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him: therefore, we are told, everything was done as he had
planned in writing, and the letter was not ‘absurd,’ but ‘fa-
tal.’
‘Now, thank God! we’ve come to the real point: ‘since he
was in the garden, he must have murdered him.’ In those
few words: ‘since he was, then he must’ lies the whole case
for the prosecution. He was there, so he must have. And
what if there is no must about it, even if he was there? Oh, I
admit that the chain of evidence — the coincidences — are
really suggestive. But examine all these facts separate-
ly, regardless of their connection. Why, for instance, does
the prosecution refuse to admit the truth of the prisoner’s
statement that he ran away from his father’s window? Re-
member the sarcasms in which the prosecutor indulged at
the expense of the respectful and ‘pious’ sentiments which
suddenly came over the murderer. But what if there were
something of the sort, a feeling of religious awe, if not of
filial respect? ‘My mother must have been praying for me at
that moment,’ were the prisoner’s words at the preliminary
inquiry, and so he ran away as soon as he convinced himself
that Madame Svyetlov was not in his father’s house. ‘But he
could not convince himself by looking through the window,’
the prosecutor objects. But why couldn’t he? Why? The win-
dow opened at the signals given by the prisoner. Some word
might have been uttered by Fyodor Pavlovitch, some excla-
mation which showed the prisoner that she was not there.
Why should we assume everything as we imagine it, as we
make up our minds to imagine it? A thousand things may
happen in reality which elude the subtlest imagination.