IV. Fortune Smiles on Mitya

It happened quite unexpectedly even for Alyosha himself. He was called without taking the oath, and I remember that from the very first words of the questioning all the parties treated him with extraordinary gentleness and sympathy. One could see that a good reputation had preceded him. Alyosha testified modestly and with restraint, but a warm sympathy for his unfortunate brother plainly broke through in his testimony. Replying to one of the questions, he drew his brother as a man perhaps violent and carried away by his passions, but also noble, proud, and magnanimous, ready even for sacrifice, if it were demanded of him. He admitted, however, that in those last days, because of his passion for Grushenka, because of his rivalry with his father, his brother had been in an unbearable position. But he indignantly rejected even the supposition that his brother could have killed for the purpose of robbery, though he admitted that those three thousand had turned in Mitya’s mind into something almost like a mania, that he considered them an inheritance withheld from him by his father’s deceit, and that, though he was not at all greedy for money, he could not even begin to speak of those three thousand without frenzy and fury. As for the rivalry of the two “persons,” as the prosecutor put it, that is, of Grushenka and Katya, he answered evasively and even declined altogether to answer one or two questions.

“Did your brother at least tell you that he intended to kill his father?” asked the prosecutor. “You may decline to answer, if you find it necessary,” he added.

“He did not say so directly,” answered Alyosha.

“How, then? Indirectly?”

“He spoke to me once of his personal hatred for his father and said he was afraid that… at an extreme moment… at a moment of loathing… he might perhaps even be capable of killing him.”

“And hearing that, you believed it?”

“I am afraid to say that I believed it. But I was always convinced that a certain higher feeling would always rescue him at the fatal minute, as in fact it did rescue him, because it was not he who killed my father,” Alyosha concluded firmly, in a loud voice that carried through the whole hall. The prosecutor started like a warhorse hearing the trumpet call.

“Rest assured that I fully believe in the most complete sincerity of your conviction, without conditioning it or assimilating it in the least to your love for your unfortunate brother. Your peculiar view of the whole tragic episode that has played itself out in your family is already known to us from the preliminary investigation. I will not hide from you that it is in the highest degree singular and contradicts all the other testimony obtained by the prosecution. And therefore I find it necessary to ask you, now with insistence: what data precisely guided your thought and directed it toward a conclusive conviction of your brother’s innocence and, on the contrary, of the guilt of another person, at whom you already pointed directly during the preliminary investigation?”

“During the preliminary investigation I only answered questions,” Alyosha said quietly and calmly, “and did not come forward myself with an accusation against Smerdyakov.”

“And still you pointed at him?”

“I pointed at him on the word of my brother Dmitri. Even before I was questioned, I was told what had happened at his arrest and how he himself had pointed at Smerdyakov then. I fully believe that my brother is innocent. And if it was not he who killed, then…”

“Then Smerdyakov? Why Smerdyakov precisely? And why precisely are you so conclusively convinced of your brother’s innocence?”

“I could not help believing my brother. I know that he will not lie to me. I saw by his face that he was not lying to me.”

“Only by his face? Is that all your proof?”

“I have no other proof.”

“And as to Smerdyakov’s guilt, you likewise rely on no other proof whatever than your brother’s words and the expression of his face?”

“Yes, I have no other proof.”

With that the prosecutor broke off his questioning. Alyosha’s answers had made the most disappointing impression on the public. There had already been talk about Smerdyakov among us even before the trial, someone had heard something, someone had pointed to something, it was said of Alyosha that he had accumulated some extraordinary proofs in his brother’s favor and of the lackey’s guilt, and here—nothing, no proofs at all, except some moral convictions, so natural in his position as the defendant’s own brother.

