第328章

In the first place we have precisely on the day of the catastrophe that fit, for the genuineness of which the prosecutor, for some reason, has felt obliged to make a careful defence.Then Smerdyakov's sudden suicide on the eve of the trial.Then the equally startling evidence given in court to-day by the elder of the prisoner's brothers, who had believed in his guilt, but has to-day produced a bundle of notes and proclaimed Smerdyakov as the murderer.Oh, I fully share the court's and the prosecutor's conviction that Ivan Karamazov is suffering from brain fever, that his statement may really be a desperate effort, planned in delirium, to save his brother by throwing the guilt on the dead man.But again Smerdyakov's name is pronounced, again there is a suggestion of mystery.There is something unexplained, incomplete.And perhaps it may one day be explained.But we won't go into that now.Of that later.

"The court has resolved to go on with the trial, but, meantime, I might make a few remarks about the character-sketch of Smerdyakov drawn with subtlety and talent by the prosecutor.But while I admire his talent I cannot agree with him.I have visited Smerdyakov, Ihave seen him and talked to him, and he made a very different impression on me.He was weak in health, it is true; but in character, in spirit, he was by no means the weak man the prosecutor has made him out to be.I found in him no trace of the timidity on which the prosecutor so insisted.There was no simplicity about him, either.Ifound in him, on the contrary, an extreme mistrustfulness concealed under a mask of naivete, and an intelligence of considerable range.

The prosecutor was too simple in taking him for weak-minded.He made a very definite impression on me: I left him with the conviction that he was a distinctly spiteful creature, excessively ambitious, vindictive, and intensely envious.I made some inquiries: he resented his parentage, was ashamed of it, and would clench his teeth when he remembered that he was the son of 'stinking Lizaveta.' He was disrespectful to the servant Grigory and his wife, who had cared for him in his childhood.He cursed and jeered at Russia.He dreamed of going to France and becoming a Frenchman.He used often to say that he hadn't the means to do so.I fancy he loved no one but himself and had a strangely high opinion of himself.His conception of culture was limited to good clothes, clean shirt-fronts and polished boots.

Believing himself to be the illegitimate son of Fyodor Pavlovitch (there is evidence of this), he might well have resented his position, compared with that of his master's legitimate sons.They had everything, he nothing.They had all the rights, they had the inheritance, while he was only the cook.He told me himself that he had helped Fyodor Pavlovitch to put the notes in the envelope.The destination of that sum- a sum which would have made his career-must have been hateful to him.Moreover, he saw three thousand roubles in new rainbow-coloured notes.(I asked him about that on purpose.)Oh, beware of showing an ambitious and envious man a large sum of money at once! And it was the first time he had seen so much money in the hands of one man.The sight of the rainbow-coloured notes may have made a morbid impression on his imagination, but with no immediate results.

"The talented prosecutor, with extraordinary subtlety, sketched for us all the arguments for and against the hypothesis of Smerdyakov's guilt, and asked us in particular what motive he had in feigning a fit.But he may not have been feigning at all, the fit may have happened quite naturally, but it may have passed off quite naturally, and the sick man may have recovered, not completely perhaps, but still regaining consciousness, as happens with epileptics.

"The prosecutor asks at what moment could Smerdyakov have committed the murder.But it is very easy to point out that moment.He might have waked up from deep sleep (for he was only asleep- an epileptic fit is always followed by a deep sleep) at that moment when the old Grigory shouted at the top of his voice 'Parricide!' That shout in the dark and stillness may have waked Smerdyakov whose sleep may have been less sound at the moment: he might naturally have waked up an hour before.

"Getting out of bed, he goes almost unconsciously and with no definite motive towards the sound to see what's the matter.His head is still clouded with his attack, his faculties are half asleep;but, once in the garden, he walks to the lighted windows and he hears terrible news from his master, who would be, of course, glad to see him.His mind sets to work at once.He hears all the details from his frightened master, and gradually in his disordered brain there shapes itself an idea- terrible, but seductive and irresistibly logical.To kill the old man, take the three thousand, and throw all the blame on to his young master.A terrible lust of money, of booty, might seize upon him as he realised his security from detection.Oh! these sudden and irresistible impulses come so often when there is a favourable opportunity, and especially with murderers who have had no idea of committing a murder beforehand.

And Smerdyakov may have gone in and carried out his plan.With what weapon? Why, with any stone picked up in the garden.But what for, with what object? Why, the three thousand which means a career for him.Oh, I am not contradicting myself- the money may have existed.

And perhaps Smerdyakov alone knew where to find it, where his master kept it.And the covering of the money- the torn envelope on the floor?