The Karamazov Brothers

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  After describing the outcome of that conversation and the moment when the accused was suddenly informed that Grushenka had not actually spent the evening at Samsonov’s, as well as the sudden fury of this tragic, spiritually exhausted, and jealous man at the realization that she had deliberately deceived him and was now at Fyodor Pavlovich’s, Ippolit Kyrillovich concluded by drawing attention to the fatal role played by chance: ‘If only the servant girl had got around to telling him that his sweetheart had gone to Mokroye and was with her “former and indisputable” one, nothing would have happened. But she became paralysed with fear, started to swear by all that’s holy, and the only reason the accused did not kill her there and then was that he rushed off in a frenzy to look for the one who had betrayed him. But note: agitated though he may have been, he nevertheless grabbed the brass pestle and took it with him. Why the pestle and not some other implement? Well, if he had been contemplating murder for a whole month, just the mere glimpse of something resembling a weapon would be sufficient reason to cause him to snatch it. And the fact that some implement like that could serve as a weapon—he had been contemplating that for a whole month. That is precisely why he identified it as a weapon immediately and unhesitatingly! And therefore, I put it to you, it was not an unconscious act, he did not snatch up the fateful pestle involuntarily. And now we see him in his father’s garden; the field is clear, there are no witnesses, it is the dead of night—darkness and jealousy. The lurking suspicion that she is in there with him, with his rival, in his arms—perhaps they’re both laughing at him at this very moment—enrages him. And not merely suspicion—it’s no longer just a question of suspicion. The deceit is self-evident and obvious: she’s there, in that room, where the light is coming from, she’s there with him, behind the screen—and the poor man creeps up to the window, peers in expectantly, accepts the situation with resignation and departs discreetly, all the quicker to avoid any trouble and before anything dangerous or criminal should happen—and we, knowing the defendant’s character, knowing the state of mind he was in, and above all that he was aware of the signal by which he could gain immediate access to the house, are expected to believe all this!’

  At this point, having mentioned the signal and wishing to dispose completely of the initial suspicion of Smerdyakov’s guilt, so as to dispense with the idea once and for all, Ippolit Kyrillovich digressed from the main thrust of his argument for a time, and found it expedient to discuss the situation of Smerdyakov. He proceeded very methodically, and everyone understood that, despite the scorn he poured on this suspicion, he nevertheless regarded it as being most significant.

  8

  MORE ABOUT SMERDYAKOV

  ‘FIRST,’ began Ippolit Kyrillovich, ‘where could such a suspicion possibly have originated? The first person to accuse Smerdyakov was the defendant himself at the time of his arrest, yet from the moment he made the accusation until now he has not produced a single shred of evidence to support his accusation—and not only no evidence, but not even anything that, in terms of common sense, could remotely be considered as a suggestion of evidence. Subsequently only three people have supported this accusation: the defendant’s two brothers and Miss Svetlova. But the elder brother declared his suspicion only today, when he was taken ill with a fever and was obviously raving, whereas for the last two months, as we well know, he has been entirely convinced of his brother’s guilt and has acquiesced with the assumption of his guilt. But we shall deal with this point specifically later on. Then the younger brother told us that he had no evidence, none whatsoever, to substantiate his surmise regarding Smerdyakov’s culpability, but that he had reached his conclusion solely on the basis of the defendant’s words and “by the look on his face”—indeed, this most convincing of proofs was offered twice just now by his brother. And then Miss Svetlova presented us with even more convincing proof, perhaps: ‘You can believe everything he says; he’s not the sort of man to tell a lie.” That is all the factual proof we have against Smerdyakov from these three persons, all of whom are too deeply involved in the defendant’s fate to be impartial. In spite of this, the belief in Smerdyakov’s guilt has continued to circulate unabated to this day. Is this credible, is this conceivable?’

