The Brothers Karamazov

Chapter 14: Our Peasants Stood Up for Themselves

Thus Fetyukovich concluded, and the rapture that burst from his listeners this time was unrestrainable, like a storm. To restrain it now was unthinkable: women wept, many of the men also wept, even two of the dignitaries shed tears. The presiding judge submitted and even delayed ringing his bell: “To trespass upon such enthusiasm would amount to trespassing upon something sacred,” as our ladies cried afterwards. The orator himself was genuinely moved. And it was at such a moment that our Ippolit Kirillovich rose once more “to voice certain objections.” He was met with hateful stares: “How? What’s this? He still dares to object?” the ladies prattled. But even if all the ladies in the world, with the prosecutor’s own wife at their head, had begun prattling, it would have been impossible to restrain him at that moment. He was pale, shaking with emotion; the first words, the first phrases he uttered were even incomprehensible; he was breathless, inarticulate, confused. However, he quickly recovered. But I shall quote only a few phrases from his second speech.

“... We are reproached with having invented all sorts of novels. But what has the defense attorney offered if not novel upon novel? The only thing lacking is poetry. Fyodor Pavlovich, while waiting for his mistress, tears up the envelope and throws it on the floor. Even what he said on this remarkable occasion is quoted. Is this not a poem? And where is the proof that he took out the money, who heard what he was saying? The feebleminded idiot Smerdyakov, transformed into some sort of Byronic hero revenging himself upon society for his illegitimate birth—is this not a poem in the Byronic fashion? And the son bursting into his father’s house, killing him, and at the same time not killing him, this is not even a novel, not a poem, it is a sphinx posing riddles, which it, of course, will not solve itself. If he killed him, he killed him; how can it be that he killed him and yet did not kill him—who can understand that? Then it is announced to us that our tribune is the tribune of truth and sensible ideas, and so from this tribune of ‘sensible ideas’ an axiom resounds, accompanied by an oath, that to call the murder of a father parricide is simply a prejudice! But if parricide is a prejudice, and if every child ought to ask his father, ‘Father, why should I love you?’—what will become of us, what will become of the foundations of society, where will the family end up? Parricide—don’t you see, it’s just the ‘brimstone’ of some Moscow merchant’s wife? The most precious, the most sacred precepts concerning the purpose and future of the Russian courts are presented perversely and frivolously, only to achieve a certain end, to achieve the acquittal of that which cannot be acquitted. ‘Oh, overwhelm him with mercy,’ the defense attorney exclaims, and that is just what the criminal wants, and tomorrow everyone will see how overwhelmed he is! And is the defense attorney not being too modest in asking only for the defendant’s acquittal? Why does he not ask that a fund be established in the parricide’s name, in order to immortalize his deed for posterity and the younger generation? The Gospel and religion are corrected: it’s all mysticism, he says, and ours is the only true Christianity, tested by the analysis of reason and sensible ideas. And so a false image of Christ is held up to us! ‘With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you,’ the defense attorney exclaims, and concludes then and there that Christ commanded us to measure with the same measure as it is measured to us—and that from the tribune of truth and sensible ideas! We glance into the Gospel only on the eve of our speeches, in order to make a brilliant display of our familiarity with what is, after all, a rather original work, which may prove useful and serve for a certain effect, in good measure, all in good measure! Yet Christ tells us precisely not to do so, to beware of doing so, because that is what the wicked world does, whereas we must forgive and turn our cheek, and not measure with the same measure as our offenders measure to us. This is what our God taught us, and not that it is a prejudice to forbid children to kill their own fathers. And let us not, from the rostrum of truth and sensible ideas, correct the Gospel of our God, whom the defense attorney deems worthy of being called merely the crucified lover of mankind,’ in opposition to the whole of Orthodox Russia, which calls out to him: ’For thou art our God . . .!’^[357]”