Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 11 1ous impulse and then for the same man to murder his father
for the sake of robbing him of three thousand — the idea
seemed too incongruous. Fetyukovitch felt that now the
charge of theft, at least, was as good as disproved. ‘The case’
was thrown into quite a different light. There was a wave of
sympathy for Mitya. As for him.... I was told that once or
twice, while Katerina Ivanovna was giving her evidence, he
jumped up from his seat, sank back again, and hid his face
in his hands. But when she had finished, he suddenly cried
in a sobbing voice:
‘Katya, why have you ruined me?’ and his sobs were au-
dible all over the court. But he instantly restrained himself,
and cried again:
‘Now I am condemned!’
Then he sat rigid in his place, with his teeth clenched and
his arms across his chest. Katerina Ivanovna remained in
the court and sat down in her place. She was pale and sat
with her eyes cast down. Those who were sitting near her
declared that for a long time she shivered all over as though
in a fever. Grushenka was called.
I am approaching the sudden catastrophe which was
perhaps the final cause of Mitya’s ruin. For I am convinced,
so is everyone — all the lawyers said the same afterwards
— that if the episode had not occurred, the prisoner would
at least have been recommended to mercy. But of that later.
A few words first about Grushenka.
She, too, was dressed entirely in black, with her mag-
nificent black shawl on her shoulders. She walked to the
witness-box with her smooth, noiseless tread, with the