The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (easy to read books for adults list .txt) 📕
"Those innocent eyes slit my soul up like a razor," he used to say afterwards, with his loathsome snigger. In a man so depraved this might, of course, mean no more than sensual attraction. As he had received no dowry with his wife, and had, so to speak, taken her "from the halter," he did not stand on ceremony with her. Making her feel that she had "wronged" him, he took advantage of her phenomenal meekness and submissiveness to trample on the elemen
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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.
The Speech for the Defence. 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 everyone realised 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 lookout for it, and quivered with
enthusiasm.
He went straight to the point, and began by saying that although
he practised 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 favour. 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 economising 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 defence. 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 recognise 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
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