The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (best e book reader for android txt) 📖
- Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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analysed? 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.
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
persona 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 worshipped
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, characterised 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 honour, 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 programme 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 everyone,’ 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 absense, 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 then 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 vigour 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
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