finished_summaries/shmoop/The Brothers Karamazov/section_90_part_0.txt
The Brothers Karamazov.book 12.chapter 12
book 12, chapter 12
{"name": "Book 12, Chapter 12", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/book-12-chapter-12", "summary": "In this portion of his speech, Fetyukovich sets out to establish a plausible explanation for Smerdyakov as Fyodor's murderer. After dismissing Grigory's testimony , Fetyukovich proceeds to tell the court about his own impressions on meeting Smerdyakov. In contrast to the prosecutor's description of Smerdyakov as a weak, bullied man, Fetyukovich paints a picture of him as a wily, spiteful man who knew exactly what he was doing when he set up Dmitri. Fetyukovich then points out that Smerdyakov had plenty of time to commit Fyodor's murder between the time Dmitri attacked Grigory and the time Grigory fully recovered consciousness. At this point Fetyukovich takes on a \"heartfelt\" voice, in contrast to the calm, sensible way he had proceeded thus far.", "analysis": ""}
Chapter XII. And There Was No Murder Either


"Allow me, gentlemen of the jury, to remind you that a man's life is at
stake and that you must be careful. We have heard the prosecutor himself
admit that until to-day he hesitated to accuse the prisoner of a full and
conscious premeditation of the crime; he hesitated till he saw that fatal
drunken letter which was produced in court to-day. 'All was done as
written.' But, I repeat again, he was running to her, to seek her, solely
to find out where she was. That's a fact that can't be disputed. Had she
been at home, he would not have run away, but would have remained at her
side, and so would not have done what he promised in the letter. He ran
unexpectedly and accidentally, and by that time very likely he did not
even remember his drunken letter. 'He snatched up the pestle,' they say,
and you will remember how a whole edifice of psychology was built on that
pestle--why he was bound to look at that pestle as a weapon, to snatch it
up, and so on, and so on. A very commonplace idea occurs to me at this
point: What if that pestle had not been in sight, had not been lying on
the shelf from which it was snatched by the prisoner, but had been put
away in a cupboard? It would not have caught the prisoner's eye, and he
would have run away without a weapon, with empty hands, and then he would
certainly not have killed any one. How then can I look upon the pestle as
a proof of premeditation?

"Yes, but he talked in the taverns of murdering his father, and two days
before, on the evening when he wrote his drunken letter, he was quiet and
only quarreled with a shopman in the tavern, because a Karamazov could not
help quarreling, forsooth! But my answer to that is, that, if he was
planning such a murder in accordance with his letter, he certainly would
not have quarreled even with a shopman, and probably would not have gone
into the tavern at all, because a person plotting such a crime seeks quiet
and retirement, seeks to efface himself, to avoid being seen and heard,
and that not from calculation, but from instinct. Gentlemen of the jury,
the psychological method is a two-edged weapon, and we, too, can use it.
As for all this shouting in taverns throughout the month, don't we often
hear children, or drunkards coming out of taverns shout, 'I'll kill you'?
but they don't murder any one. And that fatal letter--isn't that simply
drunken irritability, too? Isn't that simply the shout of the brawler
outside the tavern, 'I'll kill you! I'll kill the lot of you!' Why not,
why could it not be that? What reason have we to call that letter 'fatal'
rather than absurd? Because his father has been found murdered, because a
witness saw the prisoner running out of the garden with a weapon in his
hand, and was knocked down by him: therefore, we are told, everything was
done as he had planned in writing, and the letter was not 'absurd,' but
'fatal.'

"Now, thank God! we've come to the real point: 'since he was in the
garden, he must have murdered him.' In those few words: 'since he _was_,
then he _must_' lies the whole case for the prosecution. He was there, so
he must have. And what if there is no _must_ about it, even if he was
there? Oh, I admit that the chain of evidence--the coincidences--are really
suggestive. But examine all these facts separately, regardless of their
connection. Why, for instance, does the prosecution refuse to admit the
truth of the prisoner's statement that he ran away from his father's
window? Remember the sarcasms in which the prosecutor indulged at the
expense of the respectful and 'pious' sentiments which suddenly came over
the murderer. But what if there were something of the sort, a feeling of
religious awe, if not of filial respect? 'My mother must have been praying
for me at that moment,' were the prisoner's words at the preliminary
inquiry, and so he ran away as soon as he convinced himself that Madame
Svyetlov was not in his father's house. 'But he could not convince himself
by looking through the window,' the prosecutor objects. But why couldn't
he? Why? The window opened at the signals given by the prisoner. Some word
might have been uttered by Fyodor Pavlovitch, some exclamation which
showed the prisoner that she was not there. Why should we assume
everything as we imagine it, as we make up our minds to imagine it? A
thousand things may happen in reality which elude the subtlest
imagination.

