The Brothers Karamazov
Smerdyakov behind the screen as he came out of his bedroom—Karamazov
was positively crushed. My esteemed and witty colleague, Nikolay
Parfenovitch, told me afterwards that he was almost moved to tears at
the sight of him. And to improve matters, the prisoner hastened to tell
us about the much-talked-of little bag—so be it, you shall hear this
romance!
“Gentlemen of the jury, I have told you already why I consider this
romance not only an absurdity, but the most improbable invention that
could have been brought forward in the circumstances. If one tried for
a bet to invent the most unlikely story, one could hardly find anything
more incredible. The worst of such stories is that the triumphant
romancers can always be put to confusion and crushed by the very
details in which real life is so rich and which these unhappy and
involuntary story-tellers neglect as insignificant trifles. Oh, they
have no thought to spare for such details, their minds are concentrated
on their grand invention as a whole, and fancy any one daring to pull
them up for a trifle! But that’s how they are caught. The prisoner was
asked the question, ‘Where did you get the stuff for your little bag
and who made it for you?’ ‘I made it myself.’ ‘And where did you get
the linen?’ The prisoner was positively offended, he thought it almost
insulting to ask him such a trivial question, and would you believe it,
his resentment was genuine! But they are all like that. ‘I tore it off
my shirt.’ ‘Then we shall find that shirt among your linen to-morrow,
with a piece torn off.’ And only fancy, gentlemen of the jury, if we
really had found that torn shirt (and how could we have failed to find
it in his chest of drawers or trunk?) that would have been a fact, a
material fact in support of his statement! But he was incapable of that
reflection. ‘I don’t remember, it may not have been off my shirt, I
sewed it up in one of my landlady’s caps.’ ‘What sort of a cap?’ ‘It
was an old cotton rag of hers lying about.’ ‘And do you remember that
clearly?’ ‘No, I don’t.’ And he was angry, very angry, and yet imagine
not remembering it! At the most terrible moments of man’s life, for
instance when he is being led to execution, he remembers just such
trifles. He will forget anything but some green roof that has flashed
past him on the road, or a jackdaw on a cross—that he will remember. He
concealed the making of that little bag from his household, he must
have remembered his humiliating fear that some one might come in and
find him needle in hand, how at the slightest sound he slipped behind
the screen (there is a screen in his lodgings).
“But, gentlemen of the jury, why do I tell you all this, all these
details, trifles?” cried Ippolit Kirillovitch suddenly. “Just because
the prisoner still persists in these absurdities to this moment. He has
not explained anything since that fatal night two months ago, he has
not added one actual illuminating fact to his former fantastic
statements; all those are trivialities. ‘You must believe it on my
honor.’ Oh, we are glad to believe it, we are eager to believe it, even
if only on his word of honor! Are we jackals thirsting for human blood?
Show us a single fact in the prisoner’s favor and we shall rejoice; but
let it be a substantial, real fact, and not a conclusion drawn from the
prisoner’s expression by his own brother, or that when he beat himself
on the breast he must have meant to point to the little bag, in the
darkness, too. We shall rejoice at the new fact, we shall be the first
to repudiate our charge, we shall hasten to repudiate it. But now
justice cries out and we persist, we cannot repudiate anything.”
Ippolit Kirillovitch passed to his final peroration. He looked as
though he was in a fever, he spoke of the blood that cried for
vengeance, the blood of the father murdered by his son, with the base
motive of robbery! He pointed to the tragic and glaring consistency of
the facts.
“And whatever you may hear from the talented and celebrated counsel for
the defense,” Ippolit Kirillovitch could not resist adding, “whatever
eloquent and touching appeals may be made to your sensibilities,
remember that at this moment you are in a temple of justice. Remember
that you are the champions of our justice, the champions of our holy
Russia, of her principles, her family, everything that she holds
sacred! Yes, you represent Russia here at this moment, and your verdict
will be heard not in this hall only but will reëcho throughout the
whole of Russia, and all Russia will hear you, as her champions and her
judges, and she will be encouraged or disheartened by your verdict. Do
not disappoint Russia and her expectations. Our fatal troika dashes on
in her headlong flight perhaps to destruction and in all Russia for
long past men have stretched out imploring hands and called a halt to
its furious reckless course. And if other nations stand aside from that
troika that may be, not from respect, as the poet would fain believe,
but simply from horror. From horror, perhaps from disgust. And well it
is that they stand aside, but maybe they will cease one day to do so
and will form a firm wall confronting the hurrying apparition and will
check the frenzied rush of our lawlessness, for the sake of their own
safety, enlightenment and civilization. Already we have heard voices of
alarm from Europe, they already begin to sound. Do not tempt them! Do
not heap up their growing hatred by a sentence justifying the murder of
a father by his son!”
Though Ippolit Kirillovitch was genuinely moved, he wound up his speech
with this rhetorical appeal—and the effect produced by him was
extraordinary. When he had finished his speech, he went out hurriedly
and, as I have mentioned before, almost fainted in the adjoining room.
There was no applause in the court, but serious persons were pleased.
The ladies were not so well satisfied, though even they were pleased
with his eloquence, especially as they had no apprehensions as to the
upshot of the trial and had full trust in Fetyukovitch. “He will speak
at last and of course carry all before him.”
