Chapter IV.

Fortune Smiles On Mitya It came quite as a surprise even to Alyosha himself. He was not required to take the oath, and I remember that both sides addressed him very gently and sympathetically. It was evident that his reputation for goodness had preceded him. Alyosha gave his evidence modestly and with restraint, but his warm sympathy for his unhappy brother was unmistakable. In answer to one question, he sketched his brother’s character as that of a man, violent‐tempered perhaps and carried away by his passions, but at the same time honorable, proud and generous, capable of self‐sacrifice, if necessary. He admitted, however, that, through his passion for Grushenka and his rivalry with his father, his brother had been of late in an intolerable position. But he repelled with indignation the suggestion that his brother might have committed a murder for the sake of gain, though he recognized that the three thousand roubles had become almost an obsession with Mitya; that he looked upon them as part of the inheritance he had been cheated of by his father, and that, indifferent as he was to money as a rule, he could not even speak of that three thousand without fury. As for the rivalry of the two “ladies,” as the prosecutor expressed it—that is, of Grushenka and Katya—he answered evasively and was even unwilling to answer one or two questions altogether. “Did your brother tell you, anyway, that he intended to kill your father?” asked the prosecutor. “You can refuse to answer if you think necessary,” he added. “He did not tell me so directly,” answered Alyosha. “How so? Did he indirectly?” “He spoke to me once of his hatred for our father and his fear that at an extreme moment ... at a moment of fury, he might perhaps murder him.” “And you believed him?” “I am afraid to say that I did. But I never doubted that some higher feeling would always save him at the fatal moment, as it has indeed saved him, for it was not he killed my father,” Alyosha said firmly, in a loud voice that was heard throughout the court. The prosecutor started like a war‐horse at the sound of a trumpet. “Let me assure you that I fully believe in the complete sincerity of your conviction and do not explain it by or identify it with your affection for your unhappy brother. Your peculiar view of the whole tragic episode is known to us already from the preliminary investigation. I won’t attempt to conceal from you that it is highly individual and contradicts all the other evidence collected by the prosecution. And so I think it essential to press you to tell me what facts have led you to this conviction of your brother’s innocence and of the guilt of another person against whom you gave evidence at the preliminary inquiry?” “I only answered the questions asked me at the preliminary inquiry,” replied Alyosha, slowly and calmly. “I made no accusation against Smerdyakov of myself.” “Yet you gave evidence against him?” “I was led to do so by my brother Dmitri’s words. I was told what took place at his arrest and how he had pointed to Smerdyakov before I was examined. I believe absolutely that my brother is innocent, and if he didn’t commit the murder, then—” “Then Smerdyakov? Why Smerdyakov? And why are you so completely persuaded of your brother’s innocence?” “I cannot help believing my brother. I know he wouldn’t lie to me. I saw from his face he wasn’t lying.” “Only from his face? Is that all the proof you have?” “I have no other proof.” “And of Smerdyakov’s guilt you have no proof whatever but your brother’s word and the expression of his face?” “No, I have no other proof.” The prosecutor dropped the examination at this point. The impression left by Alyosha’s evidence on the public was most disappointing. There had been talk about Smerdyakov before the trial; some one had heard something, some one had pointed out something else, it was said that Alyosha had gathered together some extraordinary proofs of his brother’s innocence and Smerdyakov’s guilt, and after all there was nothing, no evidence except certain moral convictions so natural in a brother. But Fetyukovitch began his cross‐examination. On his asking Alyosha when it was that the prisoner had told him of his hatred for his father and that he might kill him, and whether he had heard it, for instance, at their last meeting before the catastrophe, Alyosha started as he answered, as though only just recollecting and understanding something. “I remember one circumstance now which I’d quite forgotten myself. It wasn’t clear to me at the time, but now—” And, obviously only now for the first time struck by an idea, he recounted eagerly how, at his last interview with Mitya that evening under the tree, on the road to the monastery, Mitya had struck himself on the breast, “the upper part of the breast,” and had repeated several times that he had a means of regaining his honor, that that means was here, here on his breast. “I thought, when he struck himself on the breast, he meant that it was in his heart,” Alyosha continued, “that he might find in his heart strength to save himself from some awful disgrace which was awaiting him and which he did not dare confess even to me. I must confess I did think at the time that he was speaking of our father, and that the disgrace he was shuddering at was the thought of going to our father and doing some violence to him. Yet it was just then that he pointed to something on his breast, so that I remember the idea struck me at the time that the heart is not on that part of the breast, but below, and that he struck himself much too high, just below the neck, and kept pointing to that place. My idea seemed silly to me at the time, but he was perhaps pointing then to that little bag in which he had fifteen hundred roubles!” “Just so,” Mitya cried from his place. “That’s right, Alyosha, it was the little bag I struck with my fist.” Fetyukovitch flew to him in hot haste entreating him to keep quiet, and at the same instant pounced on Alyosha. Alyosha, carried away himself by his recollection, warmly expressed his theory that this disgrace was probably just that fifteen hundred roubles on him, which he might have returned to Katerina Ivanovna as half of what he owed her, but which he had yet determined not to