The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoyevsky 44403 downloads.pdf

Chapter IX.
The Devil. Ivan’s Nightmare

I am not a doctor, but yet I feel that the moment has come when I must
inevitably give the reader some account of the nature of Ivan’s illness.
Anticipating events I can say at least one thing: he was at that moment on
the very eve of an attack of brain fever. Though his health had long been
affected, it had offered a stubborn resistance to the fever which in the end
gained complete mastery over it. Though I know nothing of medicine, I
venture to hazard the suggestion that he really had perhaps, by a terrible
effort of will, succeeded in delaying the attack for a time, hoping, of course,
to check it completely. He knew that he was unwell, but he loathed the
thought of being ill at that fatal time, at the approaching crisis in his life,
when he needed to have all his wits about him, to say what he had to say
boldly and resolutely and “to justify himself to himself.”
He had, however, consulted the new doctor, who had been brought from
Moscow by a fantastic notion of Katerina Ivanovna’s to which I have
referred already. After listening to him and examining him the doctor came
to the conclusion that he was actually suffering from some disorder of the
brain, and was not at all surprised by an admission which Ivan had
reluctantly made him. “Hallucinations are quite likely in your condition,”
the doctor opined, “though it would be better to verify them ... you must
take steps at once, without a moment’s delay, or things will go badly with
you.” But Ivan did not follow this judicious advice and did not take to his
bed to be nursed. “I am walking about, so I am strong enough, if I drop, it’ll
be different then, any one may nurse me who likes,” he decided, dismissing
the subject.
And so he was sitting almost conscious himself of his delirium and, as I
have said already, looking persistently at some object on the sofa against the
opposite wall. Some one appeared to be sitting there, though goodness

knows how he had come in, for he had not been in the room when Ivan
came into it, on his return from Smerdyakov. This was a person or, more
accurately speaking, a Russian gentleman of a particular kind, no longer
young, qui faisait la cinquantaine, as the French say, with rather long, still
thick, dark hair, slightly streaked with gray and a small pointed beard. He
was wearing a brownish reefer jacket, rather shabby, evidently made by a
good tailor though, and of a fashion at least three years old, that had been
discarded by smart and well-to-do people for the last two years. His linen
and his long scarf-like neck-tie were all such as are worn by people who
aim at being stylish, but on closer inspection his linen was not over-clean
and his wide scarf was very threadbare. The visitor’s check trousers were of
excellent cut, but were too light in color and too tight for the present
fashion. His soft fluffy white hat was out of keeping with the season.
In brief there was every appearance of gentility on straitened means. It
looked as though the gentleman belonged to that class of idle landowners
who used to flourish in the times of serfdom. He had unmistakably been, at
some time, in good and fashionable society, had once had good
connections, had possibly preserved them indeed, but, after a gay youth,
becoming gradually impoverished on the abolition of serfdom, he had sunk
into the position of a poor relation of the best class, wandering from one
good old friend to another and received by them for his companionable and
accommodating disposition and as being, after all, a gentleman who could
be asked to sit down with any one, though, of course, not in a place of
honor. Such gentlemen of accommodating temper and dependent position,
who can tell a story, take a hand at cards, and who have a distinct aversion
for any duties that may be forced upon them, are usually solitary creatures,
either bachelors or widowers. Sometimes they have children, but if so, the
children are always being brought up at a distance, at some aunt’s, to whom
these gentlemen never allude in good society, seeming ashamed of the
relationship. They gradually lose sight of their children altogether, though at
intervals they receive a birthday or Christmas letter from them and
sometimes even answer it.
The countenance of the unexpected visitor was not so much good-
natured, as accommodating and ready to assume any amiable expression as
occasion might arise. He had no watch, but he had a tortoise-shell lorgnette
on a black ribbon. On the middle finger of his right hand was a massive
gold ring with a cheap opal stone in it.

Ivan was angrily silent and would not begin the conversation. The visitor
waited and sat exactly like a poor relation who had come down from his
room to keep his host company at tea, and was discreetly silent, seeing that
his host was frowning and preoccupied. But he was ready for any affable
conversation as soon as his host should begin it. All at once his face
expressed a sudden solicitude.
“I say,” he began to Ivan, “excuse me, I only mention it to remind you.
You went to Smerdyakov’s to find out about Katerina Ivanovna, but you
came away without finding out anything about her, you probably forgot—”
“Ah, yes,” broke from Ivan and his face grew gloomy with uneasiness.
“Yes, I’d forgotten ... but it doesn’t matter now, never mind, till to-morrow,”
he muttered to himself, “and you,” he added, addressing his visitor, “I
should have remembered that myself in a minute, for that was just what was
tormenting me! Why do you interfere, as if I should believe that you
prompted me, and that I didn’t remember it of myself?”
“Don’t believe it then,” said the gentleman, smiling amicably, “what’s the
good of believing against your will? Besides, proofs are no help to
believing, especially material proofs. Thomas believed, not because he saw
Christ risen, but because he wanted to believe, before he saw. Look at the
spiritualists, for instance.... I am very fond of them ... only fancy, they
imagine that they are serving the cause of religion, because the devils show
them their horns from the other world. That, they say, is a material proof, so
to speak, of the existence of another world. The other world and material
proofs, what next! And if you come to that, does proving there’s a devil
prove that there’s a God? I want to join an idealist society, I’ll lead the
opposition in it, I’ll say I am a realist, but not a materialist, he he!”
“Listen,” Ivan suddenly got up from the table. “I seem to be delirious.... I
am delirious, in fact, talk any nonsense you like, I don’t care! You won’t
drive me to fury, as you did last time. But I feel somehow ashamed.... I
want to walk about the room.... I sometimes don’t see you and don’t even
hear your voice as I did last time, but I always guess what you are prating,
for it’s I, I myself speaking, not you. Only I don’t know whether I was
dreaming last time or whether I really saw you. I’ll wet a towel and put it on
my head and perhaps you’ll vanish into air.”
Ivan went into the corner, took a towel, and did as he said, and with a wet
towel on his head began walking up and down the room.

“I am so glad you treat me so familiarly,” the visitor began.
“Fool,” laughed Ivan, “do you suppose I should stand on ceremony with
you? I am in good spirits now, though I’ve a pain in my forehead ... and in
the top of my head ... only please don’t talk philosophy, as you did last time.
If you can’t take yourself off, talk of something amusing. Talk gossip, you
are a poor relation, you ought to talk gossip. What a nightmare to have! But
I am not afraid of you. I’ll get the better of you. I won’t be taken to a mad-
house!”
“C’est charmant, poor relation. Yes, I am in my natural shape. For what
am I on earth but a poor relation? By the way, I am listening to you and am
rather surprised to find you are actually beginning to take me for something
real, not simply your fancy, as you persisted in declaring last time—”
“Never for one minute have I taken you for reality,” Ivan cried with a sort
of fury. “You are a lie, you are my illness, you are a phantom. It’s only that I
don’t know how to destroy you and I see I must suffer for a time. You are
my hallucination. You are the incarnation of myself, but only of one side of
me ... of my thoughts and feelings, but only the nastiest and stupidest of
them. From that point of view you might be of interest to me, if only I had
time to waste on you—”
“Excuse me, excuse me, I’ll catch you. When you flew out at Alyosha
under the lamp-post this evening and shouted to him, ‘You learnt it from
him! How do you know that he visits me?’ you were thinking of me then.
So for one brief moment you did believe that I really exist,” the gentleman
laughed blandly.
“Yes, that was a moment of weakness ... but I couldn’t believe in you. I
don’t know whether I was asleep or awake last time. Perhaps I was only
dreaming then and didn’t see you really at all—”
“And why were you so surly with Alyosha just now? He is a dear; I’ve
treated him badly over Father Zossima.”
“Don’t talk of Alyosha! How dare you, you flunkey!” Ivan laughed
again.
“You scold me, but you laugh—that’s a good sign. But you are ever so
much more polite than you were last time and I know why: that great
resolution of yours—”
“Don’t speak of my resolution,” cried Ivan, savagely.

“I understand, I understand, c’est noble, c’est charmant, you are going to
defend your brother and to sacrifice yourself ... C’est chevaleresque.”
“Hold your tongue, I’ll kick you!”
“I shan’t be altogether sorry, for then my object will be attained. If you
kick me, you must believe in my reality, for people don’t kick ghosts.
Joking apart, it doesn’t matter to me, scold if you like, though it’s better to
be a trifle more polite even to me. ‘Fool, flunkey!’ what words!”
“Scolding you, I scold myself,” Ivan laughed again, “you are myself,
myself, only with a different face. You just say what I am thinking ... and
are incapable of saying anything new!”
“If I am like you in my way of thinking, it’s all to my credit,” the
gentleman declared, with delicacy and dignity.
“You choose out only my worst thoughts, and what’s more, the stupid
ones. You are stupid and vulgar. You are awfully stupid. No, I can’t put up
with you! What am I to do, what am I to do?” Ivan said through his
clenched teeth.
“My dear friend, above all things I want to behave like a gentleman and
to be recognized as such,” the visitor began in an excess of deprecating and
simple-hearted pride, typical of a poor relation. “I am poor, but ... I won’t
say very honest, but ... it’s an axiom generally accepted in society that I am
a fallen angel. I certainly can’t conceive how I can ever have been an angel.
If I ever was, it must have been so long ago that there’s no harm in
forgetting it. Now I only prize the reputation of being a gentlemanly person
and live as I can, trying to make myself agreeable. I love men genuinely,
I’ve been greatly calumniated! Here when I stay with you from time to
time, my life gains a kind of reality and that’s what I like most of all. You
see, like you, I suffer from the fantastic and so I love the realism of earth.
Here, with you, everything is circumscribed, here all is formulated and
geometrical, while we have nothing but indeterminate equations! I wander
about here dreaming. I like dreaming. Besides, on earth I become
superstitious. Please don’t laugh, that’s just what I like, to become
superstitious. I adopt all your habits here: I’ve grown fond of going to the
public baths, would you believe it? and I go and steam myself with
merchants and priests. What I dream of is becoming incarnate once for all
and irrevocably in the form of some merchant’s wife weighing eighteen
stone, and of believing all she believes. My ideal is to go to church and

offer a candle in simple-hearted faith, upon my word it is. Then there would
be an end to my sufferings. I like being doctored too; in the spring there was
an outbreak of smallpox and I went and was vaccinated in a foundling
hospital—if only you knew how I enjoyed myself that day. I subscribed ten
roubles in the cause of the Slavs!... But you are not listening. Do you know,
you are not at all well this evening? I know you went yesterday to that
doctor ... well, what about your health? What did the doctor say?”
“Fool!” Ivan snapped out.
“But you are clever, anyway. You are scolding again? I didn’t ask out of
sympathy. You needn’t answer. Now rheumatism has come in again—”
“Fool!” repeated Ivan.
“You keep saying the same thing; but I had such an attack of rheumatism
last year that I remember it to this day.”
“The devil have rheumatism!”
“Why not, if I sometimes put on fleshly form? I put on fleshly form and I
take the consequences. Satan sum et nihil humanum a me alienum puto.”
“What, what, Satan sum et nihil humanum ... that’s not bad for the devil!”
“I am glad I’ve pleased you at last.”
“But you didn’t get that from me.” Ivan stopped suddenly, seeming
struck. “That never entered my head, that’s strange.”
“C’est du nouveau, n’est-ce pas? This time I’ll act honestly and explain
to you. Listen, in dreams and especially in nightmares, from indigestion or
anything, a man sees sometimes such artistic visions, such complex and real
actuality, such events, even a whole world of events, woven into such a
plot, with such unexpected details from the most exalted matters to the last
button on a cuff, as I swear Leo Tolstoy has never invented. Yet such
dreams are sometimes seen not by writers, but by the most ordinary people,
officials, journalists, priests.... The subject is a complete enigma. A
statesman confessed to me, indeed, that all his best ideas came to him when
he was asleep. Well, that’s how it is now, though I am your hallucination,
yet just as in a nightmare, I say original things which had not entered your
head before. So I don’t repeat your ideas, yet I am only your nightmare,
nothing more.”
“You are lying, your aim is to convince me you exist apart and are not
my nightmare, and now you are asserting you are a dream.”

“My dear fellow, I’ve adopted a special method to-day, I’ll explain it to
you afterwards. Stay, where did I break off? Oh, yes! I caught cold then,
only not here but yonder.”
“Where is yonder? Tell me, will you be here long? Can’t you go away?”
Ivan exclaimed almost in despair. He ceased walking to and fro, sat down
on the sofa, leaned his elbows on the table again and held his head tight in
both hands. He pulled the wet towel off and flung it away in vexation. It
was evidently of no use.
“Your nerves are out of order,” observed the gentleman, with a carelessly
easy, though perfectly polite, air. “You are angry with me even for being
able to catch cold, though it happened in a most natural way. I was hurrying
then to a diplomatic soirée at the house of a lady of high rank in Petersburg,
who was aiming at influence in the Ministry. Well, an evening suit, white
tie, gloves, though I was God knows where and had to fly through space to
reach your earth.... Of course, it took only an instant, but you know a ray of
light from the sun takes full eight minutes, and fancy in an evening suit and
open waistcoat. Spirits don’t freeze, but when one’s in fleshly form, well ...
in brief, I didn’t think, and set off, and you know in those ethereal spaces, in
the water that is above the firmament, there’s such a frost ... at least one
can’t call it frost, you can fancy, 150 degrees below zero! You know the
game the village girls play—they invite the unwary to lick an ax in thirty
degrees of frost, the tongue instantly freezes to it and the dupe tears the skin
off, so it bleeds. But that’s only in 30 degrees, in 150 degrees I imagine it
would be enough to put your finger on the ax and it would be the end of it
... if only there could be an ax there.”
“And can there be an ax there?” Ivan interrupted, carelessly and
disdainfully. He was exerting himself to the utmost not to believe in the
delusion and not to sink into complete insanity.
“An ax?” the guest interrupted in surprise.
“Yes, what would become of an ax there?” Ivan cried suddenly, with a
sort of savage and insistent obstinacy.
“What would become of an ax in space? Quelle idée! If it were to fall to
any distance, it would begin, I think, flying round the earth without
knowing why, like a satellite. The astronomers would calculate the rising
and the setting of the ax, Gatzuk would put it in his calendar, that’s all.”

“You are stupid, awfully stupid,” said Ivan peevishly. “Fib more cleverly
or I won’t listen. You want to get the better of me by realism, to convince
me that you exist, but I don’t want to believe you exist! I won’t believe it!”
“But I am not fibbing, it’s all the truth; the truth is unhappily hardly ever
amusing. I see you persist in expecting something big of me, and perhaps
something fine. That’s a great pity, for I only give what I can—”
“Don’t talk philosophy, you ass!”
“Philosophy, indeed, when all my right side is numb and I am moaning
and groaning. I’ve tried all the medical faculty: they can diagnose
beautifully, they have the whole of your disease at their finger-tips, but
they’ve no idea how to cure you. There was an enthusiastic little student
here, ‘You may die,’ said he, ‘but you’ll know perfectly what disease you
are dying of!’ And then what a way they have sending people to specialists!
‘We only diagnose,’ they say, ‘but go to such-and-such a specialist, he’ll
cure you.’ The old doctor who used to cure all sorts of disease has
completely disappeared, I assure you, now there are only specialists and
they all advertise in the newspapers. If anything is wrong with your nose,
they send you to Paris: there, they say, is a European specialist who cures
noses. If you go to Paris, he’ll look at your nose; I can only cure your right
nostril, he’ll tell you, for I don’t cure the left nostril, that’s not my
speciality, but go to Vienna, there there’s a specialist who will cure your left
nostril. What are you to do? I fell back on popular remedies, a German
doctor advised me to rub myself with honey and salt in the bath-house.
Solely to get an extra bath I went, smeared myself all over and it did me no
good at all. In despair I wrote to Count Mattei in Milan. He sent me a book
and some drops, bless him, and, only fancy, Hoff’s malt extract cured me! I
bought it by accident, drank a bottle and a half of it, and I was ready to
dance, it took it away completely. I made up my mind to write to the papers
to thank him, I was prompted by a feeling of gratitude, and only fancy, it
led to no end of a bother: not a single paper would take my letter. ‘It would
be very reactionary,’ they said, ‘no one will believe it. Le diable n’existe
point. You’d better remain anonymous,’ they advised me. What use is a
letter of thanks if it’s anonymous? I laughed with the men at the newspaper
office; ‘It’s reactionary to believe in God in our days,’ I said, ‘but I am the
devil, so I may be believed in.’ ‘We quite understand that,’ they said. ‘Who
doesn’t believe in the devil? Yet it won’t do, it might injure our reputation.

As a joke, if you like.’ But I thought as a joke it wouldn’t be very witty. So
it wasn’t printed. And do you know, I have felt sore about it to this day. My
best feelings, gratitude, for instance, are literally denied me simply from my
social position.”
“Philosophical reflections again?” Ivan snarled malignantly.
“God preserve me from it, but one can’t help complaining sometimes. I
am a slandered man. You upbraid me every moment with being stupid. One
can see you are young. My dear fellow, intelligence isn’t the only thing! I
have naturally a kind and merry heart. ‘I also write vaudevilles of all sorts.’
You seem to take me for Hlestakov grown old, but my fate is a far more
serious one. Before time was, by some decree which I could never make
out, I was pre-destined ‘to deny’ and yet I am genuinely good-hearted and
not at all inclined to negation. ‘No, you must go and deny, without denial
there’s no criticism and what would a journal be without a column of
criticism?’ Without criticism it would be nothing but one ‘hosannah.’ But
nothing but hosannah is not enough for life, the hosannah must be tried in
the crucible of doubt and so on, in the same style. But I don’t meddle in
that, I didn’t create it, I am not answerable for it. Well, they’ve chosen their
scapegoat, they’ve made me write the column of criticism and so life was
made possible. We understand that comedy; I, for instance, simply ask for
annihilation. No, live, I am told, for there’d be nothing without you. If
everything in the universe were sensible, nothing would happen. There
would be no events without you, and there must be events. So against the
grain I serve to produce events and do what’s irrational because I am
commanded to. For all their indisputable intelligence, men take this farce as
something serious, and that is their tragedy. They suffer, of course ... but
then they live, they live a real life, not a fantastic one, for suffering is life.
Without suffering what would be the pleasure of it? It would be transformed
into an endless church service; it would be holy, but tedious. But what about
me? I suffer, but still, I don’t live. I am x in an indeterminate equation. I am
a sort of phantom in life who has lost all beginning and end, and who has
even forgotten his own name. You are laughing— no, you are not laughing,
you are angry again. You are for ever angry, all you care about is
intelligence, but I repeat again that I would give away all this super-stellar
life, all the ranks and honors, simply to be transformed into the soul of a
merchant’s wife weighing eighteen stone and set candles at God’s shrine.”

“Then even you don’t believe in God?” said Ivan, with a smile of hatred.
“What can I say?—that is, if you are in earnest—”
“Is there a God or not?” Ivan cried with the same savage intensity.
“Ah, then you are in earnest! My dear fellow, upon my word I don’t
know. There! I’ve said it now!”
“You don’t know, but you see God? No, you are not some one apart, you
are myself, you are I and nothing more! You are rubbish, you are my
fancy!”
“Well, if you like, I have the same philosophy as you, that would be true.
Je pense, donc je suis, I know that for a fact; all the rest, all these worlds,
God and even Satan—all that is not proved, to my mind. Does all that exist
of itself, or is it only an emanation of myself, a logical development of my
ego which alone has existed for ever: but I make haste to stop, for I believe
you will be jumping up to beat me directly.”
“You’d better tell me some anecdote!” said Ivan miserably.
“There is an anecdote precisely on our subject, or rather a legend, not an
anecdote. You reproach me with unbelief, you see, you say, yet you don’t
believe. But, my dear fellow, I am not the only one like that. We are all in a
muddle over there now and all through your science. Once there used to be
atoms, five senses, four elements, and then everything hung together
somehow. There were atoms in the ancient world even, but since we’ve
learned that you’ve discovered the chemical molecule and protoplasm and
the devil knows what, we had to lower our crest. There’s a regular muddle,
and, above all, superstition, scandal; there’s as much scandal among us as
among you, you know; a little more in fact, and spying, indeed, for we have
our secret police department where private information is received. Well,
this wild legend belongs to our middle ages—not yours, but ours—and no
one believes it even among us, except the old ladies of eighteen stone, not
your old ladies I mean, but ours. We’ve everything you have, I am revealing
one of our secrets out of friendship for you; though it’s forbidden. This
legend is about Paradise. There was, they say, here on earth a thinker and
philosopher. He rejected everything, ‘laws, conscience, faith,’ and, above
all, the future life. He died; he expected to go straight to darkness and death
and he found a future life before him. He was astounded and indignant.
‘This is against my principles!’ he said. And he was punished for that ... that
is, you must excuse me, I am just repeating what I heard myself, it’s only a

legend ... he was sentenced to walk a quadrillion kilometers in the dark
(we’ve adopted the metric system, you know) and when he has finished that
quadrillion, the gates of heaven would be opened to him and he’ll be
forgiven—”
“And what tortures have you in the other world besides the quadrillion
kilometers?” asked Ivan, with a strange eagerness.
“What tortures? Ah, don’t ask. In old days we had all sorts, but now they
have taken chiefly to moral punishments—‘the stings of conscience’ and all
that nonsense. We got that, too, from you, from the softening of your
manners. And who’s the better for it? Only those who have got no
conscience, for how can they be tortured by conscience when they have
none? But decent people who have conscience and a sense of honor suffer
for it. Reforms, when the ground has not been prepared for them, especially
if they are institutions copied from abroad, do nothing but mischief! The
ancient fire was better. Well, this man, who was condemned to the
quadrillion kilometers, stood still, looked round and lay down across the
road. ‘I won’t go, I refuse on principle!’ Take the soul of an enlightened
Russian atheist and mix it with the soul of the prophet Jonah, who sulked
for three days and nights in the belly of the whale, and you get the character
of that thinker who lay across the road.”
“What did he lie on there?”
“Well, I suppose there was something to lie on. You are not laughing?”
“Bravo!” cried Ivan, still with the same strange eagerness. Now he was
listening with an unexpected curiosity. “Well, is he lying there now?”
“That’s the point, that he isn’t. He lay there almost a thousand years and
then he got up and went on.”
“What an ass!” cried Ivan, laughing nervously and still seeming to be
pondering something intently. “Does it make any difference whether he lies
there for ever or walks the quadrillion kilometers? It would take a billion
years to walk it?”
“Much more than that. I haven’t got a pencil and paper or I could work it
out. But he got there long ago, and that’s where the story begins.”
“What, he got there? But how did he get the billion years to do it?”
“Why, you keep thinking of our present earth! But our present earth may
have been repeated a billion times. Why, it’s become extinct, been frozen;

cracked, broken to bits, disintegrated into its elements, again ‘the water
above the firmament,’ then again a comet, again a sun, again from the sun it
becomes earth—and the same sequence may have been repeated endlessly
and exactly the same to every detail, most unseemly and insufferably
tedious—”
“Well, well, what happened when he arrived?”
“Why, the moment the gates of Paradise were open and he walked in,
before he had been there two seconds, by his watch (though to my thinking
his watch must have long dissolved into its elements on the way), he cried
out that those two seconds were worth walking not a quadrillion kilometers
but a quadrillion of quadrillions, raised to the quadrillionth power! In fact,
he sang ‘hosannah’ and overdid it so, that some persons there of lofty ideas
wouldn’t shake hands with him at first—he’d become too rapidly
reactionary, they said. The Russian temperament. I repeat, it’s a legend. I
give it for what it’s worth. So that’s the sort of ideas we have on such
subjects even now.”
“I’ve caught you!” Ivan cried, with an almost childish delight, as though
he had succeeded in remembering something at last. “That anecdote about
the quadrillion years, I made up myself! I was seventeen then, I was at the
high school. I made up that anecdote and told it to a schoolfellow called
Korovkin, it was at Moscow.... The anecdote is so characteristic that I
couldn’t have taken it from anywhere. I thought I’d forgotten it ... but I’ve
unconsciously recalled it—I recalled it myself—it was not you telling it!
Thousands of things are unconsciously remembered like that even when
people are being taken to execution ... it’s come back to me in a dream. You
are that dream! You are a dream, not a living creature!”
“From the vehemence with which you deny my existence,” laughed the
gentleman, “I am convinced that you believe in me.”
“Not in the slightest! I haven’t a hundredth part of a grain of faith in
you!”
“But you have the thousandth of a grain. Homeopathic doses perhaps are
the strongest. Confess that you have faith even to the ten-thousandth of a
grain.”
“Not for one minute,” cried Ivan furiously. “But I should like to believe
in you,” he added strangely.

“Aha! There’s an admission! But I am good-natured. I’ll come to your
assistance again. Listen, it was I caught you, not you me. I told you your
anecdote you’d forgotten, on purpose, so as to destroy your faith in me
completely.”
“You are lying. The object of your visit is to convince me of your
existence!”
“Just so. But hesitation, suspense, conflict between belief and disbelief—
is sometimes such torture to a conscientious man, such as you are, that it’s
better to hang oneself at once. Knowing that you are inclined to believe in
me, I administered some disbelief by telling you that anecdote. I lead you to
belief and disbelief by turns, and I have my motive in it. It’s the new
method. As soon as you disbelieve in me completely, you’ll begin assuring
me to my face that I am not a dream but a reality. I know you. Then I shall
have attained my object, which is an honorable one. I shall sow in you only
a tiny grain of faith and it will grow into an oak-tree—and such an oak-tree
that, sitting on it, you will long to enter the ranks of ‘the hermits in the
wilderness and the saintly women,’ for that is what you are secretly longing
for. You’ll dine on locusts, you’ll wander into the wilderness to save your
soul!”
“Then it’s for the salvation of my soul you are working, is it, you
scoundrel?”
“One must do a good work sometimes. How ill-humored you are!”
“Fool! did you ever tempt those holy men who ate locusts and prayed
seventeen years in the wilderness till they were overgrown with moss?”
“My dear fellow, I’ve done nothing else. One forgets the whole world
and all the worlds, and sticks to one such saint, because he is a very
precious diamond. One such soul, you know, is sometimes worth a whole
constellation. We have our system of reckoning, you know. The conquest is
priceless! And some of them, on my word, are not inferior to you in culture,
though you won’t believe it. They can contemplate such depths of belief
and disbelief at the same moment that sometimes it really seems that they
are within a hair’s-breadth of being ‘turned upside down,’ as the actor
Gorbunov says.”
“Well, did you get your nose pulled?”[8]

“My dear fellow,” observed the visitor sententiously, “it’s better to get off
with your nose pulled than without a nose at all. As an afflicted marquis
observed not long ago (he must have been treated by a specialist) in
confession to his spiritual father—a Jesuit. I was present, it was simply
charming. ‘Give me back my nose!’ he said, and he beat his breast. ‘My
son,’ said the priest evasively, ‘all things are accomplished in accordance
with the inscrutable decrees of Providence, and what seems a misfortune
sometimes leads to extraordinary, though unapparent, benefits. If stern
destiny has deprived you of your nose, it’s to your advantage that no one
can ever pull you by your nose.’ ‘Holy father, that’s no comfort,’ cried the
despairing marquis. ‘I’d be delighted to have my nose pulled every day of
my life, if it were only in its proper place.’ ‘My son,’ sighs the priest, ‘you
can’t expect every blessing at once. This is murmuring against Providence,
who even in this has not forgotten you, for if you repine as you repined just
now, declaring you’d be glad to have your nose pulled for the rest of your
life, your desire has already been fulfilled indirectly, for when you lost your
nose, you were led by the nose.’ ”
“Fool, how stupid!” cried Ivan.
“My dear friend, I only wanted to amuse you. But I swear that’s the
genuine Jesuit casuistry and I swear that it all happened word for word as
I’ve told you. It happened lately and gave me a great deal of trouble. The
unhappy young man shot himself that very night when he got home. I was
by his side till the very last moment. Those Jesuit confessionals are really
my most delightful diversion at melancholy moments. Here’s another
incident that happened only the other day. A little blonde Norman girl of
twenty—a buxom, unsophisticated beauty that would make your mouth
water—comes to an old priest. She bends down and whispers her sin into
the grating. ‘Why, my daughter, have you fallen again already?’ cries the
priest. ‘O Sancta Maria, what do I hear! Not the same man this time, how
long is this going on? Aren’t you ashamed!’ ‘Ah, mon père,’ answers the
sinner with tears of penitence, ‘ça lui fait tant de plaisir, et à moi si peu de
peine!’ Fancy, such an answer! I drew back. It was the cry of nature, better
than innocence itself, if you like. I absolved her sin on the spot and was
turning to go, but I was forced to turn back. I heard the priest at the grating
making an appointment with her for the evening—though he was an old
man hard as flint, he fell in an instant! It was nature, the truth of nature

asserted its rights! What, you are turning up your nose again? Angry again?
I don’t know how to please you—”
“Leave me alone, you are beating on my brain like a haunting
nightmare,” Ivan moaned miserably, helpless before his apparition. “I am
bored with you, agonizingly and insufferably. I would give anything to be
able to shake you off!”
“I repeat, moderate your expectations, don’t demand of me ‘everything
great and noble’ and you’ll see how well we shall get on,” said the
gentleman impressively. “You are really angry with me for not having
appeared to you in a red glow, with thunder and lightning, with scorched
wings, but have shown myself in such a modest form. You are wounded, in
the first place, in your esthetic feelings, and, secondly, in your pride. How
could such a vulgar devil visit such a great man as you! Yes, there is that
romantic strain in you, that was so derided by Byelinsky. I can’t help it,
young man, as I got ready to come to you I did think as a joke of appearing
in the figure of a retired general who had served in the Caucasus, with a star
of the Lion and the Sun on my coat. But I was positively afraid of doing it,
for you’d have thrashed me for daring to pin the Lion and the Sun on my
coat, instead of, at least, the Polar Star or the Sirius. And you keep on
saying I am stupid, but, mercy on us! I make no claim to be equal to you in
intelligence. Mephistopheles declared to Faust that he desired evil, but did
only good. Well, he can say what he likes, it’s quite the opposite with me. I
am perhaps the one man in all creation who loves the truth and genuinely
desires good. I was there when the Word, Who died on the Cross, rose up
into heaven bearing on His bosom the soul of the penitent thief. I heard the
glad shrieks of the cherubim singing and shouting hosannah and the
thunderous rapture of the seraphim which shook heaven and all creation,
and I swear to you by all that’s sacred, I longed to join the choir and shout
hosannah with them all. The word had almost escaped me, had almost
broken from my lips ... you know how susceptible and esthetically
impressionable I am. But common sense—oh, a most unhappy trait in my
character—kept me in due bounds and I let the moment pass! For what
would have happened, I reflected, what would have happened after my
hosannah? Everything on earth would have been extinguished at once and
no events could have occurred. And so, solely from a sense of duty and my
social position, I was forced to suppress the good moment and to stick to
my nasty task. Somebody takes all the credit of what’s good for Himself,

and nothing but nastiness is left for me. But I don’t envy the honor of a life
of idle imposture, I am not ambitious. Why am I, of all creatures in the
world, doomed to be cursed by all decent people and even to be kicked, for
if I put on mortal form I am bound to take such consequences sometimes? I
know, of course, there’s a secret in it, but they won’t tell me the secret for
anything, for then perhaps, seeing the meaning of it, I might bawl hosannah,
and the indispensable minus would disappear at once, and good sense
would reign supreme throughout the whole world. And that, of course,
would mean the end of everything, even of magazines and newspapers, for
who would take them in? I know that at the end of all things I shall be
reconciled. I, too, shall walk my quadrillion and learn the secret. But till
that happens I am sulking and fulfill my destiny though it’s against the grain
—that is, to ruin thousands for the sake of saving one. How many souls
have had to be ruined and how many honorable reputations destroyed for
the sake of that one righteous man, Job, over whom they made such a fool
of me in old days! Yes, till the secret is revealed, there are two sorts of
truths for me—one, their truth, yonder, which I know nothing about so far,
and the other my own. And there’s no knowing which will turn out the
better.... Are you asleep?”
“I might well be,” Ivan groaned angrily. “All my stupid ideas—
outgrown, thrashed out long ago, and flung aside like a dead carcass—you
present to me as something new!”
“There’s no pleasing you! And I thought I should fascinate you by my
literary style. That hosannah in the skies really wasn’t bad, was it? And then
that ironical tone à la Heine, eh?”
“No, I was never such a flunkey! How then could my soul beget a
flunkey like you?”
“My dear fellow, I know a most charming and attractive young Russian
gentleman, a young thinker and a great lover of literature and art, the author
of a promising poem entitled The Grand Inquisitor. I was only thinking of
him!”
“I forbid you to speak of The Grand Inquisitor,” cried Ivan, crimson with
shame.
“And the Geological Cataclysm. Do you remember? That was a poem,
now!”
“Hold your tongue, or I’ll kill you!”

“You’ll kill me? No, excuse me, I will speak. I came to treat myself to
that pleasure. Oh, I love the dreams of my ardent young friends, quivering
with eagerness for life! ‘There are new men,’ you decided last spring, when
you were meaning to come here, ‘they propose to destroy everything and
begin with cannibalism. Stupid fellows! they didn’t ask my advice! I
maintain that nothing need be destroyed, that we only need to destroy the
idea of God in man, that’s how we have to set to work. It’s that, that we
must begin with. Oh, blind race of men who have no understanding! As
soon as men have all of them denied God—and I believe that period,
analogous with geological periods, will come to pass—the old conception
of the universe will fall of itself without cannibalism, and, what’s more, the
old morality, and everything will begin anew. Men will unite to take from
life all it can give, but only for joy and happiness in the present world. Man
will be lifted up with a spirit of divine Titanic pride and the man-god will
appear. From hour to hour extending his conquest of nature infinitely by his
will and his science, man will feel such lofty joy from hour to hour in doing
it that it will make up for all his old dreams of the joys of heaven. Every
one will know that he is mortal and will accept death proudly and serenely
like a god. His pride will teach him that it’s useless for him to repine at
life’s being a moment, and he will love his brother without need of reward.
Love will be sufficient only for a moment of life, but the very
consciousness of its momentariness will intensify its fire, which now is
dissipated in dreams of eternal love beyond the grave’... and so on and so
on in the same style. Charming!”
Ivan sat with his eyes on the floor, and his hands pressed to his ears, but
he began trembling all over. The voice continued.
“The question now is, my young thinker reflected, is it possible that such
a period will ever come? If it does, everything is determined and humanity
is settled for ever. But as, owing to man’s inveterate stupidity, this cannot
come about for at least a thousand years, every one who recognizes the
truth even now may legitimately order his life as he pleases, on the new
principles. In that sense, ‘all things are lawful’ for him. What’s more, even
if this period never comes to pass, since there is anyway no God and no
immortality, the new man may well become the man-god, even if he is the
only one in the whole world, and promoted to his new position, he may
lightheartedly overstep all the barriers of the old morality of the old slave-
man, if necessary. There is no law for God. Where God stands, the place is

holy. Where I stand will be at once the foremost place ... ‘all things are
lawful’ and that’s the end of it! That’s all very charming; but if you want to
swindle why do you want a moral sanction for doing it? But that’s our
modern Russian all over. He can’t bring himself to swindle without a moral
sanction. He is so in love with truth—”
The visitor talked, obviously carried away by his own eloquence,
speaking louder and louder and looking ironically at his host. But he did not
succeed in finishing; Ivan suddenly snatched a glass from the table and
flung it at the orator.
“Ah, mais c’est bête enfin,” cried the latter, jumping up from the sofa and
shaking the drops of tea off himself. “He remembers Luther’s inkstand! He
takes me for a dream and throws glasses at a dream! It’s like a woman! I
suspected you were only pretending to stop up your ears.”
A loud, persistent knocking was suddenly heard at the window. Ivan
jumped up from the sofa.
“Do you hear? You’d better open,” cried the visitor; “it’s your brother
Alyosha with the most interesting and surprising news, I’ll be bound!”
“Be silent, deceiver, I knew it was Alyosha, I felt he was coming, and of
course he has not come for nothing; of course he brings ‘news,’ ” Ivan
exclaimed frantically.
“Open, open to him. There’s a snowstorm and he is your brother.
Monsieur sait-il le temps qu’il fait? C’est à ne pas mettre un chien dehors.”
The knocking continued. Ivan wanted to rush to the window, but
something seemed to fetter his arms and legs. He strained every effort to
break his chains, but in vain. The knocking at the window grew louder and
louder. At last the chains were broken and Ivan leapt up from the sofa. He
looked round him wildly. Both candles had almost burnt out, the glass he
had just thrown at his visitor stood before him on the table, and there was
no one on the sofa opposite. The knocking on the window frame went on
persistently, but it was by no means so loud as it had seemed in his dream;
on the contrary, it was quite subdued.
“It was not a dream! No, I swear it was not a dream, it all happened just
now!” cried Ivan. He rushed to the window and opened the movable pane.
“Alyosha, I told you not to come,” he cried fiercely to his brother. “In
two words, what do you want? In two words, do you hear?”

