XI. There Was No Money. There Was No Robbery

There was one point in the defense counsel’s speech that even struck everyone, namely the complete denial of the existence of those fatal three thousand rubles, and therefore of the possibility of their having been stolen.

“Gentlemen of the jury,” the defense counsel proceeded, “in the present case every fresh and unprejudiced person is struck by one most characteristic peculiarity, namely: an accusation of robbery, and at the same time the complete impossibility of pointing out in fact what exactly was stolen. Money was stolen, they say, three thousand precisely—but whether it actually existed—that no one knows. Consider: in the first place, how did we learn that there were three thousand, and who saw them? Only one person saw them and indicated that they had been put into an envelope with an inscription, the servant Smerdyakov. It was he who communicated this information before the catastrophe to the defendant and to his brother Ivan Fyodorovich. It was also made known to Miss Svetlova. But all these three persons did not themselves see this money, however; again, only Smerdyakov saw it, but here the question arises of itself: if it is true that the money existed and that Smerdyakov saw it, then when did he see it for the last time? And what if the master took this money out from under the bed and put it back in his box again without telling him? Note that, according to Smerdyakov’s words, the money lay under the bed, under the mattress; the defendant would have had to tear it out from under the mattress, and yet the bed was not crumpled in the least, and this was carefully entered into the record. How could the defendant have crumpled absolutely nothing in the bed, and on top of that, with his hands still bloodied, not soiled the fresh, fine bed linen that had been spread on purpose this time? But they will tell us: and what about the envelope on the floor? It is just this envelope that is worth talking about. A while ago I was even somewhat surprised: the highly talented prosecutor, having begun to speak about this envelope, suddenly himself—do you hear, gentlemen, himself—declared about it in his speech, precisely at the place where he points to the absurdity of supposing that Smerdyakov killed: ‘Had there not been this envelope, had it not remained on the floor as evidence, had the robber carried it off with him, then no one in the whole world would ever have known that there was an envelope, and money in it, and that, therefore, the money had been stolen by the defendant.’ And so this torn scrap of paper with an inscription alone, even by the admission of the prosecutor himself, served to accuse the defendant of robbery, ‘otherwise, he says, no one would have known that there had been a robbery, or perhaps even that there had been any money.’ But can the mere fact that this scrap was lying on the floor really be proof that there was money in it and that this money was stolen? ‘But,’ they answer, ‘Smerdyakov saw it in the envelope,’ but when, when did he see it for the last time, that is what I am asking? I spoke with Smerdyakov, and he told me that he had seen it two days before the catastrophe! But why can I not suppose, for example, even such a circumstance as this: that old Fyodor Pavlovich, locked up at home, in impatient, hysterical expectation of his beloved, suddenly took it into his head, having nothing to do, to take out the envelope and unseal it: ‘What’s an envelope,’ he says, ‘she may not even believe it, but if I show her thirty rainbow-colored ones in one wad, I bet it will work more strongly, her mouth will water’—and so he tears open the envelope, takes out the money, and throws the envelope on the floor with the imperious hand of the master, and of course without fearing any evidence. Listen, gentlemen of the jury, is anything more possible than such a supposition and such a fact? Why is it impossible? But surely if anything of the sort could have taken place, then the accusation of robbery is destroyed of itself: there was no money, and therefore there was no robbery. If the envelope lay on the floor as evidence that there had been money in it, then why can I not maintain the opposite, namely that the envelope was lying on the floor precisely because there was no longer any money in it, the money having been taken out of it beforehand by the master himself? ‘Yes, but in that case where did the money go, if Fyodor Pavlovich himself took it out of the envelope, since it was not found in his house during the search?’ In the first place, part of the money was found in his box, and in the second place, he could have taken it out that morning, even the day before, disposed of it otherwise, given it out, sent it off, changed, finally, his idea, his plan of action at its very foundation, and without even finding it necessary to report this to Smerdyakov beforehand. And surely, if there exists even merely the possibility of such a supposition, then how can one so insistently and so firmly accuse the defendant of having committed the murder for robbery, and of there really having been a robbery? Why, in this way we are entering the domain of novels. Surely if one asserts that such and such a thing has been stolen, one must point out that thing, or at least prove irrefutably that it existed. But no one has even seen it. Not long ago in Petersburg a young man, almost a boy, eighteen years old, a petty peddler with a tray, walked in broad daylight with an axe into a money changer’s shop and with extraordinary, typical audacity killed the owner of the shop and carried off with him fifteen hundred rubles in money. Some five hours later he was arrested, and on him, apart from fifteen rubles that he had already managed to spend, they found all this fifteen hundred. Besides that, the clerk, who had returned to the shop after the murder, informed the police not only of the stolen sum but also of exactly what money it consisted of, that is, how many rainbow-colored notes, how many blue, how many red, how many gold coins and of which kind exactly, and so precisely the same notes and coins were found on the arrested murderer. On top of everything there followed the murderer’s full and frank confession that he had killed and carried off this very money. That, gentlemen of the jury, is what I call evidence! Here I know, I see, I touch the money and cannot say that it does not exist or did not exist. Is it so in the present case? And yet it is a matter of life and death, of a man’s fate. ‘Just so,’ they will say, ‘but surely that same night he was carousing, throwing money around, fifteen hundred rubles were found on him—where did he get them?’ But surely precisely because only fifteen hundred in all was found, while the other half of the sum could not by any means be traced and discovered, precisely by this it is proved that this money may not have been the same at all, may never have been in any envelope at all. By calculating the time (and most strictly) it was ascertained and proved by the preliminary investigation that the defendant, having run from the maids to the official Perkhotin, did not stop at home, and did not stop anywhere at all, and after that was among people the whole time, and therefore could not have set aside half of the three thousand and hidden it somewhere in town. It was precisely this consideration that gave rise to the prosecutor’s supposition that the money is hidden somewhere in a crevice in the village of Mokroye. Why not in the vaults of the castle of Udolpho, gentlemen? Well, is this not a fantastic, a romantic supposition? And note, if only this one supposition is destroyed, namely that it was hidden in Mokroye—and the whole accusation of robbery goes flying into the air, for where, where in that case did that fifteen hundred go? By what miracle could it have vanished, if it is proved that the defendant did not stop anywhere? And with such novels we are ready to destroy a human life! They will say: ‘All the same, he was unable to explain where he got this fifteen hundred that was found on him, and besides, everyone knew that before this night he had no money.’ And who knew it? But the defendant gave clear and firm testimony as to where he got the money, and if you like, gentlemen of the jury, if you like—nothing ever could be or can be more probable than this testimony, and, besides, more in keeping with the character and the soul of the defendant. The prosecution liked its own novel: a man of weak will, who had decided to take three thousand so shamefully offered him by his fiancée, could not, it says, have set aside half and sewn it into a pouch; on the contrary, even if he had sewn it in, he would have ripped it open every two days and picked off a hundred at a time, and in this way would have used it all up in one month. Remember, all this was set forth in a tone that tolerated no objections whatever. Well, and what if the thing happened not like that at all, what if you have created a novel, and in it an entirely different person? That is just the point, that you have created a different person! They will object, perhaps: ‘There are witnesses that he squandered in the village of Mokroye all of that three thousand taken from Miss Verkhovtseva a month before the catastrophe, at one go, like a single kopeck, and therefore he could not have set aside half of it.’ But who are these witnesses? The degree of reliability of these witnesses has already come to light in court. Besides, a slice of bread always looks bigger in another man’s hand. Finally, none of these witnesses counted this money himself, but only judged by eye. Why, the witness Maximov testified that the defendant had twenty thousand in his hands. You see, gentlemen of the jury, since psychology has two ends, then allow me to apply the other end here too, and let us see whether the same thing comes out.