repay her and to use for another purpose—namely, to enable him to elope with Grushenka, if she consented. “It is so, it must be so,” exclaimed Alyosha, in sudden excitement. “My brother cried several times that half of the disgrace, half of it (he said _half_ several times) he could free himself from at once, but that he was so unhappy in his weakness of will that he wouldn’t do it ... that he knew beforehand he was incapable of doing it!” “And you clearly, confidently remember that he struck himself just on this part of the breast?” Fetyukovitch asked eagerly. “Clearly and confidently, for I thought at the time, ‘Why does he strike himself up there when the heart is lower down?’ and the thought seemed stupid to me at the time ... I remember its seeming stupid ... it flashed through my mind. That’s what brought it back to me just now. How could I have forgotten it till now? It was that little bag he meant when he said he had the means but wouldn’t give back that fifteen hundred. And when he was arrested at Mokroe he cried out—I know, I was told it—that he considered it the most disgraceful act of his life that when he had the means of repaying Katerina Ivanovna half (half, note!) what he owed her, he yet could not bring himself to repay the money and preferred to remain a thief in her eyes rather than part with it. And what torture, what torture that debt has been to him!” Alyosha exclaimed in conclusion. The prosecutor, of course, intervened. He asked Alyosha to describe once more how it had all happened, and several times insisted on the question, “Had the prisoner seemed to point to anything? Perhaps he had simply struck himself with his fist on the breast?” “But it was not with his fist,” cried Alyosha; “he pointed with his fingers and pointed here, very high up.... How could I have so completely forgotten it till this moment?” The President asked Mitya what he had to say to the last witness’s evidence. Mitya confirmed it, saying that he had been pointing to the fifteen hundred roubles which were on his breast, just below the neck, and that that was, of course, the disgrace, “A disgrace I cannot deny, the most shameful act of my whole life,” cried Mitya. “I might have repaid it and didn’t repay it. I preferred to remain a thief in her eyes rather than give it back. And the most shameful part of it was that I knew beforehand I shouldn’t give it back! You are right, Alyosha! Thanks, Alyosha!” So Alyosha’s cross‐examination ended. What was important and striking about it was that one fact at least had been found, and even though this were only one tiny bit of evidence, a mere hint at evidence, it did go some little way towards proving that the bag had existed and had contained fifteen hundred roubles and that the prisoner had not been lying at the preliminary inquiry when he alleged at Mokroe that those fifteen hundred roubles were “his own.” Alyosha was glad. With a flushed face he moved away to the seat assigned to him. He kept repeating to himself: “How was it I forgot? How could I have forgotten it? And what made it come back to me now?” Katerina Ivanovna was called to the witness‐box. As she entered something extraordinary happened in the court. The ladies clutched their lorgnettes and opera‐glasses. There was a stir among the men: some stood up to get a better view. Everybody alleged afterwards that Mitya had turned “white as a sheet” on her entrance. All in black, she advanced modestly, almost timidly. It was impossible to tell from her face that she was agitated; but there was a resolute gleam in her dark and gloomy eyes. I may remark that many people mentioned that she looked particularly handsome at that moment. She spoke softly but clearly, so that she was heard all over the court. She expressed herself with composure, or at least tried to appear composed. The President began his examination discreetly and very respectfully, as though afraid to touch on “certain chords,” and showing consideration for her great unhappiness. But in answer to one of the first questions Katerina Ivanovna replied firmly that she had been formerly betrothed to the prisoner, “until he left me of his own accord...” she added quietly. When they asked her about the three thousand she had entrusted to Mitya to post to her relations, she said firmly, “I didn’t give him the money simply to send it off. I felt at the time that he was in great need of money.... I gave him the three thousand on the understanding that he should post it within the month if he cared to. There was no need for him to worry himself about that debt afterwards.” I will not repeat all the questions asked her and all her answers in detail. I will only give the substance of her evidence. “I was firmly convinced that he would send off that sum as soon as he got money from his father,” she went on. “I have never doubted his disinterestedness and his honesty ... his scrupulous honesty ... in money matters. He felt quite certain that he would receive the money from his father, and spoke to me several times about it. I knew he had a feud with his father and have always believed that he had been unfairly treated by his father. I don’t remember any threat uttered by him against his father. He certainly never uttered any such threat before me. If he had come to me at that time, I should have at once relieved his anxiety about that unlucky three thousand roubles, but he had given up coming to see me ... and I myself was put in such a position ... that I could not invite him.... And I had no right, indeed, to be exacting as to that money,” she added suddenly, and there was a ring of resolution in her voice. “I was once indebted to him for assistance in money for more than three thousand, and I took it, although I could not at that time foresee that I should ever be in a position to repay my debt.” There was a note of defiance in her voice. It was then Fetyukovitch began his cross‐examination. “Did that take place not here, but at the beginning of your acquaintance?” Fetyukovitch suggested cautiously, feeling his way, instantly scenting something favorable. I must mention in parenthesis that, though Fetyukovitch had been brought from Petersburg partly at the instance of Katerina Ivanovna herself, he knew nothing about the