The Karamazov Brothers

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Alyosha ran quickly to the washbasin, wetted the towel, persuaded Ivan to sit down again, placed the wet towel on his head, and sat down beside him.

  ‘What were you telling me about Lise earlier?’ Ivan started talking again. (He was becoming very loquacious.) ‘I like Lise. I said something nasty about her to you. It wasn’t true, I like her… I’m worried about what Katya’s going to say tomorrow, that’s what I’m most worried about. About the future. She’ll ditch me tomorrow and trample on me like dirt. She thinks I’m going to destroy Mitya out of jealousy! Yes, that’s just what she would think! But it’s not like that. Tomorrow will be a Calvary, not a hanging. No, I shan’t hang myself. You know, Alyosha, I could never take my own life! You think I wouldn’t have the guts? That I’m a coward? No, I’m not a coward. I just have a thirst for life! How did I know that Smerdyakov had hanged himself? Yes, he told me…’

  ‘And you’re really convinced that someone was sitting here?’ asked Alyosha.

  ‘Over there, on that divan, in the corner. You would have scared him off. In fact, you did scare him off; he disappeared when you arrived. I love your face, Alyosha. Did you know that I love your face? But he—he is me, Alyosha, myself. Everything that is base and vile and despicable in me! Yes, I’m a “romantic”, he pointed that out… although that’s just another filthy lie. He’s terribly stupid, but that’s his strength. He’s cunning, cunning as a fox, he knew just how to make me wild. He kept goading me, saying I believed in him, and he made me listen to him. He made a fool of me, as if I were a silly young boy. Still, I have to admit he did tell me a lot about myself. Things I’d never have admitted to myself. You know, Alyosha, you know,’ he added with a profound seriousness and somehow confidingly, ‘I would much prefer him to be himself and not me!’

  ‘You’re utterly exhausted,’ said Alyosha, looking at his brother sympathetically.

  ‘He provoked me! And you know, he was so damn clever: “Conscience! What’s conscience? I make it myself. So why do I suffer remorse? From habit. From the universal, human habit of seven thousand years. Divest ourselves of the habit and we’d be gods.” He said that! It was him!’

  ‘But not you, it wasn’t you, was it?’ said Alyosha, staring at his brother, unable to restrain himself. ‘Well then, let him go, forget him. Let him take away everything you now curse, and may he never return!’

  ‘Yes, but he’s evil. He was mocking me. He was insolent, Alyosha,’ said Ivan, shaking with remembered indignation. ‘But he slandered me, he slandered me in a lot of ways. He lied to me—right to my face—about myself. “Oh, you’re going to perform a virtuous act, you’re going to declare that you killed your father, that the servant killed your father at your instigation…”’

  ‘Ivan,’ interrupted Alyosha, ‘get a grip on yourself. You didn’t kill him; that’s not true!’

  ‘That’s what he himself said and he knows: “You’re going to perform an act of great virtue, and you don’t even believe in virtue—that’s what keeps eating away at you and tormenting you, that’s why you’re so vindictive.” That’s what he told me about myself, and he knows what he’s talking about…’

  ‘That’s you talking, not him!’ broke in Alyosha sadly, ‘and you don’t know what you’re saying, you’re delirious, you’re just tormenting yourself!’

  ‘No, he knows what he’s talking about. “You’ll go there tomorrow out of honour,” he says, “you’ll stand up in court and you’ll say: It was I who killed him, and why do you all pretend to be horrified? You’re lying! I despise your attitude, I despise your feigned horror.” That’s what he says about me, and then he suddenly adds: “You know, you want them to praise you: he’s a criminal, they’ll say, a murderer, but what noble sentiments—he wanted to save his brother, so he confessed!” That’s such a lie, Alyosha!’ Ivan shouted suddenly, his eyes flashing. ‘I don’t want the rabble to praise me! It was another one of his filthy lies, Alyosha, I swear to you! And I threw the glass at him for that, and it smashed against his ugly face.’

  ‘Ivan, calm down, forget it,’ Alyosha begged him.

  ‘Yes, he knows how to torture, he’s cruel,’ Ivan went on, not heeding him. ‘I always had a good idea what he came for. “Let’s assume you decide to attend the trial out of honour, but you still hope they might find some evidence against Smerdyakov and sentence him to penal servitude, and then Mitya would be acquitted and you would only be condemned morally (you hear, he was laughing then!), and others would sing your praises. But Smerdyakov’s dead, he’s hanged himself, and who’s going to believe you in court now, you, on your own testimony? And yet you’re still going, you’ll go, you’re determined. So why do you want to go?” It’s frightening, Alyosha, I can’t bear such questions. Who dares to put such questions to me?’

