Page 1121 - the-brothers-karamazov

ture stood out in lurid colours. It was plain to ear and eye
that the witness was guileless and impartial. In spite of his
profound reverence for the memory of his deceased mas-
ter, he yet bore witness that he had been unjust to Mitya
and ‘hadn’t brought up his children as he should. He’d have
been devoured by lice when he was little, if it hadn’t been for
me,’ he added, describing Mitya’s early childhood. ‘It wasn’t
fair either of the father to wrong his son over his mother’s
property, which was by right his.’
In reply to the prosecutor’s question what grounds he had
for asserting that Fyodor Pavlovitch had wronged his son in
their money relations, Grigory, to the surprise of everyone,
had no proof at all to bring forward, but he still persisted
that the arrangement with the son was ‘unfair,’ and that he
ought ‘to have paid him several thousand roubles more.’ I
must note, by the way, that the prosecutor asked this ques-
tion (whether Fyodor Pavlovitch had really kept back part
of Mitya’s inheritance) with marked persistence of all the
witnesses who could be asked it, not excepting Alyosha and
Ivan, but he obtained no exact information from anyone;
all alleged that it was so, but were unable to bring forward
any distinct proof. Grigory’s description of the scene at the
dinner-table, when Dmitri had burst in and beaten his fa-
ther, threatening to come back to kill him, made a sinister
impression on the court, especially as the old servant’s com-
posure in telling it, his parsimony of words, and peculiar
phraseology were as effective as eloquence. He observed that
he was not angry with Mitya for having knocked him down
and struck him on the face; he had forgiven him long ago,

11 0 The Brothers Karamazov