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court’s and the prosecutor’s conviction that Ivan Karam-
azov is suffering from brain fever, that his statement may
really be a desperate effort, planned in delirium, to save
his brother by throwing the guilt on the dead man. But
again Smerdyakov’s name is pronounced, again there is a
suggestion of mystery. There is something unexplained, in-
complete. And perhaps it may one day be explained. But we
won’t go into that now. Of that later.
‘The court has resolved to go on with the trial, but,
meantime, I might make a few remarks about the charac-
ter-sketch of Smerdyakov drawn with subtlety and talent by
the prosecutor. But while I admire his talent I cannot agree
with him. I have visited Smerdyakov, I have seen him and
talked to him, and he made a very different impression on
me. He was weak in health, it is true; but in character, in
spirit, he was by no means the weak man the prosecutor has
made him out to be. I found in him no trace of the timidity
on which the prosecutor so insisted. There was no simplic-
ity about him, either. I found in him, on the contrary, an
extreme mistrustfulness concealed under a mask of naivete,
and an intelligence of considerable range. The prosecutor
was too simple in taking him for weak-minded. He made a
very definite impression on me: I left him with the convic-
tion that he was a distinctly spiteful creature, excessively
ambitious, vindictive, and intensely envious. I made some
inquiries: he resented his parentage, was ashamed of it, and
would clench his teeth when he remembered that he was
the son of ‘stinking Lizaveta.’ He was disrespectful to the
servant Grigory and his wife, who had cared for him in his