" 'Yes, but Grigory saw the door open and so the prisoner certainly was in
the house, therefore he killed him.' Now about that door, gentlemen of the
jury.... Observe that we have only the statement of one witness as to that
door, and he was at the time in such a condition, that-- But supposing the
door was open; supposing the prisoner has lied in denying it, from an
instinct of self-defense, natural in his position; supposing he did go
into the house--well, what then? How does it follow that because he was
there he committed the murder? He might have dashed in, run through the
rooms; might have pushed his father away; might have struck him; but as
soon as he had made sure Madame Svyetlov was not there, he may have run
away rejoicing that she was not there and that he had not killed his
father. And it was perhaps just because he had escaped from the temptation
to kill his father, because he had a clear conscience and was rejoicing at
not having killed him, that he was capable of a pure feeling, the feeling
of pity and compassion, and leapt off the fence a minute later to the
assistance of Grigory after he had, in his excitement, knocked him down.

"With terrible eloquence the prosecutor has described to us the dreadful
state of the prisoner's mind at Mokroe when love again lay before him
calling him to new life, while love was impossible for him because he had
his father's bloodstained corpse behind him and beyond that
corpse--retribution. And yet the prosecutor allowed him love, which he
explained, according to his method, talking about his drunken condition,
about a criminal being taken to execution, about it being still far off,
and so on and so on. But again I ask, Mr. Prosecutor, have you not
invented a new personality? Is the prisoner so coarse and heartless as to
be able to think at that moment of love and of dodges to escape
punishment, if his hands were really stained with his father's blood? No,
no, no! As soon as it was made plain to him that she loved him and called
him to her side, promising him new happiness, oh! then, I protest he must
have felt the impulse to suicide doubled, trebled, and must have killed
himself, if he had his father's murder on his conscience. Oh, no! he would
not have forgotten where his pistols lay! I know the prisoner: the savage,
stony heartlessness ascribed to him by the prosecutor is inconsistent with
his character. He would have killed himself, that's certain. He did not
kill himself just because 'his mother's prayers had saved him,' and he was
innocent of his father's blood. He was troubled, he was grieving that
night at Mokroe only about old Grigory and praying to God that the old man
would recover, that his blow had not been fatal, and that he would not
have to suffer for it. Why not accept such an interpretation of the facts?
What trustworthy proof have we that the prisoner is lying?

"But we shall be told at once again, 'There is his father's corpse! If he
ran away without murdering him, who did murder him?' Here, I repeat, you
have the whole logic of the prosecution. Who murdered him, if not he?
There's no one to put in his place.

"Gentlemen of the jury, is that really so? Is it positively, actually true
that there is no one else at all? We've heard the prosecutor count on his
fingers all the persons who were in that house that night. They were five
in number; three of them, I agree, could not have been responsible--the
murdered man himself, old Grigory, and his wife. There are left then the
prisoner and Smerdyakov, and the prosecutor dramatically exclaims that the
prisoner pointed to Smerdyakov because he had no one else to fix on, that
had there been a sixth person, even a phantom of a sixth person, he would
have abandoned the charge against Smerdyakov at once in shame and have
accused that other. But, gentlemen of the jury, why may I not draw the
very opposite conclusion? There are two persons--the prisoner and
Smerdyakov. Why can I not say that you accuse my client, simply because
you have no one else to accuse? And you have no one else only because you
have determined to exclude Smerdyakov from all suspicion.

"It's true, indeed, Smerdyakov is accused only by the prisoner, his two
brothers, and Madame Svyetlov. But there are others who accuse him: there
are vague rumors of a question, of a suspicion, an obscure report, a
feeling of expectation. Finally, we have the evidence of a combination of
facts very suggestive, though, I admit, inconclusive. In the first place
we have precisely on the day of the catastrophe that fit, for the
genuineness of which the prosecutor, for some reason, has felt obliged to
make a careful defense. Then Smerdyakov's sudden suicide on the eve of the
trial. Then the equally startling evidence given in court to-day by the
elder of the prisoner's brothers, who had believed in his guilt, but has
to-day produced a bundle of notes and proclaimed Smerdyakov as the
murderer. Oh, I fully share the court's and the prosecutor's conviction
that Ivan Karamazov is suffering from brain fever, that his statement may
really be a desperate effort, planned in delirium, to save his brother by
throwing the guilt on the dead man. But again Smerdyakov's name is
pronounced, again there is a suggestion of mystery. There is something
unexplained, incomplete. And perhaps it may one day be explained. But we
won't go into that now. Of that later.

