21

WHEN the examination of the exhibits was finished the presiding judge announced that the investigation was not concluded, and, eager to get through as quickly as possible, took no recess but called on the prosecutor to proceed, hoping that he too, being human, might want to smoke and have some dinner himself, and therefore show a little mercy to the rest of them. But the assistant prosecutor had no mercy either for himself or them. ‘ Besides being very stupid by nature the assistant prosecutor had had the misfortune to finish high-school with a gold medal, and receive a prize for his thesis on slavery when reading Roman Law at the university, all of which made him exceedingly self-assured and conceited (to which his success with the ladies contributed still further), and in consequence he was quite monumentally stupid. When called on to speak he rose slowly to his feet, displaying his graceful figure full length in his gold-laced uniform, placed both hands on the desk and, slightly inclining his head, looked round the room, avoiding the eyes of the defendants, and began:

‘Gentlemen of the jury, the case now before you concerns, if I may so express myself, a crime of a typical nature.’ (He had prepared his speech while the reports were being read.)

In his view the speech of the assistant prosecutor should always have great public significance, like the famous speeches delivered by counsel who had become famous. True, he only had an audience of three women – a sempstress, a cook and Kartinkin’s sister – and a coachman; but this did not matter. Those other celebrated lawyers had begun in the same way. The assistant prosecutor made it a rule always to be at the height of his calling – that is, to penetrate into the depths of the psychological significance of crime and lay bare the ulcers of society.

‘You see before you, gentlemen of the jury, a crime characteristic, if I may so express myself, of the end of the century, bearing, so to speak, the specific features of that melancholy phenomenon, the decay to which those elements of our present-day society – which are, so to say, particularly exposed to the scorching rays of this process – are subject…’

The assistant prosecutor spoke at great length, trying on the one hand to remember all the clever things he had thought of and, on the other – this was most important – not to stop for a moment but make his speech flow smoothly on for an hour and a quarter.

Only once did he pause, taking a considerable time to swallow saliva, but he soon recovered and made up for the interruption by heightened eloquence. He spoke, now in a gentle persuasive voice, putting his weight first on one leg, then on the other, and looking at the jury; now in quiet, businesslike tones, glancing into his notebook; now with a loud accusing voice, addressing the public and the jury in turn. But he never once looked at the defendants, all three of whom had their eyes riveted on him. All the latest catch-phrases then in vogue in his set, everything that then was and still is accepted as the last word in scientific wisdom was included in his speech – heredity and congenital criminality, Lombroso and Tarde, evolution and the struggle for existence, hypnotism and hypnotic suggestion, Charcot and decadence.

The merchant Smelkov, according to the definition of the assistant prosecutor, was a type of the genuine, physically powerful, munificent Russian, whose trusting generous nature made him an easy prey to the deeply degraded individuals into whose hands he had chanced to fall.

Simon Kartinkin was the atavistic product of serfdom, downtrodden, illiterate, without principles, without religion even. Euphemia was his mistress and a victim of heredity. She showed all the signs of a degenerate personality. But the chief instigator of the crime was Maslova, an example of the very lowest type of degenerate.

‘This woman,’ the assistant prosecutor went on, not looking at her, ‘is educated – as we have heard in court today from the mistress of her establishment. Not only can she read and write but she knows French. She is an orphan, and in all likelihood carries in her the germs of criminality. Brought up in a cultured family of gentlefolk, she might have earned her living by honest work; but deserting her benefactors she gave herself up to her passions, to satisfy which she entered a house of prostitution, where she was distinguished from her companions by her education and chiefly, gentlemen of the jury, as you have heard from her mistress, by her ability to gain influence over her visitors by that mysterious faculty lately investigated by science, by the school of Charcot in particular, known as the power of hypnotic suggestion. This is the means by which she gains control over Smelkov – the kind, trusting Russian hero, Sadko – and takes advantage of his trust, first to steal his money, and then pitilessly to deprive him of life.’

‘Running away with himself, isn’t he?’ said the presiding judge with a smile, bending towards the austere member of the court.

‘A fearful dunderhead!’ said the austere member.

