# Book 12 Chapter 6 - The Prosecutor's Speech. Sketches of Character, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, Librivox Audiobook

An episode of [Brothers Karamazov, The by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821 - 1881)](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1795736404), 11 Sep 2026, 33 min.

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## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: CHAPTER VI. THE PROSECUTOR'S SPEECH SKETCHES OF CHARACTER Ippolit Kirillovitch
[0:31] Speaker 1: began his speech, trembling with nervousness, with cold sweat on
[0:36] Speaker 1: his forehead, feeling hot and cold all over by turns.
[0:41] Speaker 1: He described this himself afterwards. He regarded this speech as
[0:46] Speaker 1: his chef-d'oeuvre, the chef-d'oeuvre of his whole life, as his swan-song.
[0:52] Speaker 1: he died it is true nine months later of rapid
[0:55] Speaker 1: consumption so that he had the right as it turned
[0:59] Speaker 1: out to compare himself to a swan singing his last
[1:03] Speaker 1: song he had put his whole heart and all the
[1:07] Speaker 1: brain he had into that speech and poor unexpectedly revealed
[1:15] Speaker 1: that at least some feeling for the public welfare and
[1:19] Speaker 1: the external question lay concealed in him. Where his speech
[1:24] Speaker 1: really excelled was in its sincerity. He genuinely believed in
[1:29] Speaker 1: the prisoner's guilt. He was accusing him not as an
[1:33] Speaker 1: official duty only, and in calling for vengeance he quivered
[1:38] Speaker 1: with a genuine passion for the security of society. Even
[1:43] Speaker 1: the ladies in the audience, though they remained hostile to
[1:46] Speaker 1: Ippolit Kirillovitch, admitted that he made an extraordinary impression on them.
[1:52] Speaker 1: He began in a breaking voice, but it soon gained
[1:57] Speaker 1: strength and filled the court to the end of his speech.
[2:01] Speaker 1: But as soon as he had finished, he almost fainted.'
[2:04] Speaker 1: Gentlemen of the jury,' began the prosecutor, This case has
[2:11] Speaker 1: made a stir throughout Russia. But what is there to
[2:14] Speaker 1: wonder at? What is there so peculiarly horrifying in it
[2:18] Speaker 1: for us? We are so accustomed to such crimes. That's
[2:24] Speaker 1: what's so horrible. That such dark deeds have ceased to
[2:28] Speaker 1: horrify us. What ought to horrify us is that we
[2:33] Speaker 1: are so accustomed to it. And not this or that
[2:38] Speaker 1: isolated crime. What are the causes of our indifference, our
[2:44] Speaker 1: lukewarm attitude to such deeds, to such signs of the times,
[2:49] Speaker 1: ominous of an unenviable future? Is it our cynicism? Is
[2:56] Speaker 1: it the premature exhaustion of intellect and imagination in a
[3:00] Speaker 1: society that is sinking into decay in spite of its youth?
[3:06] Speaker 1: Is it that our moral principles are ARE SHATTERED TO
[3:10] Speaker 1: THEIR FOUNDATIONS? OR IS IT PERHAPS A COMPLETE LACK OF
[3:17] Speaker 1: SUCH PRINCIPLES AMONG US? I CANNOT ANSWER SUCH QUESTIONS. NEVERTHELESS,
[3:25] Speaker 1: THEY ARE DISTURBING, AND EVERY CITIZEN NOT ONLY MUST BUT
[3:29] Speaker 1: OUGHT TO BE HARASSED BY THEM. OUR NEWBORN AND STILL
[3:34] Speaker 1: TIMID PRESS HAS DONE GOOD SERVICE TO THE PUBLIC ALREADY.
