The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (best e book reader for android txt) 📖

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.