The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky [children's books read aloud TXT] 📗

Chapter 4

Fortune Smiles on Mitya

 

IT came quite as a surprise even to Alyosha himself. He was not

required to take the oath, and I remember that both sides addressed

him very gently and sympathetically. It was evident that his

reputation for goodness had preceded him. Alyosha gave his evidence

modestly and with restraint, but his warm sympathy for his unhappy

brother was unmistakable. In answer to one question, he sketched his

brother’s character as that of a man, violent-tempered perhaps and

carried away by his passions, but at the same time honourable, proud

and generous, capable of self-sacrifice, if necessary. He admitted,

however, that, through his passion for Grushenka and his rivalry

with his father, his brother had been of late in an intolerable

position. But he repelled with indignation the suggestion that his

brother might have committed a murder for the sake of gain, though

he recognised that the three thousand roubles had become almost an

obsession with Mitya; that upon them as part of the inheritance he had

been cheated of by his father, and that, indifferent as he was to

money as a rule, he could not even speak of that three thousand

without fury. As for the rivalry of the two “ladies,” as the

prosecutor expressed it-that is, of Grushenka and Katya-he

answered evasively and was even unwilling to answer one or two

questions altogether.

 

“Did your brother tell you, anyway, that he intended to kill

your father?” asked the prosecutor. “You can refuse to answer if you

think necessary,” he added.

 

“He did not tell me so directly,” answered Alyosha.

 

“How so? Did he indirectly?”

 

“He spoke to me once of his hatred for our father and his fear

that at an extreme moment… at a moment of fury, he might perhaps

murder him.”

 

“And you believed him?”

 

“I am afraid to say that I did. But I never doubted that some

higher feeling would always save him at that fatal moment, as it has

indeed saved him, for it was not he killed my father,” Alyosha said

firmly, in a loud voice that was heard throughout the court.

 

The prosecutor started like a war-horse at the sound of a trumpet.

 

“Let me assure you that I fully believe in the complete

sincerity of your conviction and do not explain it by or identify it

with your affection for your unhappy brother. Your peculiar view of

the whole tragic episode is known to us already from the preliminary

investigation. I won’t attempt to conceal from you that it is highly

individual and contradicts all the other evidence collected by the

prosecution. And so I think it essential to press you to tell me

what facts have led you to this conviction of your brother’s innocence

and of the guilt of another person against whom you gave evidence at

the preliminary inquiry?”

 

“I only answered the questions asked me at the preliminary

inquiry,” replied Alyosha, slowly and calmly. “I made no accusation

against Smerdyakov of myself.”

 

“Yet you gave evidence against him?”

 

“I was led to do so by my brother Dmitri’s words. I was told

what took place at his arrest and how he had pointed to Smerdyakov

before I was examined. I believe absolutely that my brother is

innocent, and if he didn’t commit the murder, then-”

 

“Then Smerdyakov? Why Smerdyakov? And why are you so completely

persuaded of your brother’s innocence?”

 

“I cannot help believing my brother. I know he wouldn’t lie to me.

I saw from his face he wasn’t lying.”

 

“Only from his face? Is that all the proof you have?”

 

“I have no other proof.”

 

“And of Smerdyakov’s guilt you have no proof whatever but your

brother’s word and the expression of his face?”

 

“No, I have no other proof.”

 

The prosecutor dropped the examination at this point. The

impression left by Alyosha’s evidence on the public was most

disappointing. There had been talk about Smerdyakov before the

trial; someone had heard something, someone had pointed out

something else, it was said that Alyosha had gathered together some

extraordinary proofs of his brother’s innocence and Smerdyakov’s

guilt, and after all there was nothing, no evidence except certain

moral convictions so natural in a brother.

 

But Fetyukovitch began his cross-examination. On his asking

Alyosha when it was that the prisoner had told him of his hatred for

his father and that he might kill him, and whether he had heard it,

for instance, at their last meeting before the catastrophe, Alyosha

started as he answered, as though only just recollecting and

understanding something.

 

“I remember one circumstance now which I’d quite forgotten myself.

It wasn’t clear to me at the time, but now-”

 

And, obviously only now for the first time struck by an idea, he

recounted eagerly how, at his last interview with Mitya that evening

under the tree, on the road to the monastery, Mitya had struck himself

on the breast, “the upper part of the breast,” and had repeated

several times that he had a means of regaining his honour, that that

means was here, here on his breast. “I thought, when he struck himself

on the breast, he meant that it was in his heart,” Alyosha

continued, “that he might find in his heart strength to save himself

from some awful disgrace which was awaiting him and which he did not

dare confess even to me. I must confess I did think at the time that

he was speaking of our father, and that the disgrace he was shuddering

at was the thought of going to our father and doing some violence to

him. Yet it was just then that he pointed to something on his

breast, so that I remember the idea struck me at the time that the

heart is not on that part of the breast, but below, and that he struck

himself much too high, just below the neck, and kept pointing to

that place. My idea seemed silly to me at the time, but he was perhaps

pointing then to that little bag in which he had fifteen hundred

roubles!”

