A Corrupter Of Thought
“It’s not only the accumulation of facts that threatens my client with
ruin, gentlemen of the jury,” he began, “what is really damning for my
client is one fact—the dead body of his father. Had it been an ordinary
case of murder you would have rejected the charge in view of the
triviality, the incompleteness, and the fantastic character of the
evidence, if you examine each part of it separately; or, at least, you
would have hesitated to ruin a man’s life simply from the prejudice
against him which he has, alas! only too well deserved. But it’s not an
ordinary case of murder, it’s a case of parricide. That impresses men’s
minds, and to such a degree that the very triviality and incompleteness
of the evidence becomes less trivial and less incomplete even to an
unprejudiced mind. How can such a prisoner be acquitted? What if he
committed the murder and gets off unpunished? That is what every one,
almost involuntarily, instinctively, feels at heart.
“Yes, it’s a fearful thing to shed a father’s blood—the father who has
begotten me, loved me, not spared his life for me, grieved over my
illnesses from childhood up, troubled all his life for my happiness,
and has lived in my joys, in my successes. To murder such a
father—that’s inconceivable. Gentlemen of the jury, what is a father—a
real father? What is the meaning of that great word? What is the great
idea in that name? We have just indicated in part what a true father is
and what he ought to be. In the case in which we are now so deeply
occupied and over which our hearts are aching—in the present case, the
father, Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, did not correspond to that
conception of a father to which we have just referred. That’s the
misfortune. And indeed some fathers are a misfortune. Let us examine
this misfortune rather more closely: we must shrink from nothing,
gentlemen of the jury, considering the importance of the decision you
have to make. It’s our particular duty not to shrink from any idea,
like children or frightened women, as the talented prosecutor happily
expresses it.
“But in the course of his heated speech my esteemed opponent (and he
was my opponent before I opened my lips) exclaimed several times, ‘Oh,
I will not yield the defense of the prisoner to the lawyer who has come
down from Petersburg. I accuse, but I defend also!’ He exclaimed that
several times, but forgot to mention that if this terrible prisoner was
for twenty-three years so grateful for a mere pound of nuts given him
by the only man who had been kind to him, as a child in his father’s
house, might not such a man well have remembered for twenty-three years
how he ran in his father’s back-yard, ‘without boots on his feet and
with his little trousers hanging by one button’—to use the expression
of the kind-hearted doctor, Herzenstube?
“Oh, gentlemen of the jury, why need we look more closely at this
misfortune, why repeat what we all know already? What did my client
meet with when he arrived here, at his father’s house, and why depict
my client as a heartless egoist and monster? He is uncontrolled, he is
wild and unruly—we are trying him now for that—but who is responsible
for his life? Who is responsible for his having received such an
unseemly bringing up, in spite of his excellent disposition and his
grateful and sensitive heart? Did any one train him to be reasonable?
Was he enlightened by study? Did any one love him ever so little in his
childhood? My client was left to the care of Providence like a beast of
the field. He thirsted perhaps to see his father after long years of
separation. A thousand times perhaps he may, recalling his childhood,
have driven away the loathsome phantoms that haunted his childish
dreams and with all his heart he may have longed to embrace and to
forgive his father! And what awaited him? He was met by cynical taunts,
suspicions and wrangling about money. He heard nothing but revolting
talk and vicious precepts uttered daily over the brandy, and at last he
saw his father seducing his mistress from him with his own money. Oh,
gentlemen of the jury, that was cruel and revolting! And that old man
was always complaining of the disrespect and cruelty of his son. He
slandered him in society, injured him, calumniated him, bought up his
unpaid debts to get him thrown into prison.
