11 The Brothers Karamazovarises at once, what was his motive? What was he reckoning
on? What was he aiming at? I say nothing about medicine:
science, I am told, may go astray: the doctors were not able
to discriminate between the counterfeit and the real. That
may be so, but answer me one question: what motive had he
for such a counterfeit? Could he, had he been plotting the
murder, have desired to attract the attention of the house-
hold by having a fit just before?
‘You see, gentlemen of the jury, on the night of the
murder, there were five persons in Fyodor Pavlovitch’s
— Fyodor Pavlovitch himself (but he did not kill himself,
that’s evident); then his servant, Grigory, but he was almost
killed himself; the third person was Grigory’s wife, Marfa
Ignatyevna, but it would be simply shameful to imagine her
murdering her master. Two persons are left — the prison-
er and Smerdyakov. But, if we are to believe the prisoner’s
statement that he is not the murderer, then Smerdyakov
must have been, for there is no other alternative, no one else
can be found. That is what accounts for the artful, astound-
ing accusation against the unhappy idiot who committed
suicide yesterday. Had a shadow of suspicion rested on any-
one else, had there been any sixth person, I am persuaded
that even the prisoner would have been ashamed to accuse
Smerdyakov, and would have accused that sixth person, for
to charge Smerdyakov with that murder is perfectly ab-
surd.
‘Gentlemen, let us lay aside psychology, let us lay aside
medicine, let us even lay aside logic, let us turn only to the
facts and see what the facts tell us. If Smerdyakov killed