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in a breaking voice, but it soon gained strength and filled
the court to the end of his speech. But as soon as he had fin-
ished, he almost fainted.
‘Gentlemen of the jury,’ began the prosecutor, ‘this case
has made a stir throughout Russia. But what is there to
wonder at, what is there so peculiarly horrifying in it for us?
We are so accustomed to such crimes! That’s what’s so hor-
rible, that such dark deeds have ceased to horrify us. What
ought to horrify us is that we are so accustomed to it, and
not this or that isolated crime. What are the causes of our
indifference, our lukewarm attitude to such deeds, to such
signs of the times, ominous of an unenviable future? Is it
our cynicism, is it the premature exhaustion of intellect and
imagination in a society that is sinking into decay, in spite
of its youth? Is it that our moral principles are shattered to
their foundations, or is it, perhaps, a complete lack of such
principles among us? I cannot answer such questions; nev-
ertheless they are disturbing, and every citizen not only
must, but ought to be harassed by them. Our newborn and
still timid press has done good service to the public already,
for without it we should never have heard of the horrors of
unbridled violence and moral degradation which are con-
tinually made known by the press, not merely to those who
attend the new jury courts established in the present reign,
but to everyone. And what do we read almost daily? Of
things beside which the present case grows pale, and seems
almost commonplace. But what is most important is that
the majority of our national crimes of violence bear witness
to a widespread evil, now so general among us that it is dif-

11 The Brothers Karamazov