And at his arrest in Mokroye he precisely cried out—I know this, I was told— that he considered it the most shameful thing in all his life that, having the means to pay back half (precisely half! ) of his debt to Katerina Ivanovna and not be a thief to her, he still could not decide to do it, and preferred to remain a thief in her eyes rather than part with the money! And how he suffered, how he suffered over that debt!” Alyosha exclaimed in conclusion.

Naturally, the prosecutor also intervened. He asked Alyosha to describe it all once more, and insisted on asking several times whether the defendant, as he beat himself on the chest, in fact seemed to be pointing at something. Perhaps he was simply beating himself on the chest with his fist?

“No, not with his fist!”exclaimed Alyosha. “He was precisely pointing with his finger, and pointing here, very high ... But how could I have forgotten it so completely till this very moment!”

The presiding judge turned to Mitya and asked what he had to say regarding the present testimony. Mitya confirmed that it had all happened precisely that way, that he had precisely been pointing at the fifteen hundred roubles that were on his chest, just below the neck, and that, of course, it was a disgrace, “a disgrace I do not repudiate, the most disgraceful act of my whole life!” Mitya cried out. “I could have returned it and I did not return it. I preferred better to remain a thief in her eyes, and did not return it, and the chief disgrace was that I knew beforehand that I wasn’t going to return it! Alyosha is right! Thank you, Alyosha!”

With that the questioning of Alyosha ended. What was important and characteristic was precisely the circumstance that at least one fact had been found, at least one, shall we say, very small proof, almost just the hint of a proof, that nonetheless gave at least a drop of evidence that the amulet had actually existed, that it had contained the fifteen hundred, and that the defendant had not been lying at the preliminary investigation in Mokroye when he declared that the fifteen hundred “was mine.” Alyosha was glad; all flushed, he proceeded to the place pointed out to him. He kept repeating to himself for a long time: “How did I forget! How could I forget! And how did I suddenly recall it only now!”

The questioning of Katerina Ivanovna began. The moment she appeared, something extraordinary swept through the courtroom. The ladies snatched up their lorgnettes and opera-glasses, the men began to stir, some stood in order to get a better view. Everyone asserted afterwards that Mitya suddenly went “white as a sheet” the moment she came in. All in black, she modestly and almost timidly approached the place pointed out to her. It was impossible to tell from her face if she was excited, but there was a gleam of resolution in her dark, gloomy eyes. Afterwards, it should be noted, a great many people declared that she was remarkably good-looking at that moment. She spoke softly but clearly, so that she could be heard throughout the courtroom. She expressed herself with extreme calmness, or at least with an effort to be calm. The presiding judge began his questions cautiously, with extreme respect, as though fearing to touch “certain strings” and deferring to great misfortune. But Katerina Ivanovna herself, from the very first words, declared firmly to one of the questions put to her that she had been engaged to be married to the defendant, “before he himself left me ... ,” she added softly. When asked about the three thousand roubles entrusted to Mitya to be sent by mail to her relations, she said firmly: “I did not give it to him to be mailed straight away; I sensed at the time that he very much needed money ... that minute ... I gave him the three thousand roubles on condition that he send it, if he would, within a month. There was no need for him to torment himself so much afterwards because of this debt ...” I am not repeating all the questions and all her answers exactly, I am only giving the basic sense of her testimony.

“I firmly believed that he would always be able to send the three thousand as soon as he got it from his father,” she went on answering the questions. “I always believed in his disinterestedness and in his honesty ... his high honesty ... in matters of money. He firmly believed that he would get three thousand roubles from his father, and said so to me several times. I knew he was having a dispute with his father, and have always been and still am convinced that his father wronged him. I do not recall any threats against his father on his part. At least in my presence he never said anything, any threats. If he had come to me then, I would immediately have calmed his anxiety about the miserable three thousand he owed me, but he no longer came to me ... and I myself ... I was put in such a position ... that I could not ask him to come ... And besides, I had no right to be demanding of him about that debt,” she suddenly added, and something resolute rang in her voice, “I myself once received a financial favor from him even greater than three thousand, and I accepted it, although I could not even foresee then that at least one day I might be able to repay him my debt ...”

One seemed to feel a sort of challenge in the tone of her voice. Precisely at that moment the questioning was taken over by Fetyukovich.

