10 The Brothers Karamazov
But he was far from distorting or minimising them. No one
but an innocent man, who had no fear of being charged
with complicity, could have acted as he did. And in a fit of
melancholy arising from his disease and this catastrophe
he hanged himself yesterday. He left a note written in his
peculiar language, ‘I destroy myself of my own will and in-
clination so as to throw no blame on anyone.’ What would it
have cost him to add: ‘I am the murderer, not Karamazov’?
But that he did not add. Did his conscience lead him to sui-
cide and not to avowing his guilt?
‘And what followed? Notes for three thousand roubles
were brought into the court just now, and we were told that
they were the same that lay in the envelope now on the ta-
ble before us, and that the witness had received them from
Smerdyakov the day before. But I need not recall the painful
scene, though I will make one or two comments, select-
ing such trivial ones as might not be obvious at first sight
to everyone, and so may be overlooked. In the first place,
Smerdyakov must have given back the money and hanged
himself yesterday from remorse. And only yesterday he
confessed his guilt to Ivan Karamazov, as the latter informs
us. If it were not so, indeed, why should Ivan Fyodorovitch
have kept silence till now? And so, if he has confessed, then
why, I ask again, did he not avow the whole truth in the last
letter he left behind, knowing that the innocent prisoner
had to face this terrible ordeal the next day?
‘The money alone is no proof. A week ago, quite by
chance, the fact came to the knowledge of myself and two
other persons in this court that Ivan Fyodorovitch had sent