[3:39] Speaker 1: for without it we should never have heard of the
[3:42] Speaker 1: horrors of unbridled violence and moral degradation which are continually
[3:47] Speaker 1: made known by the press not merely to those who
[3:50] Speaker 1: attend the new jury courts established in the present reign
[3:54] Speaker 1: but to every one and what do we read almost
[3:58] Speaker 1: daily of things besides which the present case grows pale
[4:03] Speaker 1: and seems almost commonplace but what is most important is
[4:09] Speaker 1: that the majority of our national crimes of violence bear
[4:13] Speaker 1: witness to a widespread evil now so general among us
[4:18] Speaker 1: that it is difficult to contend against it one day
[4:24] Speaker 1: we see a brilliant young officer of high society at
[4:28] Speaker 1: the very outside of his career in a cowardly underhand
[4:33] Speaker 1: way without a pang of conscience murdering an official who
[4:38] Speaker 1: had once been his benefactor, and the servant girl, to
[4:42] Speaker 1: steal his own IOU and what ready money he could
[4:45] Speaker 1: find on him. It will come in handy for my
[4:50] Speaker 1: pleasures in the fashionable world and for my career in
[4:53] Speaker 1: the future. After murdering them, he puts pillows under the
[4:58] Speaker 1: head of each of his victims. He goes away. Next,
[5:04] Speaker 1: a young hero, decorated for bravery, kills the mother of
[5:08] Speaker 1: his chief and benefactor, like a highwayman, and to urge
[5:12] Speaker 1: his companions to join him, he asserts that she loves
[5:16] Speaker 1: him like a son, and so will follow all his
[5:19] Speaker 1: directions and take no precautions. Granted that he is a monster,
[5:27] Speaker 1: yet I dare not say in these days that he
[5:32] Speaker 1: is unique. Another man will not commit the murder BUT
[5:37] Speaker 1: WILL FEEL AND THINK LIKE HIM, AND IS AS DISHONORABLE
[5:42] Speaker 1: IN SOUL. IN SILENCE, ALONE WITH HIS CONSCIENCE, HE ASKS
[5:47] Speaker 1: HIMSELF PERHAPS, WHAT IS HONOUR? AND ISN'T THE CONDEMNATION OF
[5:53] Speaker 1: BLOODSHED A PREJUDICE? PERHAPS PEOPLE WILL CRY OUT AGAINST ME,
[5:59] Speaker 1: THAT I AM MORBID, HISTORICAL, THAT IT IS A MONSTROUS SLANDER,
[6:05] Speaker 1: THAT I AM EXAGGERATING, Let them say so. And heavens,
[6:10] Speaker 1: I should be the first to rejoice if it were so. Oh,
[6:15] Speaker 1: don't believe me. Think of me as morbid. But remember
[6:19] Speaker 1: my words. If only a tenth, if only a twentieth
[6:24] Speaker 1: part of what I say is true. Even so, it's awful.
[6:31] Speaker 1: Look how our young people commit suicide without asking themselves
[6:36] Speaker 1: Hamlet's question about what there is beyond, without a sign
[6:39] Speaker 1: of such a question, as though all that relates to
[6:42] Speaker 1: the soul and to what awaits us beyond the grave
[6:46] Speaker 1: had long been erased in their minds and buried under
[6:49] Speaker 1: the sands. Look at our vice, at our profligates. Fyodor Pavlovich,
[6:57] Speaker 1: the luckless victim in the present case, was almost an
[7:01] Speaker 1: innocent babe compared with many of them. And yet we
[7:05] Speaker 1: all knew him, He lived among us. Yes, one day
[7:12] Speaker 1: perhaps the leading intellects of Russia and of Europe will
[7:17] Speaker 1: study the psychology of Russian crime, for the subject is
[7:20] Speaker 1: worth it. But this study will come later, at leisure,
[7:27] Speaker 1: when all the tragic turpsy-turviedom of today is farther behind us,
[7:33] Speaker 1: so that it's possible to examine it with more insight
[7:37] Speaker 1: AND MORE IMPARTIALITY THAN I CAN DO. NOW WE ARE
[7:42] Speaker 1: EITHER HORRIFIED OR PRETEND TO BE HORRIFIED, THOUGH WE REALLY
[7:48] Speaker 1: GLOAT OVER THE SPECTACLE, AND LOVE STRONG AND EXCENTRIC SENSATIONS
[7:53] Speaker 1: WHICH TRICKLE OUR CYNICAL PEMPERED IDLENESS. OR LIKE LITTLE CHILDREN
[7:58] Speaker 1: WE BRUSH THE DREADFUL GHOSTS AWAY AND HIDE OUR HEADS
[8:02] Speaker 1: IN THE PILLOW so as to turn to our sports
[8:05] Speaker 1: and merriment as soon as they have vanished. But we
[8:09] Speaker 1: must one day begin life in sober earnest. We must
[8:14] Speaker 1: look at ourselves as a society. It's time we tried
[8:19] Speaker 1: to grasp something of our social position, or, at least,
[8:26] Speaker 1: to make a beginning in that direction. A great writer,
[8:32] Speaker 1: translator's note, Gogol, of the last epoch, comparing Russia to
[8:37] Speaker 1: a swift Troika galloping to an unknown goal, exclaims, O Troika,
[8:44] Speaker 1: bird-like Troika, who invented thee? and adds, in proud ecstasy,
[8:52] Speaker 1: that all the peoples of the world stand aside respectfully
[8:56] Speaker 1: to make way for the recklessly galloping Troika to pass.
