The Brothers Karamazov

“First of all, where did the possibility of such a suspicion come from?” was the question with which Ippolit Kirillovich began. “The first one to cry out against Smerdyakov as the murderer was the defendant himself at the moment of his arrest, and yet, from that very first cry down to this very moment of the trial, he has failed to present even one fact to confirm his accusation— and not only no fact, but not even the ghost of a fact to any degree congruous with human reason. Then, the accusation is confirmed by only three persons: the defendant’s two brothers and Miss Svetlov. Yet the defendant’s older brother announced his suspicion only today, when he was ill, in a fit of unquestionable delirium and fever, while previously, for the whole two months, as is positively known to us, he fully shared the conviction of his brother’s guilt and did not even attempt to object to the idea. But we shall go into that more particularly later on. Then, the defendant’s younger brother announces to us today that he has no facts, not even the slightest, to support his notion of Smerdyakov’s guilt, and that his conclusion is based only on the words of the defendant himself and ‘the look on his face’—yes, this colossal proof was uttered twice today by his brother. And Miss Svetlov expressed herself perhaps even more colossally: ‘Whatever the defendant tells you, you must believe, he’s not the sort of man to lie.’ That is the sum total of factual evidence against Smerdyakov produced by these three persons, who are only too interested in the defendant’s fate. Nevertheless the accusation against Smerdyakov made its way and held out, and is still holding out—can you believe it, can you imagine it?” Here Ippolit Kirillovich found it necessary to sketch briefly the character of the late Smerdyakov, “who put an end to his life in a fit of morbid delirium and madness.” He portrayed him as a feebleminded man with the rudiments of some vague education, who was confused by philosophical ideas that were too much for his mind, and frightened by certain modern-day teachings on duty and obligation, extensively offered him in practice by the devil-may-care life of his late master, and perhaps also father, Fyodor Pavlovich, and in theory by various strange philosophical conversations with the master’s elder son, Ivan Fyodorovich, who readily allowed himself this diversion—most likely out of boredom or a need for mockery that could find no better application. “He himself described to me the state of his soul during the last days of his life in his master’s house,” Ippolit Kirillovich explained, “but others, too, have given the same testimony: the defendant himself, his brother, even the servant Grigory, all those, that is, who must have known him quite well. Being oppressed, moreover, by the falling sickness, Smerdyakov was ‘cowardly as a chicken.’ ‘He used to fall at my feet and kiss them,’ the defendant told us at a time when he had not yet realized that such information was hardly beneficial to him. ‘It’s a chicken with falling sickness,’ as he put it in his characteristic language. And it is him that the defendant (he testifies to it himself) chooses as his confidant, and bullies into agreeing to serve him as a spy and informer. In this capacity of domestic rat, he betrays his master, he tells the defendant both about the existence of the envelope with the money and about the signals that would enable one to get into the master’s house—and how could he not tell! ‘He’d kill me, sir, I just saw that he’d kill me, sir,’ he kept saying in the interrogation, shaking and trembling even before us, notwithstanding that the tormentor who bullied him was then already under arrest and could no longer come and punish him. ‘He suspected me every minute, sir; in fear and trembling, just to satisfy his wrath, I hastened to tell him about every secret, sir, just so he could see my innocence before him, sir, and let me go in peace with my life, sir.’ These are his own words, I wrote them down and remembered them: ‘He’d start yelling at me, and I’d just fall on my knees before him.’ Being a highly honest young man by nature, and having thereby gained the trust of his master, who recognized this honesty in him when he returned the lost money, the unfortunate Smerdyakov was, one can only think, terribly tormented by remorse at his betrayal of his master, whom he loved as his benefactor. People severely afflicted with the falling sickness, according to the findings of the profoundest psychiatrists, are always inclined to constant and, of course, morbid self-accusation. They suffer from their ‘guilt’ for something and before someone, are tormented by pangs of conscience; often, even without any grounds, they exaggerate and even invent various guilts and crimes for themselves. And now one such individual, from fear and bullying, becomes guilty and criminal in reality. Moreover, he strongly anticipated that something bad might come of the circumstances taking shape before his eyes. When the elder son of Fyodor Pavlovich, Ivan Fyodorovich, was leaving for Moscow, just before the catastrophe, Smerdyakov begged him to stay, although, following his cowardly custom, he did not dare voice all his apprehensions clearly and categorically. He contented himself merely with hints, but these hints were not understood. It should be noted that he saw in Ivan Fyodorovich his protection, as it were, his guarantee, as it were, that as long as he stayed at home, no disaster would occur. Recall the phrase in the ‘drunken’ letter of Dmitri Karamazov: ‘I’ll kill the old man, if only Ivan goes away’; meaning that the presence of Ivan Fyodorovich seemed to everyone a guarantee of peace and order in the house, as it were. But then he leaves, and at once, scarcely an hour after the young master’s departure, Smerdyakov comes down with a falling fit. That is perfectly understandable. It should be mentioned here that Smerdyakov, oppressed by fears and despair of a sort, during those last days especially felt in himself the possibility of an impending attack of the falling sickness, which before, too, had always come upon him in moments of moral tension and shock. It is, of course, impossible to foresee the day and hour of such an attack, but every epileptic can feel in himself beforehand a disposition towards an attack. This medical science tells us. And so, as soon as Ivan Fyodorovich quits the place, Smerdyakov, under the impression of his, so to speak, orphaned and defenseless state, goes to the cellar on a household errand, thinking as he starts down the stairs: ‘Will I have a fit or not, and what if it comes now?’ And so, precisely because of this mood, this insecurity, these questions, the spasm in the throat, which always precedes a falling fit, seizes him, and he topples headlong, unconscious, into the bottom of the cellar. And people manage to see something suspicious in this perfectly natural accident, some sort of clue, some sort of hint that he was deliberately pretending to be sick! But if it was deliberate, the question immediately arises: what for? Out of what calculation, with what aim? I am not speaking of medicine now; science lies, they say, science makes mistakes, the doctors were unable to distinguish truth from pretense— maybe so, maybe so, but all the same answer my question: why would he pretend? Could it be that, having planned the murder, he wanted in advance and at once to attract attention to himself in the house by having a fit? You see, gentlemen of the jury, there were five people in and around Fyodor Pavlovich’s house on the night of the crime: first, Fyodor Pavlovich himself, but he could not have killed himself, that is clear; second, his servant Grigory, but he himself was almost killed; third, Grigory’s wife, the serving-woman Marfa Ignatieva, but it is simply shameful to imagine her as her master’s murderer. Thus two people are left in view: the defendant, and Smerdyakov. But the defendant insists it was not he who killed his father, so Smerdyakov must have killed him, there is no other solution, for there is no one else to be found, there is no way to pick another murderer. Here, here then is the source of this ‘cunning’ and colossal accusation against the unfortunate idiot who yesterday took his own life! Precisely for the simple reason that there is no one else to pick! Were there at least a shadow, at least a suspicion of someone else, some sixth person, I am sure that in that case even the defendant himself would be ashamed to point to Smerdyakov, and would point to this sixth person instead, for to accuse Smerdyakov of this murder is utterly absurd.