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ask both sides to formulate their

conclusions. But I will not describe the details. At last the jury

rose to retire for consultation. The President was very tired, and

so his last charge to the jury was rather feeble. “Be impartial, don’t

be influenced by the eloquence of the defence, but yet weigh the

arguments. Remember that there is a great responsibility laid upon

you,” and so on and so on.

 

The jury withdrew and the court adjourned. People could get up,

move about, exchange their accumulated impressions, refresh themselves

at the buffet. It was very late, almost one o’clock in the night,

but nobody went away: the strain was so great that no one could

think of repose. All waited with sinking hearts; though that is,

perhaps, too much to say, for the ladies were only in a state of

hysterical impatience and their hearts were untroubled. An

acquittal, they thought, was inevitable. They all prepared

themselves for a dramatic moment of general enthusiasm. I must own

there were many among the men, too, who were convinced that an

acquittal was inevitable. Some were pleased, others frowned, while

some were simply dejected, not wanting him to be acquitted.

Fetyukovitch himself was confident of his success. He was surrounded

by people congratulating him and fawning upon him.

 

“There are,” he said to one group, as I was told afterwards,

“there are invisible threads binding the counsel for the defence

with the jury. One feels during one’s speech if they are being formed.

I was aware of them. They exist. Our cause is won. Set your mind at

rest.”

 

“What will our peasants say now?” said one stout, cross-looking,

pock-marked gentleman, a landowner of the neighbourhood, approaching a

group of gentlemen engaged in conversation.

 

“But they are not all peasants. There are four government clerks

among them.”

 

“Yes, there are clerks,” said a member of the district council,

joining the group.

 

“And do you know that Nazaryev, the merchant with the medal, a

juryman?”

 

“What of him?”

 

“He is a man with brains.”

 

“But he never speaks.”

 

“He is no great talker, but so much the better. There’s no need

for the Petersburg man to teach him: he could teach all Petersburg

himself. He’s the father of twelve children. Think of that!”

 

“Upon my word, you don’t suppose they won’t acquit him?” one of

our young officials exclaimed in another group.

 

“They’ll acquit him for certain,” said a resolute voice.

 

“It would be shameful, disgraceful, not to acquit him cried the

official. “Suppose he did murder him-there are fathers and fathers!

And, besides, he was in such a frenzy…. He really may have done

nothing but swing the pestle in the air, and so knocked the old man

down. But it was a pity they dragged the valet in. That was simply

an absurd theory! If I’d been in Fetyukovitch’s place, I should simply

have said straight out: ‘He murdered him; but he is not guilty, hang

it all!’

 

“That’s what he did, only without saying, ‘Hang it all!’”

 

“No, Mihail Semyonovitch, he almost said that, too,” put in a

third voice.

 

“Why, gentlemen, in Lent an actress was acquitted in our town

who had cut the throat of her lover’s lawful wife.”

 

“Oh, but she did not finish cutting it.”

 

“That makes no difference. She began cutting it.”

 

“What did you think of what he said about children? Splendid,

wasn’t it?”

 

“Splended!”

 

“And about mysticism, too!”

 

“Oh, drop mysticism, do!” cried someone else; “think of Ippolit

and his fate from this day forth. His wife will scratch his eyes out

to-morrow for Mitya’s sake.”

 

“Is she here?”

 

“What an idea! If she’d been here she’d have scratched them out in

court. She is at home with toothache. He he he!”

 

“He he he!”

 

In a third group:

 

“I dare say they will acquit Mitenka, after all.”

 

“I should not be surprised if he turns the Metropolis upside

down to-morrow. He will be drinking for ten days!”

 

“Oh, the devil!”

 

“The devil’s bound to have a hand in it. Where should he be if not

here?”

 

“Well, gentlemen, I admit it was eloquent. But still it’s not

the thing to break your father’s head with a pestle! Or what are we

coming to?”

 

“The chariot! Do you remember the chariot?”

 

“Yes; he turned a cart into a chariot!”

 

“And to-morrow he will turn a chariot into a cart, just to suit

his purpose.”

 

“What cunning chaps there are nowadays! Is there any justice to be

had in Russia?”

 

But the bell rang. The jury deliberated for exactly an hour,

neither more nor less. A profound silence reigned in the court as soon

as the public had taken their seats. I remember how the jurymen walked

into the court. At last! I won’t repeat the questions in order, and,

indeed, I have forgotten them. I remember only the answer to the

President’s first and chief question: “Did the prisoner commit the

murder for the sake of robbery and with premeditation?” (I don’t

remember the exact words.) There was a complete hush. The foreman of

the jury, the youngest of the clerks, pronounced, in a clear, loud

voice, amidst the deathlike stillness of the court:

 

“Yes, guilty!”

