1 The Brothers Karamazovwould, even if he had done so, have unpicked it every two
days and taken out a hundred, and so would have spent it all
in a month. All this, you will remember, was put forward in
a tone what brooked no contradiction. But what if the thing
happened quite differently? What if you’ve been weaving a
romance, and about quite a different kind of man? That’s
just it, you have invented quite a different man!
‘I shall be told, perhaps, there are witnesses that he spent
on one day all that three thousand given him by his be-
trothed a month before the catastrophe, so he could not
have divided the sum in half. But who are these witnesses?
The value of their evidence has been shown in court already.
Besides, in another man’s hand a crust always seems larger,
and no one of these witnesses counted that money; they all
judged simply at sight. And the witness Maximov has testi-
fied that the prisoner had twenty thousand in his hand. You
see, gentlemen of the jury, psychology is a two edged weap-
on. Let me turn the other edge now and see what comes of
it.
‘A month before the catastrophe the prisoner was en-
trusted by Katerina Ivanovna with three thousand roubles
to send off by post. But the question is: is it true that they
were entrusted to him in such an insulting and degrading
way as was proclaimed just now? The first statement made
by the young lady on the subject was different, perfectly
different. In the second statement we heard only cries of re-
sentment and revenge, cries of long-concealed hatred. And
the very fact that the witness gave her first evidence incor-
rectly gives us a right to conclude that her second piece of