He jumped up in a frenzy, threw off the towel, and began pacing the room again. Alyosha recalled what he had just said: “It’s as if I’m awake in my sleep ... I walk, talk, and see, yet I’m asleep.” That was precisely what seemed to be happening now. Alyosha stayed with him. The thought flashed in him to run and fetch a doctor, but he was afraid to leave his brother alone: there was no one to entrust him to. At last Ivan began gradually to lose all consciousness. He went on talking, talked incessantly, but now quite incoherently. He even enunciated his words poorly, and suddenly he staggered badly on his feet. But Alyosha managed to support him. Ivan allowed himself to be taken to bed. Alyosha somehow undressed him and laid him down. He sat over him for two hours more. The sick man lay fast asleep, without moving, breathing softly and evenly. Alyosha took a pillow and lay down on the sofa without undressing. As he was falling asleep he prayed for Mitya and Ivan. He was beginning to understand Ivan’s illness: “The torments of a proud decision, a deep conscience!” God, in whom he did not believe, and his truth were overcoming his heart, which still did not want to submit. “Yes,” it passed through Alyosha’s head, which was already lying on the pillow, “yes, with Smerdyakov dead, no one will believe Ivan’s testimony; but he will go and testify!” Alyosha smiled gently: “God will win!” he thought. “He will either rise into the light of truth, or ... perish in hatred, taking revenge on himself and everyone for having served something he does not believe in,” Alyosha added bitterly, and again prayed for Ivan.
BOOK XII: A JUDICIAL ERROR
Chapter 1: The Fatal Day
The day after the events just described, at ten o’clock in the morning, our district court opened its session and the trial of Dmitri Karamazov began.
I will say beforehand, and say emphatically, that I am far from considering myself capable of recounting all that took place in court, not only with the proper fullness, but even in the proper order. I keep thinking that if one were to recall everything and explain everything as one ought, it would fill a whole book, even quite a large one. Therefore let no one grumble if I tell only that which struck me personally and which I have especially remembered. I may have taken secondary things for the most important, and even overlooked the most prominent and necessary features ... But anyway I see that it is better not to apologize. I shall do what I can, and my readers will see for themselves that I have done all I could.
And, first of all, before we enter the courtroom, I will mention something that especially surprised me that day. By the way, as it turned out later, it surprised not only me but everyone else as well. That is: everyone knew that this case interested a great many people, that everyone was burning with impatience for the trial to begin, that for the whole two months past there had been a great deal of discussion, supposition, exclamation, anticipation among our local society. Everyone also knew that the case had been publicized all over Russia, but even so they never imagined that it had shaken all and sundry to such a burning, such an intense degree, not only among us but everywhere, as became clear at the trial that day. By that day visitors had come to us not only from the provincial capital but from several other Russian cities, and lastly from Moscow and Petersburg. Lawyers came, several noble persons even came, and ladies as well. All the tickets were snapped up. For the most respected and noble of the men visitors, certain quite unusual seats were even reserved behind the table at which the judges sat: a whole row of chairs appeared there, occupied by various dignitaries—a thing never permitted before. There turned out to be an especially large number of ladies—our own and visitors—I would say even not less than half the entire public. The lawyers alone, who arrived from all over, turned out to be so numerous that no one knew where to put them, since the tickets had all been given out, begged, besought long ago. I myself saw a partition being temporarily and hastily set up at the end of the courtroom, behind the podium, where all these arriving lawyers were admitted, and they even considered themselves lucky to be able at least to stand there, because in order to make room, the chairs were removed from behind this partition, and the whole accumulated crowd stood through the whole “case” in a closely packed lump, shoulder to shoulder. Some of the ladies, especially among the visitors, appeared in the gallery of the courtroom extremely dressed up, but the majority of the ladies were not even thinking about dresses. Hysterical, greedy, almost morbid curiosity could be read on their faces. One of the most characteristic peculiarities of this whole society gathered in the courtroom, which must be pointed out, was that, as was later established by many observations, almost all the ladies, at least the great majority of them, favored Mitya and his acquittal. Mainly, perhaps, because an idea had been formed of him as a conqueror of women’s hearts. It was known that two women rivals were to appear. One of them— that is, Katerina Ivanovna—especially interested everyone; a great many remarkable things were told about her, astonishing tales were told of her passion for Mitya despite his crime. Special mention was made of her pride (she paid visits to almost no one in our town), her “aristocratic connections.” It was said that she intended to ask the government for permission to accompany the criminal into penal servitude and to marry him somewhere in the mines, underground. Awaited with no less excitement was the appearance in court of Grushenka, Katerina Ivanovna’s rival. The meeting before the judges of two rivals—the proud, aristocratic girl, and the “hetaera”—was awaited with painful curiosity. Grushenka, by the way, was better known to our ladies than Katerina Ivanovna. Our ladies had seen her, “the destroyer of Fyodor Pavlovich and his unfortunate son,” even before, and were all, almost as one, surprised that father and son could both fall in love to such an extent with such a “most common and even quite plain Russian tradeswoman.” In short, there was much talk. I know positively that in our town itself several serious family quarrels even took place on account of Mitya. Many ladies quarreled hotly with their husbands owing to a difference of opinion about this whole terrible affair, and naturally, after that, all the husbands of these ladies arrived in court feeling not only ill disposed towards the defendant but even resentful of him. And generally it can be stated positively that the entire male contingent, as opposed to the ladies, was aroused against the defendant. One saw stern, scowling faces, some even quite angry, and not a few of them. It was also true that Mitya had managed to insult many of them personally during his stay in our town. Of course, some of the visitors were even almost merry and quite indifferent to Mitya’s fate in itself, although, again, not to the case under consideration; everyone was concerned with its outcome, and the majority of the men decidedly wished to see the criminal punished, except perhaps for the lawyers, who cared not about the moral aspect of the case, but only, so to speak, about its contemporary legal aspect. Everyone was excited by the coming of the famous Fetyukovich. His talent was known everywhere, and this was not the first time he had come to the provinces to defend a celebrated criminal case. And after his defense such cases always became famous all over Russia and were remembered for a long time. There were several anecdotes going around concerning both our prosecutor and the presiding judge. It was said that our prosecutor trembled at the thought of meeting Fetyukovich, that they were old enemies from way back in Petersburg, from the beginning of their careers, that our vain Ippolit Kirillovich, who ever since Petersburg had always thought himself injured by someone, because his talents were not properly appreciated, had been resurrected in spirit by the Karamazov case and even dreamed of resurrecting his flagging career through it, and that his only fear was Fetyukovich. But the opinions concerning his trembling before Fetyukovich were not altogether just. Our prosecutor was not one of those characters who lose heart in the face of danger; he was, on the contrary, of the sort whose vanity grows and takes wing precisely in pace with the growing danger. And generally it must be noted that our prosecutor was too ardent and morbidly susceptible. He would put his whole soul into some case and conduct it as if his whole fate and his whole fortune depended on the outcome. In the legal world this gave rise to some laughter, for our prosecutor even achieved a certain renown precisely by this quality, if not everywhere, at least more widely than one might have supposed in view of his modest position in our court. The laughter was aimed especially at his passion for psychology. In my opinion they were all mistaken: as a man and as a character, our prosecutor seems to me to have been much more serious than many people supposed. But from his very first steps this ailing man was simply unable to show himself to advantage, either at the beginning of his career or afterwards for the rest of his life.