But then Fetyukovich began his questions too. To the question of when exactly the defendant had told him, Alyosha, of his hatred for his father and that he might kill him, and whether he had heard it from him, for instance, at their last meeting before the catastrophe, Alyosha, as he answered, suddenly seemed to start, as if only now remembering and grasping something:

“I recall now one circumstance which I had quite forgotten myself, but at the time it was so unclear to me, and now…”

And Alyosha, with animation, evidently having just now hit upon the idea himself, recalled how at his last meeting with Mitya, in the evening, by the tree, on the road to the monastery, Mitya, striking himself on the breast, “on the upper part of the breast,” had repeated to him several times that he had a means of restoring his honor, that this means was here, right here, on his breast… “I thought then that, striking himself on the breast, he was speaking of his heart,” Alyosha went on, “of being able to find in his heart the strength to escape from some terrible disgrace that lay ahead of him and that he did not dare confess even to me. I confess I did think then precisely that he was speaking of his father and that he shuddered, as at a disgrace, at the thought of going to his father and committing some act of violence against him, and yet just then he seemed to be pointing at something on his breast, so that, I remember, some thought flashed through my mind just then that the heart is not at all in that part of the breast, but lower, while he was striking himself much higher, right here, just below the neck, and kept pointing to that place. My thought seemed silly to me then, but perhaps he was pointing precisely at that pouch in which the fifteen hundred rubles were sewn up!…”

“Exactly!” Mitya suddenly shouted from his place. “That’s right, Alyosha, that’s right, I was pounding it with my fist then!”

Fetyukovich rushed to him in haste, imploring him to calm himself, and at the same instant fairly fastened on Alyosha. Alyosha, carried away by his recollection himself, warmly expressed his supposition that this disgrace most probably consisted precisely in this, that, having on him those fifteen hundred rubles, which he could have returned to Katerina Ivanovna as half of his debt to her, he had nevertheless decided not to give her this half and to use it for something else, that is, for carrying off Grushenka, if she agreed…

“That’s so, that’s precisely so,” Alyosha exclaimed in sudden excitement, “my brother exclaimed to me precisely then that half, half of the disgrace (he said several times: half!) he could remove from himself at once, but that he was so unhappy in the weakness of his character that he would not do it… he knew beforehand that he could not and had not the strength to do it!”

“And you remember firmly, clearly, that he struck himself precisely on that place on his breast?” Fetyukovich questioned eagerly.

“Clearly and firmly, because precisely the thought occurred to me then: why is he striking himself so high, when the heart is lower, and my thought seemed silly to me then and there… I remember that it seemed silly… it flashed through my mind. That is precisely why I have just remembered it now. And how could I have forgotten it until this very moment! He was pointing precisely at that pouch to show that he had the means, but that he would not give back those fifteen hundred! And at his arrest, in Mokroye, he shouted precisely—I know this, I was told—that he considered it the most disgraceful deed of his whole life that, having the means to give back half (precisely half!) of his debt to Katerina Ivanovna and to stand before her as not a thief, he nevertheless could not bring himself to give it back and would sooner stay a thief in her eyes than be parted from the money! And how he suffered, how he suffered over that debt!” Alyosha concluded with an exclamation.

Of course, the prosecutor intervened too. He asked Alyosha to describe once more how it had all been, and insisted several times, asking whether the defendant, beating himself on the breast, had really seemed to be pointing at something? Perhaps he was simply beating his breast with his fist?

“But not with his fist!” Alyosha exclaimed. “He was precisely pointing with his fingers, and pointing here, very high… But how could I have forgotten it so completely until this very minute!”

The presiding judge turned to Mitya with the question of what he could say concerning the testimony given. Mitya confirmed that it had all been precisely so, that he had precisely been pointing at his fifteen hundred, which he had on his breast, just below the neck, and that of course it was a disgrace, “a disgrace I don’t disown, the most disgraceful act of my whole life!” Mitya cried. “I could have given it back and I didn’t. I preferred to remain a thief in her eyes, but I didn’t give it back, and the chief disgrace of all was that I knew beforehand I wouldn’t give it back! Alyosha is right! Thank you, Alyosha!”