  Here Ippolit Kyrillovich deemed it necessary briefly to outline the character of the late Smerdyakov, a man who had ‘taken his life while the balance of his mind was disturbed’. He represented him as a feeble-minded person with a rudimentary education, who was confused by philosophical ideas beyond his mental capabilities and terrified of certain modern teachings on duty and responsibility, by which he had been all too strongly influenced through the practical example of the dissolute lifestyle of his late master and putative father, Fyodor Pavlovich, and also through various strange philosophical discussions with his master’s son, Ivan Fyodorovich, who, probably bored and needing someone to taunt, and finding no better target, had been only too pleased to take advantage of this source of entertainment. ‘Smerdyakov himself described to me his state of mind during the final days of his life in his master’s house,’ explained Ippolit Kyrillovich, ‘and others have spoken about it too—the accused, his brother, and even the servant Grigory, all of whom must have known him very closely. Besides his other disadvantages, debilitated by his epilepsy, Smerdyakov was as timid as a chicken. “He would fall at my feet and kiss them,” the accused himself informed us, before he had realized that such an admission could be harmful to himself. “He’s an epileptic chicken,” is how the accused described Smerdyakov, in his own characteristic language. And that is who the accused (as he himself has testified) chose as his confidant and frightened to such an extent that, in the end, he agreed to be his spy and messenger. In this role of household informer he betrays his master, informs the accused of the existence of the envelope with the money and of the signal by which he can gain access to his master—he informs him, and small wonder too! “He’d have killed me, I could see that straight away, he’d have killed me,” he said at the investigation, trembling and quaking at the mere thought, despite the fact that his terrifying tormentor was already under arrest and could not have exacted his revenge. “He suspected me each and every minute, and so, being in fear of my life and just to placate his anger, I used to hurry to inform him of every secret—to prove my innocence, sir, so that he would spare my life and give me time to repent my sins.” Here are his very words, which I wrote down so as not to forget them: “As soon as he started to shout at me, I’d immediately fall on my knees before him.” On a certain occasion in the past, Smerdyakov had found and returned some money which his master had lost and had thus gained the latter’s confidence, who had recognized a streak of honesty in him. The unfortunate Smerdyakov, being a highly trustworthy young man by nature, was, it is fair to assume, mortified at having betrayed his master, whom he regarded as his benefactor and revered accordingly. The most eminent psychiatrists tell us that those who suffer seriously from epilepsy are prone to an all-pervading and of course morbid self-recrimination. They are tormented by their sense of guilt and also, often for no reason at all, by pangs of conscience; they exaggerate their own guilt and even accuse themselves of all manner of imaginary crimes. Such an individual, through fear and intimidation, can easily become convinced of his guilt and criminality. Smerdyakov in fact had a nasty premonition that the events unfolding before his eyes could lead to some catastrophe. When, immediately before the tragedy, Fyodor Pavlovich’s eldest son Ivan Fyodorovich was leaving for Moscow, Smerdyakov begged him to stay behind, not daring, however, on account of his usual faint-heartedness, to tell him clearly and unequivocally all his reservations. He limited himself to dropping hints, but his hints were not understood. It should be noted that he saw Ivan Fyodorovich as his protector so to speak, as a sort of guarantee that, while he was in the house, there would be no calamity. Cast your minds back to the statement in Dmitry Karamazov’s “drunken” letter: “I’ll kill the old man—provided that Ivan has left”; this would suggest that Ivan Fyodorovich
’s presence in the house served to guarantee peace and quiet. He then leaves, whereupon Smerdyakov almost immediately, within an hour of the young master’s departure, has an epileptic fit. But that is quite understandable. Here it should be noted that, beset by fear and almost in a state of despair, Smerdyakov had for some days been particularly conscious of the possible recurrence of his epilepsy, which was always brought on by nervous tension and emotional upheaval. The exact day and hour of these fits cannot of course be predicted, but every epileptic has a premonition. That, anyway, is the accepted medical opinion. And so, no sooner did Ivan Fyodorovich leave than Smerdyakov, feeling so to speak aban doned and vulnerable, thought to himself as he descended the cellar steps in the course of his domestic duties: “Am I or am I not going to have a fit, and what if I have one now?” And he did have a fit, precisely because of his feeling of unease and these questions and because of his state of anxiety; his vocal chords went into spasm, as is always the case before an epileptic fit, and he ended up falling unconscious on the cellar floor. And now some people have contrived to doubt this most natural coincidence and to read into it an indication, a suggestion, that he deliberately faked his illness! But if he did fake it, then the question immediately arises: what for? What did he stand to gain by it, what was his objective? I am not talking from a medical point of view now; science, they will say, has made a mistake, it has got it wrong, the doctors have failed to distinguish between fact and fiction. That may well be so, but have the goodness, none the less, to answer my question: why on earth should he have faked his fit? Was it that, having decided to commit the murder, he wanted to draw attention to himself beforehand in the quickest and most effective way? You see, gentlemen of the jury, on the night of the crime there were five people present in Fyodor Pavlovich’s house: firstly, there was Fyodor Pavlovich himself, but obviously he didn’t kill himself; secondly, there was his servant Grigory, but he himself was nearly killed; thirdly, there was Grigory’s wife, the servant Marfa Ignatyevna, but one simply cannot bring oneself to imagine that she could have killed her master; hence, there remain only two people to consider, the accused and Smerdyakov. But since the accused assures us that he didn’t commit the murder, it follows that the murder was committed by Smerdyakov, there’s no other solution, because it’s impossible to find anyone else, there’s no other person on whom the murder can be pinned. So now you see the origin of this “crafty” and grave accusation against the hapless idiot who took his own life yesterday! There you have it, he’s being accused for one reason only—because they can’t find anyone else! Had there been even the slightest suggestion of suspicion about anyone else, about some sixth person, I’m convinced that even the accused himself would have been ashamed to accuse Smerdyakov and would have accused that sixth person instead, for to accuse Smerdyakov of this murder is an utter absurdity.

