«Bravo, doctor!» cried Mitya, from his seat, «just so!»
Mitya, of course, was checked, but the young doctor’s opinion had a decisive influence on the judges and on the public, and, as appeared afterwards, everyone agreed with him. But Doctor Herzenstube, when called as a witness, was quite unexpectedly of use to Mitya. As an old resident in the town, who had known the Karamazov family for years, he furnished some facts of great value for the prosecution, and suddenly, as though recalling something, he added:
«But the poor young man might have had a very different life, for he had a good heart both in childhood and after childhood, that I know. But the Russian proverb says, ‘If a man has one head, it’s good, but if another clever man comes to visit him, it would be better still, for then there will be two heads and not only one.»‘ «One head is good, but two are better,» the prosecutor put in impatiently. He knew the old man’s habit of talking slowly and delib-erately, regardless of the impression he was making and of the delay he was causing, and highly prizing his flat, dull and always gleefully complacent German wit. The old man was fond of making jokes.
«Oh, yes, that’s what I say,» he went on stubbornly. «One head is good, but two are much better, but he did not meet another head with wits, and his wits went. Where did they go? I’ve forgotten the word.» He went on, passing his hand before his eyes, «Oh, yes, spazieren.»*
- Promenading. «Wandering?»
«Oh, yes, wandering, that’s what I say. Well, his wits went wandering and fell in such a deep hole that he lost himself. And yet he was a grateful and sensitive boy. Oh, I remember
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him very well, a little chap so high, left neglected by his father in the back yard, when he ran about without boots on his feet, and his little breeches hanging by one button.»
A note of feeling and tenderness suddenly came into the honest old man’s voice. Fety-ukovitch positively started, as though scenting something, and caught at it instantly.
«Oh, yes, I was a young man then…. I was… well, I was forty-five then, and had only just come here. And I was so sorry for the boy then; I asked myself why shouldn’t I buy him a pound of… a pound of what? I’ve forgotten what it’s called. A pound of what children are very fond of, what is it, what is it?» The doctor began waving his hands again. «It grows on a tree and is gathered and given to everyone…»
«Apples?»
«Oh, no, no. You have a dozen of apples, not a pound…. No, there are a lot of them, and call little. You put them in the mouth and crack.»
«Quite so, nuts, I say so.» The doctor repeated in the calmest way as though he had been at no loss for a word. «And I bought him a pound of nuts, for no one had ever bought the boy a pound of nuts before.
And I lifted my finger and said to him, ‘Boy, Gott der Vater.’ He laughed and said, ‘Gott der Vater’… ‘Gott der Sohn.’ He laughed again and lisped ‘Gott der Sohn.’ ‘Gott der heilige Geist.’ Then he laughed and said as best he could, ‘Gott der heilige Geist.’ I went away, and two days after I happened to be passing, and he shouted to me of himself, ‘Uncle, Gott der Vater, Gott der Sohn,’ and he had only forgotten ‘Gott der heilige Geist.’ But I reminded him of it and I felt very sorry for him again. But he was taken away, and I did not see him again. Twenty-three years passed. I am sitting one morning in my study, a white-haired old man, when there walks into the room a blooming young man, whom I should never have recognised, but he held up his finger and said, laughing, ‘Gott der Vater, Gott der Sohn, and Gott der heilige Geist. I have just arrived and have come to thank you for that pound of nuts, for no one else ever bought me a pound of nuts; you are the only one that ever did.’ then I remembered my happy youth and the poor child in the yard, without boots on his feet, and my heart was touched and I said, ‘You are a grateful young man, for you have re-membered all your life the pound of nuts I bought you in your childhood.’ And I embraced him and blessed him. And I shed tears. He laughed, but he shed tears, too… for the Russian often laughs when he ought to be weeping. But he did weep; I saw it. And now, alas!…»
«And I am weeping now, German, I am weeping now, too, you saintly man,» Mitya cried suddenly.
In any case the anecdote made a certain favourable impression on the public. But the chief sensation in Mitya’s favour was created by the evidence of Katerina Ivanovna, which I will describe directly.
Indeed, when the witnesses a decharge, that is, called the defence, began giving evidence, fortune seemed all at once markedly more favourable to Mitya, and what was particularly
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striking, this was a surprise even to the counsel for the defence. But before Katerina Ivanovna was called, Alyosha was examined, and he recalled a fact which seemed to furnish positive evidence against one important point made by the prosecution.
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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 unmistak-able. 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 honourable, 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 recognised that the three thousand roubles had become almost an obsession with Mitya; that 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 mo-ment… 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 that 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 pecu-liar view of the whole tragic episode is known to us already from the preliminary investiga-tion. 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?»
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«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
