Page 1118 - the-brothers-karamazov

Chapter 2

Dangerous Witnesses

DO NOT know whether the witnesses for the defence
I and for the prosecution were separated into groups by
the President, and whether it was arranged to call them in
a certain order. But no doubt it was so. I only know that
the witnesses for the prosecution were called first. I repeat
I don’t intend to describe all the questions step by step. Be-
sides, my account would be to some extent superfluous,
because in the speeches for the prosecution and for the de-
fence the whole course of the evidence was brought together
and set in a strong and significant light, and I took down
parts of those two remarkable speeches in full, and will
quote them in due course, together with one extraordinary
and quite unexpected episode, which occurred before the
final speeches, and undoubtedly influenced the sinister and
fatal outcome of the trial.
I will only observe that from the first moments of the
trial one peculiar characteristic of the case was conspicu-
ous and observed by all, that is, the overwhelming strength
of the prosecution as compared with the arguments the de-
fence had to rely upon. Everyone realised it from the first

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