Page 1247 - the-brothers-karamazov

‘Yes, but Grigory saw the door open and so the prisoner
certainly was in the house, therefore he killed him.’ Now
about that door, gentlemen of the jury.... Observe that we
have only the statement of one witness as to that door, and
he was at the time in such a condition, that — but suppos-
ing the door was open; supposing the prisoner has lied in
denying it, from an instinct of self-defence, natural in his
position; supposing he did go into the house — well, what
then? How does it follow that because he was there he com-
mitted the murder? He might have dashed in, run through
the rooms; might have pushed his father away; might have
struck him; but as soon as he had made sure Madame Svy-
etlov was not there, he may have run away rejoicing that she
was not there and that he had not killed his father. And it
was perhaps just because he had escaped from the tempta-
tion to kill his father, because he had a clear conscience and
was rejoicing at not having killed him, that he was capable
of a pure feeling, the feeling of pity and compassion, and
leapt off the fence a minute later to the assistance of Grigory
after he had, in his excitement, knocked him down.
‘With terrible eloquence the prosecutor has described
to us the dreadful state of the prisoner’s mind at Mokroe
when love again lay before him calling him to new life,
while love was impossible for him because he had his fa-
ther’s bloodstained corpse behind him and beyond that
corpse — retribution. And yet the prosecutor allowed him
love, which he explained, according to his method, talking
about this drunken condition, about a criminal being taken
to execution, about it being still far off, and so on and so

1 The Brothers Karamazov