“Gentlemen of the jury, people like my client, who are fierce, unruly,
and uncontrolled on the surface, are sometimes, most frequently indeed,
exceedingly tender-hearted, only they don’t express it. Don’t laugh,
don’t laugh at my idea! The talented prosecutor laughed mercilessly
just now at my client for loving Schiller—loving the sublime and
beautiful! I should not have laughed at that in his place. Yes, such
natures—oh, let me speak in defense of such natures, so often and so
cruelly misunderstood—these natures often thirst for tenderness,
goodness, and justice, as it were, in contrast to themselves, their
unruliness, their ferocity—they thirst for it unconsciously. Passionate
and fierce on the surface, they are painfully capable of loving woman,
for instance, and with a spiritual and elevated love. Again do not
laugh at me, this is very often the case in such natures. But they
cannot hide their passions—sometimes very coarse—and that is
conspicuous and is noticed, but the inner man is unseen. Their passions
are quickly exhausted; but, by the side of a noble and lofty creature
that seemingly coarse and rough man seeks a new life, seeks to correct
himself, to be better, to become noble and honorable, ‘sublime and
beautiful,’ however much the expression has been ridiculed.
“I said just now that I would not venture to touch upon my client’s
engagement. But I may say half a word. What we heard just now was not
evidence, but only the scream of a frenzied and revengeful woman, and
it was not for her—oh, not for her!—to reproach him with treachery, for
she has betrayed him! If she had had but a little time for reflection
she would not have given such evidence. Oh, do not believe her! No, my
client is not a monster, as she called him!
“The Lover of Mankind on the eve of His Crucifixion said: ‘I am the
Good Shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep, so
that not one of them might be lost.’ Let not a man’s soul be lost
through us!
“I asked just now what does ‘father’ mean, and exclaimed that it was a
great word, a precious name. But one must use words honestly,
gentlemen, and I venture to call things by their right names: such a
father as old Karamazov cannot be called a father and does not deserve
to be. Filial love for an unworthy father is an absurdity, an
impossibility. Love cannot be created from nothing: only God can create
something from nothing.
“‘Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath,’ the apostle writes,
from a heart glowing with love. It’s not for the sake of my client that
I quote these sacred words, I mention them for all fathers. Who has
authorized me to preach to fathers? No one. But as a man and a citizen
I make my appeal—_vivos voco!_ We are not long on earth, we do many
evil deeds and say many evil words. So let us all catch a favorable
moment when we are all together to say a good word to each other.
That’s what I am doing: while I am in this place I take advantage of my
opportunity. Not for nothing is this tribune given us by the highest
authority—all Russia hears us! I am not speaking only for the fathers
here present, I cry aloud to all fathers: ‘Fathers, provoke not your
children to wrath.’ Yes, let us first fulfill Christ’s injunction
ourselves and only then venture to expect it of our children. Otherwise
we are not fathers, but enemies of our children, and they are not our
children, but our enemies, and we have made them our enemies ourselves.
‘What measure ye mete it shall be measured unto you again’—it’s not I
who say that, it’s the Gospel precept, measure to others according as
they measure to you. How can we blame children if they measure us
according to our measure?
“Not long ago a servant girl in Finland was suspected of having
secretly given birth to a child. She was watched, and a box of which no
one knew anything was found in the corner of the loft, behind some
bricks. It was opened and inside was found the body of a new-born child
which she had killed. In the same box were found the skeletons of two
other babies which, according to her own confession, she had killed at
the moment of their birth.
“Gentlemen of the jury, was she a mother to her children? She gave
birth to them, indeed; but was she a mother to them? Would any one
venture to give her the sacred name of mother? Let us be bold,
gentlemen, let us be audacious even: it’s our duty to be so at this
moment and not to be afraid of certain words and ideas like the Moscow
women in Ostrovsky’s play, who are scared at the sound of certain
words. No, let us prove that the progress of the last few years has
touched even us, and let us say plainly, the father is not merely he
who begets the child, but he who begets it and does his duty by it.