Every one looked at Mitya; he sat silent through the whole of the
prosecutor’s speech, clenching his teeth, with his hands clasped, and
his head bowed. Only from time to time he raised his head and listened,
especially when Grushenka was spoken of. When the prosecutor mentioned
Rakitin’s opinion of her, a smile of contempt and anger passed over his
face and he murmured rather audibly, “The Bernards!” When Ippolit
Kirillovitch described how he had questioned and tortured him at
Mokroe, Mitya raised his head and listened with intense curiosity. At
one point he seemed about to jump up and cry out, but controlled
himself and only shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. People talked
afterwards of the end of the speech, of the prosecutor’s feat in
examining the prisoner at Mokroe, and jeered at Ippolit Kirillovitch.
“The man could not resist boasting of his cleverness,” they said.
The court was adjourned, but only for a short interval, a quarter of an
hour or twenty minutes at most. There was a hum of conversation and
exclamations in the audience. I remember some of them.
“A weighty speech,” a gentleman in one group observed gravely.
“He brought in too much psychology,” said another voice.
“But it was all true, the absolute truth!”
“Yes, he is first rate at it.”
“He summed it all up.”
“Yes, he summed us up, too,” chimed in another voice. “Do you remember,
at the beginning of his speech, making out we were all like Fyodor
Pavlovitch?”
“And at the end, too. But that was all rot.”
“And obscure too.”
“He was a little too much carried away.”
“It’s unjust, it’s unjust.”
“No, it was smartly done, anyway. He’s had long to wait, but he’s had
his say, ha ha!”
“What will the counsel for the defense say?”
In another group I heard:
“He had no business to make a thrust at the Petersburg man like that;
‘appealing to your sensibilities’—do you remember?”
“Yes, that was awkward of him.”
“He was in too great a hurry.”
“He is a nervous man.”
“We laugh, but what must the prisoner be feeling?”
“Yes, what must it be for Mitya?”
In a third group:
“What lady is that, the fat one, with the lorgnette, sitting at the
end?”
“She is a general’s wife, divorced, I know her.”
“That’s why she has the lorgnette.”
“She is not good for much.”
“Oh, no, she is a piquante little woman.”
“Two places beyond her there is a little fair woman, she is prettier.”
“They caught him smartly at Mokroe, didn’t they, eh?”
“Oh, it was smart enough. We’ve heard it before, how often he has told
the story at people’s houses!”
“And he couldn’t resist doing it now. That’s vanity.”
“He is a man with a grievance, he he!”
“Yes, and quick to take offense. And there was too much rhetoric, such
long sentences.”
“Yes, he tries to alarm us, he kept trying to alarm us. Do you remember
about the troika? Something about ‘They have Hamlets, but we have, so
far, only Karamazovs!’ That was cleverly said!”
“That was to propitiate the liberals. He is afraid of them.”
“Yes, and he is afraid of the lawyer, too.”
“Yes, what will Fetyukovitch say?”
“Whatever he says, he won’t get round our peasants.”
“Don’t you think so?”
A fourth group:
“What he said about the troika was good, that piece about the other
nations.”
“And that was true what he said about other nations not standing it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, in the English Parliament a Member got up last week and speaking
about the Nihilists asked the Ministry whether it was not high time to
intervene, to educate this barbarous people. Ippolit was thinking of
him, I know he was. He was talking about that last week.”
“Not an easy job.”
“Not an easy job? Why not?”
“Why, we’d shut up Kronstadt and not let them have any corn. Where
would they get it?”
“In America. They get it from America now.”
“Nonsense!”
But the bell rang, all rushed to their places. Fetyukovitch mounted the
tribune.
Chapter X.
The Speech For The Defense. An Argument That Cuts Both Ways
All was hushed as the first words of the famous orator rang out. The
eyes of the audience were fastened upon him. He began very simply and
directly, with an air of conviction, but not the slightest trace of
conceit. He made no attempt at eloquence, at pathos, or emotional
phrases. He was like a man speaking in a circle of intimate and
sympathetic friends. His voice was a fine one, sonorous and
sympathetic, and there was something genuine and simple in the very
sound of it. But every one realized at once that the speaker might
suddenly rise to genuine pathos and “pierce the heart with untold
power.” His language was perhaps more irregular than Ippolit
Kirillovitch’s, but he spoke without long phrases, and indeed, with
more precision. One thing did not please the ladies: he kept bending
forward, especially at the beginning of his speech, not exactly bowing,
but as though he were about to dart at his listeners, bending his long
spine in half, as though there were a spring in the middle that enabled
him to bend almost at right angles.
At the beginning of his speech he spoke rather disconnectedly, without
system, one may say, dealing with facts separately, though, at the end,
these facts formed a whole. His speech might be divided into two parts,
the first consisting of criticism in refutation of the charge,
sometimes malicious and sarcastic. But in the second half he suddenly
changed his tone, and even his manner, and at once rose to pathos. The
audience seemed on the look-out for it, and quivered with enthusiasm.
He went straight to the point, and began by saying that although he
practiced in Petersburg, he had more than once visited provincial towns