VII. Обзор исторический

I maintain that he is precisely in his right mind, and that this is the very worst of it: had he been out of his mind, he might perhaps have turned out far cleverer.

As for his being a maniac, on that point I would even agree, but only on one single point — the very one the examination itself singled out, namely the defendant's view of those three thousand roubles supposedly underpaid to him by his father.

Even so, one may perhaps find an incomparably nearer point of view from which to explain the defendant's perpetual frenzy over this money than his alleged leaning toward derangement.

For my own part, I fully concur with the opinion of the young physician, who held that the defendant enjoys and has always enjoyed full and normal mental faculties, and was merely irritated and embittered.

And here is the crux of it: the object of the defendant's constant and frenzied bitterness lay not in three thousand roubles, not in the sum as such, but in the fact that there was here a particular cause that inflamed his wrath.

And that cause was — jealousy!"

Here Ippolit Kirillovitch unfolded at length the whole picture of the defendant's fatal passion for Grushenka.

He began from the very moment when the defendant set off to call on "the young person" in order "to thrash her," to use his own words, explained Ippolit Kirillovitch, "but instead of thrashing her, he remained at her feet — and there is the beginning of this love.

At that same time the old man, the defendant's father, also casts an eye upon this same person — an astonishing and fateful coincidence, for both hearts caught fire at once, at one and the same time, although each of them had known and met this person before — and these two hearts caught fire with the most unbridled, the most Karamazov passion.

Here we have her own admission: 'I,' she says, 'was laughing at the two of them.'

Yes, the sudden whim came over her to laugh at the two of them; before, she had had no wish to, but then all at once this intention flew into her head — and it ended with both of them falling at her feet, vanquished.

The old man, who worshipped money as a god, at once set aside three thousand roubles merely so that she would pay a visit to his dwelling, but before long he had been brought to such a pass that he would have counted it happiness to lay his name and his whole fortune at her feet, if only she would consent to become his lawful wedded wife.

On this we have firm testimony.

As for the defendant, his tragedy is plain, it stands before us.

But such was the 'game' of the young person.

To the unhappy young man the temptress held out not even a hint of hope, for hope, real hope, was granted him only at the very last moment, when, kneeling before his tormentress, he stretched out to her hands already stained with the blood of his father and rival: it was in this very posture that he was arrested.

'Send me, send me to penal servitude along with him, it was I who drove him to it, I am the most to blame of all!' — so this woman herself cried out, in genuine remorse now, at the moment of his arrest.

A talented young man who has taken it upon himself to describe the present case — that same Mr. Rakitin whom I have already mentioned — defines the character of this heroine in a few terse and telling phrases: 'An early disenchantment, an early deception and fall, the betrayal of a seducer-fiancé who abandoned her, then poverty, the curse of an honest family, and at last the patronage of a certain wealthy old man whom she herself, by the way, still regards even now as her benefactor.

In a young heart that may have held much that was good, anger had lain hidden from too early an age.

There formed a calculating character, one that hoards capital.

There formed a mockery and a vindictiveness toward society.'

After this character sketch it is understandable that she could laugh at the two of them solely out of sport, out of malicious sport.

And so, in this month of hopeless love, of moral falls, of betraying his own betrothed, of appropriating another's money entrusted to his honour, the defendant, on top of all this, is driven almost to frenzy, to fury, by ceaseless jealousy — and of whom, of his own father!

And the worst of it: the mad old man is luring and tempting the object of his passion with these very same three thousand, which his son regards as his own patrimony, his mother's inheritance, and for which he reproaches his father.

Yes, I agree, this was a hard thing to bear!

Here a mania might indeed arise.

It was not a matter of the money, but of the fact that with this very money his happiness was being shattered with such loathsome cynicism!"

Then Ippolit Kirillovitch passed on to how the thought of parricide had gradually taken root in the defendant, and he traced it through the facts.

"At first we only shout about the taverns — this whole month we shout.

Oh, we love to live before an audience and to communicate to those people at once everything, even our most infernal and dangerous ideas; we love to share with people and, for no clear reason, on the spot, that very instant, we demand that these people answer us at once with the fullest sympathy, that they enter into all our cares and anxieties, that they nod along with us and put no obstacle in the way of our temper.

Otherwise we shall grow angry and wreck the whole tavern.

(There followed the anecdote about Captain Snegiryov.)

Those who saw and heard the defendant during this month felt at last that here there might no longer be merely shouts and threats against his father, but that in such a frenzy the threats might well pass over into the deed itself.

(Here the prosecutor described the family meeting at the monastery, the conversations with Alyosha, and the disgraceful scene of violence in his father's house, when the defendant burst in on him after dinner.)

I am not inclined to insist, Ippolit Kirillovitch continued, that before this scene the defendant had already deliberately and with premeditation resolved to make an end of his father by murdering him.

Nevertheless this idea had already presented itself to him several times, and he deliberately contemplated it — for this we have facts, witnesses, and his own confession.

I confess, gentlemen of the jury, added Ippolit Kirillovitch, that until this very day I hesitated to attribute to the defendant a full and conscious premeditation of the crime that was thrusting itself upon him.

I was firmly convinced that his soul had already contemplated the fatal moment ahead of him many times over, but only contemplated it, picturing it to himself only as a possibility, without yet fixing either the time of its execution or the circumstances.

But I hesitated only until today, until this fatal document presented to the court today by Madame Verhovtsev.

You yourselves heard, gentlemen, her exclamation: 'This is the plan, this is the programme of the murder!' — that is how she defined the unhappy 'drunken' letter of the unhappy defendant.

And indeed, behind this letter lies the whole meaning of a programme and of premeditation.

It was written two days before the crime, and thus we now know for certain that two days before carrying out his dreadful design the defendant declared on oath that, if he did not get hold of money tomorrow, he would kill his father in order to take the money from him from under his pillow 'in the envelope with the red ribbon, the moment Ivan was gone.'

Listen: 'the moment Ivan was gone' — here, then, everything is already thought out, the circumstances weighed — and what of it: afterward everything was carried out exactly as written!

The premeditation and deliberation are beyond doubt; the crime was to be committed for the sake of robbery, this is plainly declared, this is written and signed.

The defendant does not disown his signature.

It will be said: a drunken man wrote this.

But this diminishes nothing, and is all the more important: drunk, he wrote down what he had conceived sober.

Had it not been conceived sober, it would not have been written drunk.

It will perhaps be said: why did he shout about his intention around the taverns?

A man who resolves on such a deed with premeditation keeps silent and hides it within himself.

True, but he was shouting at a time when there were as yet no plans and no premeditation, when there stood only a single desire, when only a craving was ripening.

Later he already shouts about it less.

On the evening when this letter was written, having got drunk at the tavern 'The Metropolis,' he was, contrary to his custom, taciturn, did not play billiards, sat off to one side, spoke to no one, and only drove a local shopman's clerk from his seat, but this was already almost unconsciously, out of the habit of quarrelling, without which, once he had entered a tavern, he could no longer do.

True, along with the final resolve there must have come into the defendant's head the apprehension that he had shouted far too much around the town beforehand and that this might serve greatly to convict and accuse him once he had carried out what he had planned.

But what was to be done now — the fact of the publicity was an accomplished thing, you can't take it back, and after all, the crooked mare had hauled him through before, it would haul him through now.

We were trusting in our lucky star, gentlemen!