“An hour ago Smerdyakov hanged himself,” Alyosha answered from the
yard.
“Come round to the steps, I’ll open at once,” said Ivan, going to open the
door to Alyosha.

Chapter X.
“It Was He Who Said That”

Alyosha coming in told Ivan that a little over an hour ago Marya
Kondratyevna had run to his rooms and informed him Smerdyakov had
taken his own life. “I went in to clear away the samovar and he was hanging
on a nail in the wall.” On Alyosha’s inquiring whether she had informed the
police, she answered that she had told no one, “but I flew straight to you,
I’ve run all the way.” She seemed perfectly crazy, Alyosha reported, and
was shaking like a leaf. When Alyosha ran with her to the cottage, he found
Smerdyakov still hanging. On the table lay a note: “I destroy my life of my
own will and desire, so as to throw no blame on any one.” Alyosha left the
note on the table and went straight to the police captain and told him all
about it. “And from him I’ve come straight to you,” said Alyosha, in
conclusion, looking intently into Ivan’s face. He had not taken his eyes off
him while he told his story, as though struck by something in his
expression.
“Brother,” he cried suddenly, “you must be terribly ill. You look and
don’t seem to understand what I tell you.”
“It’s a good thing you came,” said Ivan, as though brooding, and not
hearing Alyosha’s exclamation. “I knew he had hanged himself.”
“From whom?”
“I don’t know. But I knew. Did I know? Yes, he told me. He told me so
just now.”
Ivan stood in the middle of the room, and still spoke in the same
brooding tone, looking at the ground.
“Who is he?” asked Alyosha, involuntarily looking round.
“He’s slipped away.”
Ivan raised his head and smiled softly.

“He was afraid of you, of a dove like you. You are a ‘pure cherub.’
Dmitri calls you a cherub. Cherub!... the thunderous rapture of the
seraphim. What are seraphim? Perhaps a whole constellation. But perhaps
that constellation is only a chemical molecule. There’s a constellation of the
Lion and the Sun. Don’t you know it?”
“Brother, sit down,” said Alyosha in alarm. “For goodness’ sake, sit down
on the sofa! You are delirious; put your head on the pillow, that’s right.
Would you like a wet towel on your head? Perhaps it will do you good.”
“Give me the towel: it’s here on the chair. I just threw it down there.”
“It’s not here. Don’t worry yourself. I know where it is—here,” said
Alyosha, finding a clean towel, folded up and unused, by Ivan’s dressing-
table in the other corner of the room. Ivan looked strangely at the towel:
recollection seemed to come back to him for an instant.
“Stay”—he got up from the sofa—“an hour ago I took that new towel
from there and wetted it. I wrapped it round my head and threw it down
here ... How is it it’s dry? There was no other.”
“You put that towel on your head?” asked Alyosha.
“Yes, and walked up and down the room an hour ago ... Why have the
candles burnt down so? What’s the time?”
“Nearly twelve.”
“No, no, no!” Ivan cried suddenly. “It was not a dream. He was here; he
was sitting here, on that sofa. When you knocked at the window, I threw a
glass at him ... this one. Wait a minute. I was asleep last time, but this dream
was not a dream. It has happened before. I have dreams now, Alyosha ... yet
they are not dreams, but reality. I walk about, talk and see ... though I am
asleep. But he was sitting here, on that sofa there.... He is frightfully stupid,
Alyosha, frightfully stupid.” Ivan laughed suddenly and began pacing about
the room.
“Who is stupid? Of whom are you talking, brother?” Alyosha asked
anxiously again.
“The devil! He’s taken to visiting me. He’s been here twice, almost three
times. He taunted me with being angry at his being a simple devil and not
Satan, with scorched wings, in thunder and lightning. But he is not Satan:
that’s a lie. He is an impostor. He is simply a devil—a paltry, trivial devil.
He goes to the baths. If you undressed him, you’d be sure to find he had a

tail, long and smooth like a Danish dog’s, a yard long, dun color.... Alyosha,
you are cold. You’ve been in the snow. Would you like some tea? What? Is
it cold? Shall I tell her to bring some? C’est à ne pas mettre un chien
dehors....”
Alyosha ran to the washing-stand, wetted the towel, persuaded Ivan to sit
down again, and put the wet towel round his head. He sat down beside him.
“What were you telling me just now about Lise?” Ivan began again. (He
was becoming very talkative.) “I like Lise. I said something nasty about her.
It was a lie. I like her ... I am afraid for Katya to-morrow. I am more afraid
of her than of anything. On account of the future. She will cast me off to-
morrow and trample me under foot. She thinks that I am ruining Mitya from
jealousy on her account! Yes, she thinks that! But it’s not so. To-morrow the
cross, but not the gallows. No, I shan’t hang myself. Do you know, I can
never commit suicide, Alyosha. Is it because I am base? I am not a coward.
Is it from love of life? How did I know that Smerdyakov had hanged
himself? Yes, it was he told me so.”
“And you are quite convinced that there has been some one here?” asked
Alyosha.
“Yes, on that sofa in the corner. You would have driven him away. You
did drive him away: he disappeared when you arrived. I love your face,
Alyosha. Did you know that I loved your face? And he is myself, Alyosha.
All that’s base in me, all that’s mean and contemptible. Yes, I am a
romantic. He guessed it ... though it’s a libel. He is frightfully stupid; but
it’s to his advantage. He has cunning, animal cunning—he knew how to
infuriate me. He kept taunting me with believing in him, and that was how
he made me listen to him. He fooled me like a boy. He told me a great deal
that was true about myself, though. I should never have owned it to myself.
Do you know, Alyosha,” Ivan added in an intensely earnest and confidential
tone, “I should be awfully glad to think that it was he and not I.”
“He has worn you out,” said Alyosha, looking compassionately at his
brother.
“He’s been teasing me. And you know he does it so cleverly, so cleverly.
‘Conscience! What is conscience? I make it up for myself. Why am I
tormented by it? From habit. From the universal habit of mankind for the
seven thousand years. So let us give it up, and we shall be gods.’ It was he
said that, it was he said that!”

“And not you, not you?” Alyosha could not help crying, looking frankly
at his brother. “Never mind him, anyway; have done with him and forget
him. And let him take with him all that you curse now, and never come
back!”
“Yes, but he is spiteful. He laughed at me. He was impudent, Alyosha,”
Ivan said, with a shudder of offense. “But he was unfair to me, unfair to me
about lots of things. He told lies about me to my face. ‘Oh, you are going to
perform an act of heroic virtue: to confess you murdered your father, that
the valet murdered him at your instigation.’ ”
“Brother,” Alyosha interposed, “restrain yourself. It was not you
murdered him. It’s not true!”
“That’s what he says, he, and he knows it. ‘You are going to perform an
act of heroic virtue, and you don’t believe in virtue; that’s what tortures you
and makes you angry, that’s why you are so vindictive.’ He said that to me
about me and he knows what he says.”
“It’s you say that, not he,” exclaimed Alyosha mournfully, “and you say
it because you are ill and delirious, tormenting yourself.”
“No, he knows what he says. ‘You are going from pride,’ he says. ‘You’ll
stand up and say it was I killed him, and why do you writhe with horror?
You are lying! I despise your opinion, I despise your horror!’ He said that
about me. ‘And do you know you are longing for their praise—“he is a
criminal, a murderer, but what a generous soul; he wanted to save his
brother and he confessed.” ’ That’s a lie, Alyosha!” Ivan cried suddenly,
with flashing eyes. “I don’t want the low rabble to praise me, I swear I
don’t! That’s a lie! That’s why I threw the glass at him and it broke against
his ugly face.”
“Brother, calm yourself, stop!” Alyosha entreated him.
“Yes, he knows how to torment one. He’s cruel,” Ivan went on,
unheeding. “I had an inkling from the first what he came for. ‘Granting that
you go through pride, still you had a hope that Smerdyakov might be
convicted and sent to Siberia, and Mitya would be acquitted, while you
would only be punished with moral condemnation’ (‘Do you hear?’ he
laughed then)—‘and some people will praise you. But now Smerdyakov’s
dead, he has hanged himself, and who’ll believe you alone? But yet you are
going, you are going, you’ll go all the same, you’ve decided to go. What are

you going for now?’ That’s awful, Alyosha. I can’t endure such questions.
Who dare ask me such questions?”
“Brother,” interposed Alyosha—his heart sank with terror, but he still
seemed to hope to bring Ivan to reason—“how could he have told you of
Smerdyakov’s death before I came, when no one knew of it and there was
no time for any one to know of it?”
“He told me,” said Ivan firmly, refusing to admit a doubt. “It was all he
did talk about, if you come to that. ‘And it would be all right if you believed
in virtue,’ he said. ‘No matter if they disbelieve you, you are going for the
sake of principle. But you are a little pig like Fyodor Pavlovitch, and what
do you want with virtue? Why do you want to go meddling if your sacrifice
is of no use to any one? Because you don’t know yourself why you go! Oh,
you’d give a great deal to know yourself why you go! And can you have
made up your mind? You’ve not made up your mind. You’ll sit all night
deliberating whether to go or not. But you will go; you know you’ll go. You
know that whichever way you decide, the decision does not depend on you.
You’ll go because you won’t dare not to go. Why won’t you dare? You must
guess that for yourself. That’s a riddle for you!’ He got up and went away.
You came and he went. He called me a coward, Alyosha! Le mot de
l’énigme is that I am a coward. ‘It is not for such eagles to soar above the
earth.’ It was he added that—he! And Smerdyakov said the same. He must
be killed! Katya despises me. I’ve seen that for a month past. Even Lise will
begin to despise me! ‘You are going in order to be praised.’ That’s a brutal
lie! And you despise me too, Alyosha. Now I am going to hate you again!
And I hate the monster, too! I hate the monster! I don’t want to save the
monster. Let him rot in Siberia! He’s begun singing a hymn! Oh, to-morrow
I’ll go, stand before them, and spit in their faces!”
He jumped up in a frenzy, flung off the towel, and fell to pacing up and
down the room again. Alyosha recalled what he had just said. “I seem to be
sleeping awake.... I walk, I speak, I see, but I am asleep.” It seemed to be
just like that now. Alyosha did not leave him. The thought passed through
his mind to run for a doctor, but he was afraid to leave his brother alone:
there was no one to whom he could leave him. By degrees Ivan lost
consciousness completely at last. He still went on talking, talking
incessantly, but quite incoherently, and even articulated his words with
difficulty. Suddenly he staggered violently; but Alyosha was in time to

support him. Ivan let him lead him to his bed. Alyosha undressed him
somehow and put him to bed. He sat watching over him for another two
hours. The sick man slept soundly, without stirring, breathing softly and
evenly. Alyosha took a pillow and lay down on the sofa, without
undressing.
As he fell asleep he prayed for Mitya and Ivan. He began to understand
Ivan’s illness. “The anguish of a proud determination. An earnest
conscience!” God, in Whom he disbelieved, and His truth were gaining
mastery over his heart, which still refused to submit. “Yes,” the thought
floated through Alyosha’s head as it lay on the pillow, “yes, if Smerdyakov
is dead, no one will believe Ivan’s evidence; but he will go and give it.”
Alyosha smiled softly. “God will conquer!” he thought. “He will either rise
up in the light of truth, or ... he’ll perish in hate, revenging on himself and
on every one his having served the cause he does not believe in,” Alyosha
added bitterly, and again he prayed for Ivan.

Book XII. A Judicial Error

Chapter I.
The Fatal Day

At ten o’clock in the morning of the day following the events I have
described, the trial of Dmitri Karamazov began in our district court.
I hasten to emphasize the fact that I am far from esteeming myself
capable of reporting all that took place at the trial in full detail, or even in
the actual order of events. I imagine that to mention everything with full
explanation would fill a volume, even a very large one. And so I trust I may
not be reproached, for confining myself to what struck me. I may have
selected as of most interest what was of secondary importance, and may
have omitted the most prominent and essential details. But I see I shall do
better not to apologize. I will do my best and the reader will see for himself
that I have done all I can.
And, to begin with, before entering the court, I will mention what
surprised me most on that day. Indeed, as it appeared later, every one was
surprised at it, too. We all knew that the affair had aroused great interest,
that every one was burning with impatience for the trial to begin, that it had
been a subject of talk, conjecture, exclamation and surmise for the last two
months in local society. Every one knew, too, that the case had become
known throughout Russia, but yet we had not imagined that it had aroused
such burning, such intense, interest in every one, not only among ourselves,
but all over Russia. This became evident at the trial this day.
Visitors had arrived not only from the chief town of our province, but
from several other Russian towns, as well as from Moscow and Petersburg.
Among them were lawyers, ladies, and even several distinguished
personages. Every ticket of admission had been snatched up. A special place
behind the table at which the three judges sat was set apart for the most
distinguished and important of the men visitors; a row of arm-chairs had
been placed there—something exceptional, which had never been allowed
before. A large proportion—not less than half of the public—were ladies.

There was such a large number of lawyers from all parts that they did not
know where to seat them, for every ticket had long since been eagerly
sought for and distributed. I saw at the end of the room, behind the
platform, a special partition hurriedly put up, behind which all these
lawyers were admitted, and they thought themselves lucky to have standing
room there, for all chairs had been removed for the sake of space, and the
crowd behind the partition stood throughout the case closely packed,
shoulder to shoulder.
Some of the ladies, especially those who came from a distance, made
their appearance in the gallery very smartly dressed, but the majority of the
ladies were oblivious even of dress. Their faces betrayed hysterical, intense,
almost morbid, curiosity. A peculiar fact—established afterwards by many
observations—was that almost all the ladies, or, at least the vast majority of
them, were on Mitya’s side and in favor of his being acquitted. This was
perhaps chiefly owing to his reputation as a conqueror of female hearts. It
was known that two women rivals were to appear in the case. One of them
—Katerina Ivanovna—was an object of general interest. All sorts of
extraordinary tales were told about her, amazing anecdotes of her passion
for Mitya, in spite of his crime. Her pride and “aristocratic connections”
were particularly insisted upon (she had called upon scarcely any one in the
town). People said she intended to petition the Government for leave to
accompany the criminal to Siberia and to be married to him somewhere in
the mines. The appearance of Grushenka in court was awaited with no less
impatience. The public was looking forward with anxious curiosity to the
meeting of the two rivals—the proud aristocratic girl and “the hetaira.” But
Grushenka was a more familiar figure to the ladies of the district than
Katerina Ivanovna. They had already seen “the woman who had ruined
Fyodor Pavlovitch and his unhappy son,” and all, almost without exception,
wondered how father and son could be so in love with “such a very
common, ordinary Russian girl, who was not even pretty.”
In brief, there was a great deal of talk. I know for a fact that there were
several serious family quarrels on Mitya’s account in our town. Many ladies
quarreled violently with their husbands over differences of opinion about
the dreadful case, and it was only natural that the husbands of these ladies,
far from being favorably disposed to the prisoner, should enter the court
bitterly prejudiced against him. In fact, one may say pretty certainly that the
masculine, as distinguished from the feminine, part of the audience were

biased against the prisoner. There were numbers of severe, frowning, even
vindictive faces. Mitya, indeed, had managed to offend many people during
his stay in the town. Some of the visitors were, of course, in excellent spirits
and quite unconcerned as to the fate of Mitya personally. But all were
interested in the trial, and the majority of the men were certainly hoping for
the conviction of the criminal, except perhaps the lawyers, who were more
interested in the legal than in the moral aspect of the case.
Everybody was excited at the presence of the celebrated lawyer,
Fetyukovitch. His talent was well known, and this was not the first time he
had defended notorious criminal cases in the provinces. And if he defended
them, such cases became celebrated and long remembered all over Russia.
There were stories, too, about our prosecutor and about the President of the
Court. It was said that Ippolit Kirillovitch was in a tremor at meeting
Fetyukovitch, and that they had been enemies from the beginning of their
careers in Petersburg, that though our sensitive prosecutor, who always
considered that he had been aggrieved by some one in Petersburg because
his talents had not been properly appreciated, was keenly excited over the
Karamazov case, and was even dreaming of rebuilding his flagging fortunes
by means of it, Fetyukovitch, they said, was his one anxiety. But these
rumors were not quite just. Our prosecutor was not one of those men who
lose heart in face of danger. On the contrary, his self-confidence increased
with the increase of danger. It must be noted that our prosecutor was in
general too hasty and morbidly impressionable. He would put his whole
soul into some case and work at it as though his whole fate and his whole
fortune depended on its result. This was the subject of some ridicule in the
legal world, for just by this characteristic our prosecutor had gained a wider
notoriety than could have been expected from his modest position. People
laughed particularly at his passion for psychology. In my opinion, they were
wrong, and our prosecutor was, I believe, a character of greater depth than
was generally supposed. But with his delicate health he had failed to make
his mark at the outset of his career and had never made up for it later.
As for the President of our Court, I can only say that he was a humane
and cultured man, who had a practical knowledge of his work and
progressive views. He was rather ambitious, but did not concern himself
greatly about his future career. The great aim of his life was to be a man of
advanced ideas. He was, too, a man of connections and property. He felt, as
we learnt afterwards, rather strongly about the Karamazov case, but from a

social, not from a personal standpoint. He was interested in it as a social
phenomenon, in its classification and its character as a product of our social
conditions, as typical of the national character, and so on, and so on. His
attitude to the personal aspect of the case, to its tragic significance and the
persons involved in it, including the prisoner, was rather indifferent and
abstract, as was perhaps fitting, indeed.
The court was packed and overflowing long before the judges made their
appearance. Our court is the best hall in the town—spacious, lofty, and
good for sound. On the right of the judges, who were on a raised platform, a
table and two rows of chairs had been put ready for the jury. On the left was
the place for the prisoner and the counsel for the defense. In the middle of
the court, near the judges, was a table with the “material proofs.” On it lay
Fyodor Pavlovitch’s white silk dressing-gown, stained with blood; the fatal
brass pestle with which the supposed murder had been committed; Mitya’s
shirt, with a blood-stained sleeve; his coat, stained with blood in patches
over the pocket in which he had put his handkerchief; the handkerchief
itself, stiff with blood and by now quite yellow; the pistol loaded by Mitya
at Perhotin’s with a view to suicide, and taken from him on the sly at
Mokroe by Trifon Borissovitch; the envelope in which the three thousand
roubles had been put ready for Grushenka, the narrow pink ribbon with
which it had been tied, and many other articles I don’t remember. In the
body of the hall, at some distance, came the seats for the public. But in front
of the balustrade a few chairs had been placed for witnesses who remained
in the court after giving their evidence.
At ten o’clock the three judges arrived—the President, one honorary
justice of the peace, and one other. The prosecutor, of course, entered
immediately after. The President was a short, stout, thick-set man of fifty,
with a dyspeptic complexion, dark hair turning gray and cut short, and a red
ribbon, of what Order I don’t remember. The prosecutor struck me and the
others, too, as looking particularly pale, almost green. His face seemed to
have grown suddenly thinner, perhaps in a single night, for I had seen him
looking as usual only two days before. The President began with asking the
court whether all the jury were present.
But I see I can’t go on like this, partly because some things I did not hear,
others I did not notice, and others I have forgotten, but most of all because,
as I have said before, I have literally no time or space to mention everything

that was said and done. I only know that neither side objected to very many
of the jurymen. I remember the twelve jurymen—four were petty officials
of the town, two were merchants, and six peasants and artisans of the town.
I remember, long before the trial, questions were continually asked with
some surprise, especially by ladies: “Can such a delicate, complex and
psychological case be submitted for decision to petty officials and even
peasants?” and “What can an official, still more a peasant, understand in
such an affair?” All the four officials in the jury were, in fact, men of no
consequence and of low rank. Except one who was rather younger, they
were gray-headed men, little known in society, who had vegetated on a
pitiful salary, and who probably had elderly, unpresentable wives and
crowds of children, perhaps even without shoes and stockings. At most,
they spent their leisure over cards and, of course, had never read a single
book. The two merchants looked respectable, but were strangely silent and
stolid. One of them was close-shaven, and was dressed in European style;
the other had a small, gray beard, and wore a red ribbon with some sort of a
medal upon it on his neck. There is no need to speak of the artisans and the
peasants. The artisans of Skotoprigonyevsk are almost peasants, and even
work on the land. Two of them also wore European dress, and, perhaps for
that reason, were dirtier and more uninviting-looking than the others. So
that one might well wonder, as I did as soon as I had looked at them, “what
men like that could possibly make of such a case?” Yet their faces made a
strangely imposing, almost menacing, impression; they were stern and
frowning.
At last the President opened the case of the murder of Fyodor Pavlovitch
Karamazov. I don’t quite remember how he described him. The court usher
was told to bring in the prisoner, and Mitya made his appearance. There was
a hush through the court. One could have heard a fly. I don’t know how it
was with others, but Mitya made a most unfavorable impression on me. He
looked an awful dandy in a brand-new frock-coat. I heard afterwards that he
had ordered it in Moscow expressly for the occasion from his own tailor,
who had his measure. He wore immaculate black kid gloves and exquisite
linen. He walked in with his yard-long strides, looking stiffly straight in
front of him, and sat down in his place with a most unperturbed air.
At the same moment the counsel for defense, the celebrated
Fetyukovitch, entered, and a sort of subdued hum passed through the court.
He was a tall, spare man, with long thin legs, with extremely long, thin, pale

fingers, clean-shaven face, demurely brushed, rather short hair, and thin lips
that were at times curved into something between a sneer and a smile. He
looked about forty. His face would have been pleasant, if it had not been for
his eyes, which, in themselves small and inexpressive, were set remarkably
close together, with only the thin, long nose as a dividing line between
them. In fact, there was something strikingly birdlike about his face. He was
in evening dress and white tie.
I remember the President’s first questions to Mitya, about his name, his
calling, and so on. Mitya answered sharply, and his voice was so
unexpectedly loud that it made the President start and look at the prisoner
with surprise. Then followed a list of persons who were to take part in the
proceedings—that is, of the witnesses and experts. It was a long list. Four
of the witnesses were not present—Miüsov, who had given evidence at the
preliminary inquiry, but was now in Paris; Madame Hohlakov and
Maximov, who were absent through illness; and Smerdyakov, through his
sudden death, of which an official statement from the police was presented.
The news of Smerdyakov’s death produced a sudden stir and whisper in the
court. Many of the audience, of course, had not heard of the sudden suicide.
What struck people most was Mitya’s sudden outburst. As soon as the
statement of Smerdyakov’s death was made, he cried out aloud from his
place:
“He was a dog and died like a dog!”
I remember how his counsel rushed to him, and how the President
addressed him, threatening to take stern measures, if such an irregularity
were repeated. Mitya nodded and in a subdued voice repeated several times
abruptly to his counsel, with no show of regret:
“I won’t again, I won’t. It escaped me. I won’t do it again.”
And, of course, this brief episode did him no good with the jury or the
public. His character was displayed, and it spoke for itself. It was under the
influence of this incident that the opening statement was read. It was rather
short, but circumstantial. It only stated the chief reasons why he had been
arrested, why he must be tried, and so on. Yet it made a great impression on
me. The clerk read it loudly and distinctly. The whole tragedy was suddenly
unfolded before us, concentrated, in bold relief, in a fatal and pitiless light. I
remember how, immediately after it had been read, the President asked
Mitya in a loud impressive voice:

“Prisoner, do you plead guilty?”
Mitya suddenly rose from his seat.
“I plead guilty to drunkenness and dissipation,” he exclaimed, again in a
startling, almost frenzied, voice, “to idleness and debauchery. I meant to
become an honest man for good, just at the moment when I was struck
down by fate. But I am not guilty of the death of that old man, my enemy
and my father. No, no, I am not guilty of robbing him! I could not be.
Dmitri Karamazov is a scoundrel, but not a thief.”
He sat down again, visibly trembling all over. The President again briefly,
but impressively, admonished him to answer only what was asked, and not
to go off into irrelevant exclamations. Then he ordered the case to proceed.
All the witnesses were led up to take the oath. Then I saw them all together.
The brothers of the prisoner were, however, allowed to give evidence
without taking the oath. After an exhortation from the priest and the
President, the witnesses were led away and were made to sit as far as
possible apart from one another. Then they began calling them up one by
one.

Chapter II.
Dangerous Witnesses

I do not know whether the witnesses for the defense and for the
prosecution were separated into groups by the President, and whether it was
arranged to call them in a certain order. But no doubt it was so. I only know
that the witnesses for the prosecution were called first. I repeat I don’t
intend to describe all the questions step by step. Besides, my account would
be to some extent superfluous, because in the speeches for the prosecution
and for the defense the whole course of the evidence was brought together
and set in a strong and significant light, and I took down parts of those two
remarkable speeches in full, and will quote them in due course, together
with one extraordinary and quite unexpected episode, which occurred
before the final speeches, and undoubtedly influenced the sinister and fatal
outcome of the trial.
I will only observe that from the first moments of the trial one peculiar
characteristic of the case was conspicuous and observed by all, that is, the
overwhelming strength of the prosecution as compared with the arguments
the defense had to rely upon. Every one realized it from the first moment
that the facts began to group themselves round a single point, and the whole
horrible and bloody crime was gradually revealed. Every one, perhaps, felt
from the first that the case was beyond dispute, that there was no doubt
about it, that there could be really no discussion, and that the defense was
only a matter of form, and that the prisoner was guilty, obviously and
conclusively guilty. I imagine that even the ladies, who were so impatiently
longing for the acquittal of the interesting prisoner, were at the same time,
without exception, convinced of his guilt. What’s more, I believe they
would have been mortified if his guilt had not been so firmly established, as
that would have lessened the effect of the closing scene of the criminal’s
acquittal. That he would be acquitted, all the ladies, strange to say, were

firmly persuaded up to the very last moment. “He is guilty, but he will be
acquitted, from motives of humanity, in accordance with the new ideas, the
new sentiments that had come into fashion,” and so on, and so on. And that
was why they had crowded into the court so impatiently. The men were
more interested in the contest between the prosecutor and the famous
Fetyukovitch. All were wondering and asking themselves what could even a
talent like Fetyukovitch’s make of such a desperate case; and so they
followed his achievements, step by step, with concentrated attention.
But Fetyukovitch remained an enigma to all up to the very end, up to his
speech. Persons of experience suspected that he had some design, that he
was working towards some object, but it was almost impossible to guess
what it was. His confidence and self-reliance were unmistakable, however.
Every one noticed with pleasure, moreover, that he, after so short a stay, not
more than three days, perhaps, among us, had so wonderfully succeeded in
mastering the case and “had studied it to a nicety.” People described with
relish, afterwards, how cleverly he had “taken down” all the witnesses for
the prosecution, and as far as possible perplexed them and, what’s more,
had aspersed their reputation and so depreciated the value of their evidence.
But it was supposed that he did this rather by way of sport, so to speak, for
professional glory, to show nothing had been omitted of the accepted
methods, for all were convinced that he could do no real good by such
disparagement of the witnesses, and probably was more aware of this than
any one, having some idea of his own in the background, some concealed
weapon of defense, which he would suddenly reveal when the time came.
But meanwhile, conscious of his strength, he seemed to be diverting
himself.
So, for instance, when Grigory, Fyodor Pavlovitch’s old servant, who had
given the most damning piece of evidence about the open door, was
examined, the counsel for the defense positively fastened upon him when
his turn came to question him. It must be noted that Grigory entered the hall
with a composed and almost stately air, not the least disconcerted by the
majesty of the court or the vast audience listening to him. He gave evidence
with as much confidence as though he had been talking with his Marfa,
only perhaps more respectfully. It was impossible to make him contradict
himself. The prosecutor questioned him first in detail about the family life
of the Karamazovs. The family picture stood out in lurid colors. It was plain
to ear and eye that the witness was guileless and impartial. In spite of his

profound reverence for the memory of his deceased master, he yet bore
witness that he had been unjust to Mitya and “hadn’t brought up his
children as he should. He’d have been devoured by lice when he was little,
if it hadn’t been for me,” he added, describing Mitya’s early childhood. “It
wasn’t fair either of the father to wrong his son over his mother’s property,
which was by right his.”
In reply to the prosecutor’s question what grounds he had for asserting
that Fyodor Pavlovitch had wronged his son in their money relations,
Grigory, to the surprise of every one, had no proof at all to bring forward,
but he still persisted that the arrangement with the son was “unfair,” and
that he ought “to have paid him several thousand roubles more.” I must
note, by the way, that the prosecutor asked this question whether Fyodor
Pavlovitch had really kept back part of Mitya’s inheritance with marked
persistence of all the witnesses who could be asked it, not excepting
Alyosha and Ivan, but he obtained no exact information from any one; all
alleged that it was so, but were unable to bring forward any distinct proof.
Grigory’s description of the scene at the dinner-table, when Dmitri had
burst in and beaten his father, threatening to come back to kill him, made a
sinister impression on the court, especially as the old servant’s composure
in telling it, his parsimony of words and peculiar phraseology, were as
effective as eloquence. He observed that he was not angry with Mitya for
having knocked him down and struck him on the face; he had forgiven him
long ago, he said. Of the deceased Smerdyakov he observed, crossing
himself, that he was a lad of ability, but stupid and afflicted, and, worse
still, an infidel, and that it was Fyodor Pavlovitch and his elder son who had
taught him to be so. But he defended Smerdyakov’s honesty almost with
warmth, and related how Smerdyakov had once found the master’s money
in the yard, and, instead of concealing it, had taken it to his master, who had
rewarded him with a “gold piece” for it, and trusted him implicitly from
that time forward. He maintained obstinately that the door into the garden
had been open. But he was asked so many questions that I can’t recall them
all.
At last the counsel for the defense began to cross-examine him, and the
first question he asked was about the envelope in which Fyodor Pavlovitch
was supposed to have put three thousand roubles for “a certain person.”
“Have you ever seen it, you, who were for so many years in close
attendance on your master?” Grigory answered that he had not seen it and

had never heard of the money from any one “till everybody was talking
about it.” This question about the envelope Fetyukovitch put to every one
who could conceivably have known of it, as persistently as the prosecutor
asked his question about Dmitri’s inheritance, and got the same answer
from all, that no one had seen the envelope, though many had heard of it.
From the beginning every one noticed Fetyukovitch’s persistence on this
subject.
“Now, with your permission I’ll ask you a question,” Fetyukovitch said,
suddenly and unexpectedly. “Of what was that balsam, or, rather, decoction,
made, which, as we learn from the preliminary inquiry, you used on that
evening to rub your lumbago, in the hope of curing it?”
Grigory looked blankly at the questioner, and after a brief silence
muttered, “There was saffron in it.”
“Nothing but saffron? Don’t you remember any other ingredient?”
“There was milfoil in it, too.”
“And pepper perhaps?” Fetyukovitch queried.
“Yes, there was pepper, too.”
“Etcetera. And all dissolved in vodka?”
“In spirit.”
There was a faint sound of laughter in the court.
“You see, in spirit. After rubbing your back, I believe, you drank what
was left in the bottle with a certain pious prayer, only known to your wife?”
“I did.”
“Did you drink much? Roughly speaking, a wine-glass or two?”
“It might have been a tumbler-full.”
“A tumbler-full, even. Perhaps a tumbler and a half?”
Grigory did not answer. He seemed to see what was meant.
“A glass and a half of neat spirit—is not at all bad, don’t you think? You
might see the gates of heaven open, not only the door into the garden?”
Grigory remained silent. There was another laugh in the court. The
President made a movement.
“Do you know for a fact,” Fetyukovitch persisted, “whether you were
awake or not when you saw the open door?”

“I was on my legs.”
“That’s not a proof that you were awake.” (There was again laughter in
the court.) “Could you have answered at that moment, if any one had asked
you a question—for instance, what year it is?”
“I don’t know.”
“And what year is it, Anno Domini, do you know?”
Grigory stood with a perplexed face, looking straight at his tormentor.
Strange to say, it appeared he really did not know what year it was.
“But perhaps you can tell me how many fingers you have on your
hands?”
“I am a servant,” Grigory said suddenly, in a loud and distinct voice. “If
my betters think fit to make game of me, it is my duty to suffer it.”
Fetyukovitch was a little taken aback, and the President intervened,
reminding him that he must ask more relevant questions. Fetyukovitch
bowed with dignity and said that he had no more questions to ask of the
witness. The public and the jury, of course, were left with a grain of doubt
in their minds as to the evidence of a man who might, while undergoing a
certain cure, have seen “the gates of heaven,” and who did not even know
what year he was living in. But before Grigory left the box another episode
occurred. The President, turning to the prisoner, asked him whether he had
any comment to make on the evidence of the last witness.
“Except about the door, all he has said is true,” cried Mitya, in a loud
voice. “For combing the lice off me, I thank him; for forgiving my blows, I
thank him. The old man has been honest all his life and as faithful to my
father as seven hundred poodles.”
“Prisoner, be careful in your language,” the President admonished him.
“I am not a poodle,” Grigory muttered.
“All right, it’s I am a poodle myself,” cried Mitya. “If it’s an insult, I take
it to myself and I beg his pardon. I was a beast and cruel to him. I was cruel
to Æsop too.”
“What Æsop?” the President asked sternly again.
“Oh, Pierrot ... my father, Fyodor Pavlovitch.”
The President again and again warned Mitya impressively and very
sternly to be more careful in his language.

“You are injuring yourself in the opinion of your judges.”
The counsel for the defense was equally clever in dealing with the
evidence of Rakitin. I may remark that Rakitin was one of the leading
witnesses and one to whom the prosecutor attached great significance. It
appeared that he knew everything; his knowledge was amazing, he had
been everywhere, seen everything, talked to everybody, knew every detail
of the biography of Fyodor Pavlovitch and all the Karamazovs. Of the
envelope, it is true, he had only heard from Mitya himself. But he described
minutely Mitya’s exploits in the “Metropolis,” all his compromising doings
and sayings, and told the story of Captain Snegiryov’s “wisp of tow.” But
even Rakitin could say nothing positive about Mitya’s inheritance, and
confined himself to contemptuous generalities.
“Who could tell which of them was to blame, and which was in debt to
the other, with their crazy Karamazov way of muddling things so that no
one could make head or tail of it?” He attributed the tragic crime to the
habits that had become ingrained by ages of serfdom and the distressed
condition of Russia, due to the lack of appropriate institutions. He was, in
fact, allowed some latitude of speech. This was the first occasion on which
Rakitin showed what he could do, and attracted notice. The prosecutor
knew that the witness was preparing a magazine article on the case, and
afterwards in his speech, as we shall see later, quoted some ideas from the
article, showing that he had seen it already. The picture drawn by the
witness was a gloomy and sinister one, and greatly strengthened the case for
the prosecution. Altogether, Rakitin’s discourse fascinated the public by its
independence and the extraordinary nobility of its ideas. There were even
two or three outbreaks of applause when he spoke of serfdom and the
distressed condition of Russia.
But Rakitin, in his youthful ardor, made a slight blunder, of which the
counsel for the defense at once adroitly took advantage. Answering certain
questions about Grushenka, and carried away by the loftiness of his own
sentiments and his success, of which he was, of course, conscious, he went
so far as to speak somewhat contemptuously of Agrafena Alexandrovna as
“the kept mistress of Samsonov.” He would have given a good deal to take
back his words afterwards, for Fetyukovitch caught him out over it at once.
And it was all because Rakitin had not reckoned on the lawyer having been
able to become so intimately acquainted with every detail in so short a time.

