Page 1236 - the-brothers-karamazov

days before the catastrophe. Then why not imagine that old
Fyodor Pavlovitch, locked up alone in impatient and hys-
terical expectation of the object of his adoration, may have
whiled away the time by breaking open the envelope and
taking out the notes. ‘What’s the use of the envelope?’ he
may have asked himself. ‘She won’t believe the notes are
there, but when I show her the thirty rainbow-coloured
notes in one roll, it will make more impression, you may be
sure, it will make her mouth water.’ And so he tears open
the envelope, takes out the money, and flings the envelope
on the floor, conscious of being the owner and untroubled
by any fears of leaving evidence.
‘Listen, gentlemen, could anything be more likely than
this theory and such an action? Why is it out of the ques-
tion? But if anything of the sort could have taken place, the
charge of robbery falls to the ground; if there was no mon-
ey, there was no theft of it. If the envelope on the floor may
be taken as evidence that there had been money in it, why
may I not maintain the opposite, that the envelope was on
the floor because the money had been taken from it by its
owner?
‘But I shall be asked what became of the money if Fy-
odor Pavlovitch took it out of the envelope since it was
not found when the police searched the house? In the first
place, part of the money was found in the cash-box, and
secondly, he might have taken it out that morning or the
evening before to make some other use of it, to give or send
it away; he may have changed his idea, his plan of action
completely, without thinking it necessary to announce the

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