  ‘Ivan,’ interrupted Alyosha, his blood running cold, but still hoping to bring Ivan to his senses, ‘how on earth could he talk to you about Smerdyakov’s death before I got here, when no one knew about it and there hadn’t even been time for anyone to find out?’

  ‘He talked about it,’ said Ivan obstinately, refusing to admit any doubt. ‘If you want to know, he talked of nothing else. “It would have been quite another matter if you believed in virtue,” he says: “If they don’t believe me, that’s up to them, I shall still go on principle. But anyway you’re a swine like Fyodor Pavlovich, so what’s virtue to you? What’s the point of making the effort to go if your sacrifice does no good to anyone? And when you yourself don’t know why you’re going! Oh, you yourself would give a lot to know, why you’re going! And it’s not as if you’ve made up your mind yet. You’ll sit up all night trying to decide whether to go or not. But you’ll go all the same, and you know that you’ll go, and you know that whatever you decide the decision doesn’t depend on you. You’ll go because you daren’t not go. As to why you don’t dare—find that out for yourself, there’s a riddle for you!” And he stood up and left. As he left, you came. He called me a coward, Alyosha! Le mot de l’énigme* is that I’m a coward! “It’s not for eagles such as you to soar above the earth!” That’s what he said, too! And Smerdyakov said it. I must kill him. Katya despises me, I’ve known that for a whole month, and Lise will start to despise me! “You’re going to testify so that they’ll praise you.” That’s a wicked lie! And you despise me too, Alyosha. Now I’m beginning to hate you again. And the foul murderer, I hate him too! I don’t want to save the fiend. Let him rot in Siberia! Fancy him starting to sing a hymn! Tomorrow I shall go there, and I shall stand up and spit in their faces, all of them!’

  He leapt up in a frenzy, threw away the towel and resumed pacing round the room. Alyosha recalled the words that Ivan had spoken earlier, ‘as if I dream reality… I walk, I talk and I see, but I’m asleep’. That was precisely what seemed to be happening now. Alyosha stayed with him. It occurred to him to fetch the doctor, but he was afraid to leave his brother alone; there was no one he could leave him with. Ivan finally gradually began to lose consciousness. He still carried on talking, talking non-stop, but quite incoherently now. He even failed to articulate his words properly, and suddenly stood still and began to sway violently. Alyosha caught him before he fell. Ivan allowed himself to be led to his bed. Somehow Alyosha managed to undress him and helped him into bed. He himself sat there with him for another two hours or so. The patient slept soundly, without moving, breathing quietly and evenly. Alyosha took a pillow and lay down on the other divan without undressing. As he fell asleep, he prayed for Mitya and for Ivan. He was beginning to understand Ivan’s illness: ‘The torments of a proud decision—an active conscience!’ God, in whom he did not believe, and truth were overwhelming his soul, which still did not want to submit. ‘Yes,’ the thought occurred to Alyosha as he rested his head on the pillow, ‘yes, since Smerdyakov is dead, no one will believe Ivan’s testimony; nevertheless, he’ll go and testify!’ Alyosha smiled gently: ‘God will win!’ he thought. ‘Either he will arise in the light of truth or… he will perish in hatred, tak
ing revenge on himself and on everyone for having done something he doesn’t believe in,’ Alyosha added bitterly, and again he prayed for Ivan.

  BOOK TWELVE

  Judicial Mistake

  1

  THE FATEFUL DAY

  AT ten o’clock in the morning of the day after the events I have just described, our district court convened and the trial of Dmitry Karamazov began.

  Let me say at the outset, and without any prevarication, that I by no means consider myself competent to describe all that occurred in the courtroom, either in full detail or even with any certainty as to the order of events. I am still of the opinion that were one to recount everything and explain everything properly, one would need a whole book, and an enormous one at that. Let it not be held against me, therefore, if I record only that which made an impression upon me personally and which has particularly stuck in my memory. I may well have confused the essential with the irrelevant and even totally omitted the most important aspects … Still, I realize it is better not to make any excuses. I shall do my level best, and the readers themselves will understand that that was all I could do.