“Allow me to ask,” began the counsel for the defense, with the most
affable and even respectful smile, “you are, of course, the same Mr. Rakitin
whose pamphlet, The Life of the Deceased Elder, Father Zossima, published
by the diocesan authorities, full of profound and religious reflections and
preceded by an excellent and devout dedication to the bishop, I have just
read with such pleasure?”
“I did not write it for publication ... it was published afterwards,”
muttered Rakitin, for some reason fearfully disconcerted and almost
ashamed.
“Oh, that’s excellent! A thinker like you can, and indeed ought to, take
the widest view of every social question. Your most instructive pamphlet
has been widely circulated through the patronage of the bishop, and has
been of appreciable service.... But this is the chief thing I should like to
learn from you. You stated just now that you were very intimately
acquainted with Madame Svyetlov.” (It must be noted that Grushenka’s
surname was Svyetlov. I heard it for the first time that day, during the case.)
“I cannot answer for all my acquaintances.... I am a young man ... and
who can be responsible for every one he meets?” cried Rakitin, flushing all
over.
“I understand, I quite understand,” cried Fetyukovitch, as though he, too,
were embarrassed and in haste to excuse himself. “You, like any other,
might well be interested in an acquaintance with a young and beautiful
woman who would readily entertain the élite of the youth of the
neighborhood, but ... I only wanted to know ... It has come to my
knowledge that Madame Svyetlov was particularly anxious a couple of
months ago to make the acquaintance of the younger Karamazov, Alexey
Fyodorovitch, and promised you twenty-five roubles, if you would bring
him to her in his monastic dress. And that actually took place on the
evening of the day on which the terrible crime, which is the subject of the
present investigation, was committed. You brought Alexey Karamazov to
Madame Svyetlov, and did you receive the twenty-five roubles from
Madame Svyetlov as a reward, that’s what I wanted to hear from you?”
“It was a joke.... I don’t see of what interest that can be to you.... I took it
for a joke ... meaning to give it back later....”
“Then you did take— But you have not given it back yet ... or have
you?”

“That’s of no consequence,” muttered Rakitin, “I refuse to answer such
questions.... Of course I shall give it back.”
The President intervened, but Fetyukovitch declared he had no more
questions to ask of the witness. Mr. Rakitin left the witness-box not
absolutely without a stain upon his character. The effect left by the lofty
idealism of his speech was somewhat marred, and Fetyukovitch’s
expression, as he watched him walk away, seemed to suggest to the public
“this is a specimen of the lofty-minded persons who accuse him.” I
remember that this incident, too, did not pass off without an outbreak from
Mitya. Enraged by the tone in which Rakitin had referred to Grushenka, he
suddenly shouted “Bernard!” When, after Rakitin’s cross-examination, the
President asked the prisoner if he had anything to say, Mitya cried loudly:
“Since I’ve been arrested, he has borrowed money from me! He is a
contemptible Bernard and opportunist, and he doesn’t believe in God; he
took the bishop in!”
Mitya, of course, was pulled up again for the intemperance of his
language, but Rakitin was done for. Captain Snegiryov’s evidence was a
failure, too, but from quite a different reason. He appeared in ragged and
dirty clothes, muddy boots, and in spite of the vigilance and expert
observation of the police officers, he turned out to be hopelessly drunk. On
being asked about Mitya’s attack upon him, he refused to answer.
“God bless him. Ilusha told me not to. God will make it up to me
yonder.”
“Who told you not to tell? Of whom are you talking?”
“Ilusha, my little son. ‘Father, father, how he insulted you!’ He said that
at the stone. Now he is dying....”
The captain suddenly began sobbing, and plumped down on his knees
before the President. He was hurriedly led away amidst the laughter of the
public. The effect prepared by the prosecutor did not come off at all.
Fetyukovitch went on making the most of every opportunity, and amazed
people more and more by his minute knowledge of the case. Thus, for
example, Trifon Borissovitch made a great impression, of course, very
prejudicial to Mitya. He calculated almost on his fingers that on his first
visit to Mokroe, Mitya must have spent three thousand roubles, “or very
little less. Just think what he squandered on those gypsy girls alone! And as

for our lousy peasants, it wasn’t a case of flinging half a rouble in the street,
he made them presents of twenty-five roubles each, at least, he didn’t give
them less. And what a lot of money was simply stolen from him! And if any
one did steal, he did not leave a receipt. How could one catch the thief when
he was flinging his money away all the time? Our peasants are robbers, you
know; they have no care for their souls. And the way he went on with the
girls, our village girls! They’re completely set up since then, I tell you, they
used to be poor.” He recalled, in fact, every item of expense and added it all
up. So the theory that only fifteen hundred had been spent and the rest had
been put aside in a little bag seemed inconceivable.
“I saw three thousand as clear as a penny in his hands, I saw it with my
own eyes; I should think I ought to know how to reckon money,” cried
Trifon Borissovitch, doing his best to satisfy “his betters.”
When Fetyukovitch had to cross-examine him, he scarcely tried to refute
his evidence, but began asking him about an incident at the first carousal at
Mokroe, a month before the arrest, when Timofey and another peasant
called Akim had picked up on the floor in the passage a hundred roubles
dropped by Mitya when he was drunk, and had given them to Trifon
Borissovitch and received a rouble each from him for doing so. “Well,”
asked the lawyer, “did you give that hundred roubles back to Mr.
Karamazov?” Trifon Borissovitch shuffled in vain.... He was obliged, after
the peasants had been examined, to admit the finding of the hundred
roubles, only adding that he had religiously returned it all to Dmitri
Fyodorovitch “in perfect honesty, and it’s only because his honor was in
liquor at the time, he wouldn’t remember it.” But, as he had denied the
incident of the hundred roubles till the peasants had been called to prove it,
his evidence as to returning the money to Mitya was naturally regarded with
great suspicion. So one of the most dangerous witnesses brought forward by
the prosecution was again discredited.
The same thing happened with the Poles. They took up an attitude of
pride and independence; they vociferated loudly that they had both been in
the service of the Crown, and that “Pan Mitya” had offered them three
thousand “to buy their honor,” and that they had seen a large sum of money
in his hands. Pan Mussyalovitch introduced a terrible number of Polish
words into his sentences, and seeing that this only increased his
consequence in the eyes of the President and the prosecutor, grew more and

more pompous, and ended by talking in Polish altogether. But Fetyukovitch
caught them, too, in his snares. Trifon Borissovitch, recalled, was forced, in
spite of his evasions, to admit that Pan Vrublevsky had substituted another
pack of cards for the one he had provided, and that Pan Mussyalovitch had
cheated during the game. Kalganov confirmed this, and both the Poles left
the witness-box with damaged reputations, amidst laughter from the public.
Then exactly the same thing happened with almost all the most
dangerous witnesses. Fetyukovitch succeeded in casting a slur on all of
them, and dismissing them with a certain derision. The lawyers and experts
were lost in admiration, and were only at a loss to understand what good
purpose could be served by it, for all, I repeat, felt that the case for the
prosecution could not be refuted, but was growing more and more tragically
overwhelming. But from the confidence of the “great magician” they saw
that he was serene, and they waited, feeling that “such a man” had not come
from Petersburg for nothing, and that he was not a man to return
unsuccessful.

Chapter III.
The Medical Experts And A Pound Of Nuts

The evidence of the medical experts, too, was of little use to the prisoner.
And it appeared later that Fetyukovitch had not reckoned much upon it. The
medical line of defense had only been taken up through the insistence of
Katerina Ivanovna, who had sent for a celebrated doctor from Moscow on
purpose. The case for the defense could, of course, lose nothing by it and
might, with luck, gain something from it. There was, however, an element
of comedy about it, through the difference of opinion of the doctors. The
medical experts were the famous doctor from Moscow, our doctor,
Herzenstube, and the young doctor, Varvinsky. The two latter appeared also
as witnesses for the prosecution.
The first to be called in the capacity of expert was Doctor Herzenstube.
He was a gray and bald old man of seventy, of middle height and sturdy
build. He was much esteemed and respected by every one in the town. He
was a conscientious doctor and an excellent and pious man, a Hernguter or
Moravian brother, I am not quite sure which. He had been living amongst
us for many years and behaved with wonderful dignity. He was a kind-
hearted and humane man. He treated the sick poor and peasants for nothing,
visited them in their slums and huts, and left money for medicine, but he
was as obstinate as a mule. If once he had taken an idea into his head, there
was no shaking it. Almost every one in the town was aware, by the way,
that the famous doctor had, within the first two or three days of his presence
among us, uttered some extremely offensive allusions to Doctor
Herzenstube’s qualifications. Though the Moscow doctor asked twenty-five
roubles for a visit, several people in the town were glad to take advantage of
his arrival, and rushed to consult him regardless of expense. All these had,
of course, been previously patients of Doctor Herzenstube, and the
celebrated doctor had criticized his treatment with extreme harshness.

Finally, he had asked the patients as soon as he saw them, “Well, who has
been cramming you with nostrums? Herzenstube? He, he!” Doctor
Herzenstube, of course, heard all this, and now all the three doctors made
their appearance, one after another, to be examined.
Doctor Herzenstube roundly declared that the abnormality of the
prisoner’s mental faculties was self-evident. Then giving his grounds for
this opinion, which I omit here, he added that the abnormality was not only
evident in many of the prisoner’s actions in the past, but was apparent even
now at this very moment. When he was asked to explain how it was
apparent now at this moment, the old doctor, with simple-hearted
directness, pointed out that the prisoner on entering the court had “an
extraordinary air, remarkable in the circumstances”; that he had “marched
in like a soldier, looking straight before him, though it would have been
more natural for him to look to the left where, among the public, the ladies
were sitting, seeing that he was a great admirer of the fair sex and must be
thinking much of what the ladies are saying of him now,” the old man
concluded in his peculiar language.
I must add that he spoke Russian readily, but every phrase was formed in
German style, which did not, however, trouble him, for it had always been a
weakness of his to believe that he spoke Russian perfectly, better indeed
than Russians. And he was very fond of using Russian proverbs, always
declaring that the Russian proverbs were the best and most expressive
sayings in the whole world. I may remark, too, that in conversation, through
absent-mindedness he often forgot the most ordinary words, which
sometimes went out of his head, though he knew them perfectly. The same
thing happened, though, when he spoke German, and at such times he
always waved his hand before his face as though trying to catch the lost
word, and no one could induce him to go on speaking till he had found the
missing word. His remark that the prisoner ought to have looked at the
ladies on entering roused a whisper of amusement in the audience. All our
ladies were very fond of our old doctor; they knew, too, that having been all
his life a bachelor and a religious man of exemplary conduct, he looked
upon women as lofty creatures. And so his unexpected observation struck
every one as very queer.
The Moscow doctor, being questioned in his turn, definitely and
emphatically repeated that he considered the prisoner’s mental condition

abnormal in the highest degree. He talked at length and with erudition of
“aberration” and “mania,” and argued that, from all the facts collected, the
prisoner had undoubtedly been in a condition of aberration for several days
before his arrest, and, if the crime had been committed by him, it must,
even if he were conscious of it, have been almost involuntary, as he had not
the power to control the morbid impulse that possessed him.
But apart from temporary aberration, the doctor diagnosed mania, which
premised, in his words, to lead to complete insanity in the future. (It must
be noted that I report this in my own words, the doctor made use of very
learned and professional language.) “All his actions are in contravention of
common sense and logic,” he continued. “Not to refer to what I have not
seen, that is, the crime itself and the whole catastrophe, the day before
yesterday, while he was talking to me, he had an unaccountably fixed look
in his eye. He laughed unexpectedly when there was nothing to laugh at. He
showed continual and inexplicable irritability, using strange words,
‘Bernard!’ ‘Ethics!’ and others equally inappropriate.” But the doctor
detected mania, above all, in the fact that the prisoner could not even speak
of the three thousand roubles, of which he considered himself to have been
cheated, without extraordinary irritation, though he could speak
comparatively lightly of other misfortunes and grievances. According to all
accounts, he had even in the past, whenever the subject of the three
thousand roubles was touched on, flown into a perfect frenzy, and yet he
was reported to be a disinterested and not grasping man.
“As to the opinion of my learned colleague,” the Moscow doctor added
ironically in conclusion, “that the prisoner would, on entering the court,
have naturally looked at the ladies and not straight before him, I will only
say that, apart from the playfulness of this theory, it is radically unsound.
For though I fully agree that the prisoner, on entering the court where his
fate will be decided, would not naturally look straight before him in that
fixed way, and that that may really be a sign of his abnormal mental
condition, at the same time I maintain that he would naturally not look to
the left at the ladies, but, on the contrary, to the right to find his legal
adviser, on whose help all his hopes rest and on whose defense all his future
depends.” The doctor expressed his opinion positively and emphatically.
But the unexpected pronouncement of Doctor Varvinsky gave the last
touch of comedy to the difference of opinion between the experts. In his

opinion the prisoner was now, and had been all along, in a perfectly normal
condition, and, although he certainly must have been in a nervous and
exceedingly excited state before his arrest, this might have been due to
several perfectly obvious causes, jealousy, anger, continual drunkenness,
and so on. But this nervous condition would not involve the mental
aberration of which mention had just been made. As to the question whether
the prisoner should have looked to the left or to the right on entering the
court, “in his modest opinion,” the prisoner would naturally look straight
before him on entering the court, as he had in fact done, as that was where
the judges, on whom his fate depended, were sitting. So that it was just by
looking straight before him that he showed his perfectly normal state of
mind at the present. The young doctor concluded his “modest” testimony
with some heat.
“Bravo, doctor!” cried Mitya, from his seat, “just so!”
Mitya, of course, was checked, but the young doctor’s opinion had a
decisive influence on the judges and on the public, and, as appeared
afterwards, every one agreed with him. But Doctor Herzenstube, when
called as a witness, was quite unexpectedly of use to Mitya. As an old
resident in the town who had known the Karamazov family for years, he
furnished some facts of great value for the prosecution, and suddenly, as
though recalling something, he added:
“But the poor young man might have had a very different life, for he had
a good heart both in childhood and after childhood, that I know. But the
Russian proverb says, ‘If a man has one head, it’s good, but if another
clever man comes to visit him, it would be better still, for then there will be
two heads and not only one.’ ”
“One head is good, but two are better,” the prosecutor put in impatiently.
He knew the old man’s habit of talking slowly and deliberately, regardless
of the impression he was making and of the delay he was causing, and
highly prizing his flat, dull and always gleefully complacent German wit.
The old man was fond of making jokes.
“Oh, yes, that’s what I say,” he went on stubbornly. “One head is good,
but two are much better, but he did not meet another head with wits, and his
wits went. Where did they go? I’ve forgotten the word.” He went on,
passing his hand before his eyes, “Oh, yes, spazieren.”
“Wandering?”

“Oh, yes, wandering, that’s what I say. Well, his wits went wandering and
fell in such a deep hole that he lost himself. And yet he was a grateful and
sensitive boy. Oh, I remember him very well, a little chap so high, left
neglected by his father in the back yard, when he ran about without boots
on his feet, and his little breeches hanging by one button.”
A note of feeling and tenderness suddenly came into the honest old man’s
voice. Fetyukovitch positively started, as though scenting something, and
caught at it instantly.
“Oh, yes, I was a young man then.... I was ... well, I was forty-five then,
and had only just come here. And I was so sorry for the boy then; I asked
myself why shouldn’t I buy him a pound of ... a pound of what? I’ve
forgotten what it’s called. A pound of what children are very fond of, what
is it, what is it?” The doctor began waving his hands again. “It grows on a
tree and is gathered and given to every one....”
“Apples?”
“Oh, no, no. You have a dozen of apples, not a pound.... No, there are a
lot of them, and all little. You put them in the mouth and crack.”
“Nuts?”
“Quite so, nuts, I say so.” The doctor repeated in the calmest way as
though he had been at no loss for a word. “And I bought him a pound of
nuts, for no one had ever bought the boy a pound of nuts before. And I
lifted my finger and said to him, ‘Boy, Gott der Vater.’ He laughed and said,
‘Gott der Vater.’... ‘Gott der Sohn.’ He laughed again and lisped, ‘Gott der
Sohn.’ ‘Gott der heilige Geist.’ Then he laughed and said as best he could,
‘Gott der heilige Geist.’ I went away, and two days after I happened to be
passing, and he shouted to me of himself, ‘Uncle, Gott der Vater, Gott der
Sohn,’ and he had only forgotten ‘Gott der heilige Geist.’ But I reminded
him of it and I felt very sorry for him again. But he was taken away, and I
did not see him again. Twenty-three years passed. I am sitting one morning
in my study, a white-haired old man, when there walks into the room a
blooming young man, whom I should never have recognized, but he held up
his finger and said, laughing, ‘Gott der Vater, Gott der Sohn, and Gott der
heilige Geist. I have just arrived and have come to thank you for that pound
of nuts, for no one else ever bought me a pound of nuts; you are the only
one that ever did.’ And then I remembered my happy youth and the poor
child in the yard, without boots on his feet, and my heart was touched and I

said, ‘You are a grateful young man, for you have remembered all your life
the pound of nuts I bought you in your childhood.’ And I embraced him and
blessed him. And I shed tears. He laughed, but he shed tears, too ... for the
Russian often laughs when he ought to be weeping. But he did weep; I saw
it. And now, alas!...”
“And I am weeping now, German, I am weeping now, too, you saintly
man,” Mitya cried suddenly.
In any case the anecdote made a certain favorable impression on the
public. But the chief sensation in Mitya’s favor was created by the evidence
of Katerina Ivanovna, which I will describe directly. Indeed, when the
witnesses à décharge, that is, called by the defense, began giving evidence,
fortune seemed all at once markedly more favorable to Mitya, and what was
particularly striking, this was a surprise even to the counsel for the defense.
But before Katerina Ivanovna was called, Alyosha was examined, and he
recalled a fact which seemed to furnish positive evidence against one
important point made by the prosecution.

Chapter IV.
Fortune Smiles On Mitya

It came quite as a surprise even to Alyosha himself. He was not required
to take the oath, and I remember that both sides addressed him very gently
and sympathetically. It was evident that his reputation for goodness had
preceded him. Alyosha gave his evidence modestly and with restraint, but
his warm sympathy for his unhappy brother was unmistakable. In answer to
one question, he sketched his brother’s character as that of a man, violent-
tempered perhaps and carried away by his passions, but at the same time
honorable, proud and generous, capable of self-sacrifice, if necessary. He
admitted, however, that, through his passion for Grushenka and his rivalry
with his father, his brother had been of late in an intolerable position. But he
repelled with indignation the suggestion that his brother might have
committed a murder for the sake of gain, though he recognized that the
three thousand roubles had become almost an obsession with Mitya; that he
looked upon them as part of the inheritance he had been cheated of by his
father, and that, indifferent as he was to money as a rule, he could not even
speak of that three thousand without fury. As for the rivalry of the two
“ladies,” as the prosecutor expressed it—that is, of Grushenka and Katya—
he answered evasively and was even unwilling to answer one or two
questions altogether.
“Did your brother tell you, anyway, that he intended to kill your father?”
asked the prosecutor. “You can refuse to answer if you think necessary,” he
added.
“He did not tell me so directly,” answered Alyosha.
“How so? Did he indirectly?”
“He spoke to me once of his hatred for our father and his fear that at an
extreme moment ... at a moment of fury, he might perhaps murder him.”

“And you believed him?”
“I am afraid to say that I did. But I never doubted that some higher
feeling would always save him at the fatal moment, as it has indeed saved
him, for it was not he killed my father,” Alyosha said firmly, in a loud voice
that was heard throughout the court.
The prosecutor started like a war-horse at the sound of a trumpet.
“Let me assure you that I fully believe in the complete sincerity of your
conviction and do not explain it by or identify it with your affection for
your unhappy brother. Your peculiar view of the whole tragic episode is
known to us already from the preliminary investigation. I won’t attempt to
conceal from you that it is highly individual and contradicts all the other
evidence collected by the prosecution. And so I think it essential to press
you to tell me what facts have led you to this conviction of your brother’s
innocence and of the guilt of another person against whom you gave
evidence at the preliminary inquiry?”
“I only answered the questions asked me at the preliminary inquiry,”
replied Alyosha, slowly and calmly. “I made no accusation against
Smerdyakov of myself.”
“Yet you gave evidence against him?”
“I was led to do so by my brother Dmitri’s words. I was told what took
place at his arrest and how he had pointed to Smerdyakov before I was
examined. I believe absolutely that my brother is innocent, and if he didn’t
commit the murder, then—”
“Then Smerdyakov? Why Smerdyakov? And why are you so completely
persuaded of your brother’s innocence?”
“I cannot help believing my brother. I know he wouldn’t lie to me. I saw
from his face he wasn’t lying.”
“Only from his face? Is that all the proof you have?”
“I have no other proof.”
“And of Smerdyakov’s guilt you have no proof whatever but your
brother’s word and the expression of his face?”
“No, I have no other proof.”
The prosecutor dropped the examination at this point. The impression left
by Alyosha’s evidence on the public was most disappointing. There had

been talk about Smerdyakov before the trial; some one had heard
something, some one had pointed out something else, it was said that
Alyosha had gathered together some extraordinary proofs of his brother’s
innocence and Smerdyakov’s guilt, and after all there was nothing, no
evidence except certain moral convictions so natural in a brother.
But Fetyukovitch began his cross-examination. On his asking Alyosha
when it was that the prisoner had told him of his hatred for his father and
that he might kill him, and whether he had heard it, for instance, at their last
meeting before the catastrophe, Alyosha started as he answered, as though
only just recollecting and understanding something.
“I remember one circumstance now which I’d quite forgotten myself. It
wasn’t clear to me at the time, but now—”
And, obviously only now for the first time struck by an idea, he
recounted eagerly how, at his last interview with Mitya that evening under
the tree, on the road to the monastery, Mitya had struck himself on the
breast, “the upper part of the breast,” and had repeated several times that he
had a means of regaining his honor, that that means was here, here on his
breast. “I thought, when he struck himself on the breast, he meant that it
was in his heart,” Alyosha continued, “that he might find in his heart
strength to save himself from some awful disgrace which was awaiting him
and which he did not dare confess even to me. I must confess I did think at
the time that he was speaking of our father, and that the disgrace he was
shuddering at was the thought of going to our father and doing some
violence to him. Yet it was just then that he pointed to something on his
breast, so that I remember the idea struck me at the time that the heart is not
on that part of the breast, but below, and that he struck himself much too
high, just below the neck, and kept pointing to that place. My idea seemed
silly to me at the time, but he was perhaps pointing then to that little bag in
which he had fifteen hundred roubles!”
“Just so,” Mitya cried from his place. “That’s right, Alyosha, it was the
little bag I struck with my fist.”
Fetyukovitch flew to him in hot haste entreating him to keep quiet, and at
the same instant pounced on Alyosha. Alyosha, carried away himself by his
recollection, warmly expressed his theory that this disgrace was probably
just that fifteen hundred roubles on him, which he might have returned to
Katerina Ivanovna as half of what he owed her, but which he had yet

determined not to repay her and to use for another purpose—namely, to
enable him to elope with Grushenka, if she consented.
“It is so, it must be so,” exclaimed Alyosha, in sudden excitement. “My
brother cried several times that half of the disgrace, half of it (he said half
several times) he could free himself from at once, but that he was so
unhappy in his weakness of will that he wouldn’t do it ... that he knew
beforehand he was incapable of doing it!”
“And you clearly, confidently remember that he struck himself just on
this part of the breast?” Fetyukovitch asked eagerly.
“Clearly and confidently, for I thought at the time, ‘Why does he strike
himself up there when the heart is lower down?’ and the thought seemed
stupid to me at the time ... I remember its seeming stupid ... it flashed
through my mind. That’s what brought it back to me just now. How could I
have forgotten it till now? It was that little bag he meant when he said he
had the means but wouldn’t give back that fifteen hundred. And when he
was arrested at Mokroe he cried out—I know, I was told it—that he
considered it the most disgraceful act of his life that when he had the means
of repaying Katerina Ivanovna half (half, note!) what he owed her, he yet
could not bring himself to repay the money and preferred to remain a thief
in her eyes rather than part with it. And what torture, what torture that debt
has been to him!” Alyosha exclaimed in conclusion.
The prosecutor, of course, intervened. He asked Alyosha to describe once
more how it had all happened, and several times insisted on the question,
“Had the prisoner seemed to point to anything? Perhaps he had simply
struck himself with his fist on the breast?”
“But it was not with his fist,” cried Alyosha; “he pointed with his fingers
and pointed here, very high up.... How could I have so completely forgotten
it till this moment?”
The President asked Mitya what he had to say to the last witness’s
evidence. Mitya confirmed it, saying that he had been pointing to the fifteen
hundred roubles which were on his breast, just below the neck, and that that
was, of course, the disgrace, “A disgrace I cannot deny, the most shameful
act of my whole life,” cried Mitya. “I might have repaid it and didn’t repay
it. I preferred to remain a thief in her eyes rather than give it back. And the
most shameful part of it was that I knew beforehand I shouldn’t give it
back! You are right, Alyosha! Thanks, Alyosha!”

So Alyosha’s cross-examination ended. What was important and striking
about it was that one fact at least had been found, and even though this were
only one tiny bit of evidence, a mere hint at evidence, it did go some little
way towards proving that the bag had existed and had contained fifteen
hundred roubles and that the prisoner had not been lying at the preliminary
inquiry when he alleged at Mokroe that those fifteen hundred roubles were
“his own.” Alyosha was glad. With a flushed face he moved away to the
seat assigned to him. He kept repeating to himself: “How was it I forgot?
How could I have forgotten it? And what made it come back to me now?”
Katerina Ivanovna was called to the witness-box. As she entered
something extraordinary happened in the court. The ladies clutched their
lorgnettes and opera-glasses. There was a stir among the men: some stood
up to get a better view. Everybody alleged afterwards that Mitya had turned
“white as a sheet” on her entrance. All in black, she advanced modestly,
almost timidly. It was impossible to tell from her face that she was agitated;
but there was a resolute gleam in her dark and gloomy eyes. I may remark
that many people mentioned that she looked particularly handsome at that
moment. She spoke softly but clearly, so that she was heard all over the
court. She expressed herself with composure, or at least tried to appear
composed. The President began his examination discreetly and very
respectfully, as though afraid to touch on “certain chords,” and showing
consideration for her great unhappiness. But in answer to one of the first
questions Katerina Ivanovna replied firmly that she had been formerly
betrothed to the prisoner, “until he left me of his own accord...” she added
quietly. When they asked her about the three thousand she had entrusted to
Mitya to post to her relations, she said firmly, “I didn’t give him the money
simply to send it off. I felt at the time that he was in great need of money....
I gave him the three thousand on the understanding that he should post it
within the month if he cared to. There was no need for him to worry himself
about that debt afterwards.”
I will not repeat all the questions asked her and all her answers in detail. I
will only give the substance of her evidence.
“I was firmly convinced that he would send off that sum as soon as he
got money from his father,” she went on. “I have never doubted his
disinterestedness and his honesty ... his scrupulous honesty ... in money
matters. He felt quite certain that he would receive the money from his

father, and spoke to me several times about it. I knew he had a feud with his
father and have always believed that he had been unfairly treated by his
father. I don’t remember any threat uttered by him against his father. He
certainly never uttered any such threat before me. If he had come to me at
that time, I should have at once relieved his anxiety about that unlucky
three thousand roubles, but he had given up coming to see me ... and I
myself was put in such a position ... that I could not invite him.... And I had
no right, indeed, to be exacting as to that money,” she added suddenly, and
there was a ring of resolution in her voice. “I was once indebted to him for
assistance in money for more than three thousand, and I took it, although I
could not at that time foresee that I should ever be in a position to repay my
debt.”
There was a note of defiance in her voice. It was then Fetyukovitch
began his cross-examination.
“Did that take place not here, but at the beginning of your acquaintance?”
Fetyukovitch suggested cautiously, feeling his way, instantly scenting
something favorable. I must mention in parenthesis that, though
Fetyukovitch had been brought from Petersburg partly at the instance of
Katerina Ivanovna herself, he knew nothing about the episode of the four
thousand roubles given her by Mitya, and of her “bowing to the ground to
him.” She concealed this from him and said nothing about it, and that was
strange. It may be pretty certainly assumed that she herself did not know till
the very last minute whether she would speak of that episode in the court,
and waited for the inspiration of the moment.
No, I can never forget those moments. She began telling her story. She
told everything, the whole episode that Mitya had told Alyosha, and her
bowing to the ground, and her reason. She told about her father and her
going to Mitya, and did not in one word, in a single hint, suggest that Mitya
had himself, through her sister, proposed they should “send him Katerina
Ivanovna” to fetch the money. She generously concealed that and was not
ashamed to make it appear as though she had of her own impulse run to the
young officer, relying on something ... to beg him for the money. It was
something tremendous! I turned cold and trembled as I listened. The court
was hushed, trying to catch each word. It was something unexampled. Even
from such a self-willed and contemptuously proud girl as she was, such an
extremely frank avowal, such sacrifice, such self-immolation, seemed

incredible. And for what, for whom? To save the man who had deceived
and insulted her and to help, in however small a degree, in saving him, by
creating a strong impression in his favor. And, indeed, the figure of the
young officer who, with a respectful bow to the innocent girl, handed her
his last four thousand roubles—all he had in the world—was thrown into a
very sympathetic and attractive light, but ... I had a painful misgiving at
heart! I felt that calumny might come of it later (and it did, in fact, it did). It
was repeated all over the town afterwards with spiteful laughter that the
story was perhaps not quite complete—that is, in the statement that the
officer had let the young lady depart “with nothing but a respectful bow.” It
was hinted that something was here omitted.
“And even if nothing had been omitted, if this were the whole story,” the
most highly respected of our ladies maintained, “even then it’s very
doubtful whether it was creditable for a young girl to behave in that way,
even for the sake of saving her father.”
And can Katerina Ivanovna, with her intelligence, her morbid
sensitiveness, have failed to understand that people would talk like that?
She must have understood it, yet she made up her mind to tell everything.
Of course, all these nasty little suspicions as to the truth of her story only
arose afterwards and at the first moment all were deeply impressed by it. As
for the judges and the lawyers, they listened in reverent, almost shame-
faced silence to Katerina Ivanovna. The prosecutor did not venture upon
even one question on the subject. Fetyukovitch made a low bow to her. Oh,
he was almost triumphant! Much ground had been gained. For a man to
give his last four thousand on a generous impulse and then for the same
man to murder his father for the sake of robbing him of three thousand—the
idea seemed too incongruous. Fetyukovitch felt that now the charge of theft,
at least, was as good as disproved. “The case” was thrown into quite a
different light. There was a wave of sympathy for Mitya. As for him.... I
was told that once or twice, while Katerina Ivanovna was giving her
evidence, he jumped up from his seat, sank back again, and hid his face in
his hands. But when she had finished, he suddenly cried in a sobbing voice:
“Katya, why have you ruined me?” and his sobs were audible all over the
court. But he instantly restrained himself, and cried again:
“Now I am condemned!”

Then he sat rigid in his place, with his teeth clenched and his arms across
his chest. Katerina Ivanovna remained in the court and sat down in her
place. She was pale and sat with her eyes cast down. Those who were
sitting near her declared that for a long time she shivered all over as though
in a fever. Grushenka was called.
I am approaching the sudden catastrophe which was perhaps the final
cause of Mitya’s ruin. For I am convinced, so is every one—all the lawyers
said the same afterwards—that if the episode had not occurred, the prisoner
would at least have been recommended to mercy. But of that later. A few
words first about Grushenka.
She, too, was dressed entirely in black, with her magnificent black shawl
on her shoulders. She walked to the witness-box with her smooth, noiseless
tread, with the slightly swaying gait common in women of full figure. She
looked steadily at the President, turning her eyes neither to the right nor to
the left. To my thinking she looked very handsome at that moment, and not
at all pale, as the ladies alleged afterwards. They declared, too, that she had
a concentrated and spiteful expression. I believe that she was simply
irritated and painfully conscious of the contemptuous and inquisitive eyes
of our scandal-loving public. She was proud and could not stand contempt.
She was one of those people who flare up, angry and eager to retaliate, at
the mere suggestion of contempt. There was an element of timidity, too, of
course, and inward shame at her own timidity, so it was not strange that her
tone kept changing. At one moment it was angry, contemptuous and rough,
and at another there was a sincere note of self-condemnation. Sometimes
she spoke as though she were taking a desperate plunge; as though she felt,
“I don’t care what happens, I’ll say it....” Apropos of her acquaintance with
Fyodor Pavlovitch, she remarked curtly, “That’s all nonsense, and was it my
fault that he would pester me?” But a minute later she added, “It was all my
fault. I was laughing at them both—at the old man and at him, too—and I
brought both of them to this. It was all on account of me it happened.”
Samsonov’s name came up somehow. “That’s nobody’s business,” she
snapped at once, with a sort of insolent defiance. “He was my benefactor;
he took me when I hadn’t a shoe to my foot, when my family had turned me
out.” The President reminded her, though very politely, that she must
answer the questions directly, without going off into irrelevant details.
Grushenka crimsoned and her eyes flashed.

The envelope with the notes in it she had not seen, but had only heard
from “that wicked wretch” that Fyodor Pavlovitch had an envelope with
notes for three thousand in it. “But that was all foolishness. I was only
laughing. I wouldn’t have gone to him for anything.”
“To whom are you referring as ‘that wicked wretch’?” inquired the
prosecutor.
“The lackey, Smerdyakov, who murdered his master and hanged himself
last night.”
She was, of course, at once asked what ground she had for such a definite
accusation; but it appeared that she, too, had no grounds for it.
“Dmitri Fyodorovitch told me so himself; you can believe him. The
woman who came between us has ruined him; she is the cause of it all, let
me tell you,” Grushenka added. She seemed to be quivering with hatred,
and there was a vindictive note in her voice.
She was again asked to whom she was referring.
“The young lady, Katerina Ivanovna there. She sent for me, offered me
chocolate, tried to fascinate me. There’s not much true shame about her, I
can tell you that....”
At this point the President checked her sternly, begging her to moderate
her language. But the jealous woman’s heart was burning, and she did not
care what she did.
“When the prisoner was arrested at Mokroe,” the prosecutor asked,
“every one saw and heard you run out of the next room and cry out: ‘It’s all
my fault. We’ll go to Siberia together!’ So you already believed him to have
murdered his father?”
“I don’t remember what I felt at the time,” answered Grushenka. “Every
one was crying out that he had killed his father, and I felt that it was my
fault, that it was on my account he had murdered him. But when he said he
wasn’t guilty, I believed him at once, and I believe him now and always
shall believe him. He is not the man to tell a lie.”
Fetyukovitch began his cross-examination. I remember that among other
things he asked about Rakitin and the twenty-five roubles “you paid him for
bringing Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov to see you.”
“There was nothing strange about his taking the money,” sneered
Grushenka, with angry contempt. “He was always coming to me for money:

he used to get thirty roubles a month at least out of me, chiefly for luxuries:
he had enough to keep him without my help.”
“What led you to be so liberal to Mr. Rakitin?” Fetyukovitch asked, in
spite of an uneasy movement on the part of the President.
“Why, he is my cousin. His mother was my mother’s sister. But he’s
always besought me not to tell any one here of it, he is so dreadfully
ashamed of me.”
This fact was a complete surprise to every one; no one in the town nor in
the monastery, not even Mitya, knew of it. I was told that Rakitin turned
purple with shame where he sat. Grushenka had somehow heard before she
came into the court that he had given evidence against Mitya, and so she
was angry. The whole effect on the public, of Rakitin’s speech, of his noble
sentiments, of his attacks upon serfdom and the political disorder of Russia,
was this time finally ruined. Fetyukovitch was satisfied: it was another
godsend. Grushenka’s cross-examination did not last long and, of course,
there could be nothing particularly new in her evidence. She left a very
disagreeable impression on the public; hundreds of contemptuous eyes were
fixed upon her, as she finished giving her evidence and sat down again in
the court, at a good distance from Katerina Ivanovna. Mitya was silent
throughout her evidence. He sat as though turned to stone, with his eyes
fixed on the ground.
Ivan was called to give evidence.

Chapter V.
A Sudden Catastrophe

I may note that he had been called before Alyosha. But the usher of the
court announced to the President that, owing to an attack of illness or some
sort of fit, the witness could not appear at the moment, but was ready to
give his evidence as soon as he recovered. But no one seemed to have heard
it and it only came out later.
His entrance was for the first moment almost unnoticed. The principal
witnesses, especially the two rival ladies, had already been questioned.
Curiosity was satisfied for the time; the public was feeling almost fatigued.
Several more witnesses were still to be heard, who probably had little
information to give after all that had been given. Time was passing. Ivan
walked up with extraordinary slowness, looking at no one, and with his
head bowed, as though plunged in gloomy thought. He was irreproachably
dressed, but his face made a painful impression, on me at least: there was an
earthy look in it, a look like a dying man’s. His eyes were lusterless; he
raised them and looked slowly round the court. Alyosha jumped up from his
seat and moaned “Ah!” I remember that, but it was hardly noticed.
The President began by informing him that he was a witness not on oath,
that he might answer or refuse to answer, but that, of course, he must bear
witness according to his conscience, and so on, and so on. Ivan listened and
looked at him blankly, but his face gradually relaxed into a smile, and as
soon as the President, looking at him in astonishment, finished, he laughed
outright.
“Well, and what else?” he asked in a loud voice.
There was a hush in the court; there was a feeling of something strange.
The President showed signs of uneasiness.

