The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (reading an ebook TXT) 📗
- Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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enemies from the beginning of their careers in Petersburg, that though
our sensitive prosecutor, who always considered that he had been
aggrieved by someone 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 rumours
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 defence. 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 bloodstained 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 Borrissovitch; 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
grey 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 grey-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, grey 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
unfavourable 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 defence, 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-Miusov, 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.
Dangerous Witnesses
I DO NOT know whether the witnesses for the defence 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 defence 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
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