  ‘Gentlemen, let us leave psychology aside, let us leave medicine aside, let us leave even logic itself aside, and let us just consider the facts, simply the facts, and see what they can tell us. Let us say that the murder was committed by Smerdyakov. But how? Alone, or in complicity with the accused? Let us consider the first suggestion, namely, that Smerdyakov committed the murder on his own. Of course, if he did commit it, then there must have been a motive, some benefit to himself. However, being completely devoid of the motives that the accused had—that is to say, hatred, jealousy, and so on and so forth—Smerdyakov could only have committed the murder for money, simply in order to obtain the three thousand roubles which he himself had seen his master place in the envelope. And so, having decided upon the murder, he gives advance notice to another person—incidentally a highly interested party, namely the accused. He tells him all about the money and the signal, where the envelope is to be found, what exactly is written on the envelope, what it’s tied with, and, most important, most important of all, he tells him about the signal which will allow him access to the master of the house. Well, is he just trying to get himself caught? Or is he asking for a rival to get in there first and help himself to the envelope? They will say he did it because he was frightened. Just a moment! How can a man who has no scruples about planning such a reckless and bestial deed pass on information which only he in the whole world knows about and which if only he keeps his mouth shut no one else in the world will ever find out? No, however cowardly he was, he would never, once he had planned such a deed, have told anyone—at least not about the envelope or the signal, because that would have been tantamount to incriminating himself. He might have deliberately invented something, he might have lied if someone had demanded information, but he would have kept quiet about other things! On the other hand, I repeat, if he had only kept quiet about the money and then, after killing his master, he had taken it, no one in the whole world could have accused him of the murder, at least not with robbery as a motive, because after all he was the only person who had seen the money or knew that it was in the house. And even if he had been accused, it would definitely have been assumed that he had killed him for some other motive. But since nobody has at any time been able to pin any motive on him—on the contrary, everyone knew that he was well liked by his master, who let him into his confidence—it therefore follows that he would have been the last person to be suspected; suspicion would have fallen first and foremost on someone who had a motive and did not conceal it, who had told everyone of his motive—in a word, suspicion would have fallen on the son of the murdered man, Dmitry Fyodorovich. So Smerdyakov would have committed both the murder and the theft, and the son would have been accused—surely, that would have suited Smerdyakov-the-murderer down to the ground, wouldn’t it? But having planned the murder, Smerdyakov goes and reveals beforehand to the son Dmitry details about the money, about the envelope, and about the signal—how logical, how obvious!

  ‘The day comes on which Smerdyakov plans to commit the murder—and he falls down the stairs in a sham fit! What for? Well, obviously so that the servant Grigory, who was thinking of applying his medicinal embrocation, would see that there was no one at all to keep watch on the house, and would perhaps delay applying the treatment and stay and keep guard. And obviously also so that the master himself, seeing that no one was on guard and being petrified that his son might arrive, a fear which he made no attempt to conceal, would become even more wary and intensify his vigilance. Finally, and most obviously, so that he, Smerdyakov, assumed to be incapacitated by his fit, would immediately be carried not into the kitchen, where he always slept at night, away from everybody and therefore able to come and go as he pleased, but into Grigory and Marfa’s room at the far end of the outhouse, where he would be put behind the partition, not three steps from their bed—his master and the kind-hearted Marfa had always insisted on this arrangement whenever he had a fit. There, lying behind the partition—and in order to feign illness more credibly—he would of course more likely than not begin to groan and then disturb their sleep throughout the night (as Grigory and his wife testified, in fact)—and all this just so that he could suddenly get up and kill his master more easily!