“You ... are perhaps still unwell?” he began, looking everywhere for the
usher.
“Don’t trouble yourself, your excellency, I am well enough and can tell
you something interesting,” Ivan answered with sudden calmness and
respectfulness.
“You have some special communication to make?” the President went on,
still mistrustfully.
Ivan looked down, waited a few seconds and, raising his head, answered,
almost stammering:
“No ... I haven’t. I have nothing particular.”
They began asking him questions. He answered, as it were, reluctantly,
with extreme brevity, with a sort of disgust which grew more and more
marked, though he answered rationally. To many questions he answered that
he did not know. He knew nothing of his father’s money relations with
Dmitri. “I wasn’t interested in the subject,” he added. Threats to murder his
father he had heard from the prisoner. Of the money in the envelope he had
heard from Smerdyakov.
“The same thing over and over again,” he interrupted suddenly, with a
look of weariness. “I have nothing particular to tell the court.”
“I see you are unwell and understand your feelings,” the President began.
He turned to the prosecutor and the counsel for the defense to invite them
to examine the witness, if necessary, when Ivan suddenly asked in an
exhausted voice:
“Let me go, your excellency, I feel very ill.”
And with these words, without waiting for permission, he turned to walk
out of the court. But after taking four steps he stood still, as though he had
reached a decision, smiled slowly, and went back.
“I am like the peasant girl, your excellency ... you know. How does it go?
‘I’ll stand up if I like, and I won’t if I don’t.’ They were trying to put on her
sarafan to take her to church to be married, and she said, ‘I’ll stand up if I
like, and I won’t if I don’t.’... It’s in some book about the peasantry.”
“What do you mean by that?” the President asked severely.
“Why, this,” Ivan suddenly pulled out a roll of notes. “Here’s the money
... the notes that lay in that envelope” (he nodded towards the table on

which lay the material evidence), “for the sake of which our father was
murdered. Where shall I put them? Mr. Superintendent, take them.”
The usher of the court took the whole roll and handed it to the President.
“How could this money have come into your possession if it is the same
money?” the President asked wonderingly.
“I got them from Smerdyakov, from the murderer, yesterday.... I was with
him just before he hanged himself. It was he, not my brother, killed our
father. He murdered him and I incited him to do it ... Who doesn’t desire his
father’s death?”
“Are you in your right mind?” broke involuntarily from the President.
“I should think I am in my right mind ... in the same nasty mind as all of
you ... as all these ... ugly faces.” He turned suddenly to the audience. “My
father has been murdered and they pretend they are horrified,” he snarled,
with furious contempt. “They keep up the sham with one another. Liars!
They all desire the death of their fathers. One reptile devours another.... If
there hadn’t been a murder, they’d have been angry and gone home ill-
humored. It’s a spectacle they want! Panem et circenses. Though I am one
to talk! Have you any water? Give me a drink for Christ’s sake!” He
suddenly clutched his head.
The usher at once approached him. Alyosha jumped up and cried, “He is
ill. Don’t believe him: he has brain fever.” Katerina Ivanovna rose
impulsively from her seat and, rigid with horror, gazed at Ivan. Mitya stood
up and greedily looked at his brother and listened to him with a wild,
strange smile.
“Don’t disturb yourselves. I am not mad, I am only a murderer,” Ivan
began again. “You can’t expect eloquence from a murderer,” he added
suddenly for some reason and laughed a queer laugh.
The prosecutor bent over to the President in obvious dismay. The two
other judges communicated in agitated whispers. Fetyukovitch pricked up
his ears as he listened: the hall was hushed in expectation. The President
seemed suddenly to recollect himself.
“Witness, your words are incomprehensible and impossible here. Calm
yourself, if you can, and tell your story ... if you really have something to
tell. How can you confirm your statement ... if indeed you are not
delirious?”

“That’s just it. I have no proof. That cur Smerdyakov won’t send you
proofs from the other world ... in an envelope. You think of nothing but
envelopes—one is enough. I’ve no witnesses ... except one, perhaps,” he
smiled thoughtfully.
“Who is your witness?”
“He has a tail, your excellency, and that would be irregular! Le diable
n’existe point! Don’t pay attention: he is a paltry, pitiful devil,” he added
suddenly. He ceased laughing and spoke as it were, confidentially. “He is
here somewhere, no doubt—under that table with the material evidence on
it, perhaps. Where should he sit if not there? You see, listen to me. I told
him I don’t want to keep quiet, and he talked about the geological cataclysm
... idiocy! Come, release the monster ... he’s been singing a hymn. That’s
because his heart is light! It’s like a drunken man in the street bawling how
‘Vanka went to Petersburg,’ and I would give a quadrillion quadrillions for
two seconds of joy. You don’t know me! Oh, how stupid all this business is!
Come, take me instead of him! I didn’t come for nothing.... Why, why is
everything so stupid?...”
And he began slowly, and as it were reflectively, looking round him
again. But the court was all excitement by now. Alyosha rushed towards
him, but the court usher had already seized Ivan by the arm.
“What are you about?” he cried, staring into the man’s face, and suddenly
seizing him by the shoulders, he flung him violently to the floor. But the
police were on the spot and he was seized. He screamed furiously. And all
the time he was being removed, he yelled and screamed something
incoherent.
The whole court was thrown into confusion. I don’t remember everything
as it happened. I was excited myself and could not follow. I only know that
afterwards, when everything was quiet again and every one understood
what had happened, the court usher came in for a reprimand, though he very
reasonably explained that the witness had been quite well, that the doctor
had seen him an hour ago, when he had a slight attack of giddiness, but that,
until he had come into the court, he had talked quite consecutively, so that
nothing could have been foreseen—that he had, in fact, insisted on giving
evidence. But before every one had completely regained their composure
and recovered from this scene, it was followed by another. Katerina
Ivanovna had an attack of hysterics. She sobbed, shrieking loudly, but

refused to leave the court, struggled, and besought them not to remove her.
Suddenly she cried to the President:
“There is more evidence I must give at once ... at once! Here is a
document, a letter ... take it, read it quickly, quickly! It’s a letter from that
monster ... that man there, there!” she pointed to Mitya. “It was he killed his
father, you will see that directly. He wrote to me how he would kill his
father! But the other one is ill, he is ill, he is delirious!” she kept crying out,
beside herself.
The court usher took the document she held out to the President, and she,
dropping into her chair, hiding her face in her hands, began convulsively
and noiselessly sobbing, shaking all over, and stifling every sound for fear
she should be ejected from the court. The document she had handed up was
that letter Mitya had written at the “Metropolis” tavern, which Ivan had
spoken of as a “mathematical proof.” Alas! its mathematical conclusiveness
was recognized, and had it not been for that letter, Mitya might have
escaped his doom or, at least, that doom would have been less terrible. It
was, I repeat, difficult to notice every detail. What followed is still confused
to my mind. The President must, I suppose, have at once passed on the
document to the judges, the jury, and the lawyers on both sides. I only
remember how they began examining the witness. On being gently asked
by the President whether she had recovered sufficiently, Katerina Ivanovna
exclaimed impetuously:
“I am ready, I am ready! I am quite equal to answering you,” she added,
evidently still afraid that she would somehow be prevented from giving
evidence. She was asked to explain in detail what this letter was and under
what circumstances she received it.
“I received it the day before the crime was committed, but he wrote it the
day before that, at the tavern—that is, two days before he committed the
crime. Look, it is written on some sort of bill!” she cried breathlessly. “He
hated me at that time, because he had behaved contemptibly and was
running after that creature ... and because he owed me that three thousand....
Oh! he was humiliated by that three thousand on account of his own
meanness! This is how it happened about that three thousand. I beg you, I
beseech you, to hear me. Three weeks before he murdered his father, he
came to me one morning. I knew he was in want of money, and what he
wanted it for. Yes, yes—to win that creature and carry her off. I knew then

that he had been false to me and meant to abandon me, and it was I, I, who
gave him that money, who offered it to him on the pretext of his sending it
to my sister in Moscow. And as I gave it him, I looked him in the face and
said that he could send it when he liked, ‘in a month’s time would do.’ How,
how could he have failed to understand that I was practically telling him to
his face, ‘You want money to be false to me with your creature, so here’s
the money for you. I give it to you myself. Take it, if you have so little
honor as to take it!’ I wanted to prove what he was, and what happened? He
took it, he took it, and squandered it with that creature in one night.... But
he knew, he knew that I knew all about it. I assure you he understood, too,
that I gave him that money to test him, to see whether he was so lost to all
sense of honor as to take it from me. I looked into his eyes and he looked
into mine, and he understood it all and he took it—he carried off my
money!”
“That’s true, Katya,” Mitya roared suddenly, “I looked into your eyes and
I knew that you were dishonoring me, and yet I took your money. Despise
me as a scoundrel, despise me, all of you! I’ve deserved it!”
“Prisoner,” cried the President, “another word and I will order you to be
removed.”
“That money was a torment to him,” Katya went on with impulsive haste.
“He wanted to repay it me. He wanted to, that’s true; but he needed money
for that creature, too. So he murdered his father, but he didn’t repay me, and
went off with her to that village where he was arrested. There, again, he
squandered the money he had stolen after the murder of his father. And a
day before the murder he wrote me this letter. He was drunk when he wrote
it. I saw it at once, at the time. He wrote it from spite, and feeling certain,
positively certain, that I should never show it to any one, even if he did kill
him, or else he wouldn’t have written it. For he knew I shouldn’t want to
revenge myself and ruin him! But read it, read it attentively—more
attentively, please—and you will see that he had described it all in his letter,
all beforehand, how he would kill his father and where his money was kept.
Look, please, don’t overlook that, there’s one phrase there, ‘I shall kill him
as soon as Ivan has gone away.’ So he thought it all out beforehand how he
would kill him,” Katerina Ivanovna pointed out to the court with venomous
and malignant triumph. Oh! it was clear she had studied every line of that
letter and detected every meaning underlining it. “If he hadn’t been drunk,

he wouldn’t have written to me; but, look, everything is written there
beforehand, just as he committed the murder after. A complete program of
it!” she exclaimed frantically.
She was reckless now of all consequences to herself, though, no doubt,
she had foreseen them even a month ago, for even then, perhaps, shaking
with anger, she had pondered whether to show it at the trial or not. Now she
had taken the fatal plunge. I remember that the letter was read aloud by the
clerk, directly afterwards, I believe. It made an overwhelming impression.
They asked Mitya whether he admitted having written the letter.
“It’s mine, mine!” cried Mitya. “I shouldn’t have written it, if I hadn’t
been drunk!... We’ve hated each other for many things, Katya, but I swear, I
swear I loved you even while I hated you, and you didn’t love me!”
He sank back on his seat, wringing his hands in despair. The prosecutor
and counsel for the defense began cross-examining her, chiefly to ascertain
what had induced her to conceal such a document and to give her evidence
in quite a different tone and spirit just before.
“Yes, yes. I was telling lies just now. I was lying against my honor and
my conscience, but I wanted to save him, for he has hated and despised me
so!” Katya cried madly. “Oh, he has despised me horribly, he has always
despised me, and do you know, he has despised me from the very moment
that I bowed down to him for that money. I saw that.... I felt it at once at the
time, but for a long time I wouldn’t believe it. How often I have read it in
his eyes, ‘You came of yourself, though.’ Oh, he didn’t understand, he had
no idea why I ran to him, he can suspect nothing but baseness, he judged
me by himself, he thought every one was like himself!” Katya hissed
furiously, in a perfect frenzy. “And he only wanted to marry me, because I’d
inherited a fortune, because of that, because of that! I always suspected it
was because of that! Oh, he is a brute! He was always convinced that I
should be trembling with shame all my life before him, because I went to
him then, and that he had a right to despise me for ever for it, and so to be
superior to me—that’s why he wanted to marry me! That’s so, that’s all so!
I tried to conquer him by my love—a love that knew no bounds. I even tried
to forgive his faithlessness; but he understood nothing, nothing! How could
he understand indeed? He is a monster! I only received that letter the next
evening: it was brought me from the tavern—and only that morning, only

that morning I wanted to forgive him everything, everything—even his
treachery!”
The President and the prosecutor, of course, tried to calm her. I can’t help
thinking that they felt ashamed of taking advantage of her hysteria and of
listening to such avowals. I remember hearing them say to her, “We
understand how hard it is for you; be sure we are able to feel for you,” and
so on, and so on. And yet they dragged the evidence out of the raving,
hysterical woman. She described at last with extraordinary clearness, which
is so often seen, though only for a moment, in such over-wrought states,
how Ivan had been nearly driven out of his mind during the last two months
trying to save “the monster and murderer,” his brother.
“He tortured himself,” she exclaimed, “he was always trying to minimize
his brother’s guilt and confessing to me that he, too, had never loved his
father, and perhaps desired his death himself. Oh, he has a tender, over-
tender conscience! He tormented himself with his conscience! He told me
everything, everything! He came every day and talked to me as his only
friend. I have the honor to be his only friend!” she cried suddenly with a
sort of defiance, and her eyes flashed. “He had been twice to see
Smerdyakov. One day he came to me and said, ‘If it was not my brother, but
Smerdyakov committed the murder’ (for the legend was circulating
everywhere that Smerdyakov had done it), ‘perhaps I too am guilty, for
Smerdyakov knew I didn’t like my father and perhaps believed that I
desired my father’s death.’ Then I brought out that letter and showed it him.
He was entirely convinced that his brother had done it, and he was
overwhelmed by it. He couldn’t endure the thought that his own brother
was a parricide! Only a week ago I saw that it was making him ill. During
the last few days he has talked incoherently in my presence. I saw his mind
was giving way. He walked about, raving; he was seen muttering in the
streets. The doctor from Moscow, at my request, examined him the day
before yesterday and told me that he was on the eve of brain fever—and all
on his account, on account of this monster! And last night he learnt that
Smerdyakov was dead! It was such a shock that it drove him out of his
mind ... and all through this monster, all for the sake of saving the
monster!”
Oh, of course, such an outpouring, such an avowal is only possible once
in a lifetime—at the hour of death, for instance, on the way to the scaffold!

But it was in Katya’s character, and it was such a moment in her life. It was
the same impetuous Katya who had thrown herself on the mercy of a young
profligate to save her father; the same Katya who had just before, in her
pride and chastity, sacrificed herself and her maidenly modesty before all
these people, telling of Mitya’s generous conduct, in the hope of softening
his fate a little. And now, again, she sacrificed herself; but this time it was
for another, and perhaps only now—perhaps only at this moment—she felt
and knew how dear that other was to her! She had sacrificed herself in
terror for him, conceiving all of a sudden that he had ruined himself by his
confession that it was he who had committed the murder, not his brother,
she had sacrificed herself to save him, to save his good name, his
reputation!
And yet one terrible doubt occurred to one—was she lying in her
description of her former relations with Mitya?—that was the question. No,
she had not intentionally slandered him when she cried that Mitya despised
her for her bowing down to him! She believed it herself. She had been
firmly convinced, perhaps ever since that bow, that the simple-hearted
Mitya, who even then adored her, was laughing at her and despising her.
She had loved him with an hysterical, “lacerated” love only from pride,
from wounded pride, and that love was not like love, but more like revenge.
Oh! perhaps that lacerated love would have grown into real love, perhaps
Katya longed for nothing more than that, but Mitya’s faithlessness had
wounded her to the bottom of her heart, and her heart could not forgive him.
The moment of revenge had come upon her suddenly, and all that had been
accumulating so long and so painfully in the offended woman’s breast burst
out all at once and unexpectedly. She betrayed Mitya, but she betrayed
herself, too. And no sooner had she given full expression to her feelings
than the tension of course was over and she was overwhelmed with shame.
Hysterics began again: she fell on the floor, sobbing and screaming. She
was carried out. At that moment Grushenka, with a wail, rushed towards
Mitya before they had time to prevent her.
“Mitya,” she wailed, “your serpent has destroyed you! There, she has
shown you what she is!” she shouted to the judges, shaking with anger. At a
signal from the President they seized her and tried to remove her from the
court. She wouldn’t allow it. She fought and struggled to get back to Mitya.
Mitya uttered a cry and struggled to get to her. He was overpowered.

Yes, I think the ladies who came to see the spectacle must have been
satisfied—the show had been a varied one. Then I remember the Moscow
doctor appeared on the scene. I believe the President had previously sent the
court usher to arrange for medical aid for Ivan. The doctor announced to the
court that the sick man was suffering from a dangerous attack of brain
fever, and that he must be at once removed. In answer to questions from the
prosecutor and the counsel for the defense he said that the patient had come
to him of his own accord the day before yesterday and that he had warned
him that he had such an attack coming on, but he had not consented to be
looked after. “He was certainly not in a normal state of mind: he told me
himself that he saw visions when he was awake, that he met several persons
in the street, who were dead, and that Satan visited him every evening,”
said the doctor, in conclusion. Having given his evidence, the celebrated
doctor withdrew. The letter produced by Katerina Ivanovna was added to
the material proofs. After some deliberation, the judges decided to proceed
with the trial and to enter both the unexpected pieces of evidence (given by
Ivan and Katerina Ivanovna) on the protocol.
But I will not detail the evidence of the other witnesses, who only
repeated and confirmed what had been said before, though all with their
characteristic peculiarities. I repeat, all was brought together in the
prosecutor’s speech, which I shall quote immediately. Every one was
excited, every one was electrified by the late catastrophe, and all were
awaiting the speeches for the prosecution and the defense with intense
impatience. Fetyukovitch was obviously shaken by Katerina Ivanovna’s
evidence. But the prosecutor was triumphant. When all the evidence had
been taken, the court was adjourned for almost an hour. I believe it was just
eight o’clock when the President returned to his seat and our prosecutor,
Ippolit Kirillovitch, began his speech.

Chapter VI.
The Prosecutor’s Speech. Sketches Of Character

Ippolit Kirillovitch began his speech, trembling with nervousness, with
cold sweat on his forehead, feeling hot and cold all over by turns. He
described this himself afterwards. He regarded this speech as his chef-
d’œuvre, the chef-d’œuvre of his whole life, as his swan-song. He died, it is
true, nine months later of rapid consumption, so that he had the right, as it
turned out, to compare himself to a swan singing his last song. He had put
his whole heart and all the brain he had into that speech. And poor Ippolit
Kirillovitch unexpectedly revealed that at least some feeling for the public
welfare and “the eternal question” lay concealed in him. Where his speech
really excelled was in its sincerity. He genuinely believed in the prisoner’s
guilt; he was accusing him not as an official duty only, and in calling for
vengeance he quivered with a genuine passion “for the security of society.”
Even the ladies in the audience, though they remained hostile to Ippolit
Kirillovitch, admitted that he made an extraordinary impression on them.
He began in a breaking voice, but it soon gained strength and filled the
court to the end of his speech. But as soon as he had finished, he almost
fainted.
“Gentlemen of the jury,” began the prosecutor, “this case has made a stir
throughout Russia. But what is there to wonder at, what is there so
peculiarly horrifying in it for us? We are so accustomed to such crimes!
That’s what’s so horrible, that such dark deeds have ceased to horrify us.
What ought to horrify us is that we are so accustomed to it, and not this or
that isolated crime. What are the causes of our indifference, our lukewarm
attitude to such deeds, to such signs of the times, ominous of an unenviable
future? Is it our cynicism, is it the premature exhaustion of intellect and
imagination in a society that is sinking into decay, in spite of its youth? Is it
that our moral principles are shattered to their foundations, or is it, perhaps,

a complete lack of such principles among us? I cannot answer such
questions; nevertheless they are disturbing, and every citizen not only must,
but ought to be harassed by them. Our newborn and still timid press has
done good service to the public already, for without it we should never have
heard of the horrors of unbridled violence and moral degradation which are
continually made known by the press, not merely to those who attend the
new jury courts established in the present reign, but to every one. And what
do we read almost daily? Of things beside which the present case grows
pale, and seems almost commonplace. But what is most important is that
the majority of our national crimes of violence bear witness to a widespread
evil, now so general among us that it is difficult to contend against it.
“One day we see a brilliant young officer of high society, at the very
outset of his career, in a cowardly underhand way, without a pang of
conscience, murdering an official who had once been his benefactor, and
the servant girl, to steal his own I.O.U. and what ready money he could find
on him; ‘it will come in handy for my pleasures in the fashionable world
and for my career in the future.’ After murdering them, he puts pillows
under the head of each of his victims; he goes away. Next, a young hero
‘decorated for bravery’ kills the mother of his chief and benefactor, like a
highwayman, and to urge his companions to join him he asserts that ‘she
loves him like a son, and so will follow all his directions and take no
precautions.’ Granted that he is a monster, yet I dare not say in these days
that he is unique. Another man will not commit the murder, but will feel and
think like him, and is as dishonorable in soul. In silence, alone with his
conscience, he asks himself perhaps, ‘What is honor, and isn’t the
condemnation of bloodshed a prejudice?’
“Perhaps people will cry out against me that I am morbid, hysterical, that
it is a monstrous slander, that I am exaggerating. Let them say so—and
heavens! I should be the first to rejoice if it were so! Oh, don’t believe me,
think of me as morbid, but remember my words; if only a tenth, if only a
twentieth part of what I say is true—even so it’s awful! Look how our
young people commit suicide, without asking themselves Hamlet’s question
what there is beyond, without a sign of such a question, as though all that
relates to the soul and to what awaits us beyond the grave had long been
erased in their minds and buried under the sands. Look at our vice, at our
profligates. Fyodor Pavlovitch, the luckless victim in the present case, was

almost an innocent babe compared with many of them. And yet we all knew
him, ‘he lived among us!’...
“Yes, one day perhaps the leading intellects of Russia and of Europe will
study the psychology of Russian crime, for the subject is worth it. But this
study will come later, at leisure, when all the tragic topsy-turvydom of to-
day is farther behind us, so that it’s possible to examine it with more insight
and more impartiality than I can do. Now we are either horrified or pretend
to be horrified, though we really gloat over the spectacle, and love strong
and eccentric sensations which tickle our cynical, pampered idleness. Or,
like little children, we brush the dreadful ghosts away and hide our heads in
the pillow so as to return to our sports and merriment as soon as they have
vanished. But we must one day begin life in sober earnest, we must look at
ourselves as a society; it’s time we tried to grasp something of our social
position, or at least to make a beginning in that direction.
“A great writer[9] of the last epoch, comparing Russia to a swift troika
galloping to an unknown goal, exclaims, ‘Oh, troika, birdlike troika, who
invented thee!’ and adds, in proud ecstasy, that all the peoples of the world
stand aside respectfully to make way for the recklessly galloping troika to
pass. That may be, they may stand aside, respectfully or no, but in my poor
opinion the great writer ended his book in this way either in an access of
childish and naïve optimism, or simply in fear of the censorship of the day.
For if the troika were drawn by his heroes, Sobakevitch, Nozdryov,
Tchitchikov, it could reach no rational goal, whoever might be driving it.
And those were the heroes of an older generation, ours are worse specimens
still....”
At this point Ippolit Kirillovitch’s speech was interrupted by applause.
The liberal significance of this simile was appreciated. The applause was,
it’s true, of brief duration, so that the President did not think it necessary to
caution the public, and only looked severely in the direction of the
offenders. But Ippolit Kirillovitch was encouraged; he had never been
applauded before! He had been all his life unable to get a hearing, and now
he suddenly had an opportunity of securing the ear of all Russia.
“What, after all, is this Karamazov family, which has gained such an
unenviable notoriety throughout Russia?” he continued. “Perhaps I am
exaggerating, but it seems to me that certain fundamental features of the
educated class of to-day are reflected in this family picture—only, of

course, in miniature, ‘like the sun in a drop of water.’ Think of that
unhappy, vicious, unbridled old man, who has met with such a melancholy
end, the head of a family! Beginning life of noble birth, but in a poor
dependent position, through an unexpected marriage he came into a small
fortune. A petty knave, a toady and buffoon, of fairly good, though
undeveloped, intelligence, he was, above all, a moneylender, who grew
bolder with growing prosperity. His abject and servile characteristics
disappeared, his malicious and sarcastic cynicism was all that remained. On
the spiritual side he was undeveloped, while his vitality was excessive. He
saw nothing in life but sensual pleasure, and he brought his children up to
be the same. He had no feelings for his duties as a father. He ridiculed those
duties. He left his little children to the servants, and was glad to be rid of
them, forgot about them completely. The old man’s maxim was Après moi
le déluge. He was an example of everything that is opposed to civic duty, of
the most complete and malignant individualism. ‘The world may burn for
aught I care, so long as I am all right,’ and he was all right; he was content,
he was eager to go on living in the same way for another twenty or thirty
years. He swindled his own son and spent his money, his maternal
inheritance, on trying to get his mistress from him. No, I don’t intend to
leave the prisoner’s defense altogether to my talented colleague from
Petersburg. I will speak the truth myself, I can well understand what
resentment he had heaped up in his son’s heart against him.
“But enough, enough of that unhappy old man; he has paid the penalty.
Let us remember, however, that he was a father, and one of the typical
fathers of to-day. Am I unjust, indeed, in saying that he is typical of many
modern fathers? Alas! many of them only differ in not openly professing
such cynicism, for they are better educated, more cultured, but their
philosophy is essentially the same as his. Perhaps I am a pessimist, but you
have agreed to forgive me. Let us agree beforehand, you need not believe
me, but let me speak. Let me say what I have to say, and remember
something of my words.
“Now for the children of this father, this head of a family. One of them is
the prisoner before us, all the rest of my speech will deal with him. Of the
other two I will speak only cursorily.
“The elder is one of those modern young men of brilliant education and
vigorous intellect, who has lost all faith in everything. He has denied and

rejected much already, like his father. We have all heard him, he was a
welcome guest in local society. He never concealed his opinions, quite the
contrary in fact, which justifies me in speaking rather openly of him now, of
course, not as an individual, but as a member of the Karamazov family.
Another personage closely connected with the case died here by his own
hand last night. I mean an afflicted idiot, formerly the servant, and possibly
the illegitimate son, of Fyodor Pavlovitch, Smerdyakov. At the preliminary
inquiry, he told me with hysterical tears how the young Ivan Karamazov
had horrified him by his spiritual audacity. ‘Everything in the world is
lawful according to him, and nothing must be forbidden in the future—that
is what he always taught me.’ I believe that idiot was driven out of his mind
by this theory, though, of course, the epileptic attacks from which he
suffered, and this terrible catastrophe, have helped to unhinge his faculties.
But he dropped one very interesting observation, which would have done
credit to a more intelligent observer, and that is, indeed, why I’ve
mentioned it: ‘If there is one of the sons that is like Fyodor Pavlovitch in
character, it is Ivan Fyodorovitch.’
“With that remark I conclude my sketch of his character, feeling it
indelicate to continue further. Oh, I don’t want to draw any further
conclusions and croak like a raven over the young man’s future. We’ve seen
to-day in this court that there are still good impulses in his young heart, that
family feeling has not been destroyed in him by lack of faith and cynicism,
which have come to him rather by inheritance than by the exercise of
independent thought.
“Then the third son. Oh, he is a devout and modest youth, who does not
share his elder brother’s gloomy and destructive theory of life. He has
sought to cling to the ‘ideas of the people,’ or to what goes by that name in
some circles of our intellectual classes. He clung to the monastery, and was
within an ace of becoming a monk. He seems to me to have betrayed
unconsciously, and so early, that timid despair which leads so many in our
unhappy society, who dread cynicism and its corrupting influences, and
mistakenly attribute all the mischief to European enlightenment, to return to
their ‘native soil,’ as they say, to the bosom, so to speak, of their mother
earth, like frightened children, yearning to fall asleep on the withered
bosom of their decrepit mother, and to sleep there for ever, only to escape
the horrors that terrify them.

“For my part I wish the excellent and gifted young man every success; I
trust that his youthful idealism and impulse towards the ideas of the people
may never degenerate, as often happens, on the moral side into gloomy
mysticism, and on the political into blind chauvinism—two elements which
are even a greater menace to Russia than the premature decay, due to
misunderstanding and gratuitous adoption of European ideas, from which
his elder brother is suffering.”
Two or three people clapped their hands at the mention of chauvinism
and mysticism. Ippolit Kirillovitch had been, indeed, carried away by his
own eloquence. All this had little to do with the case in hand, to say nothing
of the fact of its being somewhat vague, but the sickly and consumptive
man was overcome by the desire to express himself once in his life. People
said afterwards that he was actuated by unworthy motives in his criticism of
Ivan, because the latter had on one or two occasions got the better of him in
argument, and Ippolit Kirillovitch, remembering it, tried now to take his
revenge. But I don’t know whether it was true. All this was only
introductory, however, and the speech passed to more direct consideration
of the case.
“But to return to the eldest son,” Ippolit Kirillovitch went on. “He is the
prisoner before us. We have his life and his actions, too, before us; the fatal
day has come and all has been brought to the surface. While his brothers
seem to stand for ‘Europeanism’ and ‘the principles of the people,’ he
seems to represent Russia as she is. Oh, not all Russia, not all! God preserve
us, if it were! Yet, here we have her, our mother Russia, the very scent and
sound of her. Oh, he is spontaneous, he is a marvelous mingling of good
and evil, he is a lover of culture and Schiller, yet he brawls in taverns and
plucks out the beards of his boon companions. Oh, he, too, can be good and
noble, but only when all goes well with him. What is more, he can be
carried off his feet, positively carried off his feet by noble ideals, but only if
they come of themselves, if they fall from heaven for him, if they need not
be paid for. He dislikes paying for anything, but is very fond of receiving,
and that’s so with him in everything. Oh, give him every possible good in
life (he couldn’t be content with less), and put no obstacle in his way, and
he will show that he, too, can be noble. He is not greedy, no, but he must
have money, a great deal of money, and you will see how generously, with
what scorn of filthy lucre, he will fling it all away in the reckless dissipation
of one night. But if he has not money, he will show what he is ready to do

to get it when he is in great need of it. But all this later, let us take events in
their chronological order.
“First, we have before us a poor abandoned child, running about the
back- yard ‘without boots on his feet,’ as our worthy and esteemed fellow
citizen, of foreign origin, alas! expressed it just now. I repeat it again, I
yield to no one the defense of the criminal. I am here to accuse him, but to
defend him also. Yes, I, too, am human; I, too, can weigh the influence of
home and childhood on the character. But the boy grows up and becomes an
officer; for a duel and other reckless conduct he is exiled to one of the
remote frontier towns of Russia. There he led a wild life as an officer. And,
of course, he needed money, money before all things, and so after
prolonged disputes he came to a settlement with his father, and the last six
thousand was sent him. A letter is in existence in which he practically gives
up his claim to the rest and settles his conflict with his father over the
inheritance on the payment of this six thousand.
“Then came his meeting with a young girl of lofty character and brilliant
education. Oh, I do not venture to repeat the details; you have only just
heard them. Honor, self-sacrifice were shown there, and I will be silent. The
figure of the young officer, frivolous and profligate, doing homage to true
nobility and a lofty ideal, was shown in a very sympathetic light before us.
But the other side of the medal was unexpectedly turned to us immediately
after in this very court. Again I will not venture to conjecture why it
happened so, but there were causes. The same lady, bathed in tears of long-
concealed indignation, alleged that he, he of all men, had despised her for
her action, which, though incautious, reckless perhaps, was still dictated by
lofty and generous motives. He, he, the girl’s betrothed, looked at her with
that smile of mockery, which was more insufferable from him than from
any one. And knowing that he had already deceived her (he had deceived
her, believing that she was bound to endure everything from him, even
treachery), she intentionally offered him three thousand roubles, and clearly,
too clearly, let him understand that she was offering him money to deceive
her. ‘Well, will you take it or not, are you so lost to shame?’ was the dumb
question in her scrutinizing eyes. He looked at her, saw clearly what was in
her mind (he’s admitted here before you that he understood it all),
appropriated that three thousand unconditionally, and squandered it in two
days with the new object of his affections.

“What are we to believe then? The first legend of the young officer
sacrificing his last farthing in a noble impulse of generosity and doing
reverence to virtue, or this other revolting picture? As a rule, between two
extremes one has to find the mean, but in the present case this is not true.
The probability is that in the first case he was genuinely noble, and in the
second as genuinely base. And why? Because he was of the broad
Karamazov character—that’s just what I am leading up to—capable of
combining the most incongruous contradictions, and capable of the greatest
heights and of the greatest depths. Remember the brilliant remark made by
a young observer who has seen the Karamazov family at close quarters—
Mr. Rakitin: ‘The sense of their own degradation is as essential to those
reckless, unbridled natures as the sense of their lofty generosity.’ And that’s
true, they need continually this unnatural mixture. Two extremes at the
same moment, or they are miserable and dissatisfied and their existence is
incomplete. They are wide, wide as mother Russia; they include everything
and put up with everything.
“By the way, gentlemen of the jury, we’ve just touched upon that three
thousand roubles, and I will venture to anticipate things a little. Can you
conceive that a man like that, on receiving that sum and in such a way, at
the price of such shame, such disgrace, such utter degradation, could have
been capable that very day of setting apart half that sum, that very day, and
sewing it up in a little bag, and would have had the firmness of character to
carry it about with him for a whole month afterwards, in spite of every
temptation and his extreme need of it! Neither in drunken debauchery in
taverns, nor when he was flying into the country, trying to get from God
knows whom, the money so essential to him to remove the object of his
affections from being tempted by his father, did he bring himself to touch
that little bag! Why, if only to avoid abandoning his mistress to the rival of
whom he was so jealous, he would have been certain to have opened that
bag and to have stayed at home to keep watch over her, and to await the
moment when she would say to him at last ‘I am yours,’ and to fly with her
far from their fatal surroundings.
“But no, he did not touch his talisman, and what is the reason he gives for
it? The chief reason, as I have just said, was that when she would say, ‘I am
yours, take me where you will,’ he might have the wherewithal to take her.
But that first reason, in the prisoner’s own words, was of little weight
beside the second. While I have that money on me, he said, I am a

scoundrel, not a thief, for I can always go to my insulted betrothed, and,
laying down half the sum I have fraudulently appropriated, I can always say
to her, ‘You see, I’ve squandered half your money, and shown I am a weak
and immoral man, and, if you like, a scoundrel’ (I use the prisoner’s own
expressions), ‘but though I am a scoundrel, I am not a thief, for if I had
been a thief, I shouldn’t have brought you back this half of the money, but
should have taken it as I did the other half!’ A marvelous explanation! This
frantic, but weak man, who could not resist the temptation of accepting the
three thousand roubles at the price of such disgrace, this very man suddenly
develops the most stoical firmness, and carries about a thousand roubles
without daring to touch it. Does that fit in at all with the character we have
analyzed? No, and I venture to tell you how the real Dmitri Karamazov
would have behaved in such circumstances, if he really had brought himself
to put away the money.
“At the first temptation—for instance, to entertain the woman with whom
he had already squandered half the money—he would have unpicked his
little bag and have taken out some hundred roubles, for why should he have
taken back precisely half the money, that is, fifteen hundred roubles? why
not fourteen hundred? He could just as well have said then that he was not a
thief, because he brought back fourteen hundred roubles. Then another time
he would have unpicked it again and taken out another hundred, and then a
third, and then a fourth, and before the end of the month he would have
taken the last note but one, feeling that if he took back only a hundred it
would answer the purpose, for a thief would have stolen it all. And then he
would have looked at this last note, and have said to himself, ‘It’s really not
worth while to give back one hundred; let’s spend that, too!’ That’s how the
real Dmitri Karamazov, as we know him, would have behaved. One cannot
imagine anything more incongruous with the actual fact than this legend of
the little bag. Nothing could be more inconceivable. But we shall return to
that later.”
After touching upon what had come out in the proceedings concerning
the financial relations of father and son, and arguing again and again that it
was utterly impossible, from the facts known, to determine which was in
the wrong, Ippolit Kirillovitch passed to the evidence of the medical experts
in reference to Mitya’s fixed idea about the three thousand owing him.