[9:01] Speaker 1: That may be. they may stand aside, respectfully or no.
[9:07] Speaker 1: But in my poor opinion, the great writer ended his
[9:10] Speaker 1: book in this way, either in an excess of childish
[9:15] Speaker 1: and naive optimism, or simply in fear of the censorship
[9:20] Speaker 1: of the day. For if the Troika were drawn by
[9:25] Speaker 1: his heroes, Sobakevich, Nozdryov, Chichikov, It could reach no rational goal,
[9:35] Speaker 1: whoever might be driving it. And those were the heroes
[9:39] Speaker 1: of an older generation. Ours are worse specimens still. At
[9:47] Speaker 1: this point, Ippolit Kirillovitch's speech was interrupted by applause. The
[9:53] Speaker 1: liberal significance of this smile was appreciated. The applause was,
[9:58] Speaker 1: it's true, of brief determination. so that the President did
[10:03] Speaker 1: not think it necessary to caution the public, and only
[10:06] Speaker 1: looked severely in the direction of the offenders. But Hippolyt
[10:11] Speaker 1: Kirillovitch was encouraged. He had never been applauded before. He
[10:17] Speaker 1: had been all his life unable to get a hearing,
[10:21] Speaker 1: AND NOW HE SUDDENLY HAD AN OPPORTUNITY OF SECURING THE
[10:25] Speaker 1: EAR OF ALL RUSSIA. WHAT AFTER ALL IS THIS CARAMASO FAMILY,
[10:35] Speaker 1: WHICH HAS GAINED SUCH AN UNINVIABLE NOTORITY THROUGHOUT RUSSIA, HE CONTINUED.
[10:42] Speaker 1: PERHAPS I AM EXAGGERATING, BUT IT SEEMS TO ME THAT
[10:46] Speaker 1: CERTAIN FUNDAMENTAL FEATURES OF THE EDUCATED CLASS OF TODAY ARE
[10:51] Speaker 1: REFLECTED IN THIS FAMILY PICTURE, ONLY, OF COURSE, IN MINIATURE,
[10:57] Speaker 1: LIKE THE SUN IN A DROP OF WATER. THINK OF
[11:01] Speaker 1: THAT UNHAPPY, VICIOUS, UNBRIDLED OLD MAN, WHO HAS MET WITH
[11:07] Speaker 1: SUCH A MELANCHOLY END, THE HEAD OF A FAMILY, BEGINNING
[11:12] Speaker 1: LIFE OF NOBLE BIRTH, BUT IN A POOR DEPENDENT POSITION.
[11:16] Speaker 1: THROUGH AN UNEXPECTED MARRIAGE HE CAME INTO A SMALL FORTUNE,
[11:21] Speaker 1: A petty knave, a toady and buffoon, of fairly good,
[11:26] Speaker 1: though undeveloped intelligence. He was, above all, a moneylender, who
[11:32] Speaker 1: grew bolder with growing prosperity. His abject and servile characteristics disappeared.
[11:40] Speaker 1: His malicious and sarcastic cynicism was all that remained. On
[11:45] Speaker 1: the spiritual side he was undeveloped, while his vitality was excessive.
[11:52] Speaker 1: He saw nothing in life but sensual pleasure, and he
[11:55] Speaker 1: brought his children up to be the same. He had
[11:59] Speaker 1: no feelings for his duties as a father. He ridiculed
[12:02] Speaker 1: those duties. He left his little children to the servants,
[12:07] Speaker 1: and was glad to be rid of them, forget about
[12:10] Speaker 1: them completely. The old man's maxim was, Après moi le déluge.
[12:17] Speaker 1: Translator's note. After me, the deluge. He was an example
[12:22] Speaker 1: of everything that is opposed to civic duty, of the
[12:26] Speaker 1: most complete and malignant individualism. The world may burn for
[12:31] Speaker 1: aught I care, so long as I am all right.
