The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky (the reader ebook txt) 📖

I thank my counsel, too. I cried listening to him; but it’s not true that I killed my father, and he needn’t have supposed it. And don’t believe the doctors. I am perfectly sane, only my heart is heavy. If you spare me, if you let me go, I will pray for you. I will be a better man. I give you my word before God I will! And if you will condemn me, I’ll break my sword over my head myself and kiss the pieces. But spare me, do not rob me of my God! I know myself, I shall rebel! My heart is heavy, gentlemen⁠ ⁠… spare me!”

He almost fell back in his place: his voice broke: he could hardly articulate the last phrase. Then the judges proceeded to put the questions and began to ask both sides to formulate their conclusions.

But I will not describe the details. At last the jury rose to retire for consultation. The President was very tired, and so his last charge to the jury was rather feeble. “Be impartial, don’t be influenced by the eloquence of the defense, but yet weigh the arguments. Remember that there is a great responsibility laid upon you,” and so on and so on.

The jury withdrew and the court adjourned. People could get up, move about, exchange their accumulated impressions, refresh themselves at the buffet. It was very late, almost one o’clock in the night, but nobody went away: the strain was so great that no one could think of repose. All waited with sinking hearts; though that is, perhaps, too much to say, for the ladies were only in a state of hysterical impatience and their hearts were untroubled. An acquittal, they thought, was inevitable. They all prepared themselves for a dramatic moment of general enthusiasm. I must own there were many among the men, too, who were convinced that an acquittal was inevitable. Some were pleased, others frowned, while some were simply dejected, not wanting him to be acquitted. Fetyukovitch himself was confident of his success. He was surrounded by people congratulating him and fawning upon him.

“There are,” he said to one group, as I was told afterwards, “there are invisible threads binding the counsel for the defense with the jury. One feels during one’s speech if they are being formed. I was aware of them. They exist. Our cause is won. Set your mind at rest.”

“What will our peasants say now?” said one stout, cross-looking, pockmarked gentleman, a landowner of the neighborhood, approaching a group of gentlemen engaged in conversation.

“But they are not all peasants. There are four government clerks among them.”

“Yes, there are clerks,” said a member of the district council, joining the group.

“And do you know that Nazaryev, the merchant with the medal, a juryman?”

“What of him?”

“He is a man with brains.”

“But he never speaks.”

“He is no great talker, but so much the better. There’s no need for the Petersburg man to teach him: he could teach all Petersburg himself. He’s the father of twelve children. Think of that!”

“Upon my word, you don’t suppose they won’t acquit him?” one of our young officials exclaimed in another group.

“They’ll acquit him for certain,” said a resolute voice.

“It would be shameful, disgraceful, not to acquit him!” cried the official. “Suppose he did murder him⁠—there are fathers and fathers! And, besides, he was in such a frenzy.⁠ ⁠… He really may have done nothing but swing the pestle in the air, and so knocked the old man down. But it was a pity they dragged the valet in. That was simply an absurd theory! If I’d been in Fetyukovitch’s place, I should simply have said straight out: ‘He murdered him; but he is not guilty, hang it all!’ ”

“That’s what he did, only without saying, ‘Hang it all!’ ”

“No, Mihail Semyonovitch, he almost said that, too,” put in a third voice.

“Why, gentlemen, in Lent an actress was acquitted in our town who had cut the throat of her lover’s lawful wife.”

“Oh, but she did not finish cutting it.”

“That makes no difference. She began cutting it.”

“What did you think of what he said about children? Splendid, wasn’t it?”

“Splendid!”

“And about mysticism, too!”

“Oh, drop mysticism, do!” cried someone else; “think of Ippolit and his fate from this day forth. His wife will scratch his eyes out tomorrow for Mitya’s sake.”

“Is she here?”

“What an idea! If she’d been here she’d have scratched them out in court. She is at home with toothache. He he he!”

“He he he!”

In a third group:

“I dare say they will acquit Mitenka, after all.”

“I should not be surprised if he turns the ‘Metropolis’ upside down tomorrow. He will be drinking for ten days!”

“Oh, the devil!”

“The devil’s bound to have a hand in it. Where should he be if not here?”

“Well, gentlemen, I admit it was eloquent. But still it’s not the thing to break your father’s head with a pestle! Or what are we coming to?”

“The chariot! Do you remember the chariot?”

“Yes; he turned a cart into a chariot!”

“And tomorrow he will turn a chariot into a cart, just to suit his purpose.”

“What cunning chaps there are nowadays! Is there any justice to be had in Russia?”

But the bell rang. The jury deliberated for exactly an hour, neither more nor less. A profound silence reigned in the court as soon as the public had taken their seats. I remember how the jurymen walked into the court. At last! I won’t repeat the questions in order, and, indeed, I have forgotten them. I remember only the answer to the President’s first and chief question: “Did the prisoner commit the murder for the sake of robbery and with premeditation?” (I don’t remember the exact words.) There was a complete hush. The foreman of the jury, the youngest of the clerks, pronounced, in a clear, loud voice, amidst the deathlike stillness of the court:

“Yes, guilty!”

And the same answer was repeated to every question: “Yes, guilty!” and without the slightest extenuating comment. This no one had expected; almost everyone had reckoned upon a recommendation