1 The Brothers Karamazovhis childhood, had been his enemy, his persecutor, and now
his unnatural rival, was enough! A feeling of hatred came
over him involuntarily, irresistibly, clouding his reason. It
all surged up in one moment! It was an impulse of madness
and insanity, but also an impulse of nature, irresistibly and
unconsciously (like everything in nature) avenging the vio-
lation of its eternal laws.
‘But the prisoner even then did not murder him — I
maintain that, I cry that aloud! — no, he only brandished
the pestle in a burst of indignant disgust, not meaning
to kill him, not knowing that he would kill him. Had he
not had this fatal pestle in his hand, he would have only
knocked his father down perhaps, but would not have killed
him. As he ran away, he did not know whether he had killed
the old man. Such a murder is not a murder. Such a murder
is not a parricide. No, the murder of such a father cannot be
called parricide. Such a murder can only be reckoned par-
ricide by prejudice.
‘But I appeal to you again and again from the depths of
my soul; did this murder actually take place? Gentlemen of
the jury, if we convict and punish him, he will say to him-
self: ‘These people have done nothing for my bringing up,
for my education, nothing to improve my lot, nothing to
make me better, nothing to make me a man. These people
have not given me to eat and to drink, have not visited me in
prison and nakedness, and here they have sent me to penal
servitude. I am quits, I owe them nothing now, and owe no
one anything for ever. They are wicked and I will be wicked.
They are cruel and I will be cruel.’ That is what he will say,