[12:34] Speaker 1: And he was all right. He was content. He was
[12:37] Speaker 1: eager to go on living in the same way for
[12:40] Speaker 1: another twenty or thirty years. He swindled his own son
[12:45] Speaker 1: and spent his money, his material inheritance, on trying to
[12:49] Speaker 1: get his mistress from him. No, I don't intend to
[12:54] Speaker 1: leave the prisoner's defense altogether to my talented colleague from Petersburg.
[12:59] Speaker 1: I will speak the truth myself. I can well understand
[13:03] Speaker 1: what resentment he had heaped up in his son's heart
[13:07] Speaker 1: against him. But enough, enough of that unhappy old man.
[13:14] Speaker 1: He has paid the penalty. Let us remember, however, that
[13:19] Speaker 1: he was a father. and one of the typical fathers
[13:23] Speaker 1: of today. Am I unjust, indeed, in saying that he
[13:28] Speaker 1: is typical of many modern fathers? Alas, many of them
[13:33] Speaker 1: only differ in not openly professing such cynicism, for they
[13:39] Speaker 1: are better educated, more cultured, but their philosophy is essentially
[13:45] Speaker 1: the same as his. Perhaps I am a pessimist, BUT
[13:50] Speaker 1: YOU HAVE AGREED TO FORGIVE ME. LET US AGREE BEFOREHAND.
[13:56] Speaker 1: YOU NEED NOT BELIEVE ME, BUT LET ME SPEAK. LET
[14:00] Speaker 1: ME SPEAK WHAT I HAVE TO SAY, AND REMEMBER SOMETHING
[14:03] Speaker 1: OF MY WORDS. NOW FOR THE CHILDREN OF THIS FATHER,
[14:09] Speaker 1: THIS HEAD OF A FAMILY. ONE OF THEM IS THE
[14:12] Speaker 1: PRISONER BEFORE US. ALL THE REST OF MY SPEECH WILL
[14:16] Speaker 1: DEAL WITH HIM. OF THE OTHER TWO I will speak
[14:21] Speaker 1: only cursorily. The elder one is of those modern young
[14:26] Speaker 1: men of brilliant education and vigorous intellect, who has lost
[14:31] Speaker 1: all faith in everything. He has denied and rejected much already,
[14:36] Speaker 1: like his father. We have all heard him. He was
[14:40] Speaker 1: a welcome guest in local society. He never concealed his opinions,
[14:45] Speaker 1: quite the contrary, in fact, which justifies me. IN SPEAKING
[14:48] Speaker 1: RATHER OPENLY OF HIM NOW, OF COURSE, NOT AS AN INDIVIDUAL,
[14:53] Speaker 1: BUT AS A MEMBER OF THE CARAMANSO FAMILY. ANOTHER PERSON
[14:57] Speaker 1: AGE CLOSELY CONNECTED WITH THE CASE DIED HERE BY HIS
[15:01] Speaker 1: OWN HAND LAST NIGHT. I MEAN, AN AFFLICTED IDIOT, FORMERLY
[15:07] Speaker 1: THE SERVANT, AND POSSIBLY THE ILLEGITIMATE SON OF Fyodor Pavlovich, Smerdyakov.
[15:16] Speaker 1: AT THE PRELIMINARY INQUIRY, he told me with hysterical tears
[15:20] Speaker 1: how the young Ivan Karamazov had horrified him by his
[15:24] Speaker 1: spiritual audacity. Everything in the world is lawful according to him,
[15:30] Speaker 1: and nothing must be forbidden in the future. That is
[15:34] Speaker 1: what he always taught me. I believe that idiot was
[15:38] Speaker 1: driven out of his mind by this theory, though, of course,
[15:43] Speaker 1: the epileptic attacks from which he suffered... and this terrible catastrophe,
[15:49] Speaker 1: have helped to unhinge his faculties. But he dropped one
[15:55] Speaker 1: very interesting observation, which could have done credit to a
[15:59] Speaker 1: more intelligent observer, and that is, indeed, why I've mentioned it.
