Shrieks and exclamations were heard from the gallery, where the ladies were sitting.Handkerchiefs were waved.The President began ringing his bell with all his might.He was obviously irritated by the behaviour of the audience, but did not venture to clear the court as he had threatened.Even persons of high position, old men with stars on their breasts, sitting on specially reserved seats behind the judges, applauded the orator and waved their handkerchiefs.So that when the noise died down, the President confined himself to repeating his stern threat to clear the court, and Fetyukovitch, excited and triumphant, continued his speech.)"Gentlemen of the jury, you remember that awful night of which so much has been said to-day, when the son got over the fence and stood face to face with the enemy and persecutor who had begotten him.
I insist most emphatically it was not for money he ran to his father's house: the charge of robbery is an absurdity, as I proved before.
And it was not to murder him he broke into the house, oh, no! If he had had that design he would, at least, have taken the precaution of arming himself beforehand.The brass pestle he caught up instinctively without knowing why he did it.Granted that he deceived his father by tapping at the window, granted that he made his way in- I've said already that I do not for a moment believe that legend, but let it be so, let us suppose it for a moment.Gentlemen, I swear to you by all that's holy, if it had not been his father, but an ordinary enemy, he would, after running through the rooms and satisfying himself that the woman was not there, have made off, post-haste, without doing any harm to his rival.He would have struck him, pushed him away perhaps, nothing more, for he had no thought and no time to spare for that.What he wanted to know was where she was.But his father, his father! The mere sight of the father who had hated him from his childhood, had been his enemy, his persecutor, and now his unnatural rival, was enough! A feeling of hatred came over him involuntarily, irresistibly, clouding his reason.It all surged up in one moment!
It was an impulse of madness and insanity, but also an impulse of nature, irresistibly and unconsciously (like everything in nature)avenging the violation of its eternal laws.
"But the prisoner even then did not murder him- I maintain that, Icry that aloud!- no, he only brandished the pestle in a burst of indignant disgust, not meaning to kill him, not knowing that he would kill him.Had he not had this fatal pestle in his hand, he would have only knocked his father down perhaps, but would not have killed him.As he ran away, he did not know whether he had killed the old man.Such a murder is not a murder.Such a murder is not a parricide.No, the murder of such a father cannot be called parricide.
Such a murder can only be reckoned parricide by prejudice.
"But I appeal to you again and again from the depths of my soul;did this murder actually take place? Gentlemen of the jury, if we convict and punish him, he will say to himself: 'These people have done nothing for my bringing up, for my education, nothing to improve my lot, nothing to make me better, nothing to make me a man.
These people have not given me to eat and to drink, have not visited me in prison and nakedness, and here they have sent me to penal servitude.I am quits, I owe them nothing now, and owe no one anything for ever.They are wicked and I will be wicked.They are cruel and Iwill be cruel.' That is what he will say, gentlemen of the jury.And Iswear, by finding him guilty you will only make it easier for him: you will ease his conscience, he will curse the blood he has shed and will not regret it.At the same time you will destroy in him the possibility of becoming a new man, for he will remain in his wickedness and blindness all his life.
"But do you want to punish him fearfully, terribly, with the most awful punishment that could be imagined, and at the same time to save him and regenerate his soul? If so, overwhelm him with your mercy! You will see, you will hear how he will tremble and be horror-struck.'How can I endure this mercy? How can I endure so much love? Am I worthy of it?' That's what he will exclaim.
"Oh, I know, I know that heart, that wild but grateful heart, gentlemen of the jury! It will bow before your mercy; it thirsts for a great and loving action, it will melt and mount upwards.There are souls which, in their limitation, blame the whole world.But subdue such a soul with mercy, show it love, and it will curse its past, for there are many good impulses in it.Such a heart will expand and see that God is merciful and that men are good and just.He will be horror-stricken; he will be crushed by remorse and the vast obligation laid upon him henceforth.And he will not say then, 'I am quits,'
but will say, 'I am guilty in the sight of all men and am more unworthy than all.' With tears of penitence and poignant, tender anguish, he will exclaim: 'Others are better than I, they wanted to save me, not to ruin me!' Oh, this act of mercy is so easy for you, for in the absence of anything like real evidence it will be too awful for you to pronounce: 'Yes, he is guilty.'
"Better acquit ten guilty men than punish one innocent man! Do you hear, do you hear that majestic voice from the past century of our glorious history? It is not for an insignificant person like me to remind you that the Russian court does not exist for the punishment only, but also for the salvation of the criminal! Let other nations think of retribution and the letter of the law, we will cling to the spirit and the meaning- the salvation and the reformation of the lost.
