Page 1187 - the-brothers-karamazov

Chapter 7

An Historical Survey

HE medical experts have striven to convince us that
‘Tthe prisoner is out of his mind and, in fact, a maniac. I
maintain that he is in his right mind, and that if he had not
been, he would have behaved more cleverly. As for his be-
ing a maniac, that I would agree with, but only in one point,
that is, his fixed idea about the three thousand. Yet I think
one might find a much simpler cause than his tendency to
insanity. For my part I agree thoroughly with the young
doctor who maintained that the prisoner’s mental faculties
have always been normal, and that he has only been irrita-
ble and exasperated. The object of the prisoner’s continual
and violent anger was not the sum itself; there was a special
motive at the bottom of it. That motive is jealousy!’
Here Ippolit Kirillovitch described at length the prison-
er’s fatal passion for Grushenka. He began from the moment
when the prisoner went to the ‘young person’s’ lodgings ‘to
beat her’ — ‘I use his own expression,’ the prosecutor ex-
plained — ‘but instead of beating her, he remained there,
at her feet. That was the beginning of the passion. At the
same time the prisoner’s father was captivated by the same

11 The Brothers Karamazov