Page 1240 - the-brothers-karamazov

evidence may have been incorrect also. The prosecutor will
not, dare not (his own words) touch on that story. So be it. I
will not touch on it either, but will only venture to observe
that if a lofty and high-principled person, such as that high-
ly respected young lady unquestionably is, if such a person,
I say, allows herself suddenly in court to contradict her first
statement, with the obvious motive of ruining the prisoner,
it is clear that this evidence has been given not impartially,
not coolly. Have not we the right to assume that a revenge-
ful woman might have exaggerated much? Yes, she may well
have exaggerated, in particular, the insult and humiliation
of her offering him the money. No, it was offered in such
a way that it was possible to take it, especially for a man
so easygoing as the prisoner, above all, as he expected to
receive shortly from his father the three thousand roubles
that he reckoned was owing to him. It was unreflecting of
him, but it was just his irresponsible want of reflection that
made him so confident that his father would give him the
money, that he would get it, and so could always dispatch
the money entrusted to him and repay the debt.
‘But the prosecutor refuses to allow that he could the same
day have set aside half the money and sewn it up in a little
bag. That’s not his character, he tells us, he couldn’t have
had such feelings. But yet he talked himself of the broad
Karamazov nature; he cried out about the two extremes
which a Karamazov can contemplate at once. Karamazov
is just such a two-sided nature, fluctuating between two
extremes, that even when moved by the most violent crav-
ing for riotous gaiety, he can pull himself up, if something

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