The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (reading an ebook TXT) 📗
- Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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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
realised for a month past that any object of the kind would serve as a
weapon, so he instantly, without hesitation, recognised 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 everyone realised that, although he professed to
despise that suspicion, he thought the subject of great importance.
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 Svyetslov 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 realised 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 skilful 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 wrongdoing 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 everyone 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 anyone 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 anyone about the envelope and
the signals, for that
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