Chapter VII.
An Historical Survey

“The medical experts have striven to convince us that the prisoner is out
of his mind and, in fact, a maniac. I maintain that he is in his right mind,
and that if he had not been, he would have behaved more cleverly. As for
his being a maniac, that I would agree with, but only in one point, that is,
his fixed idea about the three thousand. Yet I think one might find a much
simpler cause than his tendency to insanity. For my part I agree thoroughly
with the young doctor who maintained that the prisoner’s mental faculties
have always been normal, and that he has only been irritable and
exasperated. The object of the prisoner’s continual and violent anger was
not the sum itself; there was a special motive at the bottom of it. That
motive is jealousy!”
Here Ippolit Kirillovitch described at length the prisoner’s fatal passion
for Grushenka. He began from the moment when the prisoner went to the
“young person’s” lodgings “to beat her”—“I use his own expression,” the
prosecutor explained—“but instead of beating her, he remained there, at her
feet. That was the beginning of the passion. At the same time the prisoner’s
father was captivated by the same young person—a strange and fatal
coincidence, for they both lost their hearts to her simultaneously, though
both had known her before. And she inspired in both of them the most
violent, characteristically Karamazov passion. We have her own confession:
‘I was laughing at both of them.’ Yes, the sudden desire to make a jest of
them came over her, and she conquered both of them at once. The old man,
who worshiped money, at once set aside three thousand roubles as a reward
for one visit from her, but soon after that, he would have been happy to lay
his property and his name at her feet, if only she would become his lawful
wife. We have good evidence of this. As for the prisoner, the tragedy of his
fate is evident; it is before us. But such was the young person’s ‘game.’ The

enchantress gave the unhappy young man no hope until the last moment,
when he knelt before her, stretching out hands that were already stained
with the blood of his father and rival. It was in that position that he was
arrested. ‘Send me to Siberia with him, I have brought him to this, I am
most to blame,’ the woman herself cried, in genuine remorse at the moment
of his arrest.
“The talented young man, to whom I have referred already, Mr. Rakitin,
characterized this heroine in brief and impressive terms: ‘She was
disillusioned early in life, deceived and ruined by a betrothed, who seduced
and abandoned her. She was left in poverty, cursed by her respectable
family, and taken under the protection of a wealthy old man, whom she still,
however, considers as her benefactor. There was perhaps much that was
good in her young heart, but it was embittered too early. She became
prudent and saved money. She grew sarcastic and resentful against society.’
After this sketch of her character it may well be understood that she might
laugh at both of them simply from mischief, from malice.
“After a month of hopeless love and moral degradation, during which he
betrayed his betrothed and appropriated money entrusted to his honor, the
prisoner was driven almost to frenzy, almost to madness by continual
jealousy—and of whom? His father! And the worst of it was that the crazy
old man was alluring and enticing the object of his affection by means of
that very three thousand roubles, which the son looked upon as his own
property, part of his inheritance from his mother, of which his father was
cheating him. Yes, I admit it was hard to bear! It might well drive a man to
madness. It was not the money, but the fact that this money was used with
such revolting cynicism to ruin his happiness!”
Then the prosecutor went on to describe how the idea of murdering his
father had entered the prisoner’s head, and illustrated his theory with facts.
“At first he only talked about it in taverns—he was talking about it all
that month. Ah, he likes being always surrounded with company, and he
likes to tell his companions everything, even his most diabolical and
dangerous ideas; he likes to share every thought with others, and expects,
for some reason, that those he confides in will meet him with perfect
sympathy, enter into all his troubles and anxieties, take his part and not
oppose him in anything. If not, he flies into a rage and smashes up
everything in the tavern. [Then followed the anecdote about Captain

Snegiryov.] Those who heard the prisoner began to think at last that he
might mean more than threats, and that such a frenzy might turn threats into
actions.”
Here the prosecutor described the meeting of the family at the monastery,
the conversations with Alyosha, and the horrible scene of violence when the
prisoner had rushed into his father’s house just after dinner.
“I cannot positively assert,” the prosecutor continued, “that the prisoner
fully intended to murder his father before that incident. Yet the idea had
several times presented itself to him, and he had deliberated on it—for that
we have facts, witnesses, and his own words. I confess, gentlemen of the
jury,” he added, “that till to-day I have been uncertain whether to attribute
to the prisoner conscious premeditation. I was firmly convinced that he had
pictured the fatal moment beforehand, but had only pictured it,
contemplating it as a possibility. He had not definitely considered when and
how he might commit the crime.
“But I was only uncertain till to-day, till that fatal document was
presented to the court just now. You yourselves heard that young lady’s
exclamation, ‘It is the plan, the program of the murder!’ That is how she
defined that miserable, drunken letter of the unhappy prisoner. And, in fact,
from that letter we see that the whole fact of the murder was premeditated.
It was written two days before, and so we know now for a fact that, forty-
eight hours before the perpetration of his terrible design, the prisoner swore
that, if he could not get money next day, he would murder his father in
order to take the envelope with the notes from under his pillow, as soon as
Ivan had left. ‘As soon as Ivan had gone away’—you hear that; so he had
thought everything out, weighing every circumstance, and he carried it all
out just as he had written it. The proof of premeditation is conclusive; the
crime must have been committed for the sake of the money, that is stated
clearly, that is written and signed. The prisoner does not deny his signature.
“I shall be told he was drunk when he wrote it. But that does not diminish
the value of the letter, quite the contrary; he wrote when drunk what he had
planned when sober. Had he not planned it when sober, he would not have
written it when drunk. I shall be asked: Then why did he talk about it in
taverns? A man who premeditates such a crime is silent and keeps it to
himself. Yes, but he talked about it before he had formed a plan, when he
had only the desire, only the impulse to it. Afterwards he talked less about

it. On the evening he wrote that letter at the ‘Metropolis’ tavern, contrary to
his custom he was silent, though he had been drinking. He did not play
billiards, he sat in a corner, talked to no one. He did indeed turn a shopman
out of his seat, but that was done almost unconsciously, because he could
never enter a tavern without making a disturbance. It is true that after he
had taken the final decision, he must have felt apprehensive that he had
talked too much about his design beforehand, and that this might lead to his
arrest and prosecution afterwards. But there was nothing for it; he could not
take his words back, but his luck had served him before, it would serve him
again. He believed in his star, you know! I must confess, too, that he did a
great deal to avoid the fatal catastrophe. ‘To-morrow I shall try and borrow
the money from every one,’ as he writes in his peculiar language, ‘and if
they won’t give it to me, there will be bloodshed.’ ”
Here Ippolit Kirillovitch passed to a detailed description of all Mitya’s
efforts to borrow the money. He described his visit to Samsonov, his
journey to Lyagavy. “Harassed, jeered at, hungry, after selling his watch to
pay for the journey (though he tells us he had fifteen hundred roubles on
him—a likely story), tortured by jealousy at having left the object of his
affections in the town, suspecting that she would go to Fyodor Pavlovitch in
his absence, he returned at last to the town, to find, to his joy, that she had
not been near his father. He accompanied her himself to her protector.
(Strange to say, he doesn’t seem to have been jealous of Samsonov, which
is psychologically interesting.) Then he hastens back to his ambush in the
back gardens, and there learns that Smerdyakov is in a fit, that the other
servant is ill—the coast is clear and he knows the ‘signals’—what a
temptation! Still he resists it; he goes off to a lady who has for some time
been residing in the town, and who is highly esteemed among us, Madame
Hohlakov. That lady, who had long watched his career with compassion,
gave him the most judicious advice, to give up his dissipated life, his
unseemly love-affair, the waste of his youth and vigor in pot-house
debauchery, and to set off to Siberia to the gold-mines: ‘that would be an
outlet for your turbulent energies, your romantic character, your thirst for
adventure.’ ”
After describing the result of this conversation and the moment when the
prisoner learnt that Grushenka had not remained at Samsonov’s, the sudden
frenzy of the luckless man worn out with jealousy and nervous exhaustion,
at the thought that she had deceived him and was now with his father,

Ippolit Kirillovitch concluded by dwelling upon the fatal influence of
chance. “Had the maid told him that her mistress was at Mokroe with her
former lover, nothing would have happened. But she lost her head, she
could only swear and protest her ignorance, and if the prisoner did not kill
her on the spot, it was only because he flew in pursuit of his false mistress.
“But note, frantic as he was, he took with him a brass pestle. Why that?
Why not some other weapon? But since he had been contemplating his plan
and preparing himself for it for a whole month, he would snatch up
anything like a weapon that caught his eye. He had realized for a month
past that any object of the kind would serve as a weapon, so he instantly,
without hesitation, recognized that it would serve his purpose. So it was by
no means unconsciously, by no means involuntarily, that he snatched up
that fatal pestle. And then we find him in his father’s garden—the coast is
clear, there are no witnesses, darkness and jealousy. The suspicion that she
was there, with him, with his rival, in his arms, and perhaps laughing at him
at that moment—took his breath away. And it was not mere suspicion, the
deception was open, obvious. She must be there, in that lighted room, she
must be behind the screen; and the unhappy man would have us believe that
he stole up to the window, peeped respectfully in, and discreetly withdrew,
for fear something terrible and immoral should happen. And he tries to
persuade us of that, us, who understand his character, who know his state of
mind at the moment, and that he knew the signals by which he could at
once enter the house.” At this point Ippolit Kirillovitch broke off to discuss
exhaustively the suspected connection of Smerdyakov with the murder. He
did this very circumstantially, and every one realized that, although he
professed to despise that suspicion, he thought the subject of great
importance.

Chapter VIII.
A Treatise On Smerdyakov

“To begin with, what was the source of this suspicion?” (Ippolit
Kirillovitch began.) “The first person who cried out that Smerdyakov had
committed the murder was the prisoner himself at the moment of his arrest,
yet from that time to this he had not brought forward a single fact to
confirm the charge, nor the faintest suggestion of a fact. The charge is
confirmed by three persons only—the two brothers of the prisoner and
Madame Svyetlov. The elder of these brothers expressed his suspicions only
to-day, when he was undoubtedly suffering from brain fever. But we know
that for the last two months he has completely shared our conviction of his
brother’s guilt and did not attempt to combat that idea. But of that later. The
younger brother has admitted that he has not the slightest fact to support his
notion of Smerdyakov’s guilt, and has only been led to that conclusion from
the prisoner’s own words and the expression of his face. Yes, that
astounding piece of evidence has been brought forward twice to-day by
him. Madame Svyetlov was even more astounding. ‘What the prisoner tells
you, you must believe; he is not a man to tell a lie.’ That is all the evidence
against Smerdyakov produced by these three persons, who are all deeply
concerned in the prisoner’s fate. And yet the theory of Smerdyakov’s guilt
has been noised about, has been and is still maintained. Is it credible? Is it
conceivable?”
Here Ippolit Kirillovitch thought it necessary to describe the personality
of Smerdyakov, “who had cut short his life in a fit of insanity.” He depicted
him as a man of weak intellect, with a smattering of education, who had
been thrown off his balance by philosophical ideas above his level and
certain modern theories of duty, which he learnt in practice from the
reckless life of his master, who was also perhaps his father—Fyodor
Pavlovitch; and, theoretically, from various strange philosophical

conversations with his master’s elder son, Ivan Fyodorovitch, who readily
indulged in this diversion, probably feeling dull or wishing to amuse
himself at the valet’s expense. “He spoke to me himself of his spiritual
condition during the last few days at his father’s house,” Ippolit Kirillovitch
explained; “but others too have borne witness to it—the prisoner himself,
his brother, and the servant Grigory—that is, all who knew him well.
“Moreover, Smerdyakov, whose health was shaken by his attacks of
epilepsy, had not the courage of a chicken. ‘He fell at my feet and kissed
them,’ the prisoner himself has told us, before he realized how damaging
such a statement was to himself. ‘He is an epileptic chicken,’ he declared
about him in his characteristic language. And the prisoner chose him for his
confidant (we have his own word for it) and he frightened him into
consenting at last to act as a spy for him. In that capacity he deceived his
master, revealing to the prisoner the existence of the envelope with the
notes in it and the signals by means of which he could get into the house.
How could he help telling him, indeed? ‘He would have killed me, I could
see that he would have killed me,’ he said at the inquiry, trembling and
shaking even before us, though his tormentor was by that time arrested and
could do him no harm. ‘He suspected me at every instant. In fear and
trembling I hastened to tell him every secret to pacify him, that he might see
that I had not deceived him and let me off alive.’ Those are his own words. I
wrote them down and I remember them. ‘When he began shouting at me, I
would fall on my knees.’
“He was naturally very honest and enjoyed the complete confidence of
his master, ever since he had restored him some money he had lost. So it
may be supposed that the poor fellow suffered pangs of remorse at having
deceived his master, whom he loved as his benefactor. Persons severely
afflicted with epilepsy are, so the most skillful doctors tell us, always prone
to continual and morbid self-reproach. They worry over their ‘wickedness,’
they are tormented by pangs of conscience, often entirely without cause;
they exaggerate and often invent all sorts of faults and crimes. And here we
have a man of that type who had really been driven to wrong-doing by
terror and intimidation.
“He had, besides, a strong presentiment that something terrible would be
the outcome of the situation that was developing before his eyes. When
Ivan Fyodorovitch was leaving for Moscow, just before the catastrophe,

Smerdyakov besought him to remain, though he was too timid to tell him
plainly what he feared. He confined himself to hints, but his hints were not
understood.
“It must be observed that he looked on Ivan Fyodorovitch as a protector,
whose presence in the house was a guarantee that no harm would come to
pass. Remember the phrase in Dmitri Karamazov’s drunken letter, ‘I shall
kill the old man, if only Ivan goes away.’ So Ivan Fyodorovitch’s presence
seemed to every one a guarantee of peace and order in the house.
“But he went away, and within an hour of his young master’s departure
Smerdyakov was taken with an epileptic fit. But that’s perfectly intelligible.
Here I must mention that Smerdyakov, oppressed by terror and despair of a
sort, had felt during those last few days that one of the fits from which he
had suffered before at moments of strain, might be coming upon him again.
The day and hour of such an attack cannot, of course, be foreseen, but every
epileptic can feel beforehand that he is likely to have one. So the doctors
tell us. And so, as soon as Ivan Fyodorovitch had driven out of the yard,
Smerdyakov, depressed by his lonely and unprotected position, went to the
cellar. He went down the stairs wondering if he would have a fit or not, and
what if it were to come upon him at once. And that very apprehension, that
very wonder, brought on the spasm in his throat that always precedes such
attacks, and he fell unconscious into the cellar. And in this perfectly natural
occurrence people try to detect a suspicion, a hint that he was shamming an
attack on purpose. But, if it were on purpose, the question arises at once,
what was his motive? What was he reckoning on? What was he aiming at? I
say nothing about medicine: science, I am told, may go astray: the doctors
were not able to discriminate between the counterfeit and the real. That may
be so, but answer me one question: what motive had he for such a
counterfeit? Could he, had he been plotting the murder, have desired to
attract the attention of the household by having a fit just before?
“You see, gentlemen of the jury, on the night of the murder, there were
five persons in Fyodor Pavlovitch’s—Fyodor Pavlovitch himself (but he did
not kill himself, that’s evident); then his servant, Grigory, but he was almost
killed himself; the third person was Grigory’s wife, Marfa Ignatyevna, but it
would be simply shameful to imagine her murdering her master. Two
persons are left—the prisoner and Smerdyakov. But, if we are to believe the
prisoner’s statement that he is not the murderer, then Smerdyakov must

have been, for there is no other alternative, no one else can be found. That is
what accounts for the artful, astounding accusation against the unhappy
idiot who committed suicide yesterday. Had a shadow of suspicion rested
on any one else, had there been any sixth person, I am persuaded that even
the prisoner would have been ashamed to accuse Smerdyakov, and would
have accused that sixth person, for to charge Smerdyakov with that murder
is perfectly absurd.
“Gentlemen, let us lay aside psychology, let us lay aside medicine, let us
even lay aside logic, let us turn only to the facts and see what the facts tell
us. If Smerdyakov killed him, how did he do it? Alone or with the
assistance of the prisoner? Let us consider the first alternative—that he did
it alone. If he had killed him it must have been with some object, for some
advantage to himself. But not having a shadow of the motive that the
prisoner had for the murder—hatred, jealousy, and so on—Smerdyakov
could only have murdered him for the sake of gain, in order to appropriate
the three thousand roubles he had seen his master put in the envelope. And
yet he tells another person—and a person most closely interested, that is,
the prisoner—everything about the money and the signals, where the
envelope lay, what was written on it, what it was tied up with, and, above
all, told him of those signals by which he could enter the house. Did he do
this simply to betray himself, or to invite to the same enterprise one who
would be anxious to get that envelope for himself? ‘Yes,’ I shall be told,
‘but he betrayed it from fear.’ But how do you explain this? A man who
could conceive such an audacious, savage act, and carry it out, tells facts
which are known to no one else in the world, and which, if he held his
tongue, no one would ever have guessed!
“No, however cowardly he might be, if he had plotted such a crime,
nothing would have induced him to tell any one about the envelope and the
signals, for that was as good as betraying himself beforehand. He would
have invented something, he would have told some lie if he had been forced
to give information, but he would have been silent about that. For, on the
other hand, if he had said nothing about the money, but had committed the
murder and stolen the money, no one in the world could have charged him
with murder for the sake of robbery, since no one but he had seen the
money, no one but he knew of its existence in the house. Even if he had
been accused of the murder, it could only have been thought that he had
committed it from some other motive. But since no one had observed any

such motive in him beforehand, and every one saw, on the contrary, that his
master was fond of him and honored him with his confidence, he would, of
course, have been the last to be suspected. People would have suspected
first the man who had a motive, a man who had himself declared he had
such motives, who had made no secret of it; they would, in fact, have
suspected the son of the murdered man, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. Had
Smerdyakov killed and robbed him, and the son been accused of it, that
would, of course, have suited Smerdyakov. Yet are we to believe that,
though plotting the murder, he told that son, Dmitri, about the money, the
envelope, and the signals? Is that logical? Is that clear?
“When the day of the murder planned by Smerdyakov came, we have
him falling downstairs in a feigned fit—with what object? In the first place
that Grigory, who had been intending to take his medicine, might put it off
and remain on guard, seeing there was no one to look after the house, and,
in the second place, I suppose, that his master seeing that there was no one
to guard him, and in terror of a visit from his son, might redouble his
vigilance and precaution. And, most of all, I suppose that he, Smerdyakov,
disabled by the fit, might be carried from the kitchen, where he always
slept, apart from all the rest, and where he could go in and out as he liked,
to Grigory’s room at the other end of the lodge, where he was always put,
shut off by a screen three paces from their own bed. This was the
immemorial custom established by his master and the kind-hearted Marfa
Ignatyevna, whenever he had a fit. There, lying behind the screen, he would
most likely, to keep up the sham, have begun groaning, and so keeping
them awake all night (as Grigory and his wife testified). And all this, we are
to believe, that he might more conveniently get up and murder his master!
“But I shall be told that he shammed illness on purpose that he might not
be suspected and that he told the prisoner of the money and the signals to
tempt him to commit the murder, and when he had murdered him and had
gone away with the money, making a noise, most likely, and waking people,
Smerdyakov got up, am I to believe, and went in—what for? To murder his
master a second time and carry off the money that had already been stolen?
Gentlemen, are you laughing? I am ashamed to put forward such
suggestions, but, incredible as it seems, that’s just what the prisoner alleges.
When he had left the house, had knocked Grigory down and raised an
alarm, he tells us Smerdyakov got up, went in and murdered his master and
stole the money! I won’t press the point that Smerdyakov could hardly have

reckoned on this beforehand, and have foreseen that the furious and
exasperated son would simply come to peep in respectfully, though he knew
the signals, and beat a retreat, leaving Smerdyakov his booty. Gentlemen of
the jury, I put this question to you in earnest; when was the moment when
Smerdyakov could have committed his crime? Name that moment, or you
can’t accuse him.
“But, perhaps, the fit was a real one, the sick man suddenly recovered,
heard a shout, and went out. Well—what then? He looked about him and
said, ‘Why not go and kill the master?’ And how did he know what had
happened, since he had been lying unconscious till that moment? But
there’s a limit to these flights of fancy.
“ ‘Quite so,’ some astute people will tell me, ‘but what if they were in
agreement? What if they murdered him together and shared the money—
what then?’ A weighty question, truly! And the facts to confirm it are
astounding. One commits the murder and takes all the trouble while his
accomplice lies on one side shamming a fit, apparently to arouse suspicion
in every one, alarm in his master and alarm in Grigory. It would be
interesting to know what motives could have induced the two accomplices
to form such an insane plan.
“But perhaps it was not a case of active complicity on Smerdyakov’s
part, but only of passive acquiescence; perhaps Smerdyakov was
intimidated and agreed not to prevent the murder, and foreseeing that he
would be blamed for letting his master be murdered, without screaming for
help or resisting, he may have obtained permission from Dmitri Karamazov
to get out of the way by shamming a fit—‘you may murder him as you like;
it’s nothing to me.’ But as this attack of Smerdyakov’s was bound to throw
the household into confusion, Dmitri Karamazov could never have agreed
to such a plan. I will waive that point however. Supposing that he did agree,
it would still follow that Dmitri Karamazov is the murderer and the
instigator, and Smerdyakov is only a passive accomplice, and not even an
accomplice, but merely acquiesced against his will through terror.
“But what do we see? As soon as he is arrested the prisoner instantly
throws all the blame on Smerdyakov, not accusing him of being his
accomplice, but of being himself the murderer. ‘He did it alone,’ he says.
‘He murdered and robbed him. It was the work of his hands.’ Strange sort of
accomplices who begin to accuse one another at once! And think of the risk

for Karamazov. After committing the murder while his accomplice lay in
bed, he throws the blame on the invalid, who might well have resented it
and in self-preservation might well have confessed the truth. For he might
well have seen that the court would at once judge how far he was
responsible, and so he might well have reckoned that if he were punished, it
would be far less severely than the real murderer. But in that case he would
have been certain to make a confession, yet he has not done so.
Smerdyakov never hinted at their complicity, though the actual murderer
persisted in accusing him and declaring that he had committed the crime
alone.
“What’s more, Smerdyakov at the inquiry volunteered the statement that
it was he who had told the prisoner of the envelope of notes and of the
signals, and that, but for him, he would have known nothing about them. If
he had really been a guilty accomplice, would he so readily have made this
statement at the inquiry? On the contrary, he would have tried to conceal it,
to distort the facts or minimize them. But he was far from distorting or
minimizing them. No one but an innocent man, who had no fear of being
charged with complicity, could have acted as he did. And in a fit of
melancholy arising from his disease and this catastrophe he hanged himself
yesterday. He left a note written in his peculiar language, ‘I destroy myself
of my own will and inclination so as to throw no blame on any one.’ What
would it have cost him to add: ‘I am the murderer, not Karamazov’? But
that he did not add. Did his conscience lead him to suicide and not to
avowing his guilt?
“And what followed? Notes for three thousand roubles were brought into
the court just now, and we were told that they were the same that lay in the
envelope now on the table before us, and that the witness had received them
from Smerdyakov the day before. But I need not recall the painful scene,
though I will make one or two comments, selecting such trivial ones as
might not be obvious at first sight to every one, and so may be overlooked.
In the first place, Smerdyakov must have given back the money and hanged
himself yesterday from remorse. And only yesterday he confessed his guilt
to Ivan Karamazov, as the latter informs us. If it were not so, indeed, why
should Ivan Fyodorovitch have kept silence till now? And so, if he has
confessed, then why, I ask again, did he not avow the whole truth in the last
letter he left behind, knowing that the innocent prisoner had to face this
terrible ordeal the next day?

“The money alone is no proof. A week ago, quite by chance, the fact
came to the knowledge of myself and two other persons in this court that
Ivan Fyodorovitch had sent two five per cent. coupons of five thousand
each—that is, ten thousand in all—to the chief town of the province to be
changed. I only mention this to point out that any one may have money, and
that it can’t be proved that these notes are the same as were in Fyodor
Pavlovitch’s envelope.
“Ivan Karamazov, after receiving yesterday a communication of such
importance from the real murderer, did not stir. Why didn’t he report it at
once? Why did he put it all off till morning? I think I have a right to
conjecture why. His health had been giving way for a week past: he had
admitted to a doctor and to his most intimate friends that he was suffering
from hallucinations and seeing phantoms of the dead: he was on the eve of
the attack of brain fever by which he has been stricken down to-day. In this
condition he suddenly heard of Smerdyakov’s death, and at once reflected,
‘The man is dead, I can throw the blame on him and save my brother. I have
money. I will take a roll of notes and say that Smerdyakov gave them me
before his death.’ You will say that was dishonorable: it’s dishonorable to
slander even the dead, and even to save a brother. True, but what if he
slandered him unconsciously? What if, finally unhinged by the sudden news
of the valet’s death, he imagined it really was so? You saw the recent scene:
you have seen the witness’s condition. He was standing up and was
speaking, but where was his mind?
“Then followed the document, the prisoner’s letter written two days
before the crime, and containing a complete program of the murder. Why,
then, are we looking for any other program? The crime was committed
precisely according to this program, and by no other than the writer of it.
Yes, gentlemen of the jury, it went off without a hitch! He did not run
respectfully and timidly away from his father’s window, though he was
firmly convinced that the object of his affections was with him. No, that is
absurd and unlikely! He went in and murdered him. Most likely he killed
him in anger, burning with resentment, as soon as he looked on his hated
rival. But having killed him, probably with one blow of the brass pestle, and
having convinced himself, after careful search, that she was not there, he
did not, however, forget to put his hand under the pillow and take out the
envelope, the torn cover of which lies now on the table before us.

“I mention this fact that you may note one, to my thinking, very
characteristic circumstance. Had he been an experienced murderer and had
he committed the murder for the sake of gain only, would he have left the
torn envelope on the floor as it was found, beside the corpse? Had it been
Smerdyakov, for instance, murdering his master to rob him, he would have
simply carried away the envelope with him, without troubling himself to
open it over his victim’s corpse, for he would have known for certain that
the notes were in the envelope—they had been put in and sealed up in his
presence—and had he taken the envelope with him, no one would ever have
known of the robbery. I ask you, gentlemen, would Smerdyakov have
behaved in that way? Would he have left the envelope on the floor?
“No, this was the action of a frantic murderer, a murderer who was not a
thief and had never stolen before that day, who snatched the notes from
under the pillow, not like a thief stealing them, but as though seizing his
own property from the thief who had stolen it. For that was the idea which
had become almost an insane obsession in Dmitri Karamazov in regard to
that money. And pouncing upon the envelope, which he had never seen
before, he tore it open to make sure whether the money was in it, and ran
away with the money in his pocket, even forgetting to consider that he had
left an astounding piece of evidence against himself in that torn envelope on
the floor. All because it was Karamazov, not Smerdyakov, he didn’t think,
he didn’t reflect, and how should he? He ran away; he heard behind him the
servant cry out; the old man caught him, stopped him and was felled to the
ground by the brass pestle.
“The prisoner, moved by pity, leapt down to look at him. Would you
believe it, he tells us that he leapt down out of pity, out of compassion, to
see whether he could do anything for him. Was that a moment to show
compassion? No; he jumped down simply to make certain whether the only
witness of his crime were dead or alive. Any other feeling, any other motive
would be unnatural. Note that he took trouble over Grigory, wiped his head
with his handkerchief and, convincing himself he was dead, he ran to the
house of his mistress, dazed and covered with blood. How was it he never
thought that he was covered with blood and would be at once detected? But
the prisoner himself assures us that he did not even notice that he was
covered with blood. That may be believed, that is very possible, that always
happens at such moments with criminals. On one point they will show
diabolical cunning, while another will escape them altogether. But he was

thinking at that moment of one thing only—where was she? He wanted to
find out at once where she was, so he ran to her lodging and learnt an
unexpected and astounding piece of news—she had gone off to Mokroe to
meet her first lover.”

Chapter IX.
The Galloping Troika. The End Of The Prosecutor’s
Speech.

Ippolit Kirillovitch had chosen the historical method of exposition,
beloved by all nervous orators, who find in its limitation a check on their
own eager rhetoric. At this moment in his speech he went off into a
dissertation on Grushenka’s “first lover,” and brought forward several
interesting thoughts on this theme.
“Karamazov, who had been frantically jealous of every one, collapsed, so
to speak, and effaced himself at once before this first lover. What makes it
all the more strange is that he seems to have hardly thought of this
formidable rival. But he had looked upon him as a remote danger, and
Karamazov always lives in the present. Possibly he regarded him as a
fiction. But his wounded heart grasped instantly that the woman had been
concealing this new rival and deceiving him, because he was anything but a
fiction to her, because he was the one hope of her life. Grasping this
instantly, he resigned himself.
“Gentlemen of the jury, I cannot help dwelling on this unexpected trait in
the prisoner’s character. He suddenly evinces an irresistible desire for
justice, a respect for woman and a recognition of her right to love. And all
this at the very moment when he had stained his hands with his father’s
blood for her sake! It is true that the blood he had shed was already crying
out for vengeance, for, after having ruined his soul and his life in this world,
he was forced to ask himself at that same instant what he was and what he
could be now to her, to that being, dearer to him than his own soul, in
comparison with that former lover who had returned penitent, with new
love, to the woman he had once betrayed, with honorable offers, with the

promise of a reformed and happy life. And he, luckless man, what could he
give her now, what could he offer her?
“Karamazov felt all this, knew that all ways were barred to him by his
crime and that he was a criminal under sentence, and not a man with life
before him! This thought crushed him. And so he instantly flew to one
frantic plan, which, to a man of Karamazov’s character, must have appeared
the one inevitable way out of his terrible position. That way out was
suicide. He ran for the pistols he had left in pledge with his friend Perhotin
and on the way, as he ran, he pulled out of his pocket the money, for the
sake of which he had stained his hands with his father’s gore. Oh, now he
needed money more than ever. Karamazov would die, Karamazov would
shoot himself and it should be remembered! To be sure, he was a poet and
had burnt the candle at both ends all his life. ‘To her, to her! and there, oh,
there I will give a feast to the whole world, such as never was before, that
will be remembered and talked of long after! In the midst of shouts of wild
merriment, reckless gypsy songs and dances I shall raise the glass and drink
to the woman I adore and her new-found happiness! And then, on the spot,
at her feet, I shall dash out my brains before her and punish myself! She
will remember Mitya Karamazov sometimes, she will see how Mitya loved
her, she will feel for Mitya!’
“Here we see in excess a love of effect, a romantic despair and
sentimentality, and the wild recklessness of the Karamazovs. Yes, but there
is something else, gentlemen of the jury, something that cries out in the
soul, throbs incessantly in the mind, and poisons the heart unto death—that
something is conscience, gentlemen of the jury, its judgment, its terrible
torments! The pistol will settle everything, the pistol is the only way out!
But beyond—I don’t know whether Karamazov wondered at that moment
‘What lies beyond,’ and whether Karamazov could, like Hamlet, wonder
‘What lies beyond.’ No, gentlemen of the jury, they have their Hamlets, but
we still have our Karamazovs!”
Here Ippolit Kirillovitch drew a minute picture of Mitya’s preparations,
the scene at Perhotin’s, at the shop, with the drivers. He quoted numerous
words and actions, confirmed by witnesses, and the picture made a terrible
impression on the audience. The guilt of this harassed and desperate man
stood out clear and convincing, when the facts were brought together.

“What need had he of precaution? Two or three times he almost
confessed, hinted at it, all but spoke out.” (Then followed the evidence
given by witnesses.) “He even cried out to the peasant who drove him, ‘Do
you know, you are driving a murderer!’ But it was impossible for him to
speak out, he had to get to Mokroe and there to finish his romance. But
what was awaiting the luckless man? Almost from the first minute at
Mokroe he saw that his invincible rival was perhaps by no means so
invincible, that the toast to their new-found happiness was not desired and
would not be acceptable. But you know the facts, gentlemen of the jury,
from the preliminary inquiry. Karamazov’s triumph over his rival was
complete and his soul passed into quite a new phase, perhaps the most
terrible phase through which his soul has passed or will pass.
“One may say with certainty, gentlemen of the jury,” the prosecutor
continued, “that outraged nature and the criminal heart bring their own
vengeance more completely than any earthly justice. What’s more, justice
and punishment on earth positively alleviate the punishment of nature and
are, indeed, essential to the soul of the criminal at such moments, as its
salvation from despair. For I cannot imagine the horror and moral suffering
of Karamazov when he learnt that she loved him, that for his sake she had
rejected her first lover, that she was summoning him, Mitya, to a new life,
that she was promising him happiness—and when? When everything was
over for him and nothing was possible!
“By the way, I will note in parenthesis a point of importance for the light
it throws on the prisoner’s position at the moment. This woman, this love of
his, had been till the last moment, till the very instant of his arrest, a being
unattainable, passionately desired by him but unattainable. Yet why did he
not shoot himself then, why did he relinquish his design and even forget
where his pistol was? It was just that passionate desire for love and the hope
of satisfying it that restrained him. Throughout their revels he kept close to
his adored mistress, who was at the banquet with him and was more
charming and fascinating to him than ever—he did not leave her side,
abasing himself in his homage before her.
“His passion might well, for a moment, stifle not only the fear of arrest,
but even the torments of conscience. For a moment, oh, only for a moment!
I can picture the state of mind of the criminal hopelessly enslaved by these
influences—first, the influence of drink, of noise and excitement, of the

thud of the dance and the scream of the song, and of her, flushed with wine,
singing and dancing and laughing to him! Secondly, the hope in the
background that the fatal end might still be far off, that not till next
morning, at least, they would come and take him. So he had a few hours
and that’s much, very much! In a few hours one can think of many things. I
imagine that he felt something like what criminals feel when they are being
taken to the scaffold. They have another long, long street to pass down and
at walking pace, past thousands of people. Then there will be a turning into
another street and only at the end of that street the dread place of execution!
I fancy that at the beginning of the journey the condemned man, sitting on
his shameful cart, must feel that he has infinite life still before him. The
houses recede, the cart moves on—oh, that’s nothing, it’s still far to the
turning into the second street and he still looks boldly to right and to left at
those thousands of callously curious people with their eyes fixed on him,
and he still fancies that he is just such a man as they. But now the turning
comes to the next street. Oh, that’s nothing, nothing, there’s still a whole
street before him, and however many houses have been passed, he will still
think there are many left. And so to the very end, to the very scaffold.
“This I imagine is how it was with Karamazov then. ‘They’ve not had
time yet,’ he must have thought, ‘I may still find some way out, oh, there’s
still time to make some plan of defense, and now, now—she is so
fascinating!’
“His soul was full of confusion and dread, but he managed, however, to
put aside half his money and hide it somewhere—I cannot otherwise
explain the disappearance of quite half of the three thousand he had just
taken from his father’s pillow. He had been in Mokroe more than once
before, he had caroused there for two days together already, he knew the old
big house with all its passages and outbuildings. I imagine that part of the
money was hidden in that house, not long before the arrest, in some crevice,
under some floor, in some corner, under the roof. With what object? I shall
be asked. Why, the catastrophe may take place at once, of course; he hadn’t
yet considered how to meet it, he hadn’t the time, his head was throbbing
and his heart was with her, but money—money was indispensable in any
case! With money a man is always a man. Perhaps such foresight at such a
moment may strike you as unnatural? But he assures us himself that a
month before, at a critical and exciting moment, he had halved his money
and sewn it up in a little bag. And though that was not true, as we shall

prove directly, it shows the idea was a familiar one to Karamazov, he had
contemplated it. What’s more, when he declared at the inquiry that he had
put fifteen hundred roubles in a bag (which never existed) he may have
invented that little bag on the inspiration of the moment, because he had
two hours before divided his money and hidden half of it at Mokroe till
morning, in case of emergency, simply not to have it on himself. Two
extremes, gentlemen of the jury, remember that Karamazov can
contemplate two extremes and both at once.
“We have looked in the house, but we haven’t found the money. It may
still be there or it may have disappeared next day and be in the prisoner’s
hands now. In any case he was at her side, on his knees before her, she was
lying on the bed, he had his hands stretched out to her and he had so
entirely forgotten everything that he did not even hear the men coming to
arrest him. He hadn’t time to prepare any line of defense in his mind. He
was caught unawares and confronted with his judges, the arbiters of his
destiny.
“Gentlemen of the jury, there are moments in the execution of our duties
when it is terrible for us to face a man, terrible on his account, too! The
moments of contemplating that animal fear, when the criminal sees that all
is lost, but still struggles, still means to struggle, the moments when every
instinct of self-preservation rises up in him at once and he looks at you with
questioning and suffering eyes, studies you, your face, your thoughts,
uncertain on which side you will strike, and his distracted mind frames
thousands of plans in an instant, but he is still afraid to speak, afraid of
giving himself away! This purgatory of the spirit, this animal thirst for self-
preservation, these humiliating moments of the human soul, are awful, and
sometimes arouse horror and compassion for the criminal even in the
lawyer. And this was what we all witnessed then.
“At first he was thunderstruck and in his terror dropped some very
compromising phrases. ‘Blood! I’ve deserved it!’ But he quickly restrained
himself. He had not prepared what he was to say, what answer he was to
make, he had nothing but a bare denial ready. ‘I am not guilty of my
father’s death.’ That was his fence for the moment and behind it he hoped to
throw up a barricade of some sort. His first compromising exclamations he
hastened to explain by declaring that he was responsible for the death of the
servant Grigory only. ‘Of that bloodshed I am guilty, but who has killed my