"The court has resolved to go on with the trial, but, meantime, I might
make a few remarks about the character-sketch of Smerdyakov drawn with
subtlety and talent by the prosecutor. But while I admire his talent I
cannot agree with him. I have visited Smerdyakov, I have seen him and
talked to him, and he made a very different impression on me. He was weak
in health, it is true; but in character, in spirit, he was by no means the
weak man the prosecutor has made him out to be. I found in him no trace of
the timidity on which the prosecutor so insisted. There was no simplicity
about him, either. I found in him, on the contrary, an extreme
mistrustfulness concealed under a mask of _naivete_, and an intelligence
of considerable range. The prosecutor was too simple in taking him for
weak-minded. He made a very definite impression on me: I left him with the
conviction that he was a distinctly spiteful creature, excessively
ambitious, vindictive, and intensely envious. I made some inquiries: he
resented his parentage, was ashamed of it, and would clench his teeth when
he remembered that he was the son of 'stinking Lizaveta.' He was
disrespectful to the servant Grigory and his wife, who had cared for him
in his childhood. He cursed and jeered at Russia. He dreamed of going to
France and becoming a Frenchman. He used often to say that he hadn't the
means to do so. I fancy he loved no one but himself and had a strangely
high opinion of himself. His conception of culture was limited to good
clothes, clean shirt-fronts and polished boots. Believing himself to be
the illegitimate son of Fyodor Pavlovitch (there is evidence of this), he
might well have resented his position, compared with that of his master's
legitimate sons. They had everything, he nothing. They had all the rights,
they had the inheritance, while he was only the cook. He told me himself
that he had helped Fyodor Pavlovitch to put the notes in the envelope. The
destination of that sum--a sum which would have made his career--must have
been hateful to him. Moreover, he saw three thousand roubles in new
rainbow-colored notes. (I asked him about that on purpose.) Oh, beware of
showing an ambitious and envious man a large sum of money at once! And it
was the first time he had seen so much money in the hands of one man. The
sight of the rainbow-colored notes may have made a morbid impression on
his imagination, but with no immediate results.

"The talented prosecutor, with extraordinary subtlety, sketched for us all
the arguments for and against the hypothesis of Smerdyakov's guilt, and
asked us in particular what motive he had in feigning a fit. But he may
not have been feigning at all, the fit may have happened quite naturally,
but it may have passed off quite naturally, and the sick man may have
recovered, not completely perhaps, but still regaining consciousness, as
happens with epileptics.

"The prosecutor asks at what moment could Smerdyakov have committed the
murder. But it is very easy to point out that moment. He might have waked
up from deep sleep (for he was only asleep--an epileptic fit is always
followed by a deep sleep) at that moment when the old Grigory shouted at
the top of his voice 'Parricide!' That shout in the dark and stillness may
have waked Smerdyakov whose sleep may have been less sound at the moment:
he might naturally have waked up an hour before.

"Getting out of bed, he goes almost unconsciously and with no definite
motive towards the sound to see what's the matter. His head is still
clouded with his attack, his faculties are half asleep; but, once in the
garden, he walks to the lighted windows and he hears terrible news from
his master, who would be, of course, glad to see him. His mind sets to
work at once. He hears all the details from his frightened master, and
gradually in his disordered brain there shapes itself an idea--terrible,
but seductive and irresistibly logical. To kill the old man, take the
three thousand, and throw all the blame on to his young master. A terrible
lust of money, of booty, might seize upon him as he realized his security
from detection. Oh! these sudden and irresistible impulses come so often
when there is a favorable opportunity, and especially with murderers who
have had no idea of committing a murder beforehand. And Smerdyakov may
have gone in and carried out his plan. With what weapon? Why, with any
stone picked up in the garden. But what for, with what object? Why, the
three thousand which means a career for him. Oh, I am not contradicting
myself--the money may have existed. And perhaps Smerdyakov alone knew where
to find it, where his master kept it. And the covering of the money--the
torn envelope on the floor?

