IPPOLIT KIRILLOVITCH had chosen the historial method of

exposition, beloved by all nervous orators, who find in its limitation

a check on their own eager rhetoric. At this moment in his speech he

went off into a dissertation on Grushenka's "first lover," and brought

forward several interesting thoughts on this theme.

    "Karamazov, who had been frantically jealous of everyone,

collapsed, so to speak, and effaced himself at once before this

first lover. What makes it all the more strange is that he seems to

have hardly thought of this formidable rival. But he had looked upon

him as a remote danger, and Karamazov always lives in the present.

Possibly he regarded him as a fiction. But his wounded heart grasped

instantly that the woman had been concealing this new rival and

deceiving him, because he was anything but a fiction to her, because

he was the one hope of her life. Grasping this instantly, he

resigned himself.

    "Gentlemen of the jury, I cannot help dwelling on this

unexpected trait in the prisoner's character. He suddenly 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 honourable 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,'

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 defence, 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 defence 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 uttered with such premature haste- 'if not I'- the animal

cunning, the naivete 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 sceptical 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 defence 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 storytellers neglect as insignificant

trifles. Oh, they have no thought to spare for such details, their

minds are concentrated on their grand invention as a whole, and

fancy anyone daring to pull them up for a trifle! But that's how

they are caught. The prisoner was asked the question, 'Where did you

get the stuff for your little bag and who made it for you?' 'I made it

myself.' 'And where did you get the linen?' The prisoner was

positively offended, he thought it almost insulting to ask him such

a trivial question, and would you believe it, his resentment was

genuine! But they are all like that. 'I tore it off my shirt. "Then we

shall find that shirt among your linen 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 someone

might come in and find him needle in hand, how at the slightest

sound he slipped behind the screen (there is a screen in his

lodgings).

    "But, gentlemen of the jury, why do I tell you all this, all these

details, trifles?" cried 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 honour.' Oh, we are glad to believe it, we are

eager to believe it, even if only on his word of honour! Are we

jackals thirsting for human blood? Show us a single fact in the

prisoner's favour 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 defence," 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 re-echo throughout the whole of Russia, and all Russia will

hear you, as her champions and her judges, and she will be

encouraged or disheartened by your verdict. Do not disappoint Russia

and her expectations. Our fatal troika dashes on in her headlong

flight perhaps to destruction and in all Russia for long past men have

stretched out imploring hands and called a halt to its furious

reckless 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 civilisation. 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 I

    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."

    Everyone looked at Mitya; he sat silent through the whole of the

prosecutor's speech, clenching his teeth, with his hands clasped,

and his head bowed. Only from time to time he raised his head and

listened, especially when 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 defence 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 offence. 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 Parliment 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.