Resurrection
Four pages were covered with the 27 paragraphs describing all the
details of the external examination of the enormous, fat, swollen, and
decomposing body of the merchant who had been making merry in the
town. The indefinite loathing that Nekhludoff felt was increased by the
description of the corpse. Katusha’s life, and the scrum oozing from
the nostrils of the corpse, and the eyes that protruded out of their
sockets, and his own treatment of her--all seemed to belong to the same
order of things, and he felt surrounded and wholly absorbed by things of
the same nature.
When the reading of the report of the external examination was ended,
the president heaved a sigh and raised his hand, hoping it was finished;
but the secretary at once went on to the description of the internal
examination. The president’s head again dropped into his hand and he
shut his eyes. The merchant next to Nekhludoff could hardly keep awake,
and now and then his body swayed to and fro. The prisoners and the
gendarmes sat perfectly quiet.
The internal examination showed that:
“1. The skin was easily detachable from the bones of the skull, and
there was no coagulated blood.
“2. The bones of the skull were of average thickness and in sound
condition.
“3. On the membrane of the brain there were two discoloured spots about
four inches long, the membrane itself being of a dull white.” And so on
for 13 paragraphs more. Then followed the names and signatures of
the assistants, and the doctor’s conclusion showing that the changes
observed in the stomach, and to a lesser degree in the bowels and
kidneys, at the postmortem examination, and described in the official
report, gave great probability to the conclusion that Smelkoff’s death
was caused by poison which had entered his stomach mixed with alcohol.
To decide from the state of the stomach what poison had been introduced
was difficult; but it was necessary to suppose that the poison entered
the stomach mixed with alcohol, since a great quantity of the latter was
found in Smelkoff’s stomach.
“He could drink, and no mistake,” again whispered the merchant, who had
just waked up.
The reading of this report had taken a full hour, but it had not
satisfied the public prosecutor, for, when it had been read through and
the president turned to him, saying, “I suppose it is superfluous to
read the report of the examination of the internal organs?” he answered
in a severe tone, without looking at the president, “I shall ask to have
it read.”
He raised himself a little, and showed by his manner that he had a right
to have this report read, and would claim this right, and that if that
were not granted it would serve as a cause of appeal.
The member of the Court with the big beard, who suffered from catarrh of
the stomach, feeling quite done up, turned to the president:
“What is the use of reading all this? It is only dragging it out. These
new brooms do not sweep clean; they only take a long while doing it.”
The member with the gold spectacles said nothing, but only looked
gloomily in front of him, expecting nothing good, either from his wife
or life in general. The reading of the report commenced.
“In the year 188-, on February 15th, I, the undersigned, commissioned
by the medical department, made an examination, No. 638,” the secretary
began again with firmness and raising the pitch of his voice as if to
dispel the sleepiness that had overtaken all present, “in the presence
of the assistant medical inspector, of the internal organs:
“1. The right lung and the heart (contained in a 6-lb. glass jar).
“2. The contents of the stomach (in a 6-lb. glass jar).
“3. The stomach itself (in a 6-lb. glass jar).
“4. The liver, the spleen and the kidneys (in a 9-lb. glass jar).
“5. The intestines (in a 9-lb. earthenware jar).”
The president here whispered to one of the members, then stooped to the
other, and having received their consent, he said: “The Court considers
the reading of this report superfluous.” The secretary stopped reading
and folded the paper, and the public prosecutor angrily began to write
down something. “The gentlemen of the jury may now examine the articles
of material evidence,” said the president. The foreman and several of
the others rose and went to the table, not quite knowing what to do with
their hands. They looked in turn at the glass, the test tube, and the
ring. The merchant even tried on the ring.
“Ah! that was a finger,” he said, returning to his place; “like a
cucumber,” he added. Evidently the image he had formed in his mind of
the gigantic merchant amused him.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE TRIAL--THE PROSECUTOR AND THE ADVOCATES.
When the examination of the articles of material evidence was finished,
the president announced that the investigation was now concluded and
immediately called on the prosecutor to proceed, hoping that as the
latter was also a man, he, too, might feel inclined to smoke or dine,
and show some mercy on the rest. But the public prosecutor showed mercy
neither to himself nor to any one else. He was very stupid by nature,
but, besides this, he had had the misfortune of finishing school with a
gold medal and of receiving a reward for his essay on “Servitude” when
studying Roman Law at the University, and was therefore self-confident
and self-satisfied in the highest degree (his success with the ladies
also conducing to this) and his stupidity had become extraordinary.
When the word was given to him, he got up slowly, showing the whole of
his graceful figure in his embroidered uniform. Putting his hand on the
desk he looked round the room, slightly bowing his head, and, avoiding
the eyes of the prisoners, began to read the speech he had prepared
while the reports were being read.
“Gentlemen of the jury! The business that now lies before you is, if I
may so express myself, very characteristic.”