  ‘But, you will say, perhaps that’s exactly why he feigned it all, so that in his incapacitated state he would not be suspected, and perhaps he told the accused about the money and the signal precisely so that the latter would be tempted to enter and commit the murder, and having committed the murder the latter would depart, taking the money with him, and would in addition make a lot of noise and commotion, perhaps wake up witnesses, and, you see, that is when Smerdyakov would get up and leave the room and—well, leave the room and do what? Precisely: he’d leave the room to murder his master for the second time, and for the second time take the money which had already been stolen. You may laugh, gentlemen. I myself am embarrassed to suggest such a farrago, and yet, just imagine: that is in fact exactly what the accused is claiming. “After me,” he claims, “after I had already left the house, knocked Grigory to the ground and made a lot of commotion, he got up and proceeded to murder and rob his master.” I sh
all not even speculate as to how it was that Smerdyakov could work all this out beforehand and plan everything in sequence; namely, that the angry, enraged son would come and simply glance cautiously through the window and, though he knew the signal, would withdraw, leaving the whole booty to him, Smerdyakov! Gentlemen, this is a serious question: when exactly is Smerdyakov supposed to have committed this crime? Tell me the precise time, otherwise he cannot be held responsible.

  ‘But perhaps the fit was real. The sick man suddenly regained consciousness, heard a cry, and went out of the outhouse. Then what? He had a look and said to himself: “Why don’t I go and kill my master?” But how could he have known who was there, what was going on? Surely, he had been lying unconscious until then. Really, gentlemen, let us not let our imagination run away with us.

  ‘“Ah but,” some shrewd people will say, “supposing they were in league with each other. Supposing they committed the murder together and split the money between them, what then?”

  ‘Yes, indeed, there are serious grounds for such a suspicion, and we don’t have to look far for some substantial evidence to support it: one of them commits the murder and does all the dirty work, while his accomplice lies flat on his back pretending to have an epileptic fit, expressly in order to divert everyone’s suspicion and to alarm his master and Grigory. One may wonder what could have led the accomplices to devise such a crazy plan. But perhaps Smerdyakov was not an active participant at all, merely a passive one who acquiesced; perhaps the terrified Smerdyakov had merely agreed not to oppose the murder; foreseeing that he would be blamed for letting someone kill his master and for not defending him and raising the alarm, he persuaded Dmitry Karamazov beforehand to allow him to be confined to bed on the pretext of having an epileptic fit: “You just go ahead and murder whom you please, it’s nothing to do with me!” But even if this were so, the epileptic fit would have caused a commotion in the house, and Dmitry Karamazov, foreseeing this, could never have agreed to such an arrangement. But let us for argument’s sake assume that he did agree; surely Dmitry Karamazov would still have been the murderer, the real murderer, the instigator of the crime, and Smerdyakov just a passive participant—not even a participant but merely an unwilling accomplice who, out of fear, allowed the crime to take place, a distinction that the court would surely be able to make. And what did, in fact, happen? No sooner was the accused arrested than he instantly laid all the blame on Smerdyakov, on him alone. He did not accuse him of complicity, but of being the sole perpetrator: “He did it alone,” he said, “it was he who committed the murder and the robbery, it’s his handiwork!” Well, what sort of accomplices would immediately begin to lay the blame on each other? This sort of thing just doesn’t happen. And think how risky it would have been for Karamazov; he’s the actual murderer, not the other one, the other one was not involved and lay behind the partition all the time, but now he gets blamed for it all. Surely that would have infuriated the one who had simply been lying behind the partion, and he could have blurted out the whole truth in sheer self-preservation: “We were both in on it, only I didn’t commit the murder, I just went along with it because I was afraid.” Surely we would have expected Smerdyakov to understand that the court would establish the degree of his guilt immediately, and consequently he could also have surmised that, even if he were to be punished, his punishment would be incomparably more lenient than that of the principal perpetrator. And therefore there’s not the slighest doubt that he would have let the cat out of the bag. This did not happen, however. Smerdyakov did not even mention the possibility of complicity, despite the fact that the defendant categorically accused him specifically and all the time referred to him as the sole murderer. Moreover, it was Smerdyakov who revealed to the investigators that he personally had told the accused about the envelope with the money and about the signal, and that if it had not been for him the accused would not have known anything. If he really had been guilty of complicity, would he have informed the investigators of it so readily, that it was he himself who had given all this information to the defendant? Quite the contrary, he would have prevaricated and would certainly have tried to distort the facts and play down their significance. But he did not distort them and did not try to play down their significance. This is obviously the behaviour of an innocent man, not one who is afraid he will be accused of complicity. And so, in a state of severe depression brought on by his epilepsy and by the whole of this tragedy, he hanged himself yesterday. He left a note, written in his own characteristic style: “I’m going to put an end to myself of my own free will and choice, so as not to blame anybody.” Well, why couldn’t he have added: “I’m the murderer, not Karamazov”? But he didn’t; was he driven by his conscience to make the one statement, but not the other?