father, gentlemen, who has killed him? Who can have killed him, if not I?’
Do you hear, he asked us that, us, who had come to ask him that question!
Do you hear that phrase uttered with such premature haste—‘if not I’—the
animal cunning, the naïveté, the Karamazov impatience of it? ‘I didn’t kill
him and you mustn’t think I did! I wanted to kill him, gentlemen, I wanted
to kill him,’ he hastens to admit (he was in a hurry, in a terrible hurry), ‘but
still I am not guilty, it is not I murdered him.’ He concedes to us that he
wanted to murder him, as though to say, you can see for yourselves how
truthful I am, so you’ll believe all the sooner that I didn’t murder him. Oh,
in such cases the criminal is often amazingly shallow and credulous.
“At that point one of the lawyers asked him, as it were incidentally, the
most simple question, ‘Wasn’t it Smerdyakov killed him?’ Then, as we
expected, he was horribly angry at our having anticipated him and caught
him unawares, before he had time to pave the way to choose and snatch the
moment when it would be most natural to bring in Smerdyakov’s name. He
rushed at once to the other extreme, as he always does, and began to assure
us that Smerdyakov could not have killed him, was not capable of it. But
don’t believe him, that was only his cunning; he didn’t really give up the
idea of Smerdyakov; on the contrary, he meant to bring him forward again;
for, indeed, he had no one else to bring forward, but he would do that later,
because for the moment that line was spoiled for him. He would bring him
forward perhaps next day, or even a few days later, choosing an opportunity
to cry out to us, ‘You know I was more skeptical about Smerdyakov than
you, you remember that yourselves, but now I am convinced. He killed him,
he must have done!’ And for the present he falls back upon a gloomy and
irritable denial. Impatience and anger prompted him, however, to the most
inept and incredible explanation of how he looked into his father’s window
and how he respectfully withdrew. The worst of it was that he was unaware
of the position of affairs, of the evidence given by Grigory.
“We proceeded to search him. The search angered, but encouraged him,
the whole three thousand had not been found on him, only half of it. And no
doubt only at that moment of angry silence, the fiction of the little bag first
occurred to him. No doubt he was conscious himself of the improbability of
the story and strove painfully to make it sound more likely, to weave it into
a romance that would sound plausible. In such cases the first duty, the chief
task of the investigating lawyers, is to prevent the criminal being prepared,
to pounce upon him unexpectedly so that he may blurt out his cherished

ideas in all their simplicity, improbability and inconsistency. The criminal
can only be made to speak by the sudden and apparently incidental
communication of some new fact, of some circumstance of great
importance in the case, of which he had no previous idea and could not
have foreseen. We had such a fact in readiness—that was Grigory’s
evidence about the open door through which the prisoner had run out. He
had completely forgotten about that door and had not even suspected that
Grigory could have seen it.
“The effect of it was amazing. He leapt up and shouted to us, ‘Then
Smerdyakov murdered him, it was Smerdyakov!’ and so betrayed the basis
of the defense he was keeping back, and betrayed it in its most improbable
shape, for Smerdyakov could only have committed the murder after he had
knocked Grigory down and run away. When we told him that Grigory saw
the door was open before he fell down, and had heard 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 to
defend prisoners, of whose innocence he had a conviction or at least a

preconceived idea. “That is what has happened to me in the present case,”
he explained. “From the very first accounts in the newspapers I was struck
by something which strongly prepossessed me in the prisoner’s favor. What
interested me most was a fact which often occurs in legal practice, but
rarely, I think, in such an extreme and peculiar form as in the present case. I
ought to formulate that peculiarity only at the end of my speech, but I will
do so at the very beginning, for it is my weakness to go to work directly, not
keeping my effects in reserve and economizing my material. That may be
imprudent on my part, but at least it’s sincere. What I have in my mind is
this: there is an overwhelming chain of evidence against the prisoner, and at
the same time not one fact that will stand criticism, if it is examined
separately. As I followed the case more closely in the papers my idea was
more and more confirmed, and I suddenly received from the prisoner’s
relatives a request to undertake his defense. I at once hurried here, and here
I became completely convinced. It was to break down this terrible chain of
facts, and to show that each piece of evidence taken separately was
unproved and fantastic, that I undertook the case.”
So Fetyukovitch began.
“Gentlemen of the jury,” he suddenly protested, “I am new to this district.
I have no preconceived ideas. The prisoner, a man of turbulent and
unbridled temper, has not insulted me. But he has insulted perhaps hundreds
of persons in this town, and so prejudiced many people against him
beforehand. Of course I recognize that the moral sentiment of local society
is justly excited against him. The prisoner is of turbulent and violent temper.
Yet he was received in society here; he was even welcome in the family of
my talented friend, the prosecutor.”
(N.B. At these words there were two or three laughs in the audience,
quickly suppressed, but noticed by all. All of us knew that the prosecutor
received Mitya against his will, solely because he had somehow interested
his wife—a lady of the highest virtue and moral worth, but fanciful,
capricious, and fond of opposing her husband, especially in trifles. Mitya’s
visits, however, had not been frequent.)
“Nevertheless I venture to suggest,” Fetyukovitch continued, “that in
spite of his independent mind and just character, my opponent may have
formed a mistaken prejudice against my unfortunate client. Oh, that is so
natural; the unfortunate man has only too well deserved such prejudice.

Outraged morality, and still more outraged taste, is often relentless. We
have, in the talented prosecutor’s speech, heard a stern analysis of the
prisoner’s character and conduct, and his severe critical attitude to the case
was evident. And, what’s more, he went into psychological subtleties into
which he could not have entered, if he had the least conscious and
malicious prejudice against the prisoner. But there are things which are
even worse, even more fatal in such cases, than the most malicious and
consciously unfair attitude. It is worse if we are carried away by the artistic
instinct, by the desire to create, so to speak, a romance, especially if God
has endowed us with psychological insight. Before I started on my way
here, I was warned in Petersburg, and was myself aware, that I should find
here a talented opponent whose psychological insight and subtlety had
gained him peculiar renown in legal circles of recent years. But profound as
psychology is, it’s a knife that cuts both ways.” (Laughter among the
public.) “You will, of course, forgive me my comparison; I can’t boast of
eloquence. But I will take as an example any point in the prosecutor’s
speech.
“The prisoner, running away in the garden in the dark, climbed over the
fence, was seized by the servant, and knocked him down with a brass
pestle. Then he jumped back into the garden and spent five minutes over the
man, trying to discover whether he had killed him or not. And the
prosecutor refuses to believe the prisoner’s statement that he ran to old
Grigory out of pity. ‘No,’ he says, ‘such sensibility is impossible at such a
moment, that’s unnatural; he ran to find out whether the only witness of his
crime was dead or alive, and so showed that he had committed the murder,
since he would not have run back for any other reason.’
“Here you have psychology; but let us take the same method and apply it
to the case the other way round, and our result will be no less probable. The
murderer, we are told, leapt down to find out, as a precaution, whether the
witness was alive or not, yet he had left in his murdered father’s study, as
the prosecutor himself argues, an amazing piece of evidence in the shape of
a torn envelope, with an inscription that there had been three thousand
roubles in it. ‘If he had carried that envelope away with him, no one in the
world would have known of that envelope and of the notes in it, and that the
money had been stolen by the prisoner.’ Those are the prosecutor’s own
words. So on one side you see a complete absence of precaution, a man
who has lost his head and run away in a fright, leaving that clew on the

floor, and two minutes later, when he has killed another man, we are
entitled to assume the most heartless and calculating foresight in him. But
even admitting this was so, it is psychological subtlety, I suppose, that
discerns that under certain circumstances I become as bloodthirsty and
keen-sighted as a Caucasian eagle, while at the next I am as timid and blind
as a mole. But if I am so bloodthirsty and cruelly calculating that when I
kill a man I only run back to find out whether he is alive to witness against
me, why should I spend five minutes looking after my victim at the risk of
encountering other witnesses? Why soak my handkerchief, wiping the
blood off his head so that it may be evidence against me later? If he were so
cold-hearted and calculating, why not hit the servant on the head again and
again with the same pestle so as to kill him outright and relieve himself of
all anxiety about the witness?
“Again, though he ran to see whether the witness was alive, he left
another witness on the path, that brass pestle which he had taken from the
two women, and which they could always recognize afterwards as theirs,
and prove that he had taken it from them. And it is not as though he had
forgotten it on the path, dropped it through carelessness or haste, no, he had
flung away his weapon, for it was found fifteen paces from where Grigory
lay. Why did he do so? Just because he was grieved at having killed a man,
an old servant; and he flung away the pestle with a curse, as a murderous
weapon. That’s how it must have been, what other reason could he have had
for throwing it so far? And if he was capable of feeling grief and pity at
having killed a man, it shows that he was innocent of his father’s murder.
Had he murdered him, he would never have run to another victim out of
pity; then he would have felt differently; his thoughts would have been
centered on self-preservation. He would have had none to spare for pity,
that is beyond doubt. On the contrary, he would have broken his skull
instead of spending five minutes looking after him. There was room for pity
and good-feeling just because his conscience had been clear till then. Here
we have a different psychology. I have purposely resorted to this method,
gentlemen of the jury, to show that you can prove anything by it. It all
depends on who makes use of it. Psychology lures even most serious people
into romancing, and quite unconsciously. I am speaking of the abuse of
psychology, gentlemen.”
Sounds of approval and laughter, at the expense of the prosecutor, were
again audible in the court. I will not repeat the speech in detail; I will only

quote some passages from it, some leading points.

Chapter XI.
There Was No Money. There Was No Robbery

There was one point that struck every one in Fetyukovitch’s speech. He
flatly denied the existence of the fatal three thousand roubles, and
consequently, the possibility of their having been stolen.
“Gentlemen of the jury,” he began. “Every new and unprejudiced
observer must be struck by a characteristic peculiarity in the present case,
namely, the charge of robbery, and the complete impossibility of proving
that there was anything to be stolen. We are told that money was stolen—
three thousand roubles—but whether those roubles ever existed, nobody
knows. Consider, how have we heard of that sum, and who has seen the
notes? The only person who saw them, and stated that they had been put in
the envelope, was the servant, Smerdyakov. He had spoken of it to the
prisoner and his brother, Ivan Fyodorovitch, before the catastrophe.
Madame Svyetlov, too, had been told of it. But not one of these three
persons had actually seen the notes, no one but Smerdyakov had seen them.
“Here the question arises, if it’s true that they did exist, and that
Smerdyakov had seen them, when did he see them for the last time? What if
his master had taken the notes from under his bed and put them back in his
cash-box without telling him? Note, that according to Smerdyakov’s story
the notes were kept under the mattress; the prisoner must have pulled them
out, and yet the bed was absolutely unrumpled; that is carefully recorded in
the protocol. How could the prisoner have found the notes without
disturbing the bed? How could he have helped soiling with his blood-
stained hands the fine and spotless linen with which the bed had been
purposely made?
“But I shall be asked: What about the envelope on the floor? Yes, it’s
worth saying a word or two about that envelope. I was somewhat surprised
just now to hear the highly talented prosecutor declare of himself—of

himself, observe—that but for that envelope, but for its being left on the
floor, no one in the world would have known of the existence of that
envelope and the notes in it, and therefore of the prisoner’s having stolen it.
And so that torn scrap of paper is, by the prosecutor’s own admission, the
sole proof on which the charge of robbery rests, ‘otherwise no one would
have known of the robbery, nor perhaps even of the money.’ But is the mere
fact that that scrap of paper was lying on the floor a proof that there was
money in it, and that that money had been stolen? Yet, it will be objected,
Smerdyakov had seen the money in the envelope. But when, when had he
seen it for the last time, I ask you that? I talked to Smerdyakov, and he told
me that he had seen the notes two days before the catastrophe. Then why
not imagine that old Fyodor Pavlovitch, locked up alone in impatient and
hysterical expectation of the object of his adoration, may have whiled away
the time by breaking open the envelope and taking out the notes. ‘What’s
the use of the envelope?’ he may have asked himself. ‘She won’t believe the
notes are there, but when I show her the thirty rainbow-colored notes in one
roll, it will make more impression, you may be sure, it will make her mouth
water.’ And so he tears open the envelope, takes out the money, and flings
the envelope on the floor, conscious of being the owner and untroubled by
any fears of leaving evidence.
“Listen, gentlemen, could anything be more likely than this theory and
such an action? Why is it out of the question? But if anything of the sort
could have taken place, the charge of robbery falls to the ground; if there
was no money, there was no theft of it. If the envelope on the floor may be
taken as evidence that there had been money in it, why may I not maintain
the opposite, that the envelope was on the floor because the money had
been taken from it by its owner?
“But I shall be asked what became of the money if Fyodor Pavlovitch
took it out of the envelope since it was not found when the police searched
the house? In the first place, part of the money was found in the cash-box,
and secondly, he might have taken it out that morning or the evening before
to make some other use of it, to give or send it away; he may have changed
his idea, his plan of action completely, without thinking it necessary to
announce the fact to Smerdyakov beforehand. And if there is the barest
possibility of such an explanation, how can the prisoner be so positively
accused of having committed murder for the sake of robbery, and of having
actually carried out that robbery? This is encroaching on the domain of

romance. If it is maintained that something has been stolen, the thing must
be produced, or at least its existence must be proved beyond doubt. Yet no
one had ever seen these notes.
“Not long ago in Petersburg a young man of eighteen, hardly more than a
boy, who carried on a small business as a costermonger, went in broad
daylight into a moneychanger’s shop with an ax, and with extraordinary,
typical audacity killed the master of the shop and carried off fifteen hundred
roubles. Five hours later he was arrested, and, except fifteen roubles he had
already managed to spend, the whole sum was found on him. Moreover, the
shopman, on his return to the shop after the murder, informed the police not
only of the exact sum stolen, but even of the notes and gold coins of which
that sum was made up, and those very notes and coins were found on the
criminal. This was followed by a full and genuine confession on the part of
the murderer. That’s what I call evidence, gentlemen of the jury! In that
case I know, I see, I touch the money, and cannot deny its existence. Is it the
same in the present case? And yet it is a question of life and death.
“Yes, I shall be told, but he was carousing that night, squandering money;
he was shown to have had fifteen hundred roubles—where did he get the
money? But the very fact that only fifteen hundred could be found, and the
other half of the sum could nowhere be discovered, shows that that money
was not the same, and had never been in any envelope. By strict calculation
of time it was proved at the preliminary inquiry that the prisoner ran straight
from those women servants to Perhotin’s without going home, and that he
had been nowhere. So he had been all the time in company and therefore
could not have divided the three thousand in half and hidden half in the
town. It’s just this consideration that has led the prosecutor to assume that
the money is hidden in some crevice at Mokroe. Why not in the dungeons
of the castle of Udolpho, gentlemen? Isn’t this supposition really too
fantastic and too romantic? And observe, if that supposition breaks down,
the whole charge of robbery is scattered to the winds, for in that case what
could have become of the other fifteen hundred roubles? By what miracle
could they have disappeared, since it’s proved the prisoner went nowhere
else? And we are ready to ruin a man’s life with such tales!
“I shall be told that he could not explain where he got the fifteen hundred
that he had, and every one knew that he was without money before that
night. Who knew it, pray? The prisoner has made a clear and unflinching

statement of the source of that money, and if you will have it so, gentlemen
of the jury, nothing can be more probable than that statement, and more
consistent with the temper and spirit of the prisoner. The prosecutor is
charmed with his own romance. A man of weak will, who had brought
himself to take the three thousand so insultingly offered by his betrothed,
could not, we are told, have set aside half and sewn it up, but would, even if
he had done so, have unpicked it every two days and taken out a hundred,
and so would have spent it all in a month. All this, you will remember, was
put forward in a tone that brooked no contradiction. But what if the thing
happened quite differently? What if you’ve been weaving a romance, and
about quite a different kind of man? That’s just it, you have invented quite a
different man!
“I shall be told, perhaps, there are witnesses that he spent on one day all
that three thousand given him by his betrothed a month before the
catastrophe, so he could not have divided the sum in half. But who are these
witnesses? The value of their evidence has been shown in court already.
Besides, in another man’s hand a crust always seems larger, and no one of
these witnesses counted that money; they all judged simply at sight. And the
witness Maximov has testified that the prisoner had twenty thousand in his
hand. You see, gentlemen of the jury, psychology is a two-edged weapon.
Let me turn the other edge now and see what comes of it.
“A month before the catastrophe the prisoner was entrusted by Katerina
Ivanovna with three thousand roubles to send off by post. But the question
is: is it true that they were entrusted to him in such an insulting and
degrading way as was proclaimed just now? The first statement made by the
young lady on the subject was different, perfectly different. In the second
statement we heard only cries of resentment and revenge, cries of long-
concealed hatred. And the very fact that the witness gave her first evidence
incorrectly, gives us a right to conclude that her second piece of evidence
may have been incorrect also. The prosecutor will not, dare not (his own
words) touch on that story. So be it. I will not touch on it either, but will
only venture to observe that if a lofty and high-principled person, such as
that highly respected young lady unquestionably is, if such a person, I say,
allows herself suddenly in court to contradict her first statement, with the
obvious motive of ruining the prisoner, it is clear that this evidence has been
given not impartially, not coolly. Have not we the right to assume that a
revengeful woman might have exaggerated much? Yes, she may well have

exaggerated, in particular, the insult and humiliation of her offering him the
money. No, it was offered in such a way that it was possible to take it,
especially for a man so easy-going as the prisoner, above all, as he expected
to receive shortly from his father the three thousand roubles that he
reckoned was owing to him. It was unreflecting of him, but it was just his
irresponsible want of reflection that made him so confident that his father
would give him the money, that he would get it, and so could always
dispatch the money entrusted to him and repay the debt.
“But the prosecutor refuses to allow that he could the same day have set
aside half the money and sewn it up in a little bag. That’s not his character,
he tells us, he couldn’t have had such feelings. But yet he talked himself of
the broad Karamazov nature; he cried out about the two extremes which a
Karamazov can contemplate at once. Karamazov is just such a two-sided
nature, fluctuating between two extremes, that even when moved by the
most violent craving for riotous gayety, he can pull himself up, if something
strikes him on the other side. And on the other side is love—that new love
which had flamed up in his heart, and for that love he needed money; oh,
far more than for carousing with his mistress. If she were to say to him, ‘I
am yours, I won’t have Fyodor Pavlovitch,’ then he must have money to
take her away. That was more important than carousing. Could a
Karamazov fail to understand it? That anxiety was just what he was
suffering from—what is there improbable in his laying aside that money
and concealing it in case of emergency?
“But time passed, and Fyodor Pavlovitch did not give the prisoner the
expected three thousand; on the contrary, the latter heard that he meant to
use this sum to seduce the woman he, the prisoner, loved. ‘If Fyodor
Pavlovitch doesn’t give the money,’ he thought, ‘I shall be put in the
position of a thief before Katerina Ivanovna.’ And then the idea presented
itself to him that he would go to Katerina Ivanovna, lay before her the
fifteen hundred roubles he still carried round his neck, and say, ‘I am a
scoundrel, but not a thief.’ So here we have already a twofold reason why
he should guard that sum of money as the apple of his eye, why he
shouldn’t unpick the little bag, and spend it a hundred at a time. Why
should you deny the prisoner a sense of honor? Yes, he has a sense of honor,
granted that it’s misplaced, granted it’s often mistaken, yet it exists and
amounts to a passion, and he has proved that.

“But now the affair becomes even more complex; his jealous torments
reach a climax, and those same two questions torture his fevered brain more
and more: ‘If I repay Katerina Ivanovna, where can I find the means to go
off with Grushenka?’ If he behaved wildly, drank, and made disturbances in
the taverns in the course of that month, it was perhaps because he was
wretched and strained beyond his powers of endurance. These two
questions became so acute that they drove him at last to despair. He sent his
younger brother to beg for the last time for the three thousand roubles, but
without waiting for a reply, burst in himself and ended by beating the old
man in the presence of witnesses. After that he had no prospect of getting it
from any one; his father would not give it him after that beating.
“The same evening he struck himself on the breast, just on the upper part
of the breast where the little bag was, and swore to his brother that he had
the means of not being a scoundrel, but that still he would remain a
scoundrel, for he foresaw that he would not use that means, that he
wouldn’t have the character, that he wouldn’t have the will-power to do it.
Why, why does the prosecutor refuse to believe the evidence of Alexey
Karamazov, given so genuinely and sincerely, so spontaneously and
convincingly? And why, on the contrary, does he force me to believe in
money hidden in a crevice, in the dungeons of the castle of Udolpho?
“The same evening, after his talk with his brother, the prisoner wrote that
fatal letter, and that letter is the chief, the most stupendous proof of the
prisoner having committed robbery! ‘I shall beg from every one, and if I
don’t get it I shall murder my father and shall take the envelope with the
pink ribbon on it from under his mattress as soon as Ivan has gone.’ A full
program of the murder, we are told, so it must have been he. ‘It has all been
done as he wrote,’ cries the prosecutor.
“But in the first place, it’s the letter of a drunken man and written in great
irritation; secondly, he writes of the envelope from what he has heard from
Smerdyakov again, for he has not seen the envelope himself; and thirdly, he
wrote it indeed, but how can you prove that he did it? Did the prisoner take
the envelope from under the pillow, did he find the money, did that money
exist indeed? And was it to get money that the prisoner ran off, if you
remember? He ran off post-haste not to steal, but to find out where she was,
the woman who had crushed him. He was not running to carry out a
program, to carry out what he had written, that is, not for an act of

premeditated robbery, but he ran suddenly, spontaneously, in a jealous fury.
Yes! I shall be told, but when he got there and murdered him he seized the
money, too. But did he murder him after all? The charge of robbery I
repudiate with indignation. A man cannot be accused of robbery, if it’s
impossible to state accurately what he has stolen; that’s an axiom. But did
he murder him without robbery, did he murder him at all? Is that proved?
Isn’t that, too, a romance?”

Chapter XII.
And There Was No Murder Either

“Allow me, gentlemen of the jury, to remind you that a man’s life is at
stake and that you must be careful. We have heard the prosecutor himself
admit that until to-day he hesitated to accuse the prisoner of a full and
conscious premeditation of the crime; he hesitated till he saw that fatal
drunken letter which was produced in court to-day. ‘All was done as
written.’ But, I repeat again, he was running to her, to seek her, solely to
find out where she was. That’s a fact that can’t be disputed. Had she been at
home, he would not have run away, but would have remained at her side,
and so would not have done what he promised in the letter. He ran
unexpectedly and accidentally, and by that time very likely he did not even
remember his drunken letter. ‘He snatched up the pestle,’ they say, and you
will remember how a whole edifice of psychology was built on that pestle
—why he was bound to look at that pestle as a weapon, to snatch it up, and
so on, and so on. A very commonplace idea occurs to me at this point: What
if that pestle had not been in sight, had not been lying on the shelf from
which it was snatched by the prisoner, but had been put away in a
cupboard? It would not have caught the prisoner’s eye, and he would have
run away without a weapon, with empty hands, and then he would certainly
not have killed any one. How then can I look upon the pestle as a proof of
premeditation?
“Yes, but he talked in the taverns of murdering his father, and two days
before, on the evening when he wrote his drunken letter, he was quiet and
only quarreled with a shopman in the tavern, because a Karamazov could
not help quarreling, forsooth! But my answer to that is, that, if he was
planning such a murder in accordance with his letter, he certainly would not
have quarreled even with a shopman, and probably would not have gone
into the tavern at all, because a person plotting such a crime seeks quiet and

retirement, seeks to efface himself, to avoid being seen and heard, and that
not from calculation, but from instinct. Gentlemen of the jury, the
psychological method is a two-edged weapon, and we, too, can use it. As
for all this shouting in taverns throughout the month, don’t we often hear
children, or drunkards coming out of taverns shout, ‘I’ll kill you’? but they
don’t murder any one. And that fatal letter—isn’t that simply drunken
irritability, too? Isn’t that simply the shout of the brawler outside the tavern,
‘I’ll kill you! I’ll kill the lot of you!’ Why not, why could it not be that?
What reason have we to call that letter ‘fatal’ rather than absurd? Because
his father has been found murdered, because a witness saw the prisoner
running out of the garden with a weapon in his hand, and was knocked
down by him: therefore, we are told, everything was done as he had planned
in writing, and the letter was not ‘absurd,’ but ‘fatal.’
“Now, thank God! we’ve come to the real point: ‘since he was in the
garden, he must have murdered him.’ In those few words: ‘since he was,
then he must’ lies the whole case for the prosecution. He was there, so he
must have. And what if there is no must about it, even if he was there? Oh, I
admit that the chain of evidence—the coincidences—are really suggestive.
But examine all these facts separately, regardless of their connection. Why,
for instance, does the prosecution refuse to admit the truth of the prisoner’s
statement that he ran away from his father’s window? Remember the
sarcasms in which the prosecutor indulged at the expense of the respectful
and ‘pious’ sentiments which suddenly came over the murderer. But what if
there were something of the sort, a feeling of religious awe, if not of filial
respect? ‘My mother must have been praying for me at that moment,’ were
the prisoner’s words at the preliminary inquiry, and so he ran away as soon
as he convinced himself that Madame Svyetlov was not in his father’s
house. ‘But he could not convince himself by looking through the window,’
the prosecutor objects. But why couldn’t he? Why? The window opened at
the signals given by the prisoner. Some word might have been uttered by
Fyodor Pavlovitch, some exclamation which showed the prisoner that she
was not there. Why should we assume everything as we imagine it, as we
make up our minds to imagine it? A thousand things may happen in reality
which elude the subtlest imagination.
“ ‘Yes, but Grigory saw the door open and so the prisoner certainly was
in the house, therefore he killed him.’ Now about that door, gentlemen of
the jury.... Observe that we have only the statement of one witness as to that

door, and he was at the time in such a condition, that— But supposing the
door was open; supposing the prisoner has lied in denying it, from an
instinct of self-defense, natural in his position; supposing he did go into the
house—well, what then? How does it follow that because he was there he
committed the murder? He might have dashed in, run through the rooms;
might have pushed his father away; might have struck him; but as soon as
he had made sure Madame Svyetlov was not there, he may have run away
rejoicing that she was not there and that he had not killed his father. And it
was perhaps just because he had escaped from the temptation to kill his
father, because he had a clear conscience and was rejoicing at not having
killed him, that he was capable of a pure feeling, the feeling of pity and
compassion, and leapt off the fence a minute later to the assistance of
Grigory after he had, in his excitement, knocked him down.
“With terrible eloquence the prosecutor has described to us the dreadful
state of the prisoner’s mind at Mokroe when love again lay before him
calling him to new life, while love was impossible for him because he had
his father’s bloodstained corpse behind him and beyond that corpse—
retribution. And yet the prosecutor allowed him love, which he explained,
according to his method, talking about his drunken condition, about a
criminal being taken to execution, about it being still far off, and so on and
so on. But again I ask, Mr. Prosecutor, have you not invented a new
personality? Is the prisoner so coarse and heartless as to be able to think at
that moment of love and of dodges to escape punishment, if his hands were
really stained with his father’s blood? No, no, no! As soon as it was made
plain to him that she loved him and called him to her side, promising him
new happiness, oh! then, I protest he must have felt the impulse to suicide
doubled, trebled, and must have killed himself, if he had his father’s murder
on his conscience. Oh, no! he would not have forgotten where his pistols
lay! I know the prisoner: the savage, stony heartlessness ascribed to him by
the prosecutor is inconsistent with his character. He would have killed
himself, that’s certain. He did not kill himself just because ‘his mother’s
prayers had saved him,’ and he was innocent of his father’s blood. He was
troubled, he was grieving that night at Mokroe only about old Grigory and
praying to God that the old man would recover, that his blow had not been
fatal, and that he would not have to suffer for it. Why not accept such an
interpretation of the facts? What trustworthy proof have we that the prisoner
is lying?

“But we shall be told at once again, ‘There is his father’s corpse! If he
ran away without murdering him, who did murder him?’ Here, I repeat, you
have the whole logic of the prosecution. Who murdered him, if not he?
There’s no one to put in his place.
“Gentlemen of the jury, is that really so? Is it positively, actually true that
there is no one else at all? We’ve heard the prosecutor count on his fingers
all the persons who were in that house that night. They were five in number;
three of them, I agree, could not have been responsible—the murdered man
himself, old Grigory, and his wife. There are left then the prisoner and
Smerdyakov, and the prosecutor dramatically exclaims that the prisoner
pointed to Smerdyakov because he had no one else to fix on, that had there
been a sixth person, even a phantom of a sixth person, he would have
abandoned the charge against Smerdyakov at once in shame and have
accused that other. But, gentlemen of the jury, why may I not draw the very
opposite conclusion? There are two persons—the prisoner and Smerdyakov.
Why can I not say that you accuse my client, simply because you have no
one else to accuse? And you have no one else only because you have
determined to exclude Smerdyakov from all suspicion.
“It’s true, indeed, Smerdyakov is accused only by the prisoner, his two
brothers, and Madame Svyetlov. But there are others who accuse him: there
are vague rumors of a question, of a suspicion, an obscure report, a feeling
of expectation. Finally, we have the evidence of a combination of facts very
suggestive, though, I admit, inconclusive. In the first place we have
precisely on the day of the catastrophe that fit, for the genuineness of which
the prosecutor, for some reason, has felt obliged to make a careful defense.
Then Smerdyakov’s sudden suicide on the eve of the trial. Then the equally
startling evidence given in court to-day by the elder of the prisoner’s
brothers, who had believed in his guilt, but has to-day produced a bundle of
notes and proclaimed Smerdyakov as the murderer. Oh, I fully share the
court’s and the prosecutor’s conviction that Ivan Karamazov is suffering
from brain fever, that his statement may really be a desperate effort,
planned in delirium, to save his brother by throwing the guilt on the dead
man. But again Smerdyakov’s name is pronounced, again there is a
suggestion of mystery. There is something unexplained, incomplete. And
perhaps it may one day be explained. But we won’t go into that now. Of
that later.

“The court has resolved to go on with the trial, but, meantime, I might
make a few remarks about the character-sketch of Smerdyakov drawn with
subtlety and talent by the prosecutor. But while I admire his talent I cannot
agree with him. I have visited Smerdyakov, I have seen him and talked to
him, and he made a very different impression on me. He was weak in
health, it is true; but in character, in spirit, he was by no means the weak
man the prosecutor has made him out to be. I found in him no trace of the
timidity on which the prosecutor so insisted. There was no simplicity about
him, either. I found in him, on the contrary, an extreme mistrustfulness
concealed under a mask of naïveté, and an intelligence of considerable
range. The prosecutor was too simple in taking him for weak-minded. He
made a very definite impression on me: I left him with the conviction that
he was a distinctly spiteful creature, excessively ambitious, vindictive, and
intensely envious. I made some inquiries: he resented his parentage, was
ashamed of it, and would clench his teeth when he remembered that he was
the son of ‘stinking Lizaveta.’ He was disrespectful to the servant Grigory
and his wife, who had cared for him in his childhood. He cursed and jeered
at Russia. He dreamed of going to France and becoming a Frenchman. He
used often to say that he hadn’t the means to do so. I fancy he loved no one
but himself and had a strangely high opinion of himself. His conception of
culture was limited to good clothes, clean shirt-fronts and polished boots.
Believing himself to be the illegitimate son of Fyodor Pavlovitch (there is
evidence of this), he might well have resented his position, compared with
that of his master’s legitimate sons. They had everything, he nothing. They
had all the rights, they had the inheritance, while he was only the cook. He
told me himself that he had helped Fyodor Pavlovitch to put the notes in the
envelope. The destination of that sum—a sum which would have made his
career—must have been hateful to him. Moreover, he saw three thousand
roubles in new rainbow-colored notes. (I asked him about that on purpose.)
Oh, beware of showing an ambitious and envious man a large sum of
money at once! And it was the first time he had seen so much money in the
hands of one man. The sight of the rainbow-colored notes may have made a
morbid impression on his imagination, but with no immediate results.
“The talented prosecutor, with extraordinary subtlety, sketched for us all
the arguments for and against the hypothesis of Smerdyakov’s guilt, and
asked us in particular what motive he had in feigning a fit. But he may not
have been feigning at all, the fit may have happened quite naturally, but it

may have passed off quite naturally, and the sick man may have recovered,
not completely perhaps, but still regaining consciousness, as happens with
epileptics.
“The prosecutor asks at what moment could Smerdyakov have
committed the murder. But it is very easy to point out that moment. He
might have waked up from deep sleep (for he was only asleep—an epileptic
fit is always followed by a deep sleep) at that moment when the old Grigory
shouted at the top of his voice ‘Parricide!’ That shout in the dark and
stillness may have waked Smerdyakov whose sleep may have been less
sound at the moment: he might naturally have waked up an hour before.
“Getting out of bed, he goes almost unconsciously and with no definite
motive towards the sound to see what’s the matter. His head is still clouded
with his attack, his faculties are half asleep; but, once in the garden, he
walks to the lighted windows and he hears terrible news from his master,
who would be, of course, glad to see him. His mind sets to work at once. He
hears all the details from his frightened master, and gradually in his
disordered brain there shapes itself an idea—terrible, but seductive and
irresistibly logical. To kill the old man, take the three thousand, and throw
all the blame on to his young master. A terrible lust of money, of booty,
might seize upon him as he realized his security from detection. Oh! these
sudden and irresistible impulses come so often when there is a favorable
opportunity, and especially with murderers who have had no idea of
committing a murder beforehand. And Smerdyakov may have gone in and
carried out his plan. With what weapon? Why, with any stone picked up in
the garden. But what for, with what object? Why, the three thousand which
means a career for him. Oh, I am not contradicting myself—the money may
have existed. And perhaps Smerdyakov alone knew where to find it, where
his master kept it. And the covering of the money—the torn envelope on the
floor?
“Just now, when the prosecutor was explaining his subtle theory that only
an inexperienced thief like Karamazov would have left the envelope on the
floor, and not one like Smerdyakov, who would have avoided leaving a
piece of evidence against himself, I thought as I listened that I was hearing
something very familiar, and, would you believe it, I have heard that very
argument, that very conjecture, of how Karamazov would have behaved,
precisely two days before, from Smerdyakov himself. What’s more, it

struck me at the time. I fancied that there was an artificial simplicity about
him; that he was in a hurry to suggest this idea to me that I might fancy it
was my own. He insinuated it, as it were. Did he not insinuate the same idea
at the inquiry and suggest it to the talented prosecutor?
“I shall be asked, ‘What about the old woman, Grigory’s wife? She heard
the sick man moaning close by, all night.’ Yes, she heard it, but that
evidence is extremely unreliable. I knew a lady who complained bitterly
that she had been kept awake all night by a dog in the yard. Yet the poor
beast, it appeared, had only yelped once or twice in the night. And that’s
natural. If any one is asleep and hears a groan he wakes up, annoyed at
being waked, but instantly falls asleep again. Two hours later, again a groan,
he wakes up and falls asleep again; and the same thing again two hours later
—three times altogether in the night. Next morning the sleeper wakes up
and complains that some one has been groaning all night and keeping him
awake. And it is bound to seem so to him: the intervals of two hours of
sleep he does not remember, he only remembers the moments of waking, so
he feels he has been waked up all night.
“But why, why, asks the prosecutor, did not Smerdyakov confess in his
last letter? Why did his conscience prompt him to one step and not to both?
But, excuse me, conscience implies penitence, and the suicide may not have
felt penitence, but only despair. Despair and penitence are two very
different things. Despair may be vindictive and irreconcilable, and the
suicide, laying his hands on himself, may well have felt redoubled hatred
for those whom he had envied all his life.
“Gentlemen of the jury, beware of a miscarriage of justice! What is there
unlikely in all I have put before you just now? Find the error in my
reasoning; find the impossibility, the absurdity. And if there is but a shade
of possibility, but a shade of probability in my propositions, do not
condemn him. And is there only a shade? I swear by all that is sacred, I
fully believe in the explanation of the murder I have just put forward. What
troubles me and makes me indignant is that of all the mass of facts heaped
up by the prosecution against the prisoner, there is not a single one certain
and irrefutable. And yet the unhappy man is to be ruined by the
accumulation of these facts. Yes, the accumulated effect is awful: the blood,
the blood dripping from his fingers, the bloodstained shirt, the dark night
resounding with the shout ‘Parricide!’ and the old man falling with a broken

head. And then the mass of phrases, statements, gestures, shouts! Oh! this
has so much influence, it can so bias the mind; but, gentlemen of the jury,
can it bias your minds? Remember, you have been given absolute power to
bind and to loose, but the greater the power, the more terrible its
responsibility.
“I do not draw back one iota from what I have said just now, but suppose
for one moment I agreed with the prosecution that my luckless client had
stained his hands with his father’s blood. This is only hypothesis, I repeat; I
never for one instant doubt of his innocence. But, so be it, I assume that my
client is guilty of parricide. Even so, hear what I have to say. I have it in my
heart to say something more to you, for I feel that there must be a great
conflict in your hearts and minds.... Forgive my referring to your hearts and
minds, gentlemen of the jury, but I want to be truthful and sincere to the
end. Let us all be sincere!”
At this point the speech was interrupted by rather loud applause. The last
words, indeed, were pronounced with a note of such sincerity that every one
felt that he really might have something to say, and that what he was about
to say would be of the greatest consequence. But the President, hearing the
applause, in a loud voice threatened to clear the court if such an incident
were repeated. Every sound was hushed and Fetyukovitch began in a voice
full of feeling quite unlike the tone he had used hitherto.

