Page 1220 - the-brothers-karamazov

him. And to improve matters, the prisoner hastened to tell
us about the much-talked-of little bag — so be it, you shall
hear this romance!
‘Gentlemen of the jury, I have told you already why I
consider this romance not only an absurdity, but the most
improbable invention that could have been brought for-
ward in the circumstances. If one tried for a bet to invent
the most unlikely story, one could hardly find anything
more incredible. The worst of such stories is that the tri-
umphant romancers can always be put to confusion and
crushed by the very details in which real life is so rich and
which these unhappy and involuntary storytellers neglect
as insignificant trifles. Oh, they have no thought to spare for
such details, their minds are concentrated on their grand
invention as a whole, and fancy anyone daring to pull them
up for a trifle! But that’s how they are caught. The prison-
er was asked the question, ‘Where did you get the stuff for
your little bag and who made it for you?’ ‘I made it myself.’
‘And where did you get the linen?’ The prisoner was posi-
tively offended, he thought it almost insulting to ask him
such a trivial question, and would you believe it, his resent-
ment was genuine! But they are all like that. ‘I tore it off
my shirt. ‘Then we shall find that shirt among your linen
to-morrow, with a piece torn off.’ And only fancy, gentle-
men of the jury, if we really had found that torn shirt (and
how could we have failed to find it in his chest of draw-
ers or trunk?) that would have been a fact, a material fact
in support of his statement! But he was incapable of that
reflection. ‘I don’t remember, it may not have been off my

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