I. Роковой день

Let me say in advance, and say it firmly: I am far from considering myself capable of conveying everything that happened at the trial — not only in its proper fullness, but even in its proper order.

It seems to me that if one were to recall it all and explain it all as it ought to be explained, it would take a whole book, and a very large one at that.

And so let no one reproach me for relating only what struck me personally and what I particularly remember.

I may have taken the secondary for the chief thing, may even have left out altogether the sharpest and most necessary features…

But then, I see it is better not to apologize.

I shall do as best I can, and the readers will understand for themselves that I did only what I could.

And, first of all, before we enter the courtroom, let me mention something that particularly astonished me on that day.

It astonished, however, not me alone, but, as turned out afterward, everyone.

Namely this: everyone knew that the case had aroused too many people's interest, that all were burning with impatience for the trial to begin, that in our society there had been a great deal of talk, of conjecture, of exclaiming and dreaming for two whole months already.

Everyone knew, too, that the case had gained nationwide notoriety, and yet none of them imagined that it had shaken every last person to such a burning, such an exasperating degree — and not among us alone, but everywhere — as it proved to have done at the trial itself on that day.

By that day guests had gathered to us not only from our provincial capital, but also from several other towns of Russia, and finally from Moscow and from Petersburg.

Jurists arrived; even a number of distinguished persons arrived, and ladies as well.

Every ticket had been snapped up.

For the especially honored and distinguished visitors among the men, quite extraordinary places had even been arranged behind the table at which the court was seated: there appeared a whole row of armchairs occupied by various personages, something that had never before been permitted with us.

There turned out to be a particularly large number of ladies — our own and the visiting kind — I think no fewer, even, than half the entire audience.

Of the jurists alone who had gathered from every quarter there proved to be so many that they no longer even knew where to seat them, since every ticket had long since been handed out, begged for, and wheedled away.

I saw for myself how, at the back of the hall, behind the dais, a special enclosure had been knocked together temporarily and in haste, into which all these jurists who had gathered were let in, and they counted themselves fortunate even to be able to stand there, for the chairs had been carried entirely out of that enclosure to make room, and the whole assembled crowd stood through the whole "case" in a densely packed mass, shoulder to shoulder.

Some of the ladies, especially the visiting ones, appeared in the gallery of the hall exceedingly decked out, but the majority of the ladies had even forgotten about their dress.

On their faces could be read a hysterical, greedy, almost morbid curiosity.

One of the most characteristic features of this whole company assembled in the hall, and one that must be noted, consisted in the fact that — as was indeed borne out afterward by many observations — almost all the ladies, or at least the overwhelming majority of them, stood for Mitya and for his acquittal.

Chiefly, perhaps, because a notion had formed of him as a conqueror of women's hearts.

It was known that two rival women would appear.

One of them, namely Katerina Ivanovna, interested everyone particularly; a great deal that was extraordinary was told about her, and astonishing anecdotes were related about her passion for Mitya, in spite even of his crime.

Particular mention was made of her pride (she had paid calls on almost no one in our town) and of her "aristocratic connections."

It was said that she intended to petition the government for permission to accompany the convict to penal servitude and to be wed to him somewhere down in the mines, underground.

With no less agitation was awaited the appearance at the trial of Grushenka as well, as the rival of Katerina Ivanovna.

With tormenting curiosity people awaited the meeting before the court of the two rivals — the proud aristocratic girl and the "hetaera"; Grushenka, however, was better known to our ladies than Katerina Ivanovna.

Her, "the ruin of Fyodor Pavlovich and of his unhappy son," our ladies had seen before as well, and all of them, almost to a woman, marveled how a father and son could have fallen so deeply in love with such "a perfectly ordinary, even quite plain Russian townswoman."

In a word, there was a great deal of talk.

I know for a positive fact that in our town itself several serious family quarrels even broke out on Mitya's account.

Many ladies fell out hotly with their husbands over a difference of views on this whole dreadful affair, and naturally, after that, all the husbands of these ladies came into the courtroom not merely ill-disposed toward the defendant, but even embittered against him.

In general one could positively say that, in contrast to the ladies, the entire male element was set against the defendant.

One saw stern, frowning faces, others even downright malicious, and that in great number.

It was also true that Mitya had managed to insult many of them personally during his time among us.

Of course, certain of the visitors were almost cheerful, even, and quite indifferent to Mitya's fate as such — though again, not to the case under examination; all were taken up with its outcome, and the majority of the men decidedly wished the criminal punished, save perhaps for the jurists, who cared not for the moral side of the case, but only, so to speak, for its modern-legal one.

Everyone was stirred by the arrival of the celebrated Fetyukovich.

His talent was known far and wide, and this was by no means the first time that he had come down to the provinces to defend notorious criminal cases.

And after his defense such cases always became famous throughout the whole of Russia and long remembered.

Several anecdotes were also going around about our prosecutor and about the presiding judge.

It was said that our prosecutor trembled at the prospect of meeting Fetyukovich, that they were old enemies from way back in Petersburg, from the very beginning of their careers; that our vain Ippolit Kirillovich, who had constantly considered himself slighted by someone ever since Petersburg, on the grounds that his talents had not been properly appreciated, had revived in spirit over the Karamazov case and even dreamed of resurrecting his withered career by means of this case — but that Fetyukovich alone frightened him.

But as for the trembling before Fetyukovich, these judgments were not altogether just.

Our prosecutor was not of those characters who lose heart in the face of danger, but, on the contrary, of those whose self-regard grows and takes wing precisely in proportion to the mounting of the danger.

In general, it must be noted that our prosecutor was too ardent and morbidly sensitive.

Into one case or another he would put his whole soul, and conduct it as though his entire fate and all his fortune hung upon its decision.

In the legal world this was rather laughed at, for it was precisely by this quality of his that our prosecutor had earned a certain renown — if far from everywhere, then a far greater one than might have been supposed in view of his modest post in our court.

His passion for psychology was laughed at especially.

In my opinion, they were all mistaken: our prosecutor, as a man and a character, was, it seems to me, far more serious than many supposed him to be.

But this sickly man simply could not manage to establish himself, from his very first steps at the outset of his career, and thereafter throughout his whole life.

As for the presiding judge of our court, one can say only this of him: that he was an educated man, humane, with a practical grasp of his business, and of the most modern ideas.

He was vain enough, but did not greatly trouble himself about his career.

The chief aim of his life lay in being a progressive man.

Besides, he had connections and means.

On the Karamazov case, as turned out later, he looked rather ardently, but only in the general sense.

What occupied him was the phenomenon, its classification, the view of it as a product of our social foundations, as a characteristic of the Russian element, and so on, and so on.

To the personal character of the case, to its tragedy, as also to the personalities of those taking part, beginning with the defendant, he related rather indifferently and abstractly — as, indeed, was perhaps as it should be.

Long before the court appeared, the hall was already packed to overflowing.

Our courtroom is the best in town — spacious, high-ceilinged, resonant.

To the right of the members of the court, who were seated on a slight elevation, a table and two rows of armchairs had been made ready for the jurors.

To the left was the place for the defendant and his counsel.

In the middle of the hall, near the court's seats, stood a table with the "material evidence."