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 honorable, 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 recognized that the three
thousand roubles had become almost an obsession with Mitya; that he
looked 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 the 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; some one had heard
something, some one 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 honor, 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 will not repeat all the questions asked her and all her answers in
detail. I will only give the substance of her evidence.
“I was firmly convinced that he would send off that sum as soon as he
got money from his father,” she went on. “I have never doubted his
disinterestedness and his honesty ... his scrupulous honesty ... in
money matters. He felt quite certain that he would receive the money
from his father, and spoke to me several times about it. I knew he had
a feud with his father and have always believed that he had been
unfairly treated by his father. I don’t remember any threat uttered by
him against his father. He certainly never uttered any such threat
before me. If he had come to me at that time, I should have at once
relieved his anxiety about that unlucky three thousand roubles, but he
had given up coming to see me ... and I myself was put in such a
position ... that I could not invite him.... And I had no right,
indeed, to be exacting as to that money,” she added suddenly, and there
was a ring of resolution in her voice. “I was once indebted to him for
assistance in money for more than three thousand, and I took it,
although I could not at that time foresee that I should ever be in a
position to repay my debt.”
There was a note of defiance in her voice. It was then Fetyukovitch
began his cross-examination.
“Did that take place not here, but at the beginning of your
acquaintance?” Fetyukovitch suggested cautiously, feeling his way,
instantly scenting something favorable. I must mention in parenthesis
that, though Fetyukovitch had been brought from Petersburg partly at
the instance of Katerina Ivanovna herself, he knew nothing about the
episode of the four thousand roubles given her by Mitya, and of her
“bowing to the ground to him.” She concealed this from him and said
nothing about it, and that was strange. It may be pretty certainly
assumed that she herself did not know till the very last minute whether
she would speak of that episode in the court, and waited for the
inspiration of the moment.
No, I can never forget those moments. She began telling her story. She
told everything, the whole episode that Mitya had told Alyosha, and her
bowing to the ground, and her reason. She told about her father and her
going to Mitya, and did not in one word, in a single hint, suggest that
Mitya had himself, through her sister, proposed they should “send him
Katerina Ivanovna” to fetch the money. She generously concealed that
and was not ashamed to make it appear as though she had of her own
impulse run to the young officer, relying on something ... to beg him
for the money. It was something tremendous! I turned cold and trembled
as I listened. The court was hushed, trying to catch each word. It was
something unexampled. Even from such a self-willed and contemptuously
proud girl as she was, such an extremely frank avowal, such sacrifice,
such self-immolation, seemed incredible. And for what, for whom? To
save the man who had deceived and insulted her and to help, in however
small a degree, in saving him, by creating a strong impression in his
favor. And, indeed, the figure of the young officer who, with a
respectful bow to the innocent girl, handed her his last four thousand
roubles—all he had in the world—was thrown into a very sympathetic and
attractive light, but ... I had a painful misgiving at heart! I felt
that calumny might come of it later (and it did, in fact, it did). It
was repeated all over the town afterwards with spiteful laughter that
the story was perhaps not quite complete—that is, in the statement that
the officer had let the young lady depart “with nothing but a
respectful bow.” It was hinted that something was here omitted.
“And even if nothing had been omitted, if this were the whole story,”
the most highly respected of our ladies maintained, “even then it’s
very doubtful whether it was creditable for a young girl to behave in
that way, even for the sake of saving her father.”
And can Katerina Ivanovna, with her intelligence, her morbid
sensitiveness, have failed to understand that people would talk like
that? She must have understood it, yet she made up her mind to tell
everything. Of course, all these nasty little suspicions as to the
truth of her story only arose afterwards and at the first moment all
were deeply impressed by it. As for the judges and the lawyers, they
listened in reverent, almost shame-faced silence to Katerina Ivanovna.
The prosecutor did not venture upon even one question on the subject.
Fetyukovitch made a low bow to her. Oh, he was almost triumphant! Much
ground had been gained. For a man to give his last four thousand on a
generous impulse and then for the same man to murder his father for the
sake of robbing him of three thousand—the idea seemed too incongruous.
Fetyukovitch felt that now the charge of theft, at least, was as good
as disproved. “The case” was thrown into quite a different light. There
was a wave of sympathy for Mitya. As for him.... I was told that once
or twice, while Katerina Ivanovna was giving her evidence, he jumped up
from his seat, sank back again, and hid his face in his hands. But when
she had finished, he suddenly cried in a sobbing voice:
“Katya, why have you ruined me?” and his sobs were audible all over the
court. But he instantly restrained himself, and cried again:
“Now I am condemned!”
Then he sat rigid in his place, with his teeth clenched and his arms
across his chest. Katerina Ivanovna remained in the court and sat down
in her place. She was pale and sat with her eyes cast down. Those who
were sitting near her declared that for a long time she shivered all
over as though in a fever. Grushenka was called.
