The Karamazov Brothers

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  At this juncture there were loud bursts of applause from all over the hall, but Fetyukovich began to wave his hands impatiently, as though begging not to be interrupted and to be allowed to finish what he had to say. Silence fell. The defence counsel continued.

  ‘Do you think, gentlemen of the jury, that our children—or rather our youth—can be spared such issues as they begin to think for themselves? No, they cannot, and let us not expect of them a forbearance of which they are not capable! The sight of an unworthy father perforce raises awkward questions in the mind of a youth, especially when he compares him to the worthy fathers of other children, his peers. He is fobbed off with answers to these questions. “He fathered you, you are his flesh and blood, and so you should love him.” The youth cannot help disputing this. “Surely he didn’t love me when he sired me,” he reflects, with mounting surprise, “surely he didn’t beget me for my own sake: he didn’t know me, he didn’t even know my sex at that moment, at that moment of passion, when he was flushed with wine, perhaps; his liking for drink is probably all I’ve inherited from him—that’s all the good he’s done me… So why should I love him merely for begetting me and then for the rest of my life failing to love me?” Perhaps you will consider these questions impertinent and cruel, but don’t expect too much forbearance from a young mind. “Drive nature out through the door, and she will make her way back through the window.”* But the main thing is not to be afraid of “brass and brimstone”, and to resolve the question according to the precepts of common sense and philanthropy, rather than according to metaphysical reasoning. So how should it be resolved? I suggest thus: let the son stand before the father and let him ask straight out: “Father, tell me, why should I love you? Father, prove to me that I should love you!” And if the father is willing and able to answer him and give him proof, there you have a truly proper family, based not merely on mystical prejudice, but on sensible, self-regulating, and strictly humane principles. On the other hand, if the father fails to prove that he is worthy of love, that’s the end of that family: he is not a father to him, and from then on the son is free and within his rights to regard his father as a stranger, and even as his enemy. This forum of ours, gentlemen of the jury, should serve as a school of truth and common sense!’

  Here the defence counsel was interrupted by wild, almost frenzied applause. Of course, not everybody in the hall applauded, but a good half of them did. It was fathers and mothers who applauded. From the balcony, where the ladies were sitting, came shrieks and hoots. They were waving their handkerchiefs. The president began to ring the bell vigorously. He was visibly annoyed by the behaviour in the hall, but he simply did not dare to ‘clear’ it, as he had previously threatened—even the distinguished old men wearing decorations of honour on their tailcoats, sitting on the reserved seats behind him, were applauding and waving their handkerchiefs—so that when the noise abated, the judge contented himself merely with reiterating his previous threat to ‘clear’ the hall, while the triumphant and excited Fetyukovich continued his speech.

  ‘Gentlemen of the jury, you remember that frightful night, about which so much has been said today, when the son, having scaled the fence and gained access to his father’s house, found himself face to face at last with his enemy, the swindler who begat him. I maintain with all certitude that it was not money that he was after at that moment: as I have already pointed out, the accusation of theft is an absurdity. Nor did he enter the house to commit murder; oh no, if that had been his intention, he would at least have provided himself with a weapon in advance, but he grabbed the brass pestle on the spur of the moment, without thinking, without knowing why. Let us assume that he did trick his father with the signal, let us assume he did enter—as I have already said, I don’t believe that story for one moment—but let us, for argument’s sake, assume that it’s true! Gentlemen of the jury, I swear by all that is holy, that had it not been his father, but an unrelated rival, he would have dashed through the rooms and convinced himself that the woman was not there, and then run off at full pelt without harming his rival; he might have hit him, perhaps pushed him, but that’s all, because his mind would have been on other things, he would not have had time, he would have wanted to find out where she was. But his father! It was the sight of his father that did it, the sight of his enemy, of the man who had detested him from childhood, had wronged him, and was now his monstrous rival! An irresistible feeling of hatred overwhelmed him, banishing all rationality: everything welled up at once! It was diminished responsibility on grounds of insanity—and also nature avenging herself, blindly and inexorably as is her way, by upholding her eternal laws. But I maintain, I insist—it was not murder—no, he merely swung the pestle in disgust and indignation, not intending to kill, not realizing that the blow would kill him. Had he not had the fateful pestle in his hand he would have given his father a beating, perhaps, but he would not have killed him. When he ran off, having knocked the old man down, he did not know whether he was dead or not. To kill without malice aforethought is not murder. Neither is it patricide. No, the murder of such a father does not deserve to be called patricide. Only someone prejudiced in favour of fathers could consider such a murder patricide! But was it, was it in fact murder? From the depths of my heart I appeal to you! Let us suppose we convict him, gentlemen of the jury, and he says to himself: “These people did nothing to alleviate my fate, nothing to guide me, to educate me, nothing to reform me, to make me into a human being. Ye gave me no meat, and ye gave me no drink, and naked as I was in prison, ye did not visit me,* and now you have condemned me to penal servitude. I am quits with them, I owe no one anything now, till the end of time. They have been vicious, and I shall be vicious. They have been cruel, and I shall be cruel.” That is what he will say, gentlemen of the jury! And I solemnly assure you that by convicting him, you will only make it easier for him, you will ease his conscience, he will curse rather than rue the blood he has shed. At the same time, you will destroy all vestiges of a human being in him, for he will remain vicious and blind for the rest of his life. But if you wish to punish him dreadfully, terribly, to inflict the most frightful punishment imaginable upon him, and yet save his soul for all eternity, then suffocate him with your mercy! You will see, you will hear what a shudder of terror will pass through his soul. “Am I to endure such mercy, am I to be accorded so much love, am I worthy of it?” he will cry. Oh, I know that heart of his, that wild yet noble heart of his, gentlemen of the jury. He will prostrate himself before your act of mercy, he yearns for a great act of love, he will be seared by it and be resurrected for ever. There are souls which, in their misery, bear a grudge against the whole world. But overwhelm such a soul with mercy, offer it love, and it will become so full of benign aspirations that it will curse its deed. The soul will respond and see how merciful God is, and how marvellous and just people are. He will be terrified, he will be overwhelmed by repentance and by a sense of the immeasurable indebtedness stretching ahead of him. And he will not say then, “I am quits.” He will say, “I am guilty before all men and I am the unworthiest of men.” And he will exclaim with tears of repentance and overpowering, agonizing gratitude: “Others are better than I, because they have decided not to destroy, but to save me!” Oh, it would be so easy for you to perform this act of mercy because, in the absence of any evidence bearing the least resemblance to truth, it would be inconceivable for you to pronounce him guilty. Better to acquit ten guilty men than to punish one innocent one*—do you hear that majestic voice from our glorious past? In all humility I must remind you that the law in Russia is intended not just for the punishment but also for the salvation of the wrongdoer! Let other nations follow the letter of the law and punish; we shall follow the spirit of the law and we shall save and resurrect the sinners. And if that is so, if that is really what Russia and her laws are all about—then, forward Russia! Let us not be intimidated by those mad troikas from which other nations turn away in disgust! It will not be the mad troika, but the triumphal R
ussian coach which will inexorably and majestically reach its destination. My client’s fate is in your hands, our Russian truth is also in your hands. You will rescue it, you will stand up for it, you will prove that there is someone to look after it, that it is in good hands!’