 

And the same answer was repeated to every question: “Yes, guilty!”

and without the slightest extenuating comment. This no one had

expected; almost everyone had reckoned upon a recommendation to mercy,

at least. The deathlike silence in the court was not broken-all

seemed petrified: those who desired his conviction as well as those

who had been eager for his acquittal. But that was only for the

first instant, and it was followed by a fearful hubbub. Many of the

men in the audience were pleased. Some were rubbing their hands with

no attempt to conceal their joy. Those who disagreed with the

verdict seemed crushed, shrugged their shoulders, whispered, but still

seemed unable to realise this. But how shall I describe the state

the ladies were in? I thought they would create a riot. At first

they could scarcely believe their ears. Then suddenly the whole

court rang with exclamations: “What’s the meaning of it? What next?”

They leapt up from their places. They seemed to fancy that it might be

at once reconsidered and reversed. At that instant Mitya suddenly

stood up and cried in a heart-rending voice, stretching his hands

out before him:

 

“I swear by God and the dreadful Day of Judgment I am not guilty

of my father’s blood! Katya, I forgive you! Brothers, friends, have

pity on the other woman!”

 

He could not go on, and broke into a terrible sobbing wail that

was heard all over the court in a strange, unnatural voice unlike

his own. From the farthest corner at the back of the gallery came a

piercing shriek-it was Grushenka. She had succeeded in begging

admittance to the court again before the beginning of the lawyers’

speeches. Mitya was taken away. The passing of the sentence was

deferred till next day. The whole court was in a hubbub but I did

not wait to hear. I only remember a few exclamations I heard on the

steps as I went out.

 

“He’ll have a twenty years’ trip to the mines!”

 

“Not less.”

 

“Well, our peasants have stood firm.”

 

“And have done for our Mitya.”

EPILOGUE Chapter 1

Plans for Mitya’s Escape

 

VERY early, at nine o’clock in the morning, five days after the

trial, Alyosha went to Katerina Ivanovna’s to talk over a matter of

great importance to both of them, and to give her a message. She sat

and talked to him in the very room in which she had once received

Grushenka. In the next room Ivan Fyodorovitch lay unconscious in a

high fever. Katerina Ivanovna had immediately after the scene at the

trial ordered the sick and unconscious man to be carried to her house,

disregarding the inevitable gossip and general disapproval of the

public. One of two relations who lived with her had departed to Moscow

immediately after the scene in court, the other remained. But if

both had gone away, Katerina Ivanovna would have adhered to her

resolution, and would have gone on nursing the sick man and sitting by

him day and night. Varvinsky and Herzenstube were attending him. The

famous doctor had gone back to Moscow, refusing to give an opinion

as to the probable end of the illness. Though the doctors encouraged

Katerina Ivanovna and Alyosha, it was evident that they could not

yet give them positive hopes of recovery.

 

Alyosha came to see his sick brother twice a day. But this time he

had specially urgent business, and he foresaw how difficult it would

be to approach the subject, yet he was in great haste. He had

another engagement that could not be put off for that same morning,

and there was need of haste.

 

They had been talking for a quarter of an hour. Katerina

Ivanovna was pale and terribly fatigued, yet at the same time in a

state of hysterical excitement. She had a presentiment of the reason

why Alyosha had come to her.

 

“Don’t worry about his decision,” she said, with confident

emphasis to Alyosha. “One way or another he is bound to come to it. He

must escape. That unhappy man, that hero of honour and principle-not he, not Dmitri Fyodorovitch, but the man lying the other side of

that door, who has sacrificed himself for his brother,” Katya added,

with flashing eyes- “told me the whole plan of escape long ago. You

know he has already entered into negotiations…. I’ve told you

something already…. You see, it will probably come off at the

third etape from here, when the party of prisoners is being taken to

Siberia. Oh, it’s a long way off yet. Ivan Fyodorovitch has already

visited the superintendent of the third etape. But we don’t know yet

who will be in charge of the party, and it’s impossible to find that

out so long beforehand. To-morrow, perhaps, I will show you in

detail the whole plan which Ivan Fyodorovitch left me on the eve of

the trial in case of need…. That was when-do you remember?- you

found us quarrelling. He had just gone downstairs, but seeing you I

made him come back; do you remember? Do you know what we were

quarrelling about then?”

 

“No, I don’t,” said Alyosha.

 

“Of course he did not tell you. It was about that plan of

escape. He had told me the main idea three days before, and we began

quarrelling about it at once and quarrelled for three days. We

quarrelled because, when he told me that if Dmitri Fyodorovitch were

convicted he would escape abroad with that creature, I felt furious at

once-I can’t tell you why, I don’t know myself why…. Oh, of course,

I was furious then about that creature, and that she, too, should go

abroad with Dmitri!” Katerina Ivanovna exclaimed suddenly, her lips

quivering with anger. “As soon as Ivan Fyodorovitch saw that I was

furious about that woman, he instantly imagined I was jealous of

Dmitri and that I still loved Dmitri. That is how our first quarrel

began. I would not give an explanation, I could not ask forgiveness. I

could not bear to think that such a man could suspect me of still

loving that… and when I myself had told him long before that I did

not love Dmitri, that I loved no one but him! It was only resentment

against that creature that made me angry with him. Three days later,

on the evening you came, he brought me a sealed

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