I am approaching the sudden catastrophe which was perhaps the final
cause of Mitya’s ruin. For I am convinced, so is every one—all the
lawyers said the same afterwards—that if the episode had not occurred,
the prisoner would at least have been recommended to mercy. But of that
later. A few words first about Grushenka.
She, too, was dressed entirely in black, with her magnificent black
shawl on her shoulders. She walked to the witness-box with her smooth,
noiseless tread, with the slightly swaying gait common in women of full
figure. She looked steadily at the President, turning her eyes neither
to the right nor to the left. To my thinking she looked very handsome
at that moment, and not at all pale, as the ladies alleged afterwards.
They declared, too, that she had a concentrated and spiteful
expression. I believe that she was simply irritated and painfully
conscious of the contemptuous and inquisitive eyes of our
scandal-loving public. She was proud and could not stand contempt. She
was one of those people who flare up, angry and eager to retaliate, at
the mere suggestion of contempt. There was an element of timidity, too,
of course, and inward shame at her own timidity, so it was not strange
that her tone kept changing. At one moment it was angry, contemptuous
and rough, and at another there was a sincere note of self-condemnation.
Sometimes she spoke as though she were taking a desperate
plunge; as though she felt, “I don’t care what happens, I’ll say
it....” Apropos of her acquaintance with Fyodor Pavlovitch, she
remarked curtly, “That’s all nonsense, and was it my fault that he
would pester me?” But a minute later she added, “It was all my fault. I
was laughing at them both—at the old man and at him, too—and I brought
both of them to this. It was all on account of me it happened.”
Samsonov’s name came up somehow. “That’s nobody’s business,” she
snapped at once, with a sort of insolent defiance. “He was my
benefactor; he took me when I hadn’t a shoe to my foot, when my family
had turned me out.” The President reminded her, though very politely,
that she must answer the questions directly, without going off into
irrelevant details. Grushenka crimsoned and her eyes flashed.
The envelope with the notes in it she had not seen, but had only heard
from “that wicked wretch” that Fyodor Pavlovitch had an envelope with
notes for three thousand in it. “But that was all foolishness. I was
only laughing. I wouldn’t have gone to him for anything.”
“To whom are you referring as ‘that wicked wretch’?” inquired the
prosecutor.
“The lackey, Smerdyakov, who murdered his master and hanged himself
last night.”
She was, of course, at once asked what ground she had for such a
definite accusation; but it appeared that she, too, had no grounds for
it.
“Dmitri Fyodorovitch told me so himself; you can believe him. The woman
who came between us has ruined him; she is the cause of it all, let me
tell you,” Grushenka added. She seemed to be quivering with hatred, and
there was a vindictive note in her voice.
She was again asked to whom she was referring.
“The young lady, Katerina Ivanovna there. She sent for me, offered me
chocolate, tried to fascinate me. There’s not much true shame about
her, I can tell you that....”
At this point the President checked her sternly, begging her to
moderate her language. But the jealous woman’s heart was burning, and
she did not care what she did.
“When the prisoner was arrested at Mokroe,” the prosecutor asked,
“every one saw and heard you run out of the next room and cry out:
‘It’s all my fault. We’ll go to Siberia together!’ So you already
believed him to have murdered his father?”
“I don’t remember what I felt at the time,” answered Grushenka. “Every
one was crying out that he had killed his father, and I felt that it
was my fault, that it was on my account he had murdered him. But when
he said he wasn’t guilty, I believed him at once, and I believe him now
and always shall believe him. He is not the man to tell a lie.”
Fetyukovitch began his cross-examination. I remember that among other
things he asked about Rakitin and the twenty-five roubles “you paid him
for bringing Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov to see you.”
“There was nothing strange about his taking the money,” sneered
Grushenka, with angry contempt. “He was always coming to me for money:
he used to get thirty roubles a month at least out of me, chiefly for
luxuries: he had enough to keep him without my help.”
“What led you to be so liberal to Mr. Rakitin?” Fetyukovitch asked, in
spite of an uneasy movement on the part of the President.
“Why, he is my cousin. His mother was my mother’s sister. But he’s
always besought me not to tell any one here of it, he is so dreadfully
ashamed of me.”
This fact was a complete surprise to every one; no one in the town nor
in the monastery, not even Mitya, knew of it. I was told that Rakitin
turned purple with shame where he sat. Grushenka had somehow heard
before she came into the court that he had given evidence against
Mitya, and so she was angry. The whole effect on the public, of
Rakitin’s speech, of his noble sentiments, of his attacks upon serfdom
and the political disorder of Russia, was this time finally ruined.
Fetyukovitch was satisfied: it was another godsend. Grushenka’s
cross-examination did not last long and, of course, there could be
nothing particularly new in her evidence. She left a very disagreeable
impression on the public; hundreds of contemptuous eyes were fixed upon
her, as she finished giving her evidence and sat down again in the
court, at a good distance from Katerina Ivanovna. Mitya was silent
throughout her evidence. He sat as though turned to stone, with his
eyes fixed on the ground.
Ivan was called to give evidence.