The speech of a public prosecutor, according to his views, should always
have a social importance, like the celebrated speeches made by the
advocates who have become distinguished. True, the audience consisted of
three women--a semptress, a cook, and Simeon’s sister--and a coachman;
but this did not matter. The celebrities had begun in the same way. To
be always at the height of his position, i.e., to penetrate into the
depths of the psychological significance of crime and to discover the
wounds of society, was one of the prosecutor’s principles.
“You see before you, gentlemen of the jury, a crime characteristic, if
I may so express myself, of the end of our century; bearing, so to say,
the specific features of that very painful phenomenon, the corruption to
which those elements of our present-day society, which are, so to say,
particularly exposed to the burning rays of this process, are subject.”
The public prosecutor spoke at great length, trying not to forget any of
the notions he had formed in his mind, and, on the other hand, never to
hesitate, and let his speech flow on for an hour and a quarter without a
break.
Only once he stopped and for some time stood swallowing his saliva, but
he soon mastered himself and made up for the interruption by heightened
eloquence. He spoke, now with a tender, insinuating accent, stepping
from foot to foot and looking at the jury, now in quiet, business-like
tones, glancing into his notebook, then with a loud, accusing voice,
looking from the audience to the advocates. But he avoided looking at
the prisoners, who were all three fixedly gazing at him. Every new craze
then in vogue among his set was alluded to in his speech; everything
that then was, and some things that still are, considered to be the last
words of scientific wisdom: the laws of heredity and inborn criminality,
evolution and the struggle for existence, hypnotism and hypnotic
influence.
According to his definition, the merchant Smelkoff was of the genuine
Russian type, and had perished in consequence of his generous, trusting
nature, having fallen into the hands of deeply degraded individuals.
Simeon Kartinkin was the atavistic production of serfdom, a stupefied,
ignorant, unprincipled man, who had not even any religion. Euphemia was
his mistress, and a victim of heredity; all the signs of degeneration
were noticeable in her. The chief wire-puller in this affair was
Maslova, presenting the phenomenon of decadence in its lowest form.
“This woman,” he said, looking at her, “has, as we have to-day heard
from her mistress in this court, received an education; she cannot only
read and write, but she knows French; she is illegitimate, and probably
carries in her the germs of criminality. She was educated in an
enlightened, noble family and might have lived by honest work, but she
deserts her benefactress, gives herself up to a life of shame in which
she is distinguished from her companions by her education, and chiefly,
gentlemen of the jury, as you have heard from her mistress, by her power
of acting on the visitors by means of that mysterious capacity lately
investigated by science, especially by the school of Charcot, known by
the name of hypnotic influence. By these means she gets hold of this
Russian, this kind-hearted Sadko, [Sadko, the hero of a legend] the rich
guest, and uses his trust in order first to rob and then pitilessly to
murder him.”
“Well, he is piling it on now, isn’t he?” said the president with a
smile, bending towards the serious member.
“A fearful blockhead!” said the serious member.
Meanwhile the public prosecutor went on with his speech. “Gentlemen of
the jury,” gracefully swaying his body, “the fate of society is to a
certain extent in your power. Your verdict will influence it. Grasp the
full meaning of this crime, the danger that awaits society from those
whom I may perhaps be permitted to call pathological individuals, such
as Maslova. Guard it from infection; guard the innocent and strong
elements of society from contagion or even destruction.”
And as if himself overcome by the significance of the expected verdict,
the public prosecutor sank into his chair, highly delighted with his
speech.
The sense of the speech, when divested of all its flowers of rhetoric,
was that Maslova, having gained the merchant’s confidence, hypnotised
him and went to his lodgings with his key meaning to take all the money
herself, but having been caught in the act by Simeon and Euphemia had to
share it with them. Then, in order to hide the traces of the crime, she
had returned to the lodgings with the merchant and there poisoned him.
After the prosecutor had spoken, a middle-aged man in swallow-tail coat
and low-cut waistcoat showing a large half-circle of starched white
shirt, rose from the advocates’ bench and made a speech in defence of
Kartinkin and Botchkova; this was an advocate engaged by them for 300
roubles. He acquitted them both and put all the blame on Maslova. He
denied the truth of Maslova’s statements that Botchkova and Kartinkin
were with her when she took the money, laying great stress on the
point that her evidence could not be accepted, she being charged with
poisoning. “The 2,500 roubles,” the advocate said, “could have been
easily earned by two honest people getting from three to five roubles
per day in tips from the lodgers. The merchant’s money was stolen by
Maslova and given away, or even lost, as she was not in a normal state.”
The poisoning was committed by Maslova alone; therefore he begged the
jury to acquit Kartinkin and Botchkova of stealing the money; or if they
could not acquit them of the theft, at least to admit that it was done
without any participation in the poisoning.
In conclusion the advocate remarked, with a thrust at the public
prosecutor, that “the brilliant observations of that gentleman on