"Just now, when the prosecutor was explaining his subtle theory that only
an inexperienced thief like Karamazov would have left the envelope on the
floor, and not one like Smerdyakov, who would have avoided leaving a piece
of evidence against himself, I thought as I listened that I was hearing
something very familiar, and, would you believe it, I have heard that very
argument, that very conjecture, of how Karamazov would have behaved,
precisely two days before, from Smerdyakov himself. What's more, it struck
me at the time. I fancied that there was an artificial simplicity about
him; that he was in a hurry to suggest this idea to me that I might fancy
it was my own. He insinuated it, as it were. Did he not insinuate the same
idea at the inquiry and suggest it to the talented prosecutor?

"I shall be asked, 'What about the old woman, Grigory's wife? She heard
the sick man moaning close by, all night.' Yes, she heard it, but that
evidence is extremely unreliable. I knew a lady who complained bitterly
that she had been kept awake all night by a dog in the yard. Yet the poor
beast, it appeared, had only yelped once or twice in the night. And that's
natural. If any one is asleep and hears a groan he wakes up, annoyed at
being waked, but instantly falls asleep again. Two hours later, again a
groan, he wakes up and falls asleep again; and the same thing again two
hours later--three times altogether in the night. Next morning the sleeper
wakes up and complains that some one has been groaning all night and
keeping him awake. And it is bound to seem so to him: the intervals of two
hours of sleep he does not remember, he only remembers the moments of
waking, so he feels he has been waked up all night.

"But why, why, asks the prosecutor, did not Smerdyakov confess in his last
letter? Why did his conscience prompt him to one step and not to both?
But, excuse me, conscience implies penitence, and the suicide may not have
felt penitence, but only despair. Despair and penitence are two very
different things. Despair may be vindictive and irreconcilable, and the
suicide, laying his hands on himself, may well have felt redoubled hatred
for those whom he had envied all his life.

"Gentlemen of the jury, beware of a miscarriage of justice! What is there
unlikely in all I have put before you just now? Find the error in my
reasoning; find the impossibility, the absurdity. And if there is but a
shade of possibility, but a shade of probability in my propositions, do
not condemn him. And is there only a shade? I swear by all that is sacred,
I fully believe in the explanation of the murder I have just put forward.
What troubles me and makes me indignant is that of all the mass of facts
heaped up by the prosecution against the prisoner, there is not a single
one certain and irrefutable. And yet the unhappy man is to be ruined by
the accumulation of these facts. Yes, the accumulated effect is awful: the
blood, the blood dripping from his fingers, the bloodstained shirt, the
dark night resounding with the shout 'Parricide!' and the old man falling
with a broken head. And then the mass of phrases, statements, gestures,
shouts! Oh! this has so much influence, it can so bias the mind; but,
gentlemen of the jury, can it bias your minds? Remember, you have been
given absolute power to bind and to loose, but the greater the power, the
more terrible its responsibility.

"I do not draw back one iota from what I have said just now, but suppose
for one moment I agreed with the prosecution that my luckless client had
stained his hands with his father's blood. This is only hypothesis, I
repeat; I never for one instant doubt of his innocence. But, so be it, I
assume that my client is guilty of parricide. Even so, hear what I have to
say. I have it in my heart to say something more to you, for I feel that
there must be a great conflict in your hearts and minds.... Forgive my
referring to your hearts and minds, gentlemen of the jury, but I want to
be truthful and sincere to the end. Let us all be sincere!"

At this point the speech was interrupted by rather loud applause. The last
words, indeed, were pronounced with a note of such sincerity that every
one felt that he really might have something to say, and that what he was
about to say would be of the greatest consequence. But the President,
hearing the applause, in a loud voice threatened to clear the court if
such an incident were repeated. Every sound was hushed and Fetyukovitch
began in a voice full of feeling quite unlike the tone he had used
hitherto.





Book 12, Chapter 12
In this portion of his speech, Fetyukovich sets out to establish a plausible explanation for Smerdyakov as Fyodor's murderer. After dismissing Grigory's testimony , Fetyukovich proceeds to tell the court about his own impressions on meeting Smerdyakov. In contrast to the prosecutor's description of Smerdyakov as a weak, bullied man, Fetyukovich paints a picture of him as a wily, spiteful man who knew exactly what he was doing when he set up Dmitri. Fetyukovich then points out that Smerdyakov had plenty of time to commit Fyodor's murder between the time Dmitri attacked Grigory and the time Grigory fully recovered consciousness. At this point Fetyukovich takes on a "heartfelt" voice, in contrast to the calm, sensible way he had proceeded thus far.