Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 1his long spine in half, as though there were a spring in the
middle that enabled him to bend almost at right angles.
At the beginning of his speech he spoke rather discon-
nectedly, without system, one may say, dealing with facts
separately, though, at the end, these facts formed a whole.
His speech might be divided into two parts, the first con-
sisting of criticism in refutation of the charge, sometimes
malicious and sarcastic. But in the second half he suddenly
changed his tone, and even his manner, and at once rose
to pathos. The audience seemed on the lookout for it, and
quivered with enthusiasm.
He went straight to the point, and began by saying that
although he practised in Petersburg, he had more than once
visited provincial towns to defend prisoners, of whose in-
nocence he had a conviction or at least a preconceived idea.
‘That is what has happened to me in the present case,’ he
explained. ‘From the very first accounts in the newspapers
I was struck by something which strongly prepossessed me
in the prisoner’s favour. What interested me most was a fact
which often occurs in legal practice, but rarely, I think, in
such an extreme and peculiar form as in the present case. I
ought to formulate that peculiarity only at the end of my
speech, but I will do so at the very beginning, for it is my
weakness to go to work directly, not keeping my effects in
reserve and economising my material. That may be impru-
dent on my part, but at least it’s sincere. What I have in my
mind is this: there is an overwhelming chain of evidence
against the prisoner, and at the same time not one fact that
will stand criticism, if it is examined separately. As I fol-