[16:08] Speaker 1: If there is one of the sons that is like
[16:10] Speaker 1: Fyodor Pavlovich in character, it is Ivan Fyodorovich. With that remark,
[16:18] Speaker 1: I conclude my sketch of his character, feeling it indelicate
[16:22] Speaker 1: to continue further. Oh, I don't want to draw any
[16:26] Speaker 1: further conclusions and croak like a raven over the young
[16:29] Speaker 1: man's future. We've seen today in this court that there
[16:34] Speaker 1: are still good impulses in his young heart. that family
[16:38] Speaker 1: feeling has not been destroyed in him by lack of
[16:41] Speaker 1: faith and cynicism which have come to him rather by
[16:45] Speaker 1: inheritance than by the exercise of independent thought then the
[16:51] Speaker 1: third son Oh, he is a devout and modest youth,
[16:56] Speaker 1: who does not share his elder brother's gloomy and destructive
[16:59] Speaker 1: theory of life. He has sought to cling to the
[17:03] Speaker 1: ideas of the people, or to what goes by that
[17:07] Speaker 1: name in some circles of our intellectual classes. He clung
[17:12] Speaker 1: to the monastery. He was within an ace of becoming
[17:15] Speaker 1: a monk. He seems to me to have betrayed unconsciously
[17:20] Speaker 1: and so early. that timid despair which leads so many
[17:24] Speaker 1: in our unhappy society, who dread cynicism and its corrupting influences,
[17:30] Speaker 1: and mistakenly attribute all the mischief to European enlightenment, to
[17:35] Speaker 1: return to their native soil, as they say, to the bosom,
[17:38] Speaker 1: so to speak, of their mother earth, like frightened children,
[17:43] Speaker 1: yearning to fall asleep on the withered bosom of their
[17:46] Speaker 1: decrepit mother, and to sleep there for ever, only to
[17:51] Speaker 1: escape the horrors that terrify them. For my part, I
[17:57] Speaker 1: wish the excellent and gifted young man every success. I
[18:01] Speaker 1: trust that youthful idealism and impulse towards the ideas of
[18:06] Speaker 1: the people may never degenerate, as often happens, on the
[18:11] Speaker 1: moral side into gloomy mysticism, and on the political into
[18:16] Speaker 1: blind chauvinism. Two elements which are even a greater menace
[18:22] Speaker 1: to Russia than the premature decay, due to misunderstanding and
[18:27] Speaker 1: gratuitous adoption of European ideas, from which his elder brother
[18:32] Speaker 1: is suffering. Two or three people clapped their hands at
[18:37] Speaker 1: the mention of chauvinism and mysticism. Ippolit Kirillovitch had been, indeed,
[18:44] Speaker 1: carried away by his own eloquence. All this had little
[18:48] Speaker 1: to do with the case in hand, to say nothing
[18:51] Speaker 1: of the fact of its being somewhat vague, but the
[18:54] Speaker 1: stickly and consumptive man was overcome by the desire to
[18:58] Speaker 1: express himself once in his life. People said afterwards that
[19:03] Speaker 1: he was actuated by unworthy motives in his criticism of Ivan,
[19:08] Speaker 1: because the latter had on one or two occasions got
[19:11] Speaker 1: the better of him in argument, and Ippolit Kerilovitch, remembering yet,
[19:17] Speaker 1: tried now to take his revenge. But I don't know
[19:20] Speaker 1: whether it was true. All this was only introductory, however,
[19:25] Speaker 1: and the speech passed to more direct consideration of the case.
[19:31] Speaker 1: But to return to the eldest son, Ippolit Kelilovich went on,
[19:36] Speaker 1: he is the prisoner before us. We have his life,
[19:40] Speaker 1: and his actions, too, before us. The fatal day has come,
[19:45] Speaker 1: and all has been brought to the surface. While his brother...