  14

  TRUST THE PEASANTS!

  THAT is how Fetyukovich ended his speech; this time, the delight of the audience knew no bounds and there was a tumultuous burst of applause. To contain it would have been unthinkable: women were crying, many of the men were crying too, even a couple of the dignitaries shed a tear or two. The president relented and even waited before ringing his bell. ‘To try to restrain such enthusiasm would have been a sacrilege,’ the ladies of our town subsequently insisted. The defence counsel himself was genuinely moved. Such were the conditions in the hall when our Ippolit Kyrillovich rose to his feet once more to raise a few objections. He was greeted with hostility. ‘What? What’s all this? Who does he think he is, to object?’ muttered the ladies. But even if all the women of the world, led by the prosecutor’s lady-wife Mrs Ippolit Kyrillovich herself had been protesting—even then it would have been impossible to restrain him at that moment. He turned pale, he shook with agitation; his opening words were quite unintelligible; he was spluttering, mispronouncing, and stumbling over words. He soon recovered, however. But I shall quote only a few sentences from this speech.

  ‘I am reproached for inventing a great deal of fiction. But what about counsel for the defence, hasn’t he piled fiction upon fiction? It’s a marvel he didn’t turn it all into a poem for good measure. While waiting for his mistress, Fyodor Pavlovich tears up the envelope and flings it on the floor. We are even told what he said on that particular occasion. Isn’t that straight out of a novel? And where’s the proof that he took the money out of the envelope, and who heard what he said? A dim-wit of an idiot, Smerdyakov, presented as some kind of Byronic hero wreaking revenge on society for his bastardy—is that not a poetic fantasy in the manner of Byron? And the son, breaking into his father’s house and killing him, but at the same time not killing him, that you wouldn’t even find in a poem, let alone a novel; it’s a riddle set by the sphinx, which it itself cannot solve, of course. If he killed him, he killed him. But he killed him and yet he didn’t kill him—what is one to make of that? Further, we are solemnly informed that this is a forum for truth and common sense, and lo and behold, from this “forum of common sense” we hear counsel for the defence declaring—nay, swearing—that to call the murder of a father “patricide” is mere prejudice! But if patricide were prejudice and if every child were to ask his father, “Father, why should I love you?” then what would become of us, what would become of the foundations of society, what would become of the family? Patricide, you see, is merely the Moscow merchant’s wife’s “brimstone”! All the most precious, the most sacred canons in the warp and woof of Russian jurisprudence have been distorted and trivialized merely for the sake of securing an acquittal for what is unpardonable. “Oh, overwhelm him with mercy,” exclaims counsel for the defence, but that is just what the criminal wants, and everyone will reap the harvest tomorrow. And then again, is counsel for the defence surely not being unduly modest in calling merely for the acquittal of the accused? Why not ask to set up a patricide trust, to commemorate his achievement for posterity and for the younger generation? The Scriptures and religion itself have been amended: all that, we are told, is just metaphysics, and we alone are the keepers of true Christianity, tried and tested by intellectual analysis and sound common sense. And behold, we are presented with a false likeness of Christ! “For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again” proclaims counsel for the defence and, at the same instant, deduces that Christ preached “do as you have been done by”—and this from the forum of truth and common sense! We dipped into Holy Scriptures the night before our address, in order to show that, after all, we too are familiar with a work of some originality which could always be quoted to good effect, should the need arise, you understand! But, “do as you have been done by” is just what Christ told us to abhor, He bade us shun such practice, because that is the way of the evil world; we, however, must forgive and turn the other cheek, rather than do unto others as they do unto us. That is what Our Lord taught us, and not that it is just a matter of convention to forbid children to murder their fathers. And let us not seek, from the pulpit of truth and common sense, to amend the word of Our Lord, whom counsel for the defence deigns to refer to merely as the “crucified philanthropist”, in opposition to the whole of Orthodox Russia, which lifts up its voice unto Him “Thou Who art our God…!”’*