1 The Brothers Karamazovhave existed. And perhaps Smerdyakov alone knew where
to find it, where his master kept it. And the covering of the
money — the torn envelope on the floor?
‘Just now, when the prosecutor was explaining his sub-
tle theory that only an inexperienced thief like Karamazov
would have left the envelope on the floor, and not one like
Smerdyakov, who would have avoided leaving a piece of
evidence against himself, I thought as I listened that I was
hearing something very familiar, and, would you believe it,
I have heard that very argument, that very conjecture, of
how Karamazov would have behaved, precisely two days
before, from Smerdyakov himself. What’s more, it struck
me at the time. I fancied that there was an artificial simplic-
ity about him; that he was in a hurry to suggest this idea to
me that I might fancy it was my own. He insinuated it, as it
were. Did he not insinuate the same idea at the inquiry and
suggest it to the talented prosecutor?
‘I shall be asked, ‘What about the old woman, Grigory’s
wife? She heard the sick man moaning close by, all night.’
Yes, she heard it, but that evidence is extremely unreliable. I
knew a lady who complained bitterly that she had been kept
awake all night by a dog in the yard. Yet the poor beast, it
appeared, had only yelped once or twice in the night. And
that’s natural. If anyone is asleep and hears a groan he wakes
up, annoyed at being waked, but instantly falls asleep again.
Two hours later, again a groan, he wakes up and falls asleep
again; and the same thing again two hours later — three
times altogether in the night. Next morning the sleeper
wakes up and complains that someone has been groaning