[19:50] Speaker 1: seem to stand for Europeanism, and the principles of the people,
[19:55] Speaker 1: he seems to represent Russia as she is. Oh, not
[20:00] Speaker 1: all Russia, not all, God preserve us if it were. Yet,
[20:06] Speaker 1: here we have her, our mother Russia, the very scent
[20:11] Speaker 1: and sound of her. Oh, he is spontaneous, he is
[20:17] Speaker 1: a marvellous mingling of good and evil. He is a
[20:22] Speaker 1: lover of culture and shilla, yet he brawls in taverns
[20:26] Speaker 1: and plucks out the beard of his boon companions. Oh,
[20:31] Speaker 1: he too can be good and noble, but only when
[20:37] Speaker 1: all goes well within him. What is more, he can
[20:41] Speaker 1: be carried off his feet, positively carried off his feet
[20:44] Speaker 1: by noble ideals, but only if they come of themselves,
[20:51] Speaker 1: if they fall from heaven for him, if they need
[20:54] Speaker 1: not be paid for. He dislikes paying for anything, but
[21:00] Speaker 1: is very fond of receiving, and that's so with him
[21:04] Speaker 1: in everything. Oh, give him every possible good in life,
[21:09] Speaker 1: he couldn't be content with less and put no obstacle
[21:13] Speaker 1: in his way and he will show that he too
[21:16] Speaker 1: can be noble he is not greedy no but he
[21:22] Speaker 1: must have money a great deal of money and you
[21:27] Speaker 1: will see how generously with what scorn of filthy lucre
[21:32] Speaker 1: he will fling it all away in the reckless dissipation
[21:35] Speaker 1: of one night If he has not money, he will
[21:41] Speaker 1: show what he is ready to do to get it
[21:45] Speaker 1: when he is in great need of it. But all
[21:48] Speaker 1: this later, let us take events in their chronological order.
[21:55] Speaker 1: First we have before us a poor, abandoned child, running
[22:00] Speaker 1: about in the backyard without boots on his feet, as
[22:04] Speaker 1: our worthy and esteemed fellow-citizen, A foreign origin, alas, expressed
[22:08] Speaker 1: it just now. I repeat it again. I yield to
[22:14] Speaker 1: no one the defence of the criminal. I am here
[22:18] Speaker 1: to accuse him, but to defend him also. Yes, I
[22:23] Speaker 1: too am human. I too can weigh the influence of
[22:27] Speaker 1: home and childhood on the character. But the boy grows
[22:32] Speaker 1: up and becomes an officer. For a duel, AND OTHER
[22:36] Speaker 1: RECKLESS CONDUCT, HE IS EXILED TO ONE OF THE REMOTE
[22:39] Speaker 1: FRONTIER TOWNS OF RUSSIA. THERE, HE LED A WILD LIFE
[22:44] Speaker 1: AS AN OFFICER. AND, OF COURSE, HE NEEDED MONEY. MONEY
[22:50] Speaker 1: BEFORE ALL THINGS. AND SO, AFTER PROLONGED DISPUTES, HE CAME
[22:56] Speaker 1: TO A SETTLEMENT WITH HIS FATHER, AND THE LAST SIX
[23:00] Speaker 1: THOUSAND WAS SENT TO HIM. A LETTER IS IN EXISTENCE
[23:04] Speaker 1: IN WHICH HE PRACTICALLY GIVES UP HIS CLAIM TO THE
[23:07] Speaker 1: REST AND SETTLES HIS CONFLICT WITH HIS FATHER OVER THE
[23:10] Speaker 1: INHERITANCE ON PAYMENT OF THIS SIX THOUSAND. THEN CAME HIS
[23:17] Speaker 1: MATING WITH A YOUNG GIRL OF LOFTY CHARACTER AND BRILLIANT EDUCATION. OH,
[23:23] Speaker 1: I DO NOT VENTURE TO REPEAT THE DETAILS. YOU HAVE
[23:26] Speaker 1: ONLY JUST HEARD THEM. HONOR, SELF-SACRIFICE WERE SHOWN THERE, AND
[23:33] Speaker 1: I WILL BE SILENT. The figure of the young officer,
[23:37] Speaker 1: frivolous and profligate, doing homage to true nobility and a
[23:42] Speaker 1: lofty ideal, was shown in a very sympathetic light before us.