  But first, before we enter the courtroom, I shall mention what particularly astonished me that day. To be sure it astonished not just me but, as it subsequently transpired, everyone. The fact of the matter is this: for the past two months, much had been said, surmised, marvelled at, and anticipated in local society, everyone knew that the case had captured the public imagination, and everyone was eagerly awaiting the start of the trial. Everyone also knew that the case had attracted nationwide publicity, yet it was not until the very day of the trial that they realized to what a feverish, burning pitch of excitement people had been aroused, not only in our town but throughout the country. On that day visitors arrived not only from our regional town, but from other Russian towns too, and even from Moscow and St Petersburg. They included lawyers as well as a number of eminent people and also ladies. All the entrance passes had been eagerly snapped up. Special seating arrangements had been provided behind the judicial bench for the more distinguished and eminent gentlemen spectators; a whole row of reserved chairs had been arranged there, something which had never been done before. There was a particularly large number of lady visitors; I would say that ladies, local as well as those from other parts, made up at least half the audience. Lawyers, from various regions were so numerous that there was hardly room to seat them all since all the passes had already been distributed, begged or spoken for. With my own eyes I saw a barrier being hastily erected at the end of the hall behind the podium to form a temporary enclosure into which all these visiting lawyers were shepherded; to save space, all the chairs had been removed from this enclosure, and everyone congregated in that space remained standing, packed like sardines, shoulder to shoulder, throughout the whole trial, and even the lawyers considered themselves lucky to have standing-room. Some of the ladies, particularly those from out of town, appeared in the gallery in all their finery, but the majority were in normal attire. Their faces revealed a hysterical, avid, almost pathological curiosity. One thing that must be mentioned as particularly striking about the assembled company is that, as numerous subsequent observations in fact confirmed, nearly all the ladies, the vast majority at least, supported Mitya and wanted him to be acquitted—mainly, perhaps, because of his reputation as a ladies’ man. They knew that two rival women would take the stand. Katerina Ivanovna in particular intrigued everyone; many remarkable stories were told about her, and many astonishing anecdotes were related about her passion for Mitya, despite his alleged crime. Particular attention was drawn to her haughtiness (she deigned to visit hardly anyone in the town) and to her ‘aristocratic connections’. It was said that she intended to appeal to the authorities for permission to accompany the criminal to the penal settlement and to marry him somewhere in the mines, down below. An equal fever of anticipation built up around the expected appearance in court of Katerina Ivanovna’s rival, Grushenka. With morbid curiosity, the ladies awaited the moment when the two rivals would meet in court—the proud, aristocratic young girl and the local Jezebel; they knew more about Grushenka, incidentally, than they did about Katerina Ivanovna. The former, the one who ‘had brought down Fyodor Pavlovich and his hapless son’, they were already acquainted with, and almost without exception they could not help wondering how both father and son could have fallen so deeply in love with ‘a most ordinary Russian wench, not even particularly attractive’. In a word, rumour was rife. I know for sure that in our town alone several serious family rows erupted over Mitya. Many of the ladies had quarrelled fiercely with their spouses for holding contrary views about the whole of this tragic affair, and it was quite natural that, as a result, all those husbands came to the courtroom not only ill-disposed towards the accused, but even downright antagonistic towards him. Anyway, it can safely be said that, in contrast to the distaff side, all the men were clearly prejudiced against the accused. One could discern stern, scowling faces—even some, quite a few in fact, thoroughly hostile ones. It is true too that Mitya had managed to insult many of them personally during his stay in the town. Amongst the spectators there were those of course who were entertained by the whole affair and were totally indifferent to Mitya’s fate, but not, it must be stressed, to the case itself; everyone was interested in the outcome, and the majority of the men wanted the accused to be punished—apart, perhaps, from the lawyers, who were preoccupied not with the moral issues involved but only with the relevant legal arguments. Everyone was thrilled that the famous Fetyukovich was appearing. His skill was universally recognized, and this was not the first time that he had come to the provinces as counsel for the defence in sensational criminal cases. And, whenever he appeared for the defence, the case always became notorious throughout the whole of Russia and was remembered long after. There were also several contemporary anecdotes about both our prosecutor and the president of the bench. It was said that our prosecutor quaked at the thought of confronting Fetyukovich, that the two were old adversaries going back to the beginning of their careers in St Petersburg, and that our sensitive Ippolit Kyrillovich, who had been harbouring a resentment since his St Petersburg days because his talents had been insufficiently appreciated, had become excited at the prospect of the Karamazov case, even hoping that it would revive his flagging career, and it was also said that Fetyukovich was the only man whom he feared. In suggesting that the prosecutor was quaking at the thought of Fetyukovich, the rumour was not entirely correct. Our prosecutor was not a man to quail in the face of adversity; on the contrary, he belonged to that type whose resolve is strengthened and reinforced the more difficult the situation. On the whole, it should be observed that our prosecutor was rather impetuous and extremely sensitive. There were some cases he would put his heart and soul into, and which he conducted as if his whole fame and fortune depended upon their outcome. This was regarded with some amusement in legal circles since precisely because of this attribute our prosecutor had acquired a certain notoriety which, though by no means universal, was nevertheless far greater than could have been expected given the modest position he held at court. His passion for psychology was the object of particular ridicule. In my opinion everyone was mistaken: our prosecutor, both in his behaviour and in his way of thinking, was far more serious-minded than people thought. It was just that from the very beginning of his career this man, prone to ill-health, had got off on the wrong foot and throughout the whole of his life had been unable to rectify the situation.