“Oh, of course, there is the other meaning, there is the other
interpretation of the word ‘father,’ which insists that any father,
even though he be a monster, even though he be the enemy of his
children, still remains my father simply because he begot me. But this
is, so to say, the mystical meaning which I cannot comprehend with my
intellect, but can only accept by faith, or, better to say, _on faith_,
like many other things which I do not understand, but which religion
bids me believe. But in that case let it be kept outside the sphere of
actual life. In the sphere of actual life, which has, indeed, its own
rights, but also lays upon us great duties and obligations, in that
sphere, if we want to be humane—Christian, in fact—we must, or ought
to, act only upon convictions justified by reason and experience, which
have been passed through the crucible of analysis; in a word, we must
act rationally, and not as though in dream and delirium, that we may
not do harm, that we may not ill-treat and ruin a man. Then it will be
real Christian work, not only mystic, but rational and
philanthropic....”
There was violent applause at this passage from many parts of the
court, but Fetyukovitch waved his hands as though imploring them to let
him finish without interruption. The court relapsed into silence at
once. The orator went on.
“Do you suppose, gentlemen, that our children as they grow up and begin
to reason can avoid such questions? No, they cannot, and we will not
impose on them an impossible restriction. The sight of an unworthy
father involuntarily suggests tormenting questions to a young creature,
especially when he compares him with the excellent fathers of his
companions. The conventional answer to this question is: ‘He begot you,
and you are his flesh and blood, and therefore you are bound to love
him.’ The youth involuntarily reflects: ‘But did he love me when he
begot me?’ he asks, wondering more and more. ‘Was it for my sake he
begot me? He did not know me, not even my sex, at that moment, at the
moment of passion, perhaps, inflamed by wine, and he has only
transmitted to me a propensity to drunkenness—that’s all he’s done for
me.... Why am I bound to love him simply for begetting me when he has
cared nothing for me all my life after?’
“Oh, perhaps those questions strike you as coarse and cruel, but do not
expect an impossible restraint from a young mind. ‘Drive nature out of
the door and it will fly in at the window,’ and, above all, let us not
be afraid of words, but decide the question according to the dictates
of reason and humanity and not of mystic ideas. How shall it be
decided? Why, like this. Let the son stand before his father and ask
him, ‘Father, tell me, why must I love you? Father, show me that I must
love you,’ and if that father is able to answer him and show him good
reason, we have a real, normal, parental relation, not resting on
mystical prejudice, but on a rational, responsible and strictly
humanitarian basis. But if he does not, there’s an end to the family
tie. He is not a father to him, and the son has a right to look upon
him as a stranger, and even an enemy. Our tribune, gentlemen of the
jury, ought to be a school of true and sound ideas.”
(Here the orator was interrupted by irrepressible and almost frantic
applause. Of course, it was not the whole audience, but a good half of
it applauded. The fathers and mothers present applauded. Shrieks and
exclamations were heard from the gallery, where the ladies were
sitting. Handkerchiefs were waved. The President began ringing his bell
with all his might. He was obviously irritated by the behavior of the
audience, but did not venture to clear the court as he had threatened.
Even persons of high position, old men with stars on their breasts,
sitting on specially reserved seats behind the judges, applauded the
orator and waved their handkerchiefs. So that when the noise died down,
the President confined himself to repeating his stern threat to clear
the court, and Fetyukovitch, excited and triumphant, continued his
speech.)
“Gentlemen of the jury, you remember that awful night of which so much
has been said to-day, when the son got over the fence and stood face to
face with the enemy and persecutor who had begotten him. I insist most
emphatically it was not for money he ran to his father’s house: the
charge of robbery is an absurdity, as I proved before. And it was not
to murder him he broke into the house, oh, no! If he had had that
design he would, at least, have taken the precaution of arming himself
beforehand. The brass pestle he caught up instinctively without knowing
why he did it. Granted that he deceived his father by tapping at the
window, granted that he made his way in—I’ve said already that I do not
for a moment believe that legend, but let it be so, let us suppose it
for a moment. Gentlemen, I swear to you by all that’s holy, if it had
not been his father, but an ordinary enemy, he would, after running
through the rooms and satisfying himself that the woman was not there,
have made off, post-haste, without doing any harm to his rival. He
would have struck him, pushed him away perhaps, nothing more, for he
had no thought and no time to spare for that. What he wanted to know
was where she was. But his father, his father! The mere sight of the
father who had hated him from his childhood, had been his enemy, his
persecutor, and now his unnatural rival, was enough! A feeling of
hatred came over him involuntarily, irresistibly, clouding his reason.
