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now justice cries out and we persist, we cannot repudiate
anything.’
Ippolit Kirillovitch passed to his final peroration. He
looked as though he was in a fever, he spoke of the blood
that cried for vengeance, the blood of the father murdered
by his son, with the base motive of robbery! He pointed to
the tragic and glaring consistency of the facts.
‘And whatever you may hear from the talented and cel-
ebrated counsel for the defence,’ Ippolit Kirillovitch could
not resist adding, ‘whatever eloquent and touching appeals
may be made to your sensibilities, remember that at this
moment you are in a temple of justice. Remember that you
are the champions of our justice, the champions of our holy
Russia, of her principles, her family, everything that she
holds sacred! Yes, you represent Russia here at this moment,
and your verdict will be heard not in this hall only but will
re-echo throughout the whole of Russia, and all Russia will
hear you, as her champions and her judges, and she will be
encouraged or disheartened by your verdict. Do not disap-
point Russia and her expectations. Our fatal troika dashes
on in her headlong flight perhaps to destruction and in all
Russia for long past men have stretched out imploring hands
and called a halt to its furious reckless course. And if other
nations stand aside from that troika that may be, not from
respect, as the poet would fain believe, but simply from hor-
ror. From horror, perhaps from disgust. And well it is that
they stand aside, but maybe they will cease one day to do so
and will form a firm wall confronting the hurrying appari-
tion and will check the frenzied rush of our lawlessness, for

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