THE TRIAL--THE SUMMING UP.
After the last words of the prisoners had been heard, the form in which
the questions were to be put to the jury was settled, which also took
some time. At last the questions were formulated, and the president
began the summing up.
Before putting the case to the jury, he spoke to them for some time in a
pleasant, homely manner, explaining that burglary was burglary and theft
was theft, and that stealing from a place which was under lock and key
was stealing from a place under lock and key. While he was explaining
this, he looked several times at Nekhludoff as if wishing to impress
upon him these important facts, in hopes that, having understood it,
Nekhludoff would make his fellow-jurymen also understand it. When he
considered that the jury were sufficiently imbued with these facts, he
proceeded to enunciate another truth--namely, that a murder is an
action which has the death of a human being as its consequence, and that
poisoning could therefore also be termed murder. When, according to his
opinion, this truth had also been received by the jury, he went on to
explain that if theft and murder had been committed at the same time,
the combination of the crimes was theft with murder.
Although he was himself anxious to finish as soon as possible, although
he knew that his Swiss friend would be waiting for him, he had grown so
used to his occupation that, having begun to speak, he could not stop
himself, and therefore he went on to impress on the jury with much
detail that if they found the prisoners guilty, they would have the
right to give a verdict of guilty; and if they found them not guilty,
to give a verdict of not guilty; and if they found them guilty of one of
the crimes and not of the other, they might give a verdict of guilty
on the one count and of not guilty on the other. Then he explained that
though this right was given them they should use it with reason.
He was going to add that if they gave an affirmative answer to any
question that was put to them they would thereby affirm everything
included in the question, so that if they did not wish to affirm the
whole of the question they should mention the part of the question they
wished to be excepted. But, glancing at the clock, and seeing it was
already five minutes to three, he resolved to trust to their being
intelligent enough to understand this without further comment.
“The facts of this case are the following,” began the president, and
repeated all that had already been said several times by the advocates,
the public prosecutor and the witnesses.
The president spoke, and the members on each side of him listened with
deeply-attentive expressions, but looked from time to time at the clock,
for they considered the speech too long though very good--i.e., such
as it ought to be. The public prosecutor, the lawyers, and, in fact,
everyone in the court, shared the same impression. The president
finished the summing up. Then he found it necessary to tell the jury
what they all knew, or might have found out by reading it up--i.e., how
they were to consider the case, count the votes, in case of a tie to
acquit the prisoners, and so on.
Everything seemed to have been told; but no, the president could not
forego his right of speaking as yet. It was so pleasant to hear the
impressive tones of his own voice, and therefore he found it necessary
to say a few words more about the importance of the rights given to the
jury, how carefully they should use the rights and how they ought not
to abuse them, about their being on their oath, that they were the
conscience of society, that the secrecy of the debating-room should be
considered sacred, etc.
From the time the president commenced his speech, Maslova watched him
without moving her eyes as if afraid of losing a single word; so that
Nekhludoff was not afraid of meeting her eyes and kept looking at her
all the time. And his mind passed through those phases in which a face
which we have not seen for many years first strikes us with the outward
changes brought about during the time of separation, and then gradually
becomes more and more like its old self, when the changes made by
time seem to disappear, and before our spiritual eyes rises only the
principal expression of one exceptional, unique individuality. Yes,
though dressed in a prison cloak, and in spite of the developed figure,
the fulness of the bosom and lower part of the face, in spite of a few
wrinkles on the forehead and temples and the swollen eyes, this was
certainly the same Katusha who, on that Easter eve, had so innocently
looked up to him whom she loved, with her fond, laughing eyes full of
joy and life.
“What a strange coincidence that after ten years, during which I never
saw her, this case should have come up today when I am on the jury, and
that it is in the prisoners’ dock that I see her again! And how will it
end? Oh, dear, if they would only get on quicker.”
Still he would not give in to the feelings of repentance which began to
arise within him. He tried to consider it all as a coincidence, which
would pass without infringing his manner of life. He felt himself in
the position of a puppy, when its master, taking it by the scruff of
its neck, rubs its nose in the mess it has made. The puppy whines, draws
back and wants to get away as far as possible from the effects of its
misdeed, but the pitiless master does not let go.
And so, Nekhludoff, feeling all the repulsiveness of what he had done,
felt also the powerful hand of the Master, but he did not feel the whole
significance of his action yet and would not recognise the Master’s
hand. He did not wish to believe that it was the effect of his deed that
lay before him, but the pitiless hand of the Master held him and he felt
he could not get away. He was still keeping up his courage and sat on
his chair in the first row in his usual self-possessed pose, one leg
carelessly thrown over the other, and playing with his pince-nez. Yet
all the while, in the depths of his soul, he felt the cruelty, cowardice
and baseness, not only of this particular action of his but of his whole
self-willed, depraved, cruel, idle life; and that dreadful veil which
had in some unaccountable manner hidden from him this sin of his and
the whole of his subsequent life was beginning to shake, and he caught
glimpses of what was covered by that veil.