“That was not here, but at the beginning of your acquaintance?” Fetyukovich picked up, approaching cautiously, having instantly sensed something favorable. (I will note parenthetically that in spite of the fact that he had been invited from Petersburg in part by Katerina Ivanovna herself, he knew nothing as yet about the episode of the five thousand given her by Mitya in that town, or about the “bow to the ground.” She had concealed it and did not tell him of it! And that was surprising. One could suppose quite certainly that she herself did not know until the very last moment whether she would tell of this episode in court or not, and was waiting for some sort of inspiration.)

No, never shall I forget those moments! She began telling, she told everything, the whole episode Mitya had revealed to Alyosha, including the “bow to the ground,” and the reasons, and about her father, and her appearance at Mitya’s, and did not betray by a word, not by a single hint, that Mitya himself had suggested, through her sister, that they “send Katerina Ivanovna to him for the money.” She magnanimously concealed it, and was not ashamed to present it as if she, she herself, had gone running to a young officer, on her own impulse, hoping for something ... to beg him for money. This was something tremendous! I had chills and trembled as I listened; the courtroom was dead silent, grasping at every word. Here was an unparalleled thing, so that even from such an imperious and contemptuously proud girl as she was, such extremely frank testimony, such sacrifice, such self-immolation was almost impossible to expect. And for what, for whom? To save her betrayer and offender, at least somehow, at least slightly, to contribute to his salvation by creating a good impression in his favor! And indeed the image of an officer giving away his last five thousand roubles-—all he had left in the world—and respectfully bowing to the innocent girl, made a rather sympathetic and attractive picture, but ... how my heart ached! I sensed that what might come of it afterwards (and so it did, it did) was slander! Afterwards, all over town, it was said with a wicked snigger that the story was perhaps not entirely accurate—namely, at the point where the officer supposedly let the girl go “with just a respectful bow.” It was hinted that something had been “left out” there. “And even if it wasn’t left out, if it was all true,” even our most respectable ladies said, “it still isn’t clear that it was quite so noble for a girl to act in such a way even to save her father.” And can it be that Katerina Ivanovna, with her intelligence, with her morbid perspicacity, did not anticipate that there would be such talk? She must have anticipated it, and still she determined to tell everything! Of course, all these dirty little doubts about the truth of the story arose only later, but in the first moment all were thoroughly shaken. As for the members of the court, they listened to Katerina Ivanovna in reverent and even, so to speak, bashful silence. The prosecutor did not allow himself any further questions on the subject. Fetyukovich bowed deeply to her. Oh, he was almost triumphant! Much had been gained: a man who, on a noble impulse, gives away his last five thousand roubles, and then the same man killing his father in the night with the purpose of robbing him of three thousand—there was something partly incongruous about it. Now Fetyukovich could at least eliminate the robbery. A certain new light suddenly poured over “the case.” Something sympathetic emerged in Mitya’s favor. As for him ... it was said that once or twice during Katerina Ivanovna’s testimony he jumped up from his place, then fell back on the bench again and covered his face with his hands. But when she had finished, he suddenly exclaimed in a sobbing voice, stretching his hands out to her:

“Katya, why have you ruined me!”

And he burst into loud sobs that could be heard all over the courtroom. However, he instantly restrained himself and again cried out:

“Now I am condemned!”

And then he froze in his place, as it were, clenching his teeth and crossing his arms tightly on his chest. Katerina Ivanovna remained in the courtroom and sat down on the chair pointed out to her. She was pale and kept her eyes cast down. Those who were near her said she trembled for a long time as if in fever. Grushenka appeared for questioning. I am drawing near the catastrophe that, when it suddenly broke out, indeed perhaps ruined Mitya. For I am certain, and so is everyone else, and all the lawyers also said afterwards, that if it had not been for this episode, the criminal would at least have been given a lighter sentence. But of that presently. And first a few words about Grushenka.

