Page 487 - the-idiot

‘Come along then,’ said Evgenie; ‘it’s a glorious evening.
But, to prove that this time I was speaking absolutely se-
riously, and especially to prove this to the prince (for you,
prince, have interested me exceedingly, and I swear to you
that I am not quite such an ass as I like to appear sometimes,
although I am rather an ass, I admit), and—well, ladies and
gentlemen, will you allow me to put just one more question
to the prince, out of pure curiosity? It shall be the last. This
question came into my mind a couple of hours since (you
see, prince, I do think seriously at times), and I made my
own decision upon it; now I wish to hear what the prince
will say to it.’
‘We have just used the expression ‘accidental case.’ This
is a significant phrase; we often hear it. Well, not long since
everyone was talking and reading about that terrible mur-
der of six people on the part of a—young fellow, and of the
extraordinary speech of the counsel for the defence, who
observed that in the poverty-stricken condition of the
criminal it must have come NATURALLY into his head to
kill these six people. I do not quote his words, but that is the
sense of them, or something very like it. Now, in my opin-
ion, the barrister who put forward this extraordinary plea
was probably absolutely convinced that he was stating the
most liberal, the most humane, the most enlightened view
of the case that could possibly be brought forward in these
days. Now, was this distortion, this capacity for a pervert-
ed way of viewing things, a special or accidental case, or is
such a general rule?’
Everyone laughed at this.

The Idiot