It all surged up in one moment! It was an impulse of madness and
insanity, but also an impulse of nature, irresistibly and unconsciously
(like everything in nature) avenging the violation of its eternal laws.
“But the prisoner even then did not murder him—I maintain that, I cry
that aloud!—no, he only brandished the pestle in a burst of indignant
disgust, not meaning to kill him, not knowing that he would kill him.
Had he not had this fatal pestle in his hand, he would have only
knocked his father down perhaps, but would not have killed him. As he
ran away, he did not know whether he had killed the old man. Such a
murder is not a murder. Such a murder is not a parricide. No, the
murder of such a father cannot be called parricide. Such a murder can
only be reckoned parricide by prejudice.
“But I appeal to you again and again from the depths of my soul; did
this murder actually take place? Gentlemen of the jury, if we convict
and punish him, he will say to himself: ‘These people have done nothing
for my bringing up, for my education, nothing to improve my lot,
nothing to make me better, nothing to make me a man. These people have
not given me to eat and to drink, have not visited me in prison and
nakedness, and here they have sent me to penal servitude. I am quits, I
owe them nothing now, and owe no one anything for ever. They are wicked
and I will be wicked. They are cruel and I will be cruel.’ That is what
he will say, gentlemen of the jury. And I swear, by finding him guilty
you will only make it easier for him: you will ease his conscience, he
will curse the blood he has shed and will not regret it. At the same
time you will destroy in him the possibility of becoming a new man, for
he will remain in his wickedness and blindness all his life.
“But do you want to punish him fearfully, terribly, with the most awful
punishment that could be imagined, and at the same time to save him and
regenerate his soul? If so, overwhelm him with your mercy! You will
see, you will hear how he will tremble and be horror-struck. ‘How can I
endure this mercy? How can I endure so much love? Am I worthy of it?’
That’s what he will exclaim.
“Oh, I know, I know that heart, that wild but grateful heart, gentlemen
of the jury! It will bow before your mercy; it thirsts for a great and
loving action, it will melt and mount upwards. There are souls which,
in their limitation, blame the whole world. But subdue such a soul with
mercy, show it love, and it will curse its past, for there are many
good impulses in it. Such a heart will expand and see that God is
merciful and that men are good and just. He will be horror-stricken; he
will be crushed by remorse and the vast obligation laid upon him
henceforth. And he will not say then, ‘I am quits,’ but will say, ‘I am
guilty in the sight of all men and am more unworthy than all.’ With
tears of penitence and poignant, tender anguish, he will exclaim:
‘Others are better than I, they wanted to save me, not to ruin me!’ Oh,
this act of mercy is so easy for you, for in the absence of anything
like real evidence it will be too awful for you to pronounce: ‘Yes, he
is guilty.’
“Better acquit ten guilty men than punish one innocent man! Do you
hear, do you hear that majestic voice from the past century of our
glorious history? It is not for an insignificant person like me to
remind you that the Russian court does not exist for the punishment
only, but also for the salvation of the criminal! Let other nations
think of retribution and the letter of the law, we will cling to the
spirit and the meaning—the salvation and the reformation of the lost.
If this is true, if Russia and her justice are such, she may go forward
with good cheer! Do not try to scare us with your frenzied troikas from
which all the nations stand aside in disgust. Not a runaway troika, but
the stately chariot of Russia will move calmly and majestically to its
goal. In your hands is the fate of my client, in your hands is the fate
of Russian justice. You will defend it, you will save it, you will
prove that there are men to watch over it, that it is in good hands!”