0 The Brothers Karamazovfriend to whom he would have opened his heart. He was
looked upon simply as an acquaintance, and not a very in-
timate one, of the murdered woman, as for the previous
fortnight he had not even visited her. A serf of hers called
Pyotr was at once suspected, and every circumstance con-
firmed the suspicion. The man knew — indeed his mistress
did not conceal the fact — that having to send one of her
serfs as a recruit she had decided to send him, as he had
no relations and his conduct was unsatisfactory. People
had heard him angrily threatening to murder her when he
was drunk in a tavern. Two days before her death, he had
run away, staying no one knew where in the town. The day
after the murder, he was found on the road leading out of
the town, dead drunk, with a knife in his pocket, and his
right hand happened to be stained with blood. He declared
that his nose had been bleeding, but no one believed him.
The maids confessed that they had gone to a party and that
the street door had been left open till they returned. And a
number of similar details came to light, throwing suspicion
on the innocent servant.
They arrested him, and he was tried for the murder; but
a week after the arrest, the prisoner fell sick of a fever and
died unconscious in the hospital. There the matter ended
and the judges and the authorities and everyone in the town
remained convinced that the crime had been committed by
no one but the servant who had died in the hospital. And
after that the punishment began.
My mysterious visitor, now my friend, told me that at
first he was not in the least troubled by pangs of conscience.