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for forgiving my blows, I thank him. The old man has been
honest all his life and as faithful to my father as seven hun-
dred poodles.’
‘Prisoner, be careful in your language,’ the President ad-
monished him.
‘I am not a poodle,’ Grigory muttered.
‘All right, it’s I am a poodle myself,’ cried Mitya. ‘If it’s an
insult, I take it to myself and I beg his pardon. I was a beast
and cruel to him. I was cruel to Aesop too.’
‘What Aesop?’ the President asked sternly again.
‘Oh, Pierrot... my father, Fyodor Pavlovitch.’
The President again and again warned Mitya impressive-
ly and very sternly to be more careful in his language.
‘You are injuring yourself in the opinion of your judges.’
The counsel for the defence was equally clever in deal-
ing with the evidence of Rakitin. I may remark that Rakitin
was one of the leading witnesses and one to whom the pros-
ecutor attached great significance. It appeared that he knew
everything; his knowledge was amazing, he had been ev-
erywhere, seen everything, talked to everybody, knew every
detail of the biography of Fyodor Pavlovitch and all the
Karamazovs. Of the envelope, it is true, he had only heard
from Mitya himself. But he described minutely Mitya’s ex-
ploits in the Metropolis, all his compromising doings and
sayings, and told the story of Captain Snegiryov’s ‘wisp
of tow.’ But even Rakitin could say nothing positive about
Mitya’s inheritance, and confined himself to contemptuous
generalities.
‘Who could tell which of them was to blame, and which

11 The Brothers Karamazov