With that Alyosha’s questioning ended. What was important and characteristic was precisely the circumstance that at least one single fact had turned up, at least one single proof, granted the most trifling, almost only a hint of a proof, but which still testified, if only a tiny drop, that this pouch had really existed, that there had been fifteen hundred rubles in it, and that the defendant had not been lying during the preliminary investigation when he declared at Mokroye that those fifteen hundred “were mine.” Alyosha was glad; all flushed, he proceeded to the place assigned to him. For a long time he kept repeating to himself: “How did I forget it! How could I have forgotten it! And how is it that it came back to me so suddenly only now!”

The questioning of Katerina Ivanovna began. The moment she appeared, something extraordinary swept through the hall. The ladies seized their lorgnettes and opera glasses, the men stirred, some stood up from their seats to see better. Everyone asserted afterward that Mitya suddenly went “white as a sheet” the moment she came in. All in black, modestly and almost timidly, she approached the place assigned to her. One could not tell from her face that she was agitated, but resolution flashed in her dark, somber gaze. It must be noted that a great many people asserted afterward that she was astonishingly beautiful at that moment. She began to speak quietly but clearly, so that the whole hall could hear. She expressed herself with extraordinary calm, or at least with an effort to be calm. The presiding judge began his questions cautiously, extremely respectfully, as though afraid to touch “certain strings” and respecting a great misfortune. But Katerina Ivanovna herself, from her very first words, declared firmly, in answer to one of the questions put to her, that she had been the defendant’s betrothed “until he himself left me…” she added quietly. When she was asked about the three thousand entrusted to Mitya for sending by post to her relatives, she said firmly: “I did not give it to him for the post directly; I had a presentiment then that he needed money very badly… at that moment. I gave him those three thousand on condition that he send them, if he liked, within a month. He tormented himself so afterward over that debt for nothing…”

I do not convey all the questions and all her answers exactly; I convey only the essential sense of her testimony.

“I was firmly convinced that he would always have time to send those three thousand as soon as he received money from his father,” she went on, answering the questions. “I was always convinced of his disinterestedness and his honesty… his lofty honesty… in money matters. He was firmly convinced that he would receive three thousand rubles from his father, and he spoke to me of it several times. I knew that he had a quarrel with his father, and I was always convinced, and am to this day, that his father had wronged him. I do not remember any threats against his father on his part. At least in my presence he said nothing, no threats. If he had come to me then, I would at once have calmed his anxiety over those unfortunate three thousand he owed me, but he did not come to me anymore… and I myself… I had been put in such a position… that I could not call him to me… And besides, I had no right whatever to be exacting with him over that debt,” she suddenly added, and something resolute rang in her voice. “I myself once received from him a monetary favor even greater than three thousand, and I accepted it, in spite of the fact that I could not even foresee then that I would ever be in a position to pay him my debt.”

A sort of challenge seemed to be felt in the tone of her voice. It was precisely at this moment that the questions passed to Fetyukovich.

“That was not here, but at the beginning of your acquaintance?” Fetyukovich took her up, approaching cautiously, instantly sensing something favorable. (I will remark in parentheses that, in spite of the fact that he had been summoned from Petersburg partly by Katerina Ivanovna herself, he still knew nothing of the episode of the five thousand given her by Mitya back in that other town, nor of “the bow to the ground.” She had not told him this and had concealed it! And that was astonishing. One may suppose with certainty that she herself, until the very last minute, did not know whether she would tell this episode at the trial or not, and was waiting for some sort of inspiration.)

