The Brothers Karamazov (136 page)

“I submit that some people, who may appear hard, violent, and unrestrained, such as my client, are really very tender-hearted underneath, incredible though that may seem. Please, do not laugh when I say that; do not do as the able prosecutor did when he so mercilessly mocked my client, sneering at him because he loves Schiller and all that is beautiful and sublime! Yes, I want to speak up for people like him, people so often maligned and misunderstood. I want to tell you that they often long for justice, tenderness, and beauty, precisely in contrast to their violence and ruthlessness. I want to tell you that they are capable of great love and that, when they fall in love with a woman, they will love her with an idealistic, spiritual love. Again, I beg you not to laugh at what I say, because this is just what happens with people like my client. In his case, he was unable to hide his passions, which at times appeared in very crude form and were noticed by everyone, whereas the delicate feelings within him remained undetected. But whereas all these passions are very quickly satisfied, contact with a noble woman leads such a seemingly crude and insensitive man to make an effort to change and become a better man, a more honorable and more understanding man; he reaches out for ‘the beautiful and the sublime,’ and I am not afraid to use this phrase, although so many have tried to ridicule it.

“I said earlier that I would not allow myself to go into my client’s romance with Miss Verkhovtsev. I feel, however, that I should be allowed to say this much. What we heard during her last appearance on the witness stand was not testimony, but the frantic outcry of a resentful and vengeful woman. But, in reality, she has no right to accuse my client of betraying her, because it was she who betrayed him! I say that, if she had given herself a little time to think, she would never have allowed herself to say what she did. You must not believe her, for my client is not a ‘monster,’ as she called him. He who accepted the cross out of His love for man said: ‘I am the good shepherd and I lay down my life for the sheep so that no one of them might be lost.’ So let us not allow this human soul to be lost, gentlemen of the jury!

“Remember, I asked you what the word ‘father’ meant, and I said that it was a word with great meaning to it. But I believe we must use words honestly and call things by their proper names. A man like the murdered Fyodor Karamazov is not worthy to be called a father. Love for a father that the father has not deserved is inconceivable and absurd. It is impossible to create love out of nothing, for God alone can create something out of nothing. ‘Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger,’ the Apostle wrote from the depth of his heart, filled with ardent love. And it is not just for the sake of my client that I quote these sacred words, but rather as a reminder to all fathers. What entitles me, any more than anyone else, to preach to fathers? Nothing at all, but I appeal to them all—
vivos voco
—as a human being and a citizen. Our stay on earth is not a long one, but, in the course of it, we do and say much that is wicked. So we must avail ourselves of every opportunity to say something good. And, while I stand here, I will avail myself of this opportunity. By divine will, words said in this courtroom will be heard all over Russia and so I am not addressing myself just to the fathers of this town, but to the fathers of all Russia: ‘Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger!’ Let us obey Christ’s precept ourselves, before we demand that our children follow it. Otherwise we are not the fathers of our children, but their enemies, and they are our enemies, not our children, and we are to blame, for we have made them our enemies! ‘With what ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.’ It is not I who say this, it is an injunction of the Gospel.

“Recently in Finland, a young housemaid was suspected of having secretly given birth to a baby. They watched her and eventually they found in a trunk they had never seen before, hidden behind a screen of bricks in the corner of a loft, the tiny body of the new-born baby, whom she had killed. And next to that body were two more skeletons of new-born babies, whom she had also killed as soon as they were born, as she finally admitted herself. Now, let me ask you this, gentlemen of the jury, would you describe that woman as the mother of those children? Of course, she was the woman who brought them into the world, but does she deserve to be called their mother? Is there anyone here who would dare to bestow upon her the sacred title of mother? Let us be bold, let us even be ruthless, gentlemen of the jury, for it is our duty on this occasion; we must not be afraid of words and ideas, like those characters in Ostrovsky’s comedy, who are terrorized by words whose meaning they do not understand. Let us show the world at large that the progress of the past few years has reached us too and that, today, the word ‘father’ designates not merely the man who has begotten you, but rather the man who has both begotten you and then deserved your love. Oh, I know there is another concept of fatherhood, and, according to that interpretation, a father may be a monster who treats his children viciously, but who must nevertheless always be respected as a father, because he has conceived his children. But that is a mystical attitude that my reason does not understand, that I can accept only 
on faith
, so to speak, just as we are asked to accept so many things that we do not understand, but that our religion orders us to believe. But in that case, let it stay outside the sphere of everyday life, a life that has its own rights and also imposes on us certain duties, for in this sphere we must behave in a humane, Christian fashion and we have the obligation to act on our beliefs based on reason, tested by experience and the analysis of that experience; we have the duty to behave sanely, and not insanely, as we do in our dreams or when we are delirious, and we must see to it that we harm no one, inflict no suffering upon others, and send no man to his doom. Only then will we act like true Christians, not like mystics, but like reasonable and truly humane beings . . .”