[23:47] Speaker 1: But the other side of the medal was unexpectedly turned
[23:51] Speaker 1: to us immediately after, in this very court. Again, I
[23:57] Speaker 1: will not venture to conjecture why it happened so, but
[24:01] Speaker 1: there were causes. Some lady BATHED IN TEARS OF LONG-CONCEALED INDIGNATION,
[24:09] Speaker 1: ALLEGED THAT HE, HE OF ALL MEN, HAD DESPISED HER
[24:13] Speaker 1: FOR HER ACTION, WHICH, THOUGH INCAUTIOUS, RECKLESS PERHAPS, WAS STILL
[24:20] Speaker 1: DICTATED BY LOFTY AND GENEROUS MOTIVES. HE, HE, THE GIRL'S BETHROATED,
[24:29] Speaker 1: LOOKED AT HER WITH THAT SMILE OF MUCKERY, WHICH WAS
[24:32] Speaker 1: MORE INSUFFERABLE FROM HIM THAN FROM ANY ONE. AND KNOWING
[24:36] Speaker 1: THAT HE HAD ALREADY DECEIVED HER, HE HAD DECEIVED HER,
[24:39] Speaker 1: BELIEVING THAT SHE WAS BOUND TO INJURE EVERYTHING FOR HIM,
[24:43] Speaker 1: EVEN TREACHERY. SHE INTENTIONALLY OFFERED HIM THREE THOUSAND RUBLES, AND CLEARLY,
[24:49] Speaker 1: TOO CLEARLY, LET HIM UNDERSTAND THAT SHE WAS OFFERING HIM
[24:53] Speaker 1: MONEY TO DECEIVE HER.' Well, will you take it or not?
[25:00] Speaker 1: Are you so lost to shame?' was the dumb question
[25:03] Speaker 1: in her scrutinizing eyes.' He looked at her, saw clearly
[25:07] Speaker 1: what was in her mind. He's admitted here before you
[25:11] Speaker 1: that he understood it all, appropriated that three thousand unconditionally,
[25:17] Speaker 1: and squandered it in two days with the new object
[25:20] Speaker 1: of his affections. What are we to believe, then? The
[25:25] Speaker 1: first legend of the young officer, sacrificing his last farting
[25:29] Speaker 1: in a noble impulse of generosity, and doing reference to virtue,
[25:34] Speaker 1: or this other revolting picture. As a rule, between two
[25:41] Speaker 1: extremes one has to find the mean. But in the
[25:46] Speaker 1: present case, this is not true. The probability is that
[25:53] Speaker 1: in the first case he was genuinely noble, and in
[25:57] Speaker 1: the second as genuinely base. And why? Because he was
[26:05] Speaker 1: of the broad karamas of character. That's just what I'm
[26:10] Speaker 1: leading up to, capable of combining the most incongruous contradictions
[26:15] Speaker 1: and capable of the greatest heights and of the greatest depths.
[26:20] Speaker 1: Remember that brilliant remark made by a young observer who
[26:24] Speaker 1: has seen the karamas of family at close quarters, Mr. Rakitin.
[26:29] Speaker 1: The sense of their own degradation is as essential to
[26:34] Speaker 1: those reckless UNBRIDLED NATURES, AS THE SENSE OF THEIR LOFTY GENEROSITY.
[26:41] Speaker 1: AND THAT'S TRUE. THEY NEED CONTINUALLY THIS UNNATURAL MIXTURE. TWO
[26:47] Speaker 1: EXTREMES AT THE SAME MOMENT, OR THEY ARE MISERABLE AND
[26:52] Speaker 1: DISSATISFIED AND THEIR EXISTENCE IS INCOMPLETE. THEY ARE WIDE, WIDE
[26:58] Speaker 1: AS MOTHER RUSSIA. THEY INCLUDE EVERYTHING AND PUT UP WITH EVERYTHING.