No, I can never forget those minutes! She began to tell, she told everything, the whole episode that Mitya had confided to Alyosha, and “the bow to the ground,” and the reasons, and about her father, and her appearance at Mitya’s, and never by a word, not by a single hint, did she mention that Mitya himself, through her sister, had proposed “sending Katerina Ivanovna to him for the money.” That she magnanimously concealed, and was not ashamed to bring out into the open that it was she, she herself, who had run to the young officer then, of her own impulse, hoping for something… to beg money from him. It was something staggering. I went cold and trembled as I listened, the hall froze, catching every word. There was something unexampled in it, so that even from such a willful and contemptuously proud girl as she was, it was almost impossible to expect such highly candid testimony, such a sacrifice, such self-immolation. And for what, for whom? To save her betrayer and the man who had wronged her, to serve at least in some way, however small, toward saving him, by producing a good impression in his favor! And indeed: the image of an officer giving away his last five thousand rubles—all that he had left in life—and bowing respectfully before an innocent girl came out very sympathetic and attractive, but… my heart contracted painfully! I felt that slander might come of it later (and it did come later, it came!). With a spiteful little laugh people said afterward all over town that the story was perhaps not quite accurate, precisely at the point where the officer let the young lady go from him “supposedly with only a respectful bow.” They hinted that something had been “left out” there. “And even if nothing was left out, even if it was all the truth,” said even the most respectable of our ladies, “even then it is still not known whether it was very noble for a girl to act like that, even if it was to save her father?” And could it be that Katerina Ivanovna, with her intelligence, with her morbid perspicacity, had no presentiment beforehand that people would talk like that? She certainly had a presentiment of it, and yet she resolved to tell everything! Of course, all these dirty little doubts about the truth of the story began only later, and at the first moment everything and everyone was shaken. As for the members of the court, they heard Katerina Ivanovna out in a reverent, so to speak, even bashful silence. The prosecutor did not permit himself a single further question on this subject. Fetyukovich bowed deeply to her. Oh, he was almost triumphant! Much had been gained: a man who, in a noble impulse, gives away his last five thousand, and then the same man killing his father at night in order to rob him of three thousand—that was something partly incongruous. At least the robbery, now, Fetyukovich could set aside. “The case” was suddenly bathed in a sort of new light. Something sympathetic swept through the hall in Mitya’s favor. As for him… it was said of him that once or twice during Katerina Ivanovna’s testimony he jumped up from his place, then fell back onto the bench again and covered his face with both palms. But when she had finished, he suddenly exclaimed in a sobbing voice, stretching out his arms to her:

“Katya, why have you ruined me!”

And he began sobbing aloud, for the whole hall to hear. However, he instantly restrained himself and shouted again:

“Now I am condemned!”

And then he seemed to go rigid where he sat, clenching his teeth and crossing his arms tightly on his chest. Katerina Ivanovna remained in the hall and sat down on the chair assigned to her. She was pale and sat with her eyes lowered. Those who were near her related that for a long time she trembled all over as if in a fever. Grushenka appeared for questioning.

I am coming close to that catastrophe which, breaking out suddenly, really did, perhaps, ruin Mitya. For I am convinced, and so is everyone, all the lawyers said so afterward, that if this episode had not occurred, the criminal would at least have been granted leniency. But of this presently. Only two words about Grushenka first.

She came into the hall also dressed all in black, with her beautiful black shawl about her shoulders. Smoothly, with her soundless walk, swaying a little, as plump women sometimes walk, she approached the balustrade, looking intently at the presiding judge and never once glancing either to the right or to the left. In my opinion, she was very beautiful at that moment and not at all pale, as the ladies asserted afterward. They asserted too that she had a sort of concentrated and spiteful face. I think only that she was irritated and keenly felt upon her the contemptuously curious looks of our public, greedy for scandal. Hers was a proud character, one that could not bear contempt, one of those who, the moment they suspect contempt from anyone, at once flare up with anger and a thirst to fight back. Along with this there was, of course, timidity as well, and an inner shame at this timidity, so that it is no wonder her speech was uneven—now wrathful, now contemptuous and deliberately rude, and then suddenly a sincere, heartfelt note of self-condemnation, of self-accusation, would sound. And at times she spoke as though she were flying into some abyss: “it’s all the same, whatever comes of it, I’ll say it anyway…” Concerning her acquaintance with Fyodor Pavlovich, she remarked sharply: “That’s all nonsense, is it my fault he got stuck on me?” And then, a minute later, she added: “It’s all my fault, I laughed at the both of them—at the old man and at this one—and drove them both to it. It all happened because of me.” Somehow the matter touched on Samsonov: “What business is it of anyone’s,” she snapped at once with a sort of insolent defiance, “he was my benefactor, he took me in barefoot when my own folk threw me out of the cottage.” The presiding judge, very politely, however, reminded her that she must answer the questions directly, without going into superfluous details. Grushenka flushed, and her eyes flashed.