Chapter XIII.
A Corrupter Of Thought

“It’s not only the accumulation of facts that threatens my client with ruin,
gentlemen of the jury,” he began, “what is really damning for my client is
one fact—the dead body of his father. Had it been an ordinary case of
murder you would have rejected the charge in view of the triviality, the
incompleteness, and the fantastic character of the evidence, if you examine
each part of it separately; or, at least, you would have hesitated to ruin a
man’s life simply from the prejudice against him which he has, alas! only
too well deserved. But it’s not an ordinary case of murder, it’s a case of
parricide. That impresses men’s minds, and to such a degree that the very
triviality and incompleteness of the evidence becomes less trivial and less
incomplete even to an unprejudiced mind. How can such a prisoner be
acquitted? What if he committed the murder and gets off unpunished? That
is what every one, almost involuntarily, instinctively, feels at heart.
“Yes, it’s a fearful thing to shed a father’s blood—the father who has
begotten me, loved me, not spared his life for me, grieved over my illnesses
from childhood up, troubled all his life for my happiness, and has lived in
my joys, in my successes. To murder such a father—that’s inconceivable.
Gentlemen of the jury, what is a father—a real father? What is the meaning
of that great word? What is the great idea in that name? We have just
indicated in part what a true father is and what he ought to be. In the case in
which we are now so deeply occupied and over which our hearts are aching
—in the present case, the father, Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, did not
correspond to that conception of a father to which we have just referred.
That’s the misfortune. And indeed some fathers are a misfortune. Let us
examine this misfortune rather more closely: we must shrink from nothing,
gentlemen of the jury, considering the importance of the decision you have

to make. It’s our particular duty not to shrink from any idea, like children or
frightened women, as the talented prosecutor happily expresses it.
“But in the course of his heated speech my esteemed opponent (and he
was my opponent before I opened my lips) exclaimed several times, ‘Oh, I
will not yield the defense of the prisoner to the lawyer who has come down
from Petersburg. I accuse, but I defend also!’ He exclaimed that several
times, but forgot to mention that if this terrible prisoner was for twenty-
three years so grateful for a mere pound of nuts given him by the only man
who had been kind to him, as a child in his father’s house, might not such a
man well have remembered for twenty-three years how he ran in his
father’s back-yard, ‘without boots on his feet and with his little trousers
hanging by one button’—to use the expression of the kind-hearted doctor,
Herzenstube?
“Oh, gentlemen of the jury, why need we look more closely at this
misfortune, why repeat what we all know already? What did my client meet
with when he arrived here, at his father’s house, and why depict my client
as a heartless egoist and monster? He is uncontrolled, he is wild and unruly
—we are trying him now for that—but who is responsible for his life? Who
is responsible for his having received such an unseemly bringing up, in
spite of his excellent disposition and his grateful and sensitive heart? Did
any one train him to be reasonable? Was he enlightened by study? Did any
one love him ever so little in his childhood? My client was left to the care
of Providence like a beast of the field. He thirsted perhaps to see his father
after long years of separation. A thousand times perhaps he may, recalling
his childhood, have driven away the loathsome phantoms that haunted his
childish dreams and with all his heart he may have longed to embrace and
to forgive his father! And what awaited him? He was met by cynical taunts,
suspicions and wrangling about money. He heard nothing but revolting talk
and vicious precepts uttered daily over the brandy, and at last he saw his
father seducing his mistress from him with his own money. Oh, gentlemen
of the jury, that was cruel and revolting! And that old man was always
complaining of the disrespect and cruelty of his son. He slandered him in
society, injured him, calumniated him, bought up his unpaid debts to get
him thrown into prison.
“Gentlemen of the jury, people like my client, who are fierce, unruly, and
uncontrolled on the surface, are sometimes, most frequently indeed,

exceedingly tender-hearted, only they don’t express it. Don’t laugh, don’t
laugh at my idea! The talented prosecutor laughed mercilessly just now at
my client for loving Schiller—loving the sublime and beautiful! I should
not have laughed at that in his place. Yes, such natures—oh, let me speak in
defense of such natures, so often and so cruelly misunderstood—these
natures often thirst for tenderness, goodness, and justice, as it were, in
contrast to themselves, their unruliness, their ferocity—they thirst for it
unconsciously. Passionate and fierce on the surface, they are painfully
capable of loving woman, for instance, and with a spiritual and elevated
love. Again do not laugh at me, this is very often the case in such natures.
But they cannot hide their passions—sometimes very coarse—and that is
conspicuous and is noticed, but the inner man is unseen. Their passions are
quickly exhausted; but, by the side of a noble and lofty creature that
seemingly coarse and rough man seeks a new life, seeks to correct himself,
to be better, to become noble and honorable, ‘sublime and beautiful,’
however much the expression has been ridiculed.
“I said just now that I would not venture to touch upon my client’s
engagement. But I may say half a word. What we heard just now was not
evidence, but only the scream of a frenzied and revengeful woman, and it
was not for her—oh, not for her!—to reproach him with treachery, for she
has betrayed him! If she had had but a little time for reflection she would
not have given such evidence. Oh, do not believe her! No, my client is not a
monster, as she called him!
“The Lover of Mankind on the eve of His Crucifixion said: ‘I am the
Good Shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep, so that
not one of them might be lost.’ Let not a man’s soul be lost through us!
“I asked just now what does ‘father’ mean, and exclaimed that it was a
great word, a precious name. But one must use words honestly, gentlemen,
and I venture to call things by their right names: such a father as old
Karamazov cannot be called a father and does not deserve to be. Filial love
for an unworthy father is an absurdity, an impossibility. Love cannot be
created from nothing: only God can create something from nothing.
“ ‘Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath,’ the apostle writes, from a
heart glowing with love. It’s not for the sake of my client that I quote these
sacred words, I mention them for all fathers. Who has authorized me to
preach to fathers? No one. But as a man and a citizen I make my appeal—

vivos voco! We are not long on earth, we do many evil deeds and say many
evil words. So let us all catch a favorable moment when we are all together
to say a good word to each other. That’s what I am doing: while I am in this
place I take advantage of my opportunity. Not for nothing is this tribune
given us by the highest authority—all Russia hears us! I am not speaking
only for the fathers here present, I cry aloud to all fathers: ‘Fathers, provoke
not your children to wrath.’ Yes, let us first fulfill Christ’s injunction
ourselves and only then venture to expect it of our children. Otherwise we
are not fathers, but enemies of our children, and they are not our children,
but our enemies, and we have made them our enemies ourselves. ‘What
measure ye mete it shall be measured unto you again’—it’s not I who say
that, it’s the Gospel precept, measure to others according as they measure to
you. How can we blame children if they measure us according to our
measure?
“Not long ago a servant girl in Finland was suspected of having secretly
given birth to a child. She was watched, and a box of which no one knew
anything was found in the corner of the loft, behind some bricks. It was
opened and inside was found the body of a new-born child which she had
killed. In the same box were found the skeletons of two other babies which,
according to her own confession, she had killed at the moment of their
birth.
“Gentlemen of the jury, was she a mother to her children? She gave birth
to them, indeed; but was she a mother to them? Would any one venture to
give her the sacred name of mother? Let us be bold, gentlemen, let us be
audacious even: it’s our duty to be so at this moment and not to be afraid of
certain words and ideas like the Moscow women in Ostrovsky’s play, who
are scared at the sound of certain words. No, let us prove that the progress
of the last few years has touched even us, and let us say plainly, the father is
not merely he who begets the child, but he who begets it and does his duty
by it.
“Oh, of course, there is the other meaning, there is the other
interpretation of the word ‘father,’ which insists that any father, even though
he be a monster, even though he be the enemy of his children, still remains
my father simply because he begot me. But this is, so to say, the mystical
meaning which I cannot comprehend with my intellect, but can only accept
by faith, or, better to say, on faith, like many other things which I do not

understand, but which religion bids me believe. But in that case let it be
kept outside the sphere of actual life. In the sphere of actual life, which has,
indeed, its own rights, but also lays upon us great duties and obligations, in
that sphere, if we want to be humane—Christian, in fact—we must, or
ought to, act only upon convictions justified by reason and experience,
which have been passed through the crucible of analysis; in a word, we
must act rationally, and not as though in dream and delirium, that we may
not do harm, that we may not ill-treat and ruin a man. Then it will be real
Christian work, not only mystic, but rational and philanthropic....”
There was violent applause at this passage from many parts of the court,
but Fetyukovitch waved his hands as though imploring them to let him
finish without interruption. The court relapsed into silence at once. The
orator went on.
“Do you suppose, gentlemen, that our children as they grow up and begin
to reason can avoid such questions? No, they cannot, and we will not
impose on them an impossible restriction. The sight of an unworthy father
involuntarily suggests tormenting questions to a young creature, especially
when he compares him with the excellent fathers of his companions. The
conventional answer to this question is: ‘He begot you, and you are his
flesh and blood, and therefore you are bound to love him.’ The youth
involuntarily reflects: ‘But did he love me when he begot me?’ he asks,
wondering more and more. ‘Was it for my sake he begot me? He did not
know me, not even my sex, at that moment, at the moment of passion,
perhaps, inflamed by wine, and he has only transmitted to me a propensity
to drunkenness—that’s all he’s done for me.... Why am I bound to love him
simply for begetting me when he has cared nothing for me all my life
after?’
“Oh, perhaps those questions strike you as coarse and cruel, but do not
expect an impossible restraint from a young mind. ‘Drive nature out of the
door and it will fly in at the window,’ and, above all, let us not be afraid of
words, but decide the question according to the dictates of reason and
humanity and not of mystic ideas. How shall it be decided? Why, like this.
Let the son stand before his father and ask him, ‘Father, tell me, why must I
love you? Father, show me that I must love you,’ and if that father is able to
answer him and show him good reason, we have a real, normal, parental
relation, not resting on mystical prejudice, but on a rational, responsible and

strictly humanitarian basis. But if he does not, there’s an end to the family
tie. He is not a father to him, and the son has a right to look upon him as a
stranger, and even an enemy. Our tribune, gentlemen of the jury, ought to be
a school of true and sound ideas.”
(Here the orator was interrupted by irrepressible and almost frantic
applause. Of course, it was not the whole audience, but a good half of it
applauded. The fathers and mothers present applauded. Shrieks and
exclamations were heard from the gallery, where the ladies were sitting.
Handkerchiefs were waved. The President began ringing his bell with all his
might. He was obviously irritated by the behavior of the audience, but did
not venture to clear the court as he had threatened. Even persons of high
position, old men with stars on their breasts, sitting on specially reserved
seats behind the judges, applauded the orator and waved their
handkerchiefs. So that when the noise died down, the President confined
himself to repeating his stern threat to clear the court, and Fetyukovitch,
excited and triumphant, continued his speech.)
“Gentlemen of the jury, you remember that awful night of which so much
has been said to-day, when the son got over the fence and stood face to face
with the enemy and persecutor who had begotten him. I insist most
emphatically it was not for money he ran to his father’s house: the charge of
robbery is an absurdity, as I proved before. And it was not to murder him he
broke into the house, oh, no! If he had had that design he would, at least,
have taken the precaution of arming himself beforehand. The brass pestle he
caught up instinctively without knowing why he did it. Granted that he
deceived his father by tapping at the window, granted that he made his way
in—I’ve said already that I do not for a moment believe that legend, but let
it be so, let us suppose it for a moment. Gentlemen, I swear to you by all
that’s holy, if it had not been his father, but an ordinary enemy, he would,
after running through the rooms and satisfying himself that the woman was
not there, have made off, post-haste, without doing any harm to his rival.
He would have struck him, pushed him away perhaps, nothing more, for he
had no thought and no time to spare for that. What he wanted to know was
where she was. But his father, his father! The mere sight of the father who
had hated him from his childhood, had been his enemy, his persecutor, and
now his unnatural rival, was enough! A feeling of hatred came over him
involuntarily, irresistibly, clouding his reason. It all surged up in one
moment! It was an impulse of madness and insanity, but also an impulse of

nature, irresistibly and unconsciously (like everything in nature) avenging
the violation of its eternal laws.
“But the prisoner even then did not murder him—I maintain that, I cry
that aloud!—no, he only brandished the pestle in a burst of indignant
disgust, not meaning to kill him, not knowing that he would kill him. Had
he not had this fatal pestle in his hand, he would have only knocked his
father down perhaps, but would not have killed him. As he ran away, he did
not know whether he had killed the old man. Such a murder is not a murder.
Such a murder is not a parricide. No, the murder of such a father cannot be
called parricide. Such a murder can only be reckoned parricide by
prejudice.
“But I appeal to you again and again from the depths of my soul; did this
murder actually take place? Gentlemen of the jury, if we convict and punish
him, he will say to himself: ‘These people have done nothing for my
bringing up, for my education, nothing to improve my lot, nothing to make
me better, nothing to make me a man. These people have not given me to
eat and to drink, have not visited me in prison and nakedness, and here they
have sent me to penal servitude. I am quits, I owe them nothing now, and
owe no one anything for ever. They are wicked and I will be wicked. They
are cruel and I will be cruel.’ That is what he will say, gentlemen of the jury.
And I swear, by finding him guilty you will only make it easier for him: you
will ease his conscience, he will curse the blood he has shed and will not
regret it. At the same time you will destroy in him the possibility of
becoming a new man, for he will remain in his wickedness and blindness all
his life.
“But do you want to punish him fearfully, terribly, with the most awful
punishment that could be imagined, and at the same time to save him and
regenerate his soul? If so, overwhelm him with your mercy! You will see,
you will hear how he will tremble and be horror-struck. ‘How can I endure
this mercy? How can I endure so much love? Am I worthy of it?’ That’s
what he will exclaim.
“Oh, I know, I know that heart, that wild but grateful heart, gentlemen of
the jury! It will bow before your mercy; it thirsts for a great and loving
action, it will melt and mount upwards. There are souls which, in their
limitation, blame the whole world. But subdue such a soul with mercy,
show it love, and it will curse its past, for there are many good impulses in

it. Such a heart will expand and see that God is merciful and that men are
good and just. He will be horror-stricken; he will be crushed by remorse and
the vast obligation laid upon him henceforth. And he will not say then, ‘I
am quits,’ but will say, ‘I am guilty in the sight of all men and am more
unworthy than all.’ With tears of penitence and poignant, tender anguish, he
will exclaim: ‘Others are better than I, they wanted to save me, not to ruin
me!’ Oh, this act of mercy is so easy for you, for in the absence of anything
like real evidence it will be too awful for you to pronounce: ‘Yes, he is
guilty.’
“Better acquit ten guilty men than punish one innocent man! Do you
hear, do you hear that majestic voice from the past century of our glorious
history? It is not for an insignificant person like me to remind you that the
Russian court does not exist for the punishment only, but also for the
salvation of the criminal! Let other nations think of retribution and the letter
of the law, we will cling to the spirit and the meaning—the salvation and
the reformation of the lost. If this is true, if Russia and her justice are such,
she may go forward with good cheer! Do not try to scare us with your
frenzied troikas from which all the nations stand aside in disgust. Not a
runaway troika, but the stately chariot of Russia will move calmly and
majestically to its goal. In your hands is the fate of my client, in your hands
is the fate of Russian justice. You will defend it, you will save it, you will
prove that there are men to watch over it, that it is in good hands!”

Chapter XIV.
The Peasants Stand Firm

This was how Fetyukovitch concluded his speech, and the enthusiasm of
the audience burst like an irresistible storm. It was out of the question to
stop it: the women wept, many of the men wept too, even two important
personages shed tears. The President submitted, and even postponed ringing
his bell. The suppression of such an enthusiasm would be the suppression of
something sacred, as the ladies cried afterwards. The orator himself was
genuinely touched.
And it was at this moment that Ippolit Kirillovitch got up to make certain
objections. People looked at him with hatred. “What? What’s the meaning
of it? He positively dares to make objections,” the ladies babbled. But if the
whole world of ladies, including his wife, had protested he could not have
been stopped at that moment. He was pale, he was shaking with emotion,
his first phrases were even unintelligible, he gasped for breath, could hardly
speak clearly, lost the thread. But he soon recovered himself. Of this new
speech of his I will quote only a few sentences.
“... I am reproached with having woven a romance. But what is this
defense if not one romance on the top of another? All that was lacking was
poetry. Fyodor Pavlovitch, while waiting for his mistress, tears open the
envelope and throws it on the floor. We are even told what he said while
engaged in this strange act. Is not this a flight of fancy? And what proof
have we that he had taken out the money? Who heard what he said? The
weak-minded idiot, Smerdyakov, transformed into a Byronic hero, avenging
society for his illegitimate birth—isn’t this a romance in the Byronic style?
And the son who breaks into his father’s house and murders him without
murdering him is not even a romance—this is a sphinx setting us a riddle
which he cannot solve himself. If he murdered him, he murdered him, and

what’s the meaning of his murdering him without having murdered him—
who can make head or tail of this?
“Then we are admonished that our tribune is a tribune of true and sound
ideas and from this tribune of ‘sound ideas’ is heard a solemn declaration
that to call the murder of a father ‘parricide’ is nothing but a prejudice! But
if parricide is a prejudice, and if every child is to ask his father why he is to
love him, what will become of us? What will become of the foundations of
society? What will become of the family? Parricide, it appears, is only a
bogy of Moscow merchants’ wives. The most precious, the most sacred
guarantees for the destiny and future of Russian justice are presented to us
in a perverted and frivolous form, simply to attain an object—to obtain the
justification of something which cannot be justified. ‘Oh, crush him by
mercy,’ cries the counsel for the defense; but that’s all the criminal wants,
and to-morrow it will be seen how much he is crushed. And is not the
counsel for the defense too modest in asking only for the acquittal of the
prisoner? Why not found a charity in the honor of the parricide to
commemorate his exploit among future generations? Religion and the
Gospel are corrected—that’s all mysticism, we are told, and ours is the only
true Christianity which has been subjected to the analysis of reason and
common sense. And so they set up before us a false semblance of Christ!
‘What measure ye mete so it shall be meted unto you again,’ cried the
counsel for the defense, and instantly deduces that Christ teaches us to
measure as it is measured to us—and this from the tribune of truth and
sound sense! We peep into the Gospel only on the eve of making speeches,
in order to dazzle the audience by our acquaintance with what is, anyway, a
rather original composition, which may be of use to produce a certain effect
—all to serve the purpose! But what Christ commands us is something very
different: He bids us beware of doing this, because the wicked world does
this, but we ought to forgive and to turn the other cheek, and not to measure
to our persecutors as they measure to us. This is what our God has taught us
and not that to forbid children to murder their fathers is a prejudice. And we
will not from the tribune of truth and good sense correct the Gospel of our
Lord, Whom the counsel for the defense deigns to call only ‘the crucified
lover of humanity,’ in opposition to all orthodox Russia, which calls to Him,
‘For Thou art our God!’ ”
At this the President intervened and checked the over-zealous speaker,
begging him not to exaggerate, not to overstep the bounds, and so on, as

presidents always do in such cases. The audience, too, was uneasy. The
public was restless: there were even exclamations of indignation.
Fetyukovitch did not so much as reply; he only mounted the tribune to lay
his hand on his heart and, with an offended voice, utter a few words full of
dignity. He only touched again, lightly and ironically, on “romancing” and
“psychology,” and in an appropriate place quoted, “Jupiter, you are angry,
therefore you are wrong,” which provoked a burst of approving laughter in
the audience, for Ippolit Kirillovitch was by no means like Jupiter. Then, à
propos of the accusation that he was teaching the young generation to
murder their fathers, Fetyukovitch observed, with great dignity, that he
would not even answer. As for the prosecutor’s charge of uttering
unorthodox opinions, Fetyukovitch hinted that it was a personal insinuation
and that he had expected in this court to be secure from accusations
“damaging to my reputation as a citizen and a loyal subject.” But at these
words the President pulled him up, too, and Fetyukovitch concluded his
speech with a bow, amid a hum of approbation in the court. And Ippolit
Kirillovitch was, in the opinion of our ladies, “crushed for good.”
Then the prisoner was allowed to speak. Mitya stood up, but said very
little. He was fearfully exhausted, physically and mentally. The look of
strength and independence with which he had entered in the morning had
almost disappeared. He seemed as though he had passed through an
experience that day, which had taught him for the rest of his life something
very important he had not understood till then. His voice was weak, he did
not shout as before. In his words there was a new note of humility, defeat
and submission.
“What am I to say, gentlemen of the jury? The hour of judgment has
come for me, I feel the hand of God upon me! The end has come to an
erring man! But, before God, I repeat to you, I am innocent of my father’s
blood! For the last time I repeat, it wasn’t I killed him! I was erring, but I
loved what is good. Every instant I strove to reform, but I lived like a wild
beast. I thank the prosecutor, he told me many things about myself that I did
not know; but it’s not true that I killed my father, the prosecutor is mistaken.
I thank my counsel, too. I cried listening to him; but it’s not true that I killed
my father, and he needn’t have supposed it. And don’t believe the doctors. I
am perfectly sane, only my heart is heavy. If you spare me, if you let me go,
I will pray for you. I will be a better man. I give you my word before God I
will! And if you will condemn me, I’ll break my sword over my head

myself and kiss the pieces. But spare me, do not rob me of my God! I know
myself, I shall rebel! My heart is heavy, gentlemen ... spare me!”
He almost fell back in his place: his voice broke: he could hardly
articulate the last phrase. Then the judges proceeded to put the questions
and began to ask both sides to formulate their conclusions.
But I will not describe the details. At last the jury rose to retire for
consultation. The President was very tired, and so his last charge to the jury
was rather feeble. “Be impartial, don’t be influenced by the eloquence of
the defense, but yet weigh the arguments. Remember that there is a great
responsibility laid upon you,” and so on and so on.
The jury withdrew and the court adjourned. People could get up, move
about, exchange their accumulated impressions, refresh themselves at the
buffet. It was very late, almost one o’clock in the night, but nobody went
away: the strain was so great that no one could think of repose. All waited
with sinking hearts; though that is, perhaps, too much to say, for the ladies
were only in a state of hysterical impatience and their hearts were
untroubled. An acquittal, they thought, was inevitable. They all prepared
themselves for a dramatic moment of general enthusiasm. I must own there
were many among the men, too, who were convinced that an acquittal was
inevitable. Some were pleased, others frowned, while some were simply
dejected, not wanting him to be acquitted. Fetyukovitch himself was
confident of his success. He was surrounded by people congratulating him
and fawning upon him.
“There are,” he said to one group, as I was told afterwards, “there are
invisible threads binding the counsel for the defense with the jury. One feels
during one’s speech if they are being formed. I was aware of them. They
exist. Our cause is won. Set your mind at rest.”
“What will our peasants say now?” said one stout, cross-looking, pock-
marked gentleman, a landowner of the neighborhood, approaching a group
of gentlemen engaged in conversation.
“But they are not all peasants. There are four government clerks among
them.”
“Yes, there are clerks,” said a member of the district council, joining the
group.

“And do you know that Nazaryev, the merchant with the medal, a
juryman?”
“What of him?”
“He is a man with brains.”
“But he never speaks.”
“He is no great talker, but so much the better. There’s no need for the
Petersburg man to teach him: he could teach all Petersburg himself. He’s
the father of twelve children. Think of that!”
“Upon my word, you don’t suppose they won’t acquit him?” one of our
young officials exclaimed in another group.
“They’ll acquit him for certain,” said a resolute voice.
“It would be shameful, disgraceful, not to acquit him!” cried the official.
“Suppose he did murder him—there are fathers and fathers! And, besides,
he was in such a frenzy.... He really may have done nothing but swing the
pestle in the air, and so knocked the old man down. But it was a pity they
dragged the valet in. That was simply an absurd theory! If I’d been in
Fetyukovitch’s place, I should simply have said straight out: ‘He murdered
him; but he is not guilty, hang it all!’ ”
“That’s what he did, only without saying, ‘Hang it all!’ ”
“No, Mihail Semyonovitch, he almost said that, too,” put in a third voice.
“Why, gentlemen, in Lent an actress was acquitted in our town who had
cut the throat of her lover’s lawful wife.”
“Oh, but she did not finish cutting it.”
“That makes no difference. She began cutting it.”
“What did you think of what he said about children? Splendid, wasn’t
it?”
“Splendid!”
“And about mysticism, too!”
“Oh, drop mysticism, do!” cried some one else; “think of Ippolit and his
fate from this day forth. His wife will scratch his eyes out to-morrow for
Mitya’s sake.”
“Is she here?”

“What an idea! If she’d been here she’d have scratched them out in court.
She is at home with toothache. He he he!”
“He he he!”
In a third group:
“I dare say they will acquit Mitenka, after all.”
“I should not be surprised if he turns the ‘Metropolis’ upside down to-
morrow. He will be drinking for ten days!”
“Oh, the devil!”
“The devil’s bound to have a hand in it. Where should he be if not here?”
“Well, gentlemen, I admit it was eloquent. But still it’s not the thing to
break your father’s head with a pestle! Or what are we coming to?”
“The chariot! Do you remember the chariot?”
“Yes; he turned a cart into a chariot!”
“And to-morrow he will turn a chariot into a cart, just to suit his
purpose.”
“What cunning chaps there are nowadays! Is there any justice to be had
in Russia?”
But the bell rang. The jury deliberated for exactly an hour, neither more
nor less. A profound silence reigned in the court as soon as the public had
taken their seats. I remember how the jurymen walked into the court. At
last! I won’t repeat the questions in order, and, indeed, I have forgotten
them. I remember only the answer to the President’s first and chief
question: “Did the prisoner commit the murder for the sake of robbery and
with premeditation?” (I don’t remember the exact words.) There was a
complete hush. The foreman of the jury, the youngest of the clerks,
pronounced, in a clear, loud voice, amidst the deathlike stillness of the
court:
“Yes, guilty!”
And the same answer was repeated to every question: “Yes, guilty!” and
without the slightest extenuating comment. This no one had expected;
almost every one had reckoned upon a recommendation to mercy, at least.
The deathlike silence in the court was not broken—all seemed petrified:
those who desired his conviction as well as those who had been eager for
his acquittal. But that was only for the first instant, and it was followed by a

fearful hubbub. Many of the men in the audience were pleased. Some were
rubbing their hands with no attempt to conceal their joy. Those who
disagreed with the verdict seemed crushed, shrugged their shoulders,
whispered, but still seemed unable to realize this. But how shall I describe
the state the ladies were in? I thought they would create a riot. At first they
could scarcely believe their ears. Then suddenly the whole court rang with
exclamations: “What’s the meaning of it? What next?” They leapt up from
their places. They seemed to fancy that it might be at once reconsidered and
reversed. At that instant Mitya suddenly stood up and cried in a
heartrending voice, stretching his hands out before him:
“I swear by God and the dreadful Day of Judgment I am not guilty of my
father’s blood! Katya, I forgive you! Brothers, friends, have pity on the
other woman!”
He could not go on, and broke into a terrible sobbing wail that was heard
all over the court in a strange, unnatural voice unlike his own. From the
farthest corner at the back of the gallery came a piercing shriek—it was
Grushenka. She had succeeded in begging admittance to the court again
before the beginning of the lawyers’ speeches. Mitya was taken away. The
passing of the sentence was deferred till next day. The whole court was in a
hubbub but I did not wait to hear. I only remember a few exclamations I
heard on the steps as I went out.
“He’ll have a twenty years’ trip to the mines!”
“Not less.”
“Well, our peasants have stood firm.”
“And have done for our Mitya.”

EPILOGUE

Chapter I.
Plans For Mitya’s Escape

Very early, at nine o’clock in the morning, five days after the trial,
Alyosha went to Katerina Ivanovna’s to talk over a matter of great
importance to both of them, and to give her a message. She sat and talked to
him in the very room in which she had once received Grushenka. In the
next room Ivan Fyodorovitch lay unconscious in a high fever. Katerina
Ivanovna had immediately after the scene at the trial ordered the sick and
unconscious man to be carried to her house, disregarding the inevitable
gossip and general disapproval of the public. One of the two relations who
lived with her had departed to Moscow immediately after the scene in court,
the other remained. But if both had gone away, Katerina Ivanovna would
have adhered to her resolution, and would have gone on nursing the sick
man and sitting by him day and night. Varvinsky and Herzenstube were
attending him. The famous doctor had gone back to Moscow, refusing to
give an opinion as to the probable end of the illness. Though the doctors
encouraged Katerina Ivanovna and Alyosha, it was evident that they could
not yet give them positive hopes of recovery.
Alyosha came to see his sick brother twice a day. But this time he had
specially urgent business, and he foresaw how difficult it would be to
approach the subject, yet he was in great haste. He had another engagement
that could not be put off for that same morning, and there was need of haste.
They had been talking for a quarter of an hour. Katerina Ivanovna was
pale and terribly fatigued, yet at the same time in a state of hysterical
excitement. She had a presentiment of the reason why Alyosha had come to
her.
“Don’t worry about his decision,” she said, with confident emphasis to
Alyosha. “One way or another he is bound to come to it. He must escape.
That unhappy man, that hero of honor and principle—not he, not Dmitri
Fyodorovitch, but the man lying the other side of that door, who has

sacrificed himself for his brother,” Katya added, with flashing eyes—“told
me the whole plan of escape long ago. You know he has already entered
into negotiations.... I’ve told you something already.... You see, it will
probably come off at the third étape from here, when the party of prisoners
is being taken to Siberia. Oh, it’s a long way off yet. Ivan Fyodorovitch has
already visited the superintendent of the third étape. But we don’t know yet
who will be in charge of the party, and it’s impossible to find that out so
long beforehand. To-morrow perhaps I will show you in detail the whole
plan which Ivan Fyodorovitch left me on the eve of the trial in case of
need.... That was when—do you remember?—you found us quarreling. He
had just gone down-stairs, but seeing you I made him come back; do you
remember? Do you know what we were quarreling about then?”
“No, I don’t,” said Alyosha.
“Of course he did not tell you. It was about that plan of escape. He had
told me the main idea three days before, and we began quarreling about it at
once and quarreled for three days. We quarreled because, when he told me
that if Dmitri Fyodorovitch were convicted he would escape abroad with
that creature, I felt furious at once—I can’t tell you why, I don’t know
myself why.... Oh, of course, I was furious then about that creature, and that
she, too, should go abroad with Dmitri!” Katerina Ivanovna exclaimed
suddenly, her lips quivering with anger. “As soon as Ivan Fyodorovitch saw
that I was furious about that woman, he instantly imagined I was jealous of
Dmitri and that I still loved Dmitri. That is how our first quarrel began. I
would not give an explanation, I could not ask forgiveness. I could not bear
to think that such a man could suspect me of still loving that ... and when I
myself had told him long before that I did not love Dmitri, that I loved no
one but him! It was only resentment against that creature that made me
angry with him. Three days later, on the evening you came, he brought me a
sealed envelope, which I was to open at once, if anything happened to him.
Oh, he foresaw his illness! He told me that the envelope contained the
details of the escape, and that if he died or was taken dangerously ill, I was
to save Mitya alone. Then he left me money, nearly ten thousand—those
notes to which the prosecutor referred in his speech, having learnt from
some one that he had sent them to be changed. I was tremendously
impressed to find that Ivan Fyodorovitch had not given up his idea of
saving his brother, and was confiding this plan of escape to me, though he
was still jealous of me and still convinced that I loved Mitya. Oh, that was a

sacrifice! No, you cannot understand the greatness of such self-sacrifice,
Alexey Fyodorovitch. I wanted to fall at his feet in reverence, but I thought
at once that he would take it only for my joy at the thought of Mitya’s being
saved (and he certainly would have imagined that!), and I was so
exasperated at the mere possibility of such an unjust thought on his part that
I lost my temper again, and instead of kissing his feet, flew into a fury
again! Oh, I am unhappy! It’s my character, my awful, unhappy character!
Oh, you will see, I shall end by driving him, too, to abandon me for another
with whom he can get on better, like Dmitri. But ... no, I could not bear it, I
should kill myself. And when you came in then, and when I called to you
and told him to come back, I was so enraged by the look of contempt and
hatred he turned on me that—do you remember?—I cried out to you that it
was he, he alone who had persuaded me that his brother Dmitri was a
murderer! I said that malicious thing on purpose to wound him again. He
had never, never persuaded me that his brother was a murderer. On the
contrary, it was I who persuaded him! Oh, my vile temper was the cause of
everything! I paved the way to that hideous scene at the trial. He wanted to
show me that he was an honorable man, and that, even if I loved his brother,
he would not ruin him for revenge or jealousy. So he came to the court ... I
am the cause of it all, I alone am to blame!”
Katya never had made such confessions to Alyosha before, and he felt
that she was now at that stage of unbearable suffering when even the
proudest heart painfully crushes its pride and falls vanquished by grief. Oh,
Alyosha knew another terrible reason of her present misery, though she had
carefully concealed it from him during those days since the trial; but it
would have been for some reason too painful to him if she had been brought
so low as to speak to him now about that. She was suffering for her
“treachery” at the trial, and Alyosha felt that her conscience was impelling
her to confess it to him, to him, Alyosha, with tears and cries and hysterical
writhings on the floor. But he dreaded that moment and longed to spare her.
It made the commission on which he had come even more difficult. He
spoke of Mitya again.
“It’s all right, it’s all right, don’t be anxious about him!” she began again,
sharply and stubbornly. “All that is only momentary, I know him, I know
his heart only too well. You may be sure he will consent to escape. It’s not
as though it would be immediately; he will have time to make up his mind
to it. Ivan Fyodorovitch will be well by that time and will manage it all

himself, so that I shall have nothing to do with it. Don’t be anxious; he will
consent to run away. He has agreed already: do you suppose he would give
up that creature? And they won’t let her go to him, so he is bound to escape.
It’s you he’s most afraid of, he is afraid you won’t approve of his escape on
moral grounds. But you must generously allow it, if your sanction is so
necessary,” Katya added viciously. She paused and smiled.
“He talks about some hymn,” she went on again, “some cross he has to
bear, some duty; I remember Ivan Fyodorovitch told me a great deal about
it, and if you knew how he talked!” Katya cried suddenly, with feeling she
could not repress, “if you knew how he loved that wretched man at the
moment he told me, and how he hated him, perhaps, at the same moment.
And I heard his story and his tears with sneering disdain. Brute! Yes, I am a
brute. I am responsible for his fever. But that man in prison is incapable of
suffering,” Katya concluded irritably. “Can such a man suffer? Men like
him never suffer!”
There was a note of hatred and contemptuous repulsion in her words.
And yet it was she who had betrayed him. “Perhaps because she feels how
she’s wronged him she hates him at moments,” Alyosha thought to himself.
He hoped that it was only “at moments.” In Katya’s last words he detected a
challenging note, but he did not take it up.
“I sent for you this morning to make you promise to persuade him
yourself. Or do you, too, consider that to escape would be dishonorable,
cowardly, or something ... unchristian, perhaps?” Katya added, even more
defiantly.
“Oh, no. I’ll tell him everything,” muttered Alyosha. “He asks you to
come and see him to-day,” he blurted out suddenly, looking her steadily in
the face. She started, and drew back a little from him on the sofa.
“Me? Can that be?” she faltered, turning pale.
“It can and ought to be!” Alyosha began emphatically, growing more
animated. “He needs you particularly just now. I would not have opened the
subject and worried you, if it were not necessary. He is ill, he is beside
himself, he keeps asking for you. It is not to be reconciled with you that he
wants you, but only that you would go and show yourself at his door. So
much has happened to him since that day. He realizes that he has injured
you beyond all reckoning. He does not ask your forgiveness—‘It’s

impossible to forgive me,’ he says himself—but only that you would show
yourself in his doorway.”
“It’s so sudden....” faltered Katya. “I’ve had a presentiment all these days
that you would come with that message. I knew he would ask me to come.
It’s impossible!”
“Let it be impossible, but do it. Only think, he realizes for the first time
how he has wounded you, the first time in his life; he had never grasped it
before so fully. He said, ‘If she refuses to come I shall be unhappy all my
life.’ Do you hear? though he is condemned to penal servitude for twenty
years, he is still planning to be happy—is not that piteous? Think—you
must visit him; though he is ruined, he is innocent,” broke like a challenge
from Alyosha. “His hands are clean, there is no blood on them! For the sake
of his infinite sufferings in the future visit him now. Go, greet him on his
way into the darkness—stand at his door, that is all.... You ought to do it,
you ought to!” Alyosha concluded, laying immense stress on the word
“ought.”
“I ought to ... but I cannot....” Katya moaned. “He will look at me.... I
can’t.”
“Your eyes ought to meet. How will you live all your life, if you don’t
make up your mind to do it now?”
“Better suffer all my life.”
“You ought to go, you ought to go,” Alyosha repeated with merciless
emphasis.
“But why to-day, why at once?... I can’t leave our patient—”
“You can for a moment. It will only be a moment. If you don’t come, he
will be in delirium by to-night. I would not tell you a lie; have pity on him!”
“Have pity on me!” Katya said, with bitter reproach, and she burst into
tears.
“Then you will come,” said Alyosha firmly, seeing her tears. “I’ll go and
tell him you will come directly.”
“No, don’t tell him so on any account,” cried Katya in alarm. “I will
come, but don’t tell him beforehand, for perhaps I may go, but not go in.... I
don’t know yet—”
Her voice failed her. She gasped for breath. Alyosha got up to go.