Loud applause greeted these words but Fetyukovich waved his hands, as if beseeching the spectators to be quiet and allow him to finish. Everything grew quiet again, and then he went on.

“Do you believe, gentlemen of the jury, that our children will be spared these problems, that is, those of them who are old enough to reason? No, they most certainly will not be spared them, and we have no right to demand that they abstain from asking such questions. The sight of an unworthy father inevitably arouses painful questions in a boy’s mind, especially if he compares his behavior with that of the worthy fathers of his contemporaries. And to these questions he receives the stereotyped answer: ‘He gave you life, you are his flesh and blood, and therefore you must love him.’ The boy is bound to ask himself: ‘Did he love me when he begot me?’ And gradually he will find more and more things that puzzle him: ‘He could not have begotten me for my own sake, because he did not even know whether I’d turn out to be a boy or a girl at the moment of his passion, which may have been kindled by liquor in the first place, for all he has given me is my propensity to drunkenness. That is all the benefit I have derived from him. So why should I love him? Just for having conceived me and then not cared about my existence?’

“You may feel that such questions are crude and unfeeling, but you cannot demand of a young mind that it stop asking questions. That would be hopeless anyway, for, as they say, you may throw nature out the door, but it will come back through the window. And, above all, let us not be afraid of words we cannot understand like Ostrovsky’s ignorant characters; let us face our problems as reason dictates, rather than having our decisions dictated by obscure, mystical concepts.

“And how are we to answer our son, who asks us such questions? Well, let the son face his father and ask him: ‘Tell me, why should I love you? Prove to me that it is my duty to love you.’ If the father manages to give him a satisfactory answer, it is a normal family, a family not based on some mystical prejudice, but founded on reasonable, responsible, and strictly humane premises. But if, on the other hand, the father fails to prove to his son that he is worthy of his love, he does not deserve to be his father and the son is free to consider his father as a stranger or even as his enemy. Our position, gentlemen of the jury, must be a school of true and sound concepts!”

Now Fetyukovich was interrupted by uncontrollable, almost frenzied applause. Of course, not all the spectators applauded, but a good half of them did. Fathers and mothers clapped. And from the galleries, where many ladies were seated, came enthusiastic shrieks and cries. Some people even waved their handkerchiefs. The presiding judge rang his bell with all his might. He was visibly outraged by this unseemly display but did not dare carry out his threat to clear the courtroom, because even the eminent old gentlemen with important decorations and stars on their frock-coats, who sat in specially reserved armchairs, were clapping the orator or waving their handkerchiefs in homage to him. And so the presiding judge had to content himself with simply repeating his threat to clear the room, as the excited and triumphant Fetyukovich resumed his speech.