 

“Just so, Mitya cried from his place. “That’s right, Alyosha, it

was the little bag I struck with my fist.”

 

Fetyukovitch flew to him in hot haste entreating him to keep

quiet, and at the same instant pounced on Alyosha. Alyosha, carried

away himself by his recollection, warmly expressed his theory that

this disgrace was probably just that fifteen hundred roubles on him,

which he might have returned to Katerina Ivanovna as half of what he

owed her, but which he had yet determined not to repay her and to

use for another purpose-namely, to enable him to elope with

Grushenka, if she consented.

 

“It is so, it must be so,” exclaimed Alyosha, in sudden

excitement. “My brother cried several times that half of the disgrace,

half of it (he said half several times) he could free himself from

at once, but that he was so unhappy in his weakness of will that he

wouldn’t do it… that he knew beforehand he was incapable of doing

it!”

 

“And you clearly, confidently remember that he struck himself just

on this part of the breast?” Fetyukovitch asked eagerly.

 

“Clearly and confidently, for I thought at the time, ‘Why does

he strike himself up there when the heart is lower down?’ and the

thought seemed stupid to me at the time… I remember its seeming

stupid… it flashed through my mind. That’s what brought it back to

me just now. How could I have forgotten it till now? It was that

little bag he meant when he said he had the means but wouldn’t give

back that fifteen hundred. And when he was arrested at Mokroe he cried

out-I know, I was told it-that he considered it the most disgraceful

act of his life that when he had the means of repaying Katerina

Ivanovna half (half, note!) what he owed her, he yet could not bring

himself to repay the money and preferred to remain a thief in her eyes

rather than part with it. And what torture, what torture that debt has

been to him!” Alyosha exclaimed in conclusion.

 

The prosecutor, of course, intervened. He asked Alyosha to

describe once more how it had all happened, and several times insisted

on the question, “Had the prisoner seemed to point to anything?

Perhaps he had simply struck himself with his fist on the breast?”

 

“But it was not with his fist,” cried Alyosha; “he pointed with

his fingers and pointed here, very high up…. How could I have so

completely forgotten it till this moment?”

 

The President asked Mitya what he had to say to the last witness’s

evidence. Mitya confirmed it, saying that he had been pointing to

the fifteen hundred roubles which were on his breast, just below the

neck, and that that was, of course, the disgrace, “A disgrace I cannot

deny, the most shameful act of my whole life,” cried Mitya. “I might

have repaid it and didn’t repay it. I preferred to remain a thief in

her eyes rather than give it back. And the most shameful part of it

was that I knew beforehand I shouldn’t give it back! You are right,

Alyosha! Thanks, Alyosha!”

 

So Alyosha’s cross-examination ended. What was important and

striking about it was that one fact at least had been found, and

even though this were only one tiny bit of evidence, a mere hint at

evidence, it did go some little way towards proving that the bag had

existed and had contained fifteen hundred roubles and that the

prisoner had not been lying at the preliminary inquiry when he alleged

at Mokroe that those fifteen hundred roubles were “his own.” Alyosha

was glad. With a flushed face he moved away to the seat assigned to

him. He kept repeating to himself: “How was it I forgot? How could I

have forgotten it? And what made it come back to me now?”

 

Katerina Ivanovna was called to the witness-box. As she entered

something extraordinary happened in the court. The ladies clutched

their lorgnettes and opera-glasses. There was a stir among the men:

some stood up to get a better view. Everybody alleged afterwards

that Mitya had turned “white as a sheet” on her entrance. All in

black, she advanced modestly, almost timidly. It was impossible to

tell from her face that she was agitated; but there was a resolute

gleam in her dark and gloomy eyes. I may remark that many people

mentioned that she looked particularly handsome at that moment. She

spoke softly but clearly, so that she was heard all over the court.

She expressed herself with composure, or at least tried to appear

composed. The President began his examination discreetly and very

respectfully, as though afraid to touch on “certain chords,” and

showing consideration for her great unhappiness. But in answer to

one of the first questions Katerina Ivanovna replied firmly that she

had been formerly betrothed to the prisoner, “until he left me of

his own accord…” she added quietly. When they asked her about the

three thousand she had entrusted to Mitya to post to her relations,

she said firmly, “I didn’t give him the money simply to send it off. I

felt at the time that he was in great need of money…. I gave him the

three thousand on the understanding that he should post it within

the month if he cared to. There was no need for him to worry himself

about that debt afterwards.”

 

I