She also came into the courtroom dressed all in black, with her beautiful black shawl over her shoulders. Smoothly, with her inaudible step, swaying slightly, as full-figured women sometimes walk, she approached the balustrade, looking steadily at the presiding judge, and never once glancing either right or left. In my opinion she was very good-looking at that moment, and not at all pale, as the ladies asserted afterwards. It was also asserted that she had a somehow concentrated and angry look. I simply think she was on edge and strongly sensible of the contemptuously curious eyes fixed upon her by our scandal-loving public. Hers was a proud character, which could not brook contempt—of the sort that, at the first suspicion of contempt from someone, at once flares up with wrath and the desire to strike back. With that, of course, there was also timidity, and an inner shame because of this timidity, so it was no wonder that she spoke unevenly—now angry, now contemptuous and overly rude, now suddenly with a sincere, heartfelt note of self-condemnation, self-accusation. But sometimes she spoke as if she were flying into some sort of abyss: “I don’t care what comes of it, I’ll say it anyway ...” Concerning her acquaintance with Fyodor Pavlovich, she observed sharply: “There was nothing to it—is it my fault that he hung onto me?” And then, a minute later, she added: “It was all my fault, I was laughing at both of them— at the old man and at him—and drove them both to it. It all happened because of me.” Somehow Samsonov came up: “That’s nobody’s business,” she snarled at once, with a sort of insolent defiance. “He was my benefactor, he took me in barefoot when my relations threw me out of the house.” The judge reminded her, quite courteously, by the way, that she should answer the questions directly, without getting into unnecessary details. Grushenka blushed, and her eyes flashed.

She had not seen the envelope with the money, and had only heard from “the villain” that Fyodor Pavlovich had some sort of envelope with three thousand in it. “Only it was all foolishness—I just laughed—I wouldn’t have gone there for anything ...”

“When you said ‘the villain’ just now, whom did you mean?” the prosecutor inquired.

“Why, the lackey, Smerdyakov, who killed his master and hanged himself last night.” Of course she was asked at once what grounds she had for such a definite accusation, but it turned out that she, too, had no grounds for it.

“Dmitri Fyodorovich told me so himself, and you can believe him. It was that man-stealer who ruined him, that’s what; she alone is the cause of everything, that’s what,” Grushenka added, all shuddering from hatred, as it were, and a malicious note rang in her voice.

Again she was asked whom she was hinting at.

“At the young lady, at this Katerina Ivanovna here. She sent for me once, treated me to chocolate, wanted to charm me. She has little true shame in her, that’s what ...”

Here the presiding judge stopped her, quite sternly now, asking her to moderate her language. But the jealous woman’s heart was already aflame and she was prepared even to hurl herself into the abyss . . .

“At the time of the arrest in the village of Mokroye,” the prosecutor asked, recalling, “everyone saw and heard how you ran out of the other room, crying: ‘I am guilty of it all, we’ll go to penal servitude together! ‘ Meaning that at that moment you were already certain he had killed his father?”

“I don’t remember what my feelings were then,” Grushenka replied. “Everyone was shouting that he had killed his father, so I felt that I was guilty, and that he had killed him because of me. But as soon as he said he was not guilty, I believed him at once, and I still believe him and shall always believe him: he’s not the sort of man who would lie.”

It was Fetyukovich’s turn to ask questions. Incidentally, I remember him asking about Rakitin and the twenty-five roubles “for bringing Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov to you.”

“And why is it so surprising that he took the money?” Grushenka grinned with contemptuous spite. “He was forever coming to wheedle money out of me, sometimes he’d take up to thirty roubles a month, mostly for his own pleasures: he had enough money to eat and drink without me.”

“And on what grounds were you so generous to Mr. Rakitin? “ Fetyukovich picked up, ignoring the fact that the judge was stirring uneasily.

“But he’s my cousin. My mother and his mother are sisters. Only he always begged me not to tell anyone here, because he was so ashamed of me.”

This new fact came as a complete surprise to everyone, no one in the entire town knew of it, nor even in the monastery, not even Mitya knew it. It was said that Rakitin turned crimson from shame in his seat. Grushenka had found out somehow, even before she entered the courtroom, that he had testified against Mitya, and it made her angry. All of Mr. Rakitin’s earlier speech, all its nobility, all its outbursts against serfdom, against the civil disorder of Russia—all of it was now finally scrapped and destroyed in the general opinion. Fetyukovich was pleased: once again it was a small godsend. But in general Grushenka was not questioned for very long, and, of course, she could not say anything especially new. She left a rather unpleasant impression on the public. Hundreds of contemptuous looks were fixed on her when, having finished her testimony, she went and sat down in the courtroom a good distance from Katerina Ivanovna. Mitya was silent throughout her questioning, as if turned to stone, his eyes fixed on the ground.

The next witness to appear was Ivan Fyodorovich.