“A month before the catastrophe the defendant was entrusted by Miss Verkhovtseva with three thousand rubles to send by post, but the question is: is it just to say that they were entrusted with such shame and such humiliation as was proclaimed a while ago? In Miss Verkhovtseva’s first testimony on the same subject it came out differently, entirely differently; while in the second testimony we heard only cries of bitterness, of revenge, the cries of a hatred long concealed. But the mere fact that the witness once testified untruly in her first testimony gives us the right to conclude that the second testimony too may have been untrue. The prosecutor ‘does not wish, does not dare’ (his words) to touch upon this romance. Well, so be it, I will not touch upon it either, but I will nevertheless permit myself only to remark that if a pure and highly moral person, such as the highly respected Miss Verkhovtseva indisputably is, if such a person, I say, suddenly permits herself, all at once, in court, to change her first testimony with the direct aim of ruining the defendant, then it is clear too that this testimony of hers was not given impartially, not coolly. Will they really take away from us the right to conclude that a woman taking revenge might have exaggerated a great deal? Yes, precisely to have exaggerated the shame and disgrace with which the money was offered by her. On the contrary, it was offered precisely in such a way that it was still possible to accept it, especially for so light-minded a man as our defendant. The main thing is that he then had in view the speedy receipt from his father of the three thousand owed him by the settlement. This is light-minded, but precisely out of light-mindedness he was firmly convinced that the other would hand it over to him, that he would get it and, therefore, could always send off by post the money entrusted to him by Miss Verkhovtseva and settle the debt. But the prosecutor will not for anything allow that he could, that same day, the day of the accusation, have set aside half of the money he had received and sewn it into a pouch: ‘that is not that kind of character,’ he says, ‘he could not have had such feelings.’ But you yourself shouted that Karamazov is broad, you yourself shouted about the two extreme abysses which a Karamazov can contemplate. Karamazov is precisely the kind of nature with two sides, with two abysses, that, with the most unrestrained need for carousing, can stop, if something strikes him from the other side. And the other side, after all, is love, precisely this new love that flared up then like gunpowder, and money is needed for this love, and more needed, oh! far more needed, than even for carousing with this same beloved. Suppose she says to him: ‘I’m yours, I don’t want Fyodor Pavlovich,’ and he will seize her and carry her off—so he would need the means to carry her off. Why, this is more important than carousing. Is a Karamazov not to understand this? Why, it was precisely this he was sick with, this care—so what is improbable in his having set aside this money and hidden it away just in case? But now, however, time goes by, and Fyodor Pavlovich does not hand over the three thousand to the defendant; on the contrary, it is heard that he has assigned it precisely to lure away the defendant’s own beloved with it. ‘If Fyodor Pavlovich doesn’t give it back,’ he thinks, ‘then before Katerina Ivanovna I’ll come out a thief.’ And so the idea is born in him that he will come with this same fifteen hundred, which he goes on carrying on him in this pouch, lay it before Miss Verkhovtseva, and say to her: ‘I am a scoundrel, but not a thief.’ And so, therefore, there is already a double reason to keep this fifteen hundred like the apple of his eye, by no means to rip open the pouch and pick off a hundred rubles at a time. Why will you deny the defendant the feeling of honor? No, the feeling of honor is there in him, an irregular one, let us say, let us say very often mistaken, but it is there, it is there to the point of passion, and he proved it. But now, however, the matter grows more complicated, the torments of jealousy reach the highest degree, and the same, the same former two questions take shape more and more tormentingly in the defendant’s inflamed brain: ‘If I give it back to Katerina Ivanovna, then with what means will I carry off Grushenka?’ If he raged so, and got drunk, and stormed about the taverns all this month, then it was precisely, perhaps, because he himself felt bitter, it was beyond his strength to bear. These two questions at last grew so acute that they finally drove him to despair. He had sent his younger brother to his father to ask him for this three thousand for the last time, but, without waiting for an answer, he burst in himself and ended by beating the old man in front of witnesses. After this, it means, there is no one left to get it from, the beaten father will not give it. That same day in the evening he beats himself on the breast, precisely on the upper part of the breast, where this pouch is, and swears to his brother that he has a means of not being a scoundrel, but that all the same he will remain a scoundrel, for he foresees that he will not use the means, he will not have the strength of soul, he will not have the character. Why, why does the prosecution not believe the testimony of Alexei Karamazov, given so purely, so sincerely, unprepared and plausibly? Why, on the contrary, does it force me to believe in money in some crevice, in the vaults of the castle of Udolpho? That same evening, after the conversation with his brother, the defendant writes this fatal letter, and it is precisely this letter that is the most important, the most colossal proof of the defendant’s guilt of robbery! ‘I will ask everyone, and if people don’t give it, I will kill my father and take it from under his mattress, in the envelope with the pink ribbon, if only Ivan has gone’—a complete program of the murder, they say, so how could it not be he? ‘It was accomplished as it was written!’ the prosecution exclaims. But, in the first place, the letter is a drunken one and was written in terrible irritation; in the second place, again, he writes about the envelope from Smerdyakov’s words, because he himself had not seen the envelope; and in the third place, written it was, to be sure, but whether it was accomplished as written, how is that to be proved? Did the defendant get the envelope from under the pillow, did he find the money, did it even exist? And was it for money that the defendant ran there, remember, remember! He ran headlong not to rob, but only to find out where she was, this woman who had crushed him—so he ran not according to a program, not according to what was written, that is, not for a premeditated robbery, but ran suddenly, unexpectedly, in a jealous fury! ‘Yes,’ they will say, ‘but all the same, having run there and killed, he grabbed the money too.’ Well, but did he kill, after all, or not? The accusation of robbery I reject with indignation: one cannot accuse of robbery if one cannot point out with precision what exactly was stolen, that is an axiom! But did he even kill, did he kill without robbery? Has that been proved? Is this not a novel too?”