She had not seen the envelope with the money, but had only heard from “the villain” that Fyodor Pavlovich had some envelope with three thousand. “Only that was all foolishness, I laughed at it, and I wouldn’t have gone there for anything…”

“Whom did you just refer to as ‘the villain’?” the prosecutor inquired.

“Why, the lackey, Smerdyakov, who killed his master and hanged himself yesterday.”

Of course, she was instantly asked what grounds she had for such a decisive accusation, but it turned out that she too had no grounds whatever.

“That’s what Dmitri Fyodorovich told me himself, so believe him. That home-wrecker ruined him, that’s what, she alone is the cause of it all, that’s what,” Grushenka added, as if shuddering all over with hatred, and a spiteful note rang in her voice.

They inquired whom she was hinting at now.

“Why, the young lady, this Katerina Ivanovna here. She invited me to her place that time, treated me to chocolate, wanted to charm me. There’s little true shame in her, that’s what…”

Here the presiding judge stopped her, now sternly, asking her to moderate her expressions. But the jealous woman’s heart had already flared up, she was ready to fly even into the abyss…

“At the arrest in the village of Mokroye,” the prosecutor asked, recalling it, “everyone saw and heard how you ran out of the other room and cried, ‘It’s all my fault, we’ll go to penal servitude together!’ So you too were already convinced at that moment that he was a parricide?”

“I don’t remember what I felt then,” answered Grushenka. “Everybody started shouting then that he’d killed his father, and I felt that it was my fault and that it was because of me he’d killed. But when he said he was innocent, I believed him at once, and I believe him now, and I always will believe him: he’s not the sort of man to lie.”

The questions passed to Fetyukovich. Among other things, I remember, he asked about Rakitin and about the twenty-five rubles “for bringing Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov to you.”

“And what’s so surprising about his taking the money,” Grushenka grinned with contemptuous spite. “He kept coming to me to whine for money, he’d get as much as thirty rubles a month out of me sometimes, mostly for his own fun: he had enough to eat and drink without mine.”

“On what grounds were you so generous to Mr. Rakitin?” Fetyukovich took her up, in spite of the fact that the presiding judge was stirring violently.

“Why, he’s my cousin. My mother and his mother were sisters. Only he kept begging me not to tell anybody about it here, he was very much ashamed of me.”

This new fact turned out to be a complete surprise to everyone; no one in the whole town had known of it until then, not even in the monastery, not even Mitya. It was said that Rakitin turned crimson with shame on his chair. Grushenka had somehow found out, even before she came into the hall, that he had testified against Mitya, and that was why she was angry. The whole of Mr. Rakitin’s speech of a while before, all its nobility, all its sallies against serfdom and the civil disorder of Russia—all of it was now, this time, finally crossed out and destroyed in the general opinion. Fetyukovich was pleased: once again God had dropped a windfall into his cap. In general, Grushenka was not questioned for very long, and of course she could not have communicated anything particularly new. She left a very unpleasant impression on the public. Hundreds of contemptuous looks were fixed on her when, having finished her testimony, she sat down in the hall rather far from Katerina Ivanovna. All the time she was being questioned, Mitya kept silent, as though turned to stone, his eyes lowered to the floor.

Ivan Fyodorovich appeared as a witness.