“Gentlemen of the jury, think of that terrible night, of which so much has been said today, the night the son climbed over the fence, entered his father’s house, and confronted his enemy and tormentor, who had begotten him. I want to emphasize this as strongly as I can: he had not come for money! To accuse him of robbery is completely absurd, as I have already explained. And neither did he break into the house to kill him. Certainly not, for if it had been a premeditated murder, he would have prepared a weapon well in advance and not arrived with a brass pestle that he had picked up instinctively, without even knowing why. Let us assume that he deceived his father by knocking the secret signal, let us even assume that he entered the house—although, as I have already told you, I don’t believe it for one second—but I am willing to assume it. Gentlemen of the jury, I swear to you by everything I hold sacred that, if that man had not been his father, if it had been an outsider who had caused him all that suffering, my client would have dashed through the rooms and, having assured himself that the woman was not in the house, would have left hurriedly, without harming his rival; he might have pushed him out of his way or, at most, hit him, but that is all, for he was in too much of a hurry to bother with the would-be seducer. But his father, his father—at the sight of his father, whom he had hated since childhood, his enemy, his tormentor, and now, of all things, his monstrous rival—the feeling of hatred might have seized him, despite himself, and overwhelmed him. In that case he would have been the victim of temporary insanity; he would have simply been subject to a natural law, irresistibly and unconsciously, like everything in nature. But even so, I claim and proclaim, even so he would not have killed deliberately; he would have swung his brass pestle in loathing and disgust, without realizing that he might kill, without any intention of killing! And if he had not had that unfortunate pestle, he might or might not have struck his father, but he certainly would not have killed him. And he would have dashed off without knowing whether the old man was alive or dead. That sort of murder is not murder. And that sort of murder is not parricide either. No, killing such a father under such circumstances cannot be called parricide; it could be classified as such only if we blindly accept an old prejudice!

“But did such a murder occur? No, gentlemen of the jury, I beg you, from the very bottom of my heart, to believe me when I say that he did not kill the victim, not even in that manner! If you condemn him now, he will think: ‘These people have never done anything for me—they never helped me to grow up, to become a decent, educated man; they never fed me or gave me to drink; they never visited me in jail, and now they are sending me off to the penitentiary in Siberia. Well, so we are even now. I owe them nothing. Since they are spiteful, I will be spiteful too; since they are heartless, I will also be heartless.’ Yes, this is what he will say to himself, gentlemen of the jury. And I swear that, if you condemn him, you will only make it easier for his conscience, for he will end by cursing the man whose blood was spilled, instead of weeping for him! At the same time, you will destroy the man he could have been, because you will doom him to remain blind and embittered for the rest of his life. On the other hand, wouldn’t you rather punish him sternly and painfully, indeed, inflict upon him the worst punishment imaginable, but a punishment that will save his soul and regenerate him? If so, then smother him with your mercy! Then you will see and hear him flinch and shudder in awe: ‘How am I to endure this mercy? What have I done to deserve so much love? Can I ever become worthy of it?’ Yes, this is what his heart will cry out. Oh, I know so well that wild heart—wild, yes, but also noble and generous! And he will bow before your great act of mercy, because he is yearning for an act of love, and his heart will catch fire and he will be saved forever and ever! There are men whose narrow horizons cause them to blame the rest of the world rather than themselves for everything. But, believe me, smother this man in mercy and love, and he will curse his wayward past, for there is so much that is promising in him! His soul will grow and will see how infinite is the mercy of God and how good men can be! And it will be weighed down by remorse and by the debt he will feel, from now on, he owes his fellow men. Instead of saying, ‘All right, we are even now,’ he will say, ‘I am guilty before all men and I am unworthy of them.’ And with tears of penitence and with fervor, he will cry out: ‘My fellow men are better than I am, because, instead of destroying me, they want to save me!’

“Oh, it is very easy for you to perform this act of mercy because, with nothing but circumstantial evidence, it will be too painful for you to pronounce him guilty. And, as you know, it is infinitely better to allow ten guilty men to go free than to punish one innocent man. Hear, hear that great voice of the past century of our country’s glorious history! Who am I, an insignificant lawyer, to remind you that the idea of Russian justice is not only just punishment, but also the rehabilitation of our lost fellow men! Let other nations stick to the letter of the law; for us, the most important thing is its spirit, its meaning, and the rehabilitation of the wayward! And if that is so, if Russia and her justice are really what I know they are, may Russia forge ahead, ahead, and let no one try to frighten us with stories about madly galloping troikas, from which foreign nations pull back in disgust! It is not a mad troika but the majestic Russian chariot that is rolling calmly and solemnly toward its goal.