[27:06] Speaker 1: By the way, gentlemen of the jury, we've just touched
[27:09] Speaker 1: upon that three thousand roubles, and I will venture to
[27:13] Speaker 1: anticipate things a little. Can you conceive that a man
[27:18] Speaker 1: like that, on receiving that sum, and in such a way,
[27:22] Speaker 1: at the price of such shame, such disgrace, such utter degradation,
[27:28] Speaker 1: could have been capable, that very day, of setting apart
[27:33] Speaker 1: half that sum, that very day, and sewing it up
[27:38] Speaker 1: in a little bag, and would have had the firmness
[27:41] Speaker 1: of character to carry it about with him for a
[27:44] Speaker 1: whole month afterwards, in spite of every temptation, and his
[27:49] Speaker 1: extreme need of it. Neither in drunken debauchery, in taverns,
[27:55] Speaker 1: nor when he was flying into the country, trying to
[27:58] Speaker 1: get from God knows whom, the money so essential to
[28:02] Speaker 1: him to remove the object of his affections from being
[28:05] Speaker 1: tempted by his father? Did he bring himself to touch
[28:09] Speaker 1: that little bag? Why, if only to avoid abandoning his
[28:15] Speaker 1: mistress to the rival of whom he was so jealous,
[28:19] Speaker 1: he would have been certain to have opened that bag
[28:23] Speaker 1: and to have stayed at home to keep watch over
[28:26] Speaker 1: her and to await the moment when she would say
[28:30] Speaker 1: to him at last, I am yours, and to fly
[28:33] Speaker 1: with her far from their fatal surroundings. But no, he
[28:40] Speaker 1: did not touch his talisman, and what is the reason
[28:43] Speaker 1: he gives for it? The chief reason, as I have
[28:47] Speaker 1: just said, was that when she would say, I am yours,
[28:51] Speaker 1: take me where you will, he might have the wherewithal
[28:56] Speaker 1: to take her. But that first reason, in the prisoner's
[29:00] Speaker 1: own words, was of little weight besides the second. While
[29:05] Speaker 1: I have that money on me, he said, I am
[29:08] Speaker 1: a scoundrel, not a thief, for I can always go
[29:12] Speaker 1: to my insulted betrothed, and laying down half the sum
[29:16] Speaker 1: I have fraudulently appropriated, I can always say to her,
[29:20] Speaker 1: You see, I've squandered half your money, and shown I
[29:24] Speaker 1: am a weak and immoral man, and if you like,
[29:28] Speaker 1: a scoundrel. I use the prisoner's own expressions. But, though
[29:33] Speaker 1: I am a scoundrel, I am not a thief. For,
[29:39] Speaker 1: if I had been a thief, I shouldn't have brought
[29:42] Speaker 1: you back this half of the money, but should have
[29:44] Speaker 1: taken it as I did the other half. A marvellous explanation!
[29:51] Speaker 1: This frantic but weak man, who could not resist the
[29:54] Speaker 1: temptation of accepting the three thousand roubles at the price
[29:58] Speaker 1: of such disgrace, This very man suddenly develops the most
[30:03] Speaker 1: stoical firmness and carries about a thousand rubles without daring
[30:08] Speaker 1: to touch it. Does that fit in at all with
[30:11] Speaker 1: the character we have analysed? No. And I venture to
[30:17] Speaker 1: tell you how the real Dmitri Karamazov would have behaved
[30:22] Speaker 1: in such circumstances if he really had brought himself to
[30:27] Speaker 1: put away the money. at the first temptation, for instance,
[30:32] Speaker 1: to entertain the woman with whom he had already squandered
[30:36] Speaker 1: half the money, he would have unpicked his little bag
[30:40] Speaker 1: and have taken out some hundred roubles. For why should
[30:43] Speaker 1: he have taken back precisely half the money? That is,
[30:47] Speaker 1: fifteen hundred roubles. Why not fourteen hundred? He could, just
[30:53] Speaker 1: as well, have said then that he was not a thief,
[30:56] Speaker 1: because he brought back fourteen hundred roubles. Then, another time,
[31:02] Speaker 1: he would have unpicked it again and taken out another hundred,
[31:07] Speaker 1: and then a third, and then a fourth, and before
[31:11] Speaker 1: the end of the month he would have taken the
[31:13] Speaker 1: last note but one, feeling that if he took back
[31:18] Speaker 1: only a hundred it would answer the purpose, for a
[31:23] Speaker 1: thief would have stolen it all, and then he would
[31:28] Speaker 1: have looked at this last note, and have said to himself,'
[31:34] Speaker 1: Tis really not worthwhile to give back one hundred. Let's
[31:37] Speaker 1: spend that too.' That's how the real Dmitri Karamazov, as
[31:43] Speaker 1: we know him, would have behaved. One cannot imagine anything
[31:47] Speaker 1: more incongruous with the actual fact than this legend of
[31:51] Speaker 1: the little bag. Nothing could be more inconceivable. But we
[31:57] Speaker 1: shall return to that later. After touching upon what had
[32:01] Speaker 1: come out in the proceedings concerning the financial relations of
[32:05] Speaker 1: father and son, and arguing again and again that it
[32:08] Speaker 1: was utterly impossible from the facts known to determine which
[32:12] Speaker 1: was in the wrong, Ippolit Kerilovitch passed to the evidence
[32:16] Speaker 1: of the medical experts in reference to Mitya's fixed idea
[32:21] Speaker 1: about the three thousand owing him. End of chapter 6
[32:26] Speaker 1: of book 12 Recording by J. C. Guan Montreal, March
[32:32] Speaker 1: 2009

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