‘Gentlemen of the jury,’ the assistant prosecutor continued meanwhile, gracefully swaying his lithe form from side to side, ‘in your hands rests not only the fate of these persons but also, to a certain extent, the fate of society, which will be influenced by your verdict. You will consider the significance of this crime, the danger to society from such pathological individuals, if I may be permitted so to term them, like this Maslova, and guard it from infection. Protect the innocent healthy elements of this society from infection and, in many cases, from actual destruction.’

And as though overcome by the importance of the verdict about to be returned the assistant prosecutor fell back into his chair, evidently highly delighted with his speech.

The gist of his argument, shorn of the flowers of rhetoric, was that Maslova, having insinuated herself into the merchant’s confidence, hypnotized him and went to his room intending to take all the money herself, but, surprised by Simon and Euphemia, had been obliged to share it with them. Then, in order to conceal the traces of her crime, she had returned to the hotel with the merchant and there poisoned him.

After the assistant prosecutor had spoken a middle-aged man in swallow-tail coat and low-cut waistcoat showing a broad semicircle of starched white shirt-front, rose from the counsels’ bench and made a glib speech in defence of Kartinkin and Botchkova. This was the barrister they had engaged for three hundred roubles. He did his best to clear both and lay all the blame on Maslova.

He rejected Maslova’s evidence that Botchkova and Kartinkin were with her when she took the money, insisting that the testimony of a poisoner could have no weight. The two thousand five hundred roubles, said the counsel, could easily have been earned by two hard-working and honest persons getting as much as three and five roubles a day in gratuities. The merchant’s money had been stolen by Maslova and transmitted by her to some third party or even lost, since she was not in a normal state. The poisoning was the work of Maslova alone.

He therefore asked the jury to acquit Kartinkin and Botchkova of the theft of the money; or, if they found them guilty of theft, he demanded their acquittal of all participation with intent in the poisoning affair.

In conclusion, with a thrust at the assistant prosecutor, he remarked that the brilliant observations of his learned friend on the subject of heredity, though they might throw light on the scientific problems of heredity, were inapplicable in this case, since Botchkova was the child of unknown parents.

The assistant prosecutor, showing his teeth, as it were, made a note on a piece of paper and shrugged his shoulders in contemptuous surprise.

Then Maslova’s counsel rose, and timidly and with hesitation began his speech in her defence. Without denying the fact that she had taken part in the theft of the money he insisted only that she had had no intention of poisoning Smelkov, and had given him the powder merely to make him fall asleep. He tried to indulge in a little eloquence, describing how Maslova had been led into a life of debauchery by a man who had gone unpunished while she had had to bear the whole brunt of her fall, but this excursion into the domain of psychology was so unsuccessful that everybody felt uncomfortable. When he meandered on about the cruelty of men and the helplessness of women the president, wishing to help him out, requested him to keep closer to the points of the case.

After this defence the prosecuting counsel rose again to argue, against the first defence counsel, that even if Botchkova were of unknown parentage this in no way invalidated the doctrine of heredity. Science had so far established the law of heredity that we could not only deduce the crime from heredity but heredity from the crime. As to the hypothesis of the defence that Maslova had been corrupted by an imaginary (he uttered the word ‘imaginary’ with particular venom) seducer, the facts rather tended to suggest that she had played the part of temptress to many and many a victim who had passed through her hands. With this, he sat down, triumphant.

Then the defendants were told that they could speak in their own defence.

Euphemia Botchkova repeated once more that she knew nothing and had taken part in nothing, and stubbornly laid all the blame on Maslova. Simon Kartinkin merely repeated several times:

‘Say what you like, I didn’t do it, you got it all wrong

But Maslova never opened her mouth. When the presiding judge invited her to speak in her own defence she only looked up at him, cast her eyes round the room like a hunted animal and immediately put her head down and burst into tears, sobbing loudly.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked the merchant who sat next to Nekhlyudov, hearing him utter a strange sound. The sound was a strangled sob.

Nekhlyudov still had not grasped the full significance of his present position and attributed the sobs he could hardly keep back and the tears that welled into his eyes to the weak state of his nerves. He put on his pince-nez in order to hide the tears, then got out his pocket handkerchief and began blowing his nose.

Fear of the disgace which would befall him if all these people here in the court-room were to learn of his conduct stifled the inner working of his soul. This fear was, during this first period, stronger than anything else.