  As for the president of the bench, one can only say that he was an educated and humane man who knew his job well and professed the most modern ideas. He was far from being devoid of self-esteem, but he was not particularly ambitious professionally. The main goal of his life was to be at the forefront of ideas. In addition, he had connections and capital. As it later transpired, he regarded the Karamazov case with a fair measure of concern, but only in the general sense. He was interested in the case per se, in its implications—viewed as
a product of our social environment, as an illustration of the Russian character, and so on and so forth. As regards the tragic details of the case itself, as well as the personalities involved, starting with the accused, his attitude was fairly indifferent and objective, which was perhaps just as well.

  The courtroom was filled to capacity long before the appearance of the bench. The courtroom in our town is a spacious hall, with a high ceiling and good acoustics. To the right of the bench, who were seated on the podium, was a table and two rows of chairs for the members of the jury. To the left sat the accused and his counsel. In the centre, not far from where the bench sat, stood a table on which the exhibits were displayed.* These included Fyodor Pavlovich’s bloodstained, white silk dressing-gown; the fateful brass pestle with which the crime had allegedly been committed; Mitya’s shirt with the bloodstained sleeve; his frock-coat, the back pocket of which was stained with blood where he had thrust his bloodstained handkerchief at the time; the handkerchief itself, all caked with blood and discoloured by now; the pistol which Mitya had loaded at Perkhotin’s with the intention of committing suicide and which had stealthily been removed from him in Mokroye by Trifon Borisovich; the envelope addressed to Grushenka which had contained the three thousand roubles for her; the thin, pink-coloured ribbon with which it had been tied; and several other items which I no longer remember. Some distance away, behind a barrier in the main body of the hall, were seats for the general public, and several chairs had been placed immediately in front of the barrier for those witnesses who had already given their evidence but who were required to remain in the courtroom. At ten o’clock the bench, made up of the president, a lay member, and an honorary magistrate, entered the hall. They were immediately followed as was customary by the prosecutor. The president was a sturdy, shorter than average, and thick-set man of about fifty, with a bloodshot face, dark, greying, cropped hair, and a red sash—of which order I cannot recollect. Everyone, myself included, noticed that the prosecutor appeared extremely pale, almost sallow; his face in fact appeared to have grown thinner suddenly, almost overnight, as I had last seen him only a day or so previously, when he had been his normal self. The president began by asking the court usher* whether all the members of the jury were present … I can see, however, that I cannot continue in this vein, if only because there are some things that I did not quite catch, others that I failed to grasp, and yet others that I have forgotten, but principally because, as I have already said above, even if I could remember all that was said and all that took place, I would literally have neither the time nor the space to record it. All I know is that only a few jurors were rejected by either side, that is by either the defence or the prosecution. However, I do remember the twelve who were chosen: four local civil servants, two merchants, and six peasants and townspeople. Even long before the trial, people in our town, especially the women, had been asking with some amazement: ‘Is it really true that the fateful verdict in such an intricate, complicated, and psychologically involved case is going to be left to a bunch of clerks and, indeed, peasants? What does an ordinary run-of-the-mill clerk, let alone a peasant, understand?’ And, true enough, those four clerks who now found themselves on the jury were minor, low-ranking officials with grey hair (only one of them was somewhat younger), little known in our community, where they eked out a living, in all probability with ageing wives, whom they could never show in public, and a herd of children, very likely barefoot; they frequently whiled away their free time at cards somewhere, and, it goes without saying, had never read a single book in their whole life. As to the two merchants, although they looked imposing enough, they were strangely taciturn and passive—one of them was cleanshaven and dressed in the German fashion; the other, with a little grey beard, sported some kind of a medal on a red ribbon round his neck. About the townspeople and peasants, there is nothing to be said. Our Skotoprigonyevsk townspeople are peasants in all but name, they even till the land. Two of them also wore German-style dress, and it was probably for that reason that they looked filthier and more slovenly than the other four. So the thought really might occur, as it did to me, for example, as soon as I saw them: ‘What can this bunch understand of such a matter?’ All the same, their faces, stern and louring, created a strangely impressive effect.