Then the defendant himself was given the opportunity to speak. Mitya stood up, but said little. He was terribly tired in body and in spirit. The look of strength and independence with which he had appeared in court that morning had all but vanished. He seemed to have experienced something that day for the rest of his life, which had taught and brought home to him something very important, something he had not understood before. His voice had grown weaker, he no longer shouted as earlier. Something new, resigned, defeated, and downcast could be heard in his words.
“What can I say, gentlemen of the jury! My judgment has come, I feel the right hand of God upon me. The end of the erring man! But I tell you as if I were confessing to God: ‘No, of my father’s blood I am not guilty! ‘ For the last time I repeat: ‘I did not kill him.’ I erred, but I loved the good. Every moment I longed to reform, yet I lived like a wild beast. My thanks to the prosecutor, he said much about me that I did not know, but it is not true that I killed my father, the prosecutor is mistaken! My thanks also to the defense attorney, I wept listening to him, but it is not true that I killed my father, there was no need even to suppose it! And don’t believe the doctors, I’m entirely in my right mind, only my soul is heavy. If you spare me, if you let me go—I will pray for you. I will become better, I give you my word, I give it before God. And if you condemn me—I will break the sword over my head myself, and kiss the broken pieces! [359]But spare me, do not deprive me of my God, I know myself: I will murmur! My soul is heavy, gentlemen ... spare me!” He all but fell back in his seat, his voice broke, he barely managed to utter the last phrase. Then the court proceeded to pose the questions and asked for conclusions from both sides. But I omit the details here. At last the jury rose to retire for deliberation. The presiding judge was very tired, which is why his instructions to them were so weak: “Be impartial,” he said, “do not be impressed by the eloquent words of the defense, and yet weigh carefully, remember that a great obligation rests upon you,” and so on and so forth. The jury retired, and there came a break in the session. People could stand, move about, exchange their stored-up impressions, have a bite to eat at the buffet. It was very late, already about an hour past midnight, but no one wanted to leave. They were all so tense that rest was the last thing on their minds. They all waited with sinking hearts; though, incidentally, not everyone’s heart was sinking. The ladies were simply hysterically impatient, but their hearts were untroubled: “Acquittal is inevitable.” They were preparing themselves for the ‘ spectacular moment of general enthusiasm. I must admit that in the male half of the room, too, a great many were convinced of an inevitable acquittal. Some were glad, but others frowned, and still others simply hung their heads: they did not want acquittal! Fetyukovich, for his part, was firmly assured of success. He was surrounded, congratulated, fawned upon.
“There are,” he said to one group, as was reported afterwards, “there are these invisible threads that bind the defense attorney and the jury together. They begin and can already be sensed during the speech. I felt them, they exist. Don’t worry, the case is ours.”
“I wonder what our peasants are going to say?” said one sullen, fat, pockmarked gentleman, a neighboring landowner, approaching a group of gentlemen conversing.
“But they’re not all peasants. There are four officials among them.”
“Yes, officials,” a member of the district council said, joining them.
“And do you know Nazaryev, Prokhor Ivanovich, the merchant with the medal, the one on the jury?”
“What about him?”
“Palatial mind.”
“But he never says a word.”
“Never says a word, but so much the better. Your man from Petersburg has nothing to teach him; he could teach the whole of Petersburg himself. Twelve children, just think of it!”
“Good God, how can they possibly not acquit him?” cried one of our young officials in another group.
“He’s sure to be acquitted,” a resolute voice was heard.
“It would be a shame and a disgrace not to acquit him!” the official went on exclaiming. “Suppose he did kill him, but there are fathers and fathers! And, finally, he was in such a frenzy ... Maybe he really did just swing the pestle and the old man fell down. Only it’s too bad they dragged the lackey into it. That’s just a ridiculous episode. If I were the defense attorney, I’d have said straight out: he killed him, but he’s not guilty, and devil take you!”
“But that’s just what he did, only he didn’t say ‘devil take you.’”
“No, Mikhail Semyonovich, but he nearly said it,” a third little voice chimed in.
“Good God, gentlemen, didn’t they acquit an actress, during Great Lent, who cut the throat of her lover’s lawful wife?” [360]
“But she didn’t finish cutting it.”
“All the same, all the same, she started to!”
“And what he said about children! Splendid!”
“Splendid.”
“And about mysticism, about mysticism, eh?”
“Mysticism nothing,” someone else cried out, “think about Ippolit, think what his fate is going to be after this day! His wife is sure to scratch his eyes out tomorrow over Mitenka.”
“Is she here?”
“Here, hah! If she were here, she’d have scratched his eyes out right here. She’s at home with a toothache. Heh, heh, heh!”
“Heh,heh,heh!”
In a third group:
“It looks like Mitenka will be acquitted after all.”
“Tomorrow, for all I know, he’ll smash up the whole ‘Metropolis,’ he’ll go on a ten-day binge.”
“Ah, the devil you say!”
“The devil? Yes, the devil’s in it all right, where else would he be if not here?”
“Eloquence aside, gentlemen, people can’t be allowed to go breaking their fathers’ heads with steelyards. Otherwise where will we end up?”
“The chariot, the chariot, remember that?”
“Yes, he made a chariot out of a dung cart.”
“And tomorrow a dung cart out of a chariot, ‘in good measure, all in good measure.’”
“Folks are clever nowadays. Do we have any truth in Russia, gentlemen, or is there none at all?”
But the bell rang. The jury deliberated for exactly an hour, not more, not less. A deep silence reigned as soon as the public resumed their seats. I remember how the jury filed into the courtroom. At last! I omit giving the questions point by point, besides I’ve forgotten them. I remember only the answer to the first and chief question of the presiding judge—that is, “Did he commit murder for the purpose of robbery, and with premeditation?” (I do not remember the text.) Everything became still. The foreman of the jury— namely, one of the officials, the youngest of them all—pronounced loudly and clearly, in the dead silence of the courtroom:
“Yes, guilty!”
And then it was the same on each point: guilty, yes, guilty, and that without the least extenuation! This really no one had expected, almost everyone was certain at least of extenuation. The dead silence of the courtroom remained unbroken, everyone seemed literally turned to stone—both those who longed for conviction and those who longed for acquittal. But this lasted only for the first moments. Then a terrible chaos broke loose. Many among the male public turned out to be very pleased. Some even rubbed their hands with unconcealed joy. The displeased ones seemed crushed; they shrugged, whispered, as if still unable to comprehend it. But, my God, what came over our ladies! I thought they might start a riot! At first they seemed not to believe their ears. Then, suddenly, exclamations were heard all over the courtroom: “What’s that? What on earth is that?” They jumped up from their seats. They must have thought it could all be redone and reversed on the spot. At that moment Mitya suddenly rose and cried in a sort of rending voice, stretching his arms out before him:
“I swear by God and by his terrible judgment, I am not guilty of my father’s blood! Katya, I forgive you! Brothers, friends, have pity on the other woman!”
He did not finish and broke into sobs heard all over the courtroom, in a voice, terrible, no longer his own, but somehow new, unexpected, which suddenly came to him from God knows where. In the gallery above, from the furthest corner, came a woman’s piercing cry: it was Grushenka. She had begged someone earlier and had been let back into the courtroom before the attorneys began their debate. Mitya was taken away. The sentencing was put off until the next day. The whole courtroom rose in turmoil, but I did not stay and listen. I remember only a few exclamations from the porch on the way out.