“And what if I meet any one?” she said suddenly, in a low voice, turning
white again.
“That’s just why you must go now, to avoid meeting any one. There will
be no one there, I can tell you that for certain. We will expect you,” he
concluded emphatically, and went out of the room.

Chapter II.
For A Moment The Lie Becomes Truth

He hurried to the hospital where Mitya was lying now. The day after his
fate was determined, Mitya had fallen ill with nervous fever, and was sent
to the prison division of the town hospital. But at the request of several
persons (Alyosha, Madame Hohlakov, Lise, etc.), Doctor Varvinsky had put
Mitya not with other prisoners, but in a separate little room, the one where
Smerdyakov had been. It is true that there was a sentinel at the other end of
the corridor, and there was a grating over the window, so that Varvinsky
could be at ease about the indulgence he had shown, which was not quite
legal, indeed; but he was a kind-hearted and compassionate young man. He
knew how hard it would be for a man like Mitya to pass at once so suddenly
into the society of robbers and murderers, and that he must get used to it by
degrees. The visits of relations and friends were informally sanctioned by
the doctor and overseer, and even by the police captain. But only Alyosha
and Grushenka had visited Mitya. Rakitin had tried to force his way in
twice, but Mitya persistently begged Varvinsky not to admit him.
Alyosha found him sitting on his bed in a hospital dressing-gown, rather
feverish, with a towel, soaked in vinegar and water, on his head. He looked
at Alyosha as he came in with an undefined expression, but there was a
shade of something like dread discernible in it. He had become terribly
preoccupied since the trial; sometimes he would be silent for half an hour
together, and seemed to be pondering something heavily and painfully,
oblivious of everything about him. If he roused himself from his brooding
and began to talk, he always spoke with a kind of abruptness and never of
what he really wanted to say. He looked sometimes with a face of suffering
at his brother. He seemed to be more at ease with Grushenka than with
Alyosha. It is true, he scarcely spoke to her at all, but as soon as she came
in, his whole face lighted up with joy.

Alyosha sat down beside him on the bed in silence. This time Mitya was
waiting for Alyosha in suspense, but he did not dare ask him a question. He
felt it almost unthinkable that Katya would consent to come, and at the
same time he felt that if she did not come, something inconceivable would
happen. Alyosha understood his feelings.
“Trifon Borissovitch,” Mitya began nervously, “has pulled his whole inn
to pieces, I am told. He’s taken up the flooring, pulled apart the planks, split
up all the gallery, I am told. He is seeking treasure all the time—the fifteen
hundred roubles which the prosecutor said I’d hidden there. He began
playing these tricks, they say, as soon as he got home. Serve him right, the
swindler! The guard here told me yesterday; he comes from there.”
“Listen,” began Alyosha. “She will come, but I don’t know when.
Perhaps to-day, perhaps in a few days, that I can’t tell. But she will come,
she will, that’s certain.”
Mitya started, would have said something, but was silent. The news had a
tremendous effect on him. It was evident that he would have liked terribly
to know what had been said, but he was again afraid to ask. Something
cruel and contemptuous from Katya would have cut him like a knife at that
moment.
“This was what she said among other things; that I must be sure to set
your conscience at rest about escaping. If Ivan is not well by then she will
see to it all herself.”
“You’ve spoken of that already,” Mitya observed musingly.
“And you have repeated it to Grusha,” observed Alyosha.
“Yes,” Mitya admitted. “She won’t come this morning.” He looked
timidly at his brother. “She won’t come till the evening. When I told her
yesterday that Katya was taking measures, she was silent, but she set her
mouth. She only whispered, ‘Let her!’ She understood that it was important.
I did not dare to try her further. She understands now, I think, that Katya no
longer cares for me, but loves Ivan.”
“Does she?” broke from Alyosha.
“Perhaps she does not. Only she is not coming this morning,” Mitya
hastened to explain again; “I asked her to do something for me. You know,
Ivan is superior to all of us. He ought to live, not us. He will recover.”

“Would you believe it, though Katya is alarmed about him, she scarcely
doubts of his recovery,” said Alyosha.
“That means that she is convinced he will die. It’s because she is
frightened she’s so sure he will get well.”
“Ivan has a strong constitution, and I, too, believe there’s every hope that
he will get well,” Alyosha observed anxiously.
“Yes, he will get well. But she is convinced that he will die. She has a
great deal of sorrow to bear...” A silence followed. A grave anxiety was
fretting Mitya.
“Alyosha, I love Grusha terribly,” he said suddenly in a shaking voice,
full of tears.
“They won’t let her go out there to you,” Alyosha put in at once.
“And there is something else I wanted to tell you,” Mitya went on, with a
sudden ring in his voice. “If they beat me on the way or out there, I won’t
submit to it. I shall kill some one, and shall be shot for it. And this will be
going on for twenty years! They speak to me rudely as it is. I’ve been lying
here all night, passing judgment on myself. I am not ready! I am not able to
resign myself. I wanted to sing a ‘hymn’; but if a guard speaks rudely to
me, I have not the strength to bear it. For Grusha I would bear anything ...
anything except blows.... But she won’t be allowed to come there.”
Alyosha smiled gently.
“Listen, brother, once for all,” he said. “This is what I think about it. And
you know that I would not tell you a lie. Listen: you are not ready, and such
a cross is not for you. What’s more, you don’t need such a martyr’s cross
when you are not ready for it. If you had murdered our father, it would
grieve me that you should reject your punishment. But you are innocent,
and such a cross is too much for you. You wanted to make yourself another
man by suffering. I say, only remember that other man always, all your life
and wherever you go; and that will be enough for you. Your refusal of that
great cross will only serve to make you feel all your life an even greater
duty, and that constant feeling will do more to make you a new man,
perhaps, than if you went there. For there you would not endure it and
would repine, and perhaps at last would say: ‘I am quits.’ The lawyer was
right about that. Such heavy burdens are not for all men. For some they are
impossible. These are my thoughts about it, if you want them so much. If

other men would have to answer for your escape, officers or soldiers, then I
would not have ‘allowed’ you,” smiled Alyosha. “But they declare—the
superintendent of that étape told Ivan himself—that if it’s well managed
there will be no great inquiry, and that they can get off easily. Of course,
bribing is dishonest even in such a case, but I can’t undertake to judge about
it, because if Ivan and Katya commissioned me to act for you, I know I
should go and give bribes. I must tell you the truth. And so I can’t judge of
your own action. But let me assure you that I shall never condemn you. And
it would be a strange thing if I could judge you in this. Now I think I’ve
gone into everything.”
“But I do condemn myself!” cried Mitya. “I shall escape, that was settled
apart from you; could Mitya Karamazov do anything but run away? But I
shall condemn myself, and I will pray for my sin for ever. That’s how the
Jesuits talk, isn’t it? Just as we are doing?”
“Yes.” Alyosha smiled gently.
“I love you for always telling the whole truth and never hiding anything,”
cried Mitya, with a joyful laugh. “So I’ve caught my Alyosha being
Jesuitical. I must kiss you for that. Now listen to the rest; I’ll open the other
side of my heart to you. This is what I planned and decided. If I run away,
even with money and a passport, and even to America, I should be cheered
up by the thought that I am not running away for pleasure, not for
happiness, but to another exile as bad, perhaps, as Siberia. It is as bad,
Alyosha, it is! I hate that America, damn it, already. Even though Grusha
will be with me. Just look at her; is she an American? She is Russian,
Russian to the marrow of her bones; she will be homesick for the mother
country, and I shall see every hour that she is suffering for my sake, that she
has taken up that cross for me. And what harm has she done? And how shall
I, too, put up with the rabble out there, though they may be better than I,
every one of them? I hate that America already! And though they may be
wonderful at machinery, every one of them, damn them, they are not of my
soul. I love Russia, Alyosha, I love the Russian God, though I am a
scoundrel myself. I shall choke there!” he exclaimed, his eyes suddenly
flashing. His voice was trembling with tears. “So this is what I’ve decided,
Alyosha, listen,” he began again, mastering his emotion. “As soon as I
arrive there with Grusha, we will set to work at once on the land, in
solitude, somewhere very remote, with wild bears. There must be some

remote parts even there. I am told there are still Redskins there, somewhere,
on the edge of the horizon. So to the country of the Last of the Mohicans,
and there we’ll tackle the grammar at once, Grusha and I. Work and
grammar—that’s how we’ll spend three years. And by that time we shall
speak English like any Englishman. And as soon as we’ve learnt it—good-
by to America! We’ll run here to Russia as American citizens. Don’t be
uneasy—we would not come to this little town. We’d hide somewhere, a
long way off, in the north or in the south. I shall be changed by that time,
and she will, too, in America. The doctors shall make me some sort of wart
on my face—what’s the use of their being so mechanical!—or else I’ll put
out one eye, let my beard grow a yard, and I shall turn gray, fretting for
Russia. I dare say they won’t recognize us. And if they do, let them send us
to Siberia. I don’t care. It will show it’s our fate. We’ll work on the land
here, too, somewhere in the wilds, and I’ll make up as an American all my
life. But we shall die on our own soil. That’s my plan, and it shan’t be
altered. Do you approve?”
“Yes,” said Alyosha, not wanting to contradict him. Mitya paused for a
minute and said suddenly:
“And how they worked it up at the trial! Didn’t they work it up!”
“If they had not, you would have been convicted just the same,” said
Alyosha, with a sigh.
“Yes, people are sick of me here! God bless them, but it’s hard,” Mitya
moaned miserably. Again there was silence for a minute.
“Alyosha, put me out of my misery at once!” he exclaimed suddenly.
“Tell me, is she coming now, or not? Tell me? What did she say? How did
she say it?”
“She said she would come, but I don’t know whether she will come to-
day. It’s hard for her, you know,” Alyosha looked timidly at his brother.
“I should think it is hard for her! Alyosha, it will drive me out of my
mind. Grusha keeps looking at me. She understands. My God, calm my
heart: what is it I want? I want Katya! Do I understand what I want? It’s the
headstrong, evil Karamazov spirit! No, I am not fit for suffering. I am a
scoundrel, that’s all one can say.”
“Here she is!” cried Alyosha.

At that instant Katya appeared in the doorway. For a moment she stood
still, gazing at Mitya with a dazed expression. He leapt impulsively to his
feet, and a scared look came into his face. He turned pale, but a timid,
pleading smile appeared on his lips at once, and with an irresistible impulse
he held out both hands to Katya. Seeing it, she flew impetuously to him.
She seized him by the hands, and almost by force made him sit down on the
bed. She sat down beside him, and still keeping his hands pressed them
violently. Several times they both strove to speak, but stopped short and
again gazed speechless with a strange smile, their eyes fastened on one
another. So passed two minutes.
“Have you forgiven me?” Mitya faltered at last, and at the same moment
turning to Alyosha, his face working with joy, he cried, “Do you hear what I
am asking, do you hear?”
“That’s what I loved you for, that you are generous at heart!” broke from
Katya. “My forgiveness is no good to you, nor yours to me; whether you
forgive me or not, you will always be a sore place in my heart, and I in
yours—so it must be....” She stopped to take breath. “What have I come
for?” she began again with nervous haste: “to embrace your feet, to press
your hands like this, till it hurts—you remember how in Moscow I used to
squeeze them—to tell you again that you are my god, my joy, to tell you
that I love you madly,” she moaned in anguish, and suddenly pressed his
hand greedily to her lips. Tears streamed from her eyes. Alyosha stood
speechless and confounded; he had never expected what he was seeing.
“Love is over, Mitya!” Katya began again, “but the past is painfully dear
to me. Know that you will always be so. But now let what might have been
come true for one minute,” she faltered, with a drawn smile, looking into
his face joyfully again. “You love another woman, and I love another man,
and yet I shall love you for ever, and you will love me; do you know that?
Do you hear? Love me, love me all your life!” she cried, with a quiver
almost of menace in her voice.
“I shall love you, and ... do you know, Katya,” Mitya began, drawing a
deep breath at each word, “do you know, five days ago, that same evening, I
loved you.... When you fell down and were carried out ... All my life! So it
will be, so it will always be—”
So they murmured to one another frantic words, almost meaningless,
perhaps not even true, but at that moment it was all true, and they both

believed what they said implicitly.
“Katya,” cried Mitya suddenly, “do you believe I murdered him? I know
you don’t believe it now, but then ... when you gave evidence.... Surely,
surely you did not believe it!”
“I did not believe it even then. I’ve never believed it. I hated you, and for
a moment I persuaded myself. While I was giving evidence I persuaded
myself and believed it, but when I’d finished speaking I left off believing it
at once. Don’t doubt that! I have forgotten that I came here to punish
myself,” she said, with a new expression in her voice, quite unlike the
loving tones of a moment before.
“Woman, yours is a heavy burden,” broke, as it were, involuntarily from
Mitya.
“Let me go,” she whispered. “I’ll come again. It’s more than I can bear
now.”
She was getting up from her place, but suddenly uttered a loud scream
and staggered back. Grushenka walked suddenly and noiselessly into the
room. No one had expected her. Katya moved swiftly to the door, but when
she reached Grushenka, she stopped suddenly, turned as white as chalk and
moaned softly, almost in a whisper:
“Forgive me!”
Grushenka stared at her and, pausing for an instant, in a vindictive,
venomous voice, answered:
“We are full of hatred, my girl, you and I! We are both full of hatred! As
though we could forgive one another! Save him, and I’ll worship you all my
life.”
“You won’t forgive her!” cried Mitya, with frantic reproach.
“Don’t be anxious, I’ll save him for you!” Katya whispered rapidly, and
she ran out of the room.
“And you could refuse to forgive her when she begged your forgiveness
herself?” Mitya exclaimed bitterly again.
“Mitya, don’t dare to blame her; you have no right to!” Alyosha cried
hotly.
“Her proud lips spoke, not her heart,” Grushenka brought out in a tone of
disgust. “If she saves you I’ll forgive her everything—”

She stopped speaking, as though suppressing something. She could not
yet recover herself. She had come in, as appeared afterwards, accidentally,
with no suspicion of what she would meet.
“Alyosha, run after her!” Mitya cried to his brother; “tell her ... I don’t
know ... don’t let her go away like this!”
“I’ll come to you again at nightfall,” said Alyosha, and he ran after
Katya. He overtook her outside the hospital grounds. She was walking fast,
but as soon as Alyosha caught her up she said quickly:
“No, before that woman I can’t punish myself! I asked her forgiveness
because I wanted to punish myself to the bitter end. She would not forgive
me.... I like her for that!” she added, in an unnatural voice, and her eyes
flashed with fierce resentment.
“My brother did not expect this in the least,” muttered Alyosha. “He was
sure she would not come—”
“No doubt. Let us leave that,” she snapped. “Listen: I can’t go with you
to the funeral now. I’ve sent them flowers. I think they still have money. If
necessary, tell them I’ll never abandon them.... Now leave me, leave me,
please. You are late as it is—the bells are ringing for the service.... Leave
me, please!”

Chapter III.
Ilusha’s Funeral. The Speech At The Stone

He really was late. They had waited for him and had already decided to
bear the pretty flower-decked little coffin to the church without him. It was
the coffin of poor little Ilusha. He had died two days after Mitya was
sentenced. At the gate of the house Alyosha was met by the shouts of the
boys, Ilusha’s schoolfellows. They had all been impatiently expecting him
and were glad that he had come at last. There were about twelve of them,
they all had their school-bags or satchels on their shoulders. “Father will
cry, be with father,” Ilusha had told them as he lay dying, and the boys
remembered it. Kolya Krassotkin was the foremost of them.
“How glad I am you’ve come, Karamazov!” he cried, holding out his
hand to Alyosha. “It’s awful here. It’s really horrible to see it. Snegiryov is
not drunk, we know for a fact he’s had nothing to drink to-day, but he seems
as if he were drunk ... I am always manly, but this is awful. Karamazov, if I
am not keeping you, one question before you go in?”
“What is it, Kolya?” said Alyosha.
“Is your brother innocent or guilty? Was it he killed your father or was it
the valet? As you say, so it will be. I haven’t slept for the last four nights for
thinking of it.”
“The valet killed him, my brother is innocent,” answered Alyosha.
“That’s what I said,” cried Smurov.
“So he will perish an innocent victim!” exclaimed Kolya; “though he is
ruined he is happy! I could envy him!”
“What do you mean? How can you? Why?” cried Alyosha surprised.
“Oh, if I, too, could sacrifice myself some day for truth!” said Kolya with
enthusiasm.

“But not in such a cause, not with such disgrace and such horror!” said
Alyosha.
“Of course ... I should like to die for all humanity, and as for disgrace, I
don’t care about that—our names may perish. I respect your brother!”
“And so do I!” the boy, who had once declared that he knew who had
founded Troy, cried suddenly and unexpectedly, and he blushed up to his
ears like a peony as he had done on that occasion.
Alyosha went into the room. Ilusha lay with his hands folded and his
eyes closed in a blue coffin with a white frill round it. His thin face was
hardly changed at all, and strange to say there was no smell of decay from
the corpse. The expression of his face was serious and, as it were,
thoughtful. His hands, crossed over his breast, looked particularly beautiful,
as though chiseled in marble. There were flowers in his hands and the
coffin, inside and out, was decked with flowers, which had been sent early
in the morning by Lise Hohlakov. But there were flowers too from Katerina
Ivanovna, and when Alyosha opened the door, the captain had a bunch in
his trembling hands and was strewing them again over his dear boy. He
scarcely glanced at Alyosha when he came in, and he would not look at any
one, even at his crazy weeping wife, “mamma,” who kept trying to stand on
her crippled legs to get a nearer look at her dead boy. Nina had been pushed
in her chair by the boys close up to the coffin. She sat with her head pressed
to it and she too was no doubt quietly weeping. Snegiryov’s face looked
eager, yet bewildered and exasperated. There was something crazy about
his gestures and the words that broke from him. “Old man, dear old man!”
he exclaimed every minute, gazing at Ilusha. It was his habit to call Ilusha
“old man,” as a term of affection when he was alive.
“Father, give me a flower, too; take that white one out of his hand and
give it me,” the crazy mother begged, whimpering. Either because the little
white rose in Ilusha’s hand had caught her fancy or that she wanted one
from his hand to keep in memory of him, she moved restlessly, stretching
out her hands for the flower.
“I won’t give it to any one, I won’t give you anything,” Snegiryov cried
callously. “They are his flowers, not yours! Everything is his, nothing is
yours!”
“Father, give mother a flower!” said Nina, lifting her face wet with tears.

“I won’t give away anything and to her less than any one! She didn’t love
Ilusha. She took away his little cannon and he gave it to her,” the captain
broke into loud sobs at the thought of how Ilusha had given up his cannon
to his mother. The poor, crazy creature was bathed in noiseless tears, hiding
her face in her hands.
The boys, seeing that the father would not leave the coffin and that it was
time to carry it out, stood round it in a close circle and began to lift it up.
“I don’t want him to be buried in the churchyard,” Snegiryov wailed
suddenly; “I’ll bury him by the stone, by our stone! Ilusha told me to. I
won’t let him be carried out!”
He had been saying for the last three days that he would bury him by the
stone, but Alyosha, Krassotkin, the landlady, her sister and all the boys
interfered.
“What an idea, bury him by an unholy stone, as though he had hanged
himself!” the old landlady said sternly. “There in the churchyard the ground
has been crossed. He’ll be prayed for there. One can hear the singing in
church and the deacon reads so plainly and verbally that it will reach him
every time just as though it were read over his grave.”
At last the captain made a gesture of despair as though to say, “Take him
where you will.” The boys raised the coffin, but as they passed the mother,
they stopped for a moment and lowered it that she might say good-by to
Ilusha. But on seeing that precious little face, which for the last three days
she had only looked at from a distance, she trembled all over and her gray
head began twitching spasmodically over the coffin.
“Mother, make the sign of the cross over him, give him your blessing,
kiss him,” Nina cried to her. But her head still twitched like an automaton
and with a face contorted with bitter grief she began, without a word,
beating her breast with her fist. They carried the coffin past her. Nina
pressed her lips to her brother’s for the last time as they bore the coffin by
her. As Alyosha went out of the house he begged the landlady to look after
those who were left behind, but she interrupted him before he had finished.
“To be sure, I’ll stay with them, we are Christians, too.” The old woman
wept as she said it.
They had not far to carry the coffin to the church, not more than three
hundred paces. It was a still, clear day, with a slight frost. The church bells

were still ringing. Snegiryov ran fussing and distracted after the coffin, in
his short old summer overcoat, with his head bare and his soft, old, wide-
brimmed hat in his hand. He seemed in a state of bewildered anxiety. At one
minute he stretched out his hand to support the head of the coffin and only
hindered the bearers, at another he ran alongside and tried to find a place for
himself there. A flower fell on the snow and he rushed to pick it up as
though everything in the world depended on the loss of that flower.
“And the crust of bread, we’ve forgotten the crust!” he cried suddenly in
dismay. But the boys reminded him at once that he had taken the crust of
bread already and that it was in his pocket. He instantly pulled it out and
was reassured.
“Ilusha told me to, Ilusha,” he explained at once to Alyosha. “I was
sitting by him one night and he suddenly told me: ‘Father, when my grave
is filled up crumble a piece of bread on it so that the sparrows may fly
down, I shall hear and it will cheer me up not to be lying alone.’ ”
“That’s a good thing,” said Alyosha, “we must often take some.”
“Every day, every day!” said the captain quickly, seeming cheered at the
thought.
They reached the church at last and set the coffin in the middle of it. The
boys surrounded it and remained reverently standing so, all through the
service. It was an old and rather poor church; many of the ikons were
without settings; but such churches are the best for praying in. During the
mass Snegiryov became somewhat calmer, though at times he had outbursts
of the same unconscious and, as it were, incoherent anxiety. At one moment
he went up to the coffin to set straight the cover or the wreath, when a
candle fell out of the candlestick he rushed to replace it and was a fearful
time fumbling over it, then he subsided and stood quietly by the coffin with
a look of blank uneasiness and perplexity. After the Epistle he suddenly
whispered to Alyosha, who was standing beside him, that the Epistle had
not been read properly but did not explain what he meant. During the
prayer, “Like the Cherubim,” he joined in the singing but did not go on to
the end. Falling on his knees, he pressed his forehead to the stone floor and
lay so for a long while.
At last came the funeral service itself and candles were distributed. The
distracted father began fussing about again, but the touching and impressive
funeral prayers moved and roused his soul. He seemed suddenly to shrink

together and broke into rapid, short sobs, which he tried at first to smother,
but at last he sobbed aloud. When they began taking leave of the dead and
closing the coffin, he flung his arms about, as though he would not allow
them to cover Ilusha, and began greedily and persistently kissing his dead
boy on the lips. At last they succeeded in persuading him to come away
from the step, but suddenly he impulsively stretched out his hand and
snatched a few flowers from the coffin. He looked at them and a new idea
seemed to dawn upon him, so that he apparently forgot his grief for a
minute. Gradually he seemed to sink into brooding and did not resist when
the coffin was lifted up and carried to the grave. It was an expensive one in
the churchyard close to the church, Katerina Ivanovna had paid for it. After
the customary rites the grave-diggers lowered the coffin. Snegiryov with his
flowers in his hands bent down so low over the open grave that the boys
caught hold of his coat in alarm and pulled him back. He did not seem to
understand fully what was happening. When they began filling up the
grave, he suddenly pointed anxiously at the falling earth and began trying to
say something, but no one could make out what he meant, and he stopped
suddenly. Then he was reminded that he must crumble the bread and he was
awfully excited, snatched up the bread and began pulling it to pieces and
flinging the morsels on the grave.
“Come, fly down, birds, fly down, sparrows!” he muttered anxiously.
One of the boys observed that it was awkward for him to crumble the
bread with the flowers in his hands and suggested he should give them to
some one to hold for a time. But he would not do this and seemed indeed
suddenly alarmed for his flowers, as though they wanted to take them from
him altogether. And after looking at the grave, and as it were, satisfying
himself that everything had been done and the bread had been crumbled, he
suddenly, to the surprise of every one, turned, quite composedly even, and
made his way homewards. But his steps became more and more hurried, he
almost ran. The boys and Alyosha kept up with him.
“The flowers are for mamma, the flowers are for mamma! I was unkind
to mamma,” he began exclaiming suddenly.
Some one called to him to put on his hat as it was cold. But he flung the
hat in the snow as though he were angry and kept repeating, “I won’t have
the hat, I won’t have the hat.” Smurov picked it up and carried it after him.
All the boys were crying, and Kolya and the boy who discovered about

Troy most of all. Though Smurov, with the captain’s hat in his hand, was
crying bitterly too, he managed, as he ran, to snatch up a piece of red brick
that lay on the snow of the path, to fling it at the flock of sparrows that was
flying by. He missed them, of course, and went on crying as he ran. Half-
way, Snegiryov suddenly stopped, stood still for half a minute, as though
struck by something, and suddenly turning back to the church, ran towards
the deserted grave. But the boys instantly overtook him and caught hold of
him on all sides. Then he fell helpless on the snow as though he had been
knocked down, and struggling, sobbing, and wailing, he began crying out,
“Ilusha, old man, dear old man!” Alyosha and Kolya tried to make him get
up, soothing and persuading him.
“Captain, give over, a brave man must show fortitude,” muttered Kolya.
“You’ll spoil the flowers,” said Alyosha, “and mamma is expecting them,
she is sitting crying because you would not give her any before. Ilusha’s
little bed is still there—”
“Yes, yes, mamma!” Snegiryov suddenly recollected, “they’ll take away
the bed, they’ll take it away,” he added as though alarmed that they really
would. He jumped up and ran homewards again. But it was not far off and
they all arrived together. Snegiryov opened the door hurriedly and called to
his wife with whom he had so cruelly quarreled just before:
“Mamma, poor crippled darling, Ilusha has sent you these flowers,” he
cried, holding out to her a little bunch of flowers that had been frozen and
broken while he was struggling in the snow. But at that instant he saw in the
corner, by the little bed, Ilusha’s little boots, which the landlady had put
tidily side by side. Seeing the old, patched, rusty-looking, stiff boots he
flung up his hands and rushed to them, fell on his knees, snatched up one
boot and, pressing his lips to it, began kissing it greedily, crying, “Ilusha,
old man, dear old man, where are your little feet?”
“Where have you taken him away? Where have you taken him?” the
lunatic cried in a heartrending voice. Nina, too, broke into sobs. Kolya ran
out of the room, the boys followed him. At last Alyosha too went out.
“Let them weep,” he said to Kolya, “it’s no use trying to comfort them
just now. Let us wait a minute and then go back.”
“No, it’s no use, it’s awful,” Kolya assented. “Do you know,
Karamazov,” he dropped his voice so that no one could hear them, “I feel

dreadfully sad, and if it were only possible to bring him back, I’d give
anything in the world to do it.”
“Ah, so would I,” said Alyosha.
“What do you think, Karamazov? Had we better come back here to-
night? He’ll be drunk, you know.”
“Perhaps he will. Let us come together, you and I, that will be enough, to
spend an hour with them, with the mother and Nina. If we all come together
we shall remind them of everything again,” Alyosha suggested.
“The landlady is laying the table for them now—there’ll be a funeral
dinner or something, the priest is coming; shall we go back to it,
Karamazov?”
“Of course,” said Alyosha.
“It’s all so strange, Karamazov, such sorrow and then pancakes after it, it
all seems so unnatural in our religion.”
“They are going to have salmon, too,” the boy who had discovered about
Troy observed in a loud voice.
“I beg you most earnestly, Kartashov, not to interrupt again with your
idiotic remarks, especially when one is not talking to you and doesn’t care
to know whether you exist or not!” Kolya snapped out irritably. The boy
flushed crimson but did not dare to reply.
Meantime they were strolling slowly along the path and suddenly
Smurov exclaimed:
“There’s Ilusha’s stone, under which they wanted to bury him.”
They all stood still by the big stone. Alyosha looked and the whole
picture of what Snegiryov had described to him that day, how Ilusha,
weeping and hugging his father, had cried, “Father, father, how he insulted
you,” rose at once before his imagination.
A sudden impulse seemed to come into his soul. With a serious and
earnest expression he looked from one to another of the bright, pleasant
faces of Ilusha’s schoolfellows, and suddenly said to them:
“Boys, I should like to say one word to you, here at this place.”
The boys stood round him and at once bent attentive and expectant eyes
upon him.

“Boys, we shall soon part. I shall be for some time with my two brothers,
of whom one is going to Siberia and the other is lying at death’s door. But
soon I shall leave this town, perhaps for a long time, so we shall part. Let us
make a compact here, at Ilusha’s stone, that we will never forget Ilusha and
one another. And whatever happens to us later in life, if we don’t meet for
twenty years afterwards, let us always remember how we buried the poor
boy at whom we once threw stones, do you remember, by the bridge? and
afterwards we all grew so fond of him. He was a fine boy, a kind-hearted,
brave boy, he felt for his father’s honor and resented the cruel insult to him
and stood up for him. And so in the first place, we will remember him,
boys, all our lives. And even if we are occupied with most important things,
if we attain to honor or fall into great misfortune—still let us remember
how good it was once here, when we were all together, united by a good
and kind feeling which made us, for the time we were loving that poor boy,
better perhaps than we are. My little doves—let me call you so, for you are
very like them, those pretty blue birds, at this minute as I look at your good
dear faces. My dear children, perhaps you won’t understand what I am
saying to you, because I often speak very unintelligibly, but you’ll
remember it all the same and will agree with my words some time. You
must know that there is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome
and good for life in the future than some good memory, especially a
memory of childhood, of home. People talk to you a great deal about your
education, but some good, sacred memory, preserved from childhood, is
perhaps the best education. If a man carries many such memories with him
into life, he is safe to the end of his days, and if one has only one good
memory left in one’s heart, even that may sometime be the means of saving
us. Perhaps we may even grow wicked later on, may be unable to refrain
from a bad action, may laugh at men’s tears and at those people who say as
Kolya did just now, ‘I want to suffer for all men,’ and may even jeer
spitefully at such people. But however bad we may become—which God
forbid—yet, when we recall how we buried Ilusha, how we loved him in his
last days, and how we have been talking like friends all together, at this
stone, the cruelest and most mocking of us—if we do become so—will not
dare to laugh inwardly at having been kind and good at this moment!
What’s more, perhaps, that one memory may keep him from great evil and
he will reflect and say, ‘Yes, I was good and brave and honest then!’ Let
him laugh to himself, that’s no matter, a man often laughs at what’s good

and kind. That’s only from thoughtlessness. But I assure you, boys, that as
he laughs he will say at once in his heart, ‘No, I do wrong to laugh, for
that’s not a thing to laugh at.’ ”
“That will be so, I understand you, Karamazov!” cried Kolya, with
flashing eyes.
The boys were excited and they, too, wanted to say something, but they
restrained themselves, looking with intentness and emotion at the speaker.
“I say this in case we become bad,” Alyosha went on, “but there’s no
reason why we should become bad, is there, boys? Let us be, first and
above all, kind, then honest and then let us never forget each other! I say
that again. I give you my word for my part that I’ll never forget one of you.
Every face looking at me now I shall remember even for thirty years. Just
now Kolya said to Kartashov that we did not care to know whether he exists
or not. But I cannot forget that Kartashov exists and that he is not blushing
now as he did when he discovered the founders of Troy, but is looking at
me with his jolly, kind, dear little eyes. Boys, my dear boys, let us all be
generous and brave like Ilusha, clever, brave and generous like Kolya
(though he will be ever so much cleverer when he is grown up), and let us
all be as modest, as clever and sweet as Kartashov. But why am I talking
about those two? You are all dear to me, boys, from this day forth, I have a
place in my heart for you all, and I beg you to keep a place in your hearts
for me! Well, and who has united us in this kind, good feeling which we
shall remember and intend to remember all our lives? Who, if not Ilusha,
the good boy, the dear boy, precious to us for ever! Let us never forget him.
May his memory live for ever in our hearts from this time forth!”
“Yes, yes, for ever, for ever!” the boys cried in their ringing voices, with
softened faces.
“Let us remember his face and his clothes and his poor little boots, his
coffin and his unhappy, sinful father, and how boldly he stood up for him
alone against the whole school.”
“We will remember, we will remember,” cried the boys. “He was brave,
he was good!”
“Ah, how I loved him!” exclaimed Kolya.
“Ah, children, ah, dear friends, don’t be afraid of life! How good life is
when one does something good and just!”

“Yes, yes,” the boys repeated enthusiastically.
“Karamazov, we love you!” a voice, probably Kartashov’s, cried
impulsively.
“We love you, we love you!” they all caught it up. There were tears in the
eyes of many of them.
“Hurrah for Karamazov!” Kolya shouted ecstatically.
“And may the dead boy’s memory live for ever!” Alyosha added again
with feeling.
“For ever!” the boys chimed in again.
“Karamazov,” cried Kolya, “can it be true what’s taught us in religion,
that we shall all rise again from the dead and shall live and see each other
again, all, Ilusha too?”
“Certainly we shall all rise again, certainly we shall see each other and
shall tell each other with joy and gladness all that has happened!” Alyosha
answered, half laughing, half enthusiastic.
“Ah, how splendid it will be!” broke from Kolya.
“Well, now we will finish talking and go to his funeral dinner. Don’t be
put out at our eating pancakes—it’s a very old custom and there’s
something nice in that!” laughed Alyosha. “Well, let us go! And now we go
hand in hand.”
“And always so, all our lives hand in hand! Hurrah for Karamazov!”
Kolya cried once more rapturously, and once more the boys took up his
exclamation: “Hurrah for Karamazov!”

THE END

FOOTNOTES
[1] In Russian, “silen.”

[2] A proverbial expression in Russia.

[3] Grushenka.

[4] i.e. setter dog.

[5] Probably the public event was the Decabrist plot against the Tsar, of
December 1825, in which the most distinguished men in Russia were concerned.
—TRANSLATOR’S NOTE.

[6] When a monk’s body is carried out from the cell to the church and from the
church to the graveyard, the canticle “What earthly joy...” is sung. If the
deceased was a priest as well as a monk the canticle “Our Helper and Defender”
is sung instead.

[7] i.e. a chime of bells.

[8] Literally: “Did you get off with a long nose made at you?”—a proverbial
expression in Russia for failure.